A Case Competition
for Student-Athletes

A university-partnered consultancy that develops students through solving business problems in sports.

Gonzaga School of Business Administration · Faculty-directed

Students do the consulting work. A faculty director oversees it. Clients are real organizations, and the work is delivered to them.

• 39Client projects delivered
• 89Students through the program
• 32Client organizations
• 10Semesters since 2022

Counted from GSCG program records, spring 2022 through spring 2026

Two ways we run

• The core program · since 2022 Team consulting engagements A team of students is placed with a client for the semester, scopes a real business problem with them, and delivers findings and recommendations. This is the bulk of the 39 projects above, and it is a semester-long, in-person, team-based commitment.
• Newer · run twice so far The case competition We launched the case competition recently and have offered it the last two semesters — with San Diego FC and the Seattle Mariners. It is open to any student, on their own schedule, without joining the program.

• gscglinks.pages.dev Our links page — what we stand for, program overview, newsletter, socials Open

Teams work a real client's situation rather than a written case study. The problem is defined with the organization, and the winning work is delivered to them at the end.

The fall 2026 client

The client is a major professional team. We are finalizing the engagement now and are not in a position to name them yet — the announcement is theirs to make with us, not ours to make early.

[ TBD · fall 2026 client — unannounced ]

No barriers to entry

Students form their own teams and sign up. There is no application, no prerequisite coursework, and no GPA screen. A student-athlete who has never taken a business course can enter.

Most experiential business opportunities are group-based and synchronous, which is the format a student-athlete's calendar cannot absorb. That includes our own core program.

• Group work assumes a shared calendar athletes do not have Practice, travel, and competition schedules rarely line up with the availability of non-athlete classmates. Group-based opportunities end up closed to student-athletes by logistics rather than by rule.
• The same schedules crowd out internships The hours that would go to an internship are already committed. The conventional path to a resume line and industry exposure is largely unavailable during the season.
• This format is asynchronous by design Teams do their research and build their presentation on their own schedule, in whatever hours they have. There is no required meeting, no weekly session, no attendance. The work happens when the team can do it.
• The only fixed commitments are the two presentation rounds Round one is a short live presentation with questions from the panel; the final round is the same for the teams that advance. Those two windows are the entire synchronous footprint of the competition.

What the athlete gets

A resume line, and practice presenting business work to industry professionals. Every team that presents receives feedback from the panel — not a score, but specific guidance on what to do differently. For a student who cannot take an internship in season, it covers some of the same ground.

The sequence below is how the competition already operates. The two rounds in red are the only dates anyone has to hold.

1. Step 01 Students form a team and sign up Teams are self-organized. Registration closes [ TBD · sign-up deadline ].
2. Step 02 The case is emailed to registered teams Every registered team receives the same case at the same time.
3. Step 03 Teams research and build on their own schedule Market research and presentation development happen entirely on the team's own time. This is the bulk of the work and none of it is scheduled by us.
4. Step 04 · Fixed date Round one Teams present live to a panel of industry professionals and take questions. Every team receives feedback, including specific guidance on how to improve — teams that do not advance get that feedback too.
   [ TBD · round one date and time ]
5. Step 05 Finalists selected The panel advances a set of teams to the final round.
6. Step 06 · Fixed date Final round Finalists present, receive feedback, and a winner is selected. The final round runs roughly two weeks after round one.
   [ TBD · final round date and time ]
7. Step 07 Winning work is delivered to the client The winning team's work goes to the organization.
8. Step 08 Winner announced and promoted We announce the result publicly and promote the team and their work.

Four asks, plus one open question. None of them require athletics to run any part of the competition — we do that.

• Help us strategize how to run this inside the student-athlete population You know how this group's year is actually shaped — which sports are in season when, where the dead weeks are, and how information reaches athletes. We would rather design around that with you than guess at it.
• Help promote the opportunity to athletes Through whatever channels reach them: coaches, academic advisors, team meetings, athlete communications. A message that comes from athletics carries weight that the same message from us does not.
• Help identify round one and round two times that work around competition schedules Two dates, roughly two weeks apart, that clear as many competition schedules as possible. Without workable dates the rest does not matter. Tell us what works and we will build the calendar around it.
• Partner on external promotion of the results When the winning work goes to the client, we would like athletics beside us in how that gets told.
• An open question: what recognition might athletics offer the winning team? We are not asking for a specific thing here, and we are not assuming there is budget. We are asking whether there is a form of recognition or reward inside athletics — visibility, an acknowledgement, something at an event — that would mean something to a student-athlete who wins this. If the answer is that nothing is available, the competition still runs.

If this works, there is something specific to report: Gonzaga Athletics and GSCG opened a way for student-athletes to do business work for a professional organization, and here is what they produced.

We would like to announce that jointly — to external audiences, to prospective students, and into the client's network. It is a result that serves athletics and the business school about equally.