It’s not about us, it’s about you. We’re passionate about watching you, your organization, and your vision succeed to make you look like the hero you are.
Jennifer Stoll, PhD founded Stoll Strategies in 2018 with one goal in mind—propelling the sports events and tourism industry to the next level by putting her passion for sports and her love for learning, research and advising to work.
Dr. Stoll supports, guides, and creates practical solutions catered to her partners across the world through the convergence of custom-tailored research, real-world experience, and the power of thinking big. Using an economic development lens, she helps her clients define the often-intangible benefits of sports events and tourism to create long-term success and sustainability.
Jennifer has written numerous industry thought-leadership pieces and has presented expert insight on the sports events and tourism industry across the United States and abroad. She and colleague, Dr. Blake Price, have published The Stoll Report on State-Level Event Funding, the only comprehensive guide and advocacy tool for state-level event funding.
A former collegiate softball player, she earned her Sports Management degree from Colorado Mesa University. She went on to graduate with her Master’s in Sports Administration from the University of Louisville and a doctorate in Sports Management from Troy University. In her downtime, you can find Jennifer fly fishing, mountain biking or exploring in Western Colorado mountains with her husband and two kids.
* Suma Cum Laude graduate designation
Blake Price, PhD assists Stoll Strategies with a variety of research initiatives. Hailing from the great state of Texas, Blake received his Bachelor’s (Sport and Exercise Sciences) and Master’s (Sport Management) degrees from West Texas A&M University. After a short stint as a high school teacher and coach, he returned to his alma mater in 2013 as a faculty member within the Department of Sport and Exercise Sciences. A few years later, he chose to pursue a doctoral degree at Troy University where he first began working with Dr. Stoll. Price received his PhD in Sport Management with an emphasis in Sport Administration from Troy University in 2020.
In his current position of Assistant Professor at West Texas A&M University, Dr. Price seeks to use his research experiences with Stoll Strategies and organizations such as the Sports Events and Tourism Association (Sports ETA) to strengthen his courses and increase collaboration with both industry leaders and academic colleagues. In addition to his teaching duties, Dr. Price serves on numerous university committees such as Faculty Senate and the Intercollegiate Athletic Council.
Dr. Price has been an integral part of many Stoll Strategies projects, working with clients including state tourism offices, state sports tourism associations, DMOs, sports commissions, rights holders, and Sports ETA. He has co-authored several industry whitepapers and has assisted with additional research publications that focus on state sports tourism associations, salary and compensation analyses, and current industry trends. He and Dr. Stoll recently co-authored the industry’s first and only comprehensive report analyzing state-level event funding mechanisms, The Stoll Report on State-Level Funding.
Aside from his love for interscholastic athletics, Blake’s research interests focus on sport law, athletic facility construction and management, and sports tourism. He is a member of numerous professional associations including the North American Society for Sport Management, National Interscholastic Athletic Administrators Association, and the Texas High School Coaches Association.
In his free time, Blake enjoys being outdoors, whether it is on the golf course, hunting, or working cattle on the family farm. An avid sports fan, he attends numerous sporting events on the campus of West Texas A&M University and serves as a volunteer track and field official for various local high school track meets.
Sports are a universal language. They establish bonds and bridge connections. They develop character and are constantly evolving. Sports represent opportunity, integrity, teamwork, and camaraderie for a common goal. They are an important, often intangible, element of every community and economy. My work sets out to define the palpable benefits through an economic development lens.
Zack Vosen, PhD joined the Stoll Strategies team in the fall of 2021, assisting with a variety of research projects to date. A native of Starkville, Mississippi, Vosen received his B.S. in Sport Pedagogy and M.S. in Sport Administration from Mississippi State University. Following an internship with Tuscaloosa Tourism and Sports Commission, Zack was hired in 2013 as full-time faculty in the Department of Kinesiology at Mississippi College, a private university in Clinton, MS. In the years following, Vosen was accepted to the Sport Administration doctoral program at Troy University, and a bond was quickly forged with the future Drs. Stoll and Price. Vosen completed his dissertation centering upon collegiate athletic directors and graduated from the program with an emphasis in Athletic Administration in 2021.
Dr. Vosen’s research interests span the sport business spectrum, from event and facility management, sport law, and sport ethics to sport tourism. Zack has held memberships in several professional and scholastic organizations including the North American Society for Sport Management, the Commission on Sport Management Accreditation, and Phi Epsilon Kappa.
Zack enjoys outdoor pursuits, including hunting, golfing, and running. Vosen has been an avid fan of sports since birth, and especially enjoys following Mississippi State athletics, as well as fellow Bulldog alum Dak Prescott. Zack’s favorite pastime, however, is spending time with his wife Hilary, and their three young children, Olivia, Rawson Luke, and Elizabeth. You can find Dr. Vosen on Twitter, typically discussing all things sport business, @ZTVosen.
The sports events and tourism industry is both in its infancy, and yet thousands of years old. How can that be you may be thinking? People traveled to participate in and spectate at sporting events as long ago as the ancient empires of Greece and Rome.
Over the last twenty-eight years, the sports events and tourism industry has experienced unprecedented growth. This market shift has led to a dramatic increase in the number of sports tourism organizations serving as a conduit between entities seeking a destination in which to conduct their event, and a destination with a specific venue suitable for hosting the event.
Destinations in the sports events and tourism industry serve a primary business purpose to drive destination visitation for sporting events.
Often, these efforts are aimed at driving economic impact, increasing destination branding and exposure, and achieving socio-cultural initiatives for the locale.
For more than 25 years, scholars have been studying the field of sport tourism. In fact, Redmond (1991) may have been the first scholar to foretell the growth of sport tourism in the U.S. when he predicted an increase in interaction among entities in sport and tourism in the twenty-first century.
The landscape of state-level cooperatives in the sports events and tourism industry continues to experience vast change. Merely a decade ago, few of these initiatives existed, and those that did were often informal in structure and objectives.
Ten state organizations (40%) operate as non-profits, three others are working towards, or exploring the possibility of gaining non-profit status.
