New McCormack Faculty

The McCormack Department of Sport Management is welcoming two new faculty members this fall. Yiran Su and Katie Sveinson are both joining the department as assistant professors. Su is teaching graduate-level Sport Marketing and Sveinson is teaching Sport Policy and Sport Marketing at the undergraduate level.

“We are pleased to have two such accomplished young scholars joining our full time faculty,” said McCormack Department Chair Steve McKelvey. “Professors Sveinson and Su are both engaged in cutting edge research that will add new areas of exploration and expertise to our top ranked program. Both professors have also previously demonstrated a passion for engaging with students outside of the classroom.”

Yiran Su

Yiran Su received her PhD in business administration and management from the Fox School of Business at Temple University, a master’s degree in project management from the University of Sydney, and a bachelor’s degree in sport and leisure management from La Trobe University in Melbourne.

Su also has an MS in artificial intelligence from the University of Georgia, and her scholarly research examines technology and social media through the prism of sport consumer behavior.

“A recent project I am working on uses computational vision to examine how female athletes' social media self-presentation impacts consumers' reactions to their endorsements,” says Su. “The work has been supported by NASSM research grants, and an earlier draft of this paper won the best professional paper award at the Sport Marketing Association Annual Conference in 2021. The goal of this paper is to provide the industry with a deeper understanding of female athletes' strengths and barriers to sponsorship.”

Su, who will be leading the Meta Medium Analytics and Culture Research Group exploring consumer-brand interactions in virtual spaces, adds that she is excited to join McCormack, particularly because the department’s values—emphasizing DEI and high-quality research—align with her own and because she hopes to inspire more women and students of color to engage in data analytics and explore the possibilities for bridging big data and small data research.

Su doesn’t just study sport—she likes to participate as well. “I like to take up a new sport whenever I move to a new city,” she says. “My choice this time is skateboarding. I am getting ‘on board’ for the first time in my life under the guidance of a certified coach.”

Katie Sveinson

With a PhD, master’s degree, and bachelor’s degree from the University of Regina in Canada, Katie Sveinson focuses her research on understanding how gender impacts the sport fan experience. Her research has explored the experience of women fans, sport fan apparel for women, and successes and failures of marketing to women and girls as sport fans.

“I published an article with Dr. Rachel Allison at Mississippi State University, where we explored consumer reactions to a U.S. Soccer tweet that promoted a clothing line for girls,” Sveinson says. “We found that not only did consumers overwhelmingly dislike the clothing, but creating items that are overly gendered represented internal culture issues with the organization.” (Here is a video summary of the project).

Sveinson says she is thrilled to be joining the faculty of McCormack, with its strong research presence and focus on work that impacts industry practices. “I look forward to adding to a well-established collaborative research culture and continuing to publish in high quality journals while providing industry relevance,” she says.

When she’s not teaching or researching sport, Sveinson says she enjoys going to CrossFit classes as well as “spending time with my dogs (and husband), and being glued to the TV for any tennis match or Formula 1 race.”

Nicole Melton, associate department chair and associate professor, and co-director of McCormack’s Laboratory for Inclusion and Diversity in Sport, is thrilled to have both Su and Sveinson join the McCormack team. “They both are accomplished scholars—with several publications in our premier journals—and bring diverse skillsets that will enhance our department and better prepare our students to enter the sports industry post graduation.”