Sports and Entertainment Marketing Series

About this event

Sports and Entertainment Marketing Series (event code SEM) is an Individual Series event for one participant. The scenarios cover marketing and management tasks for sports, sporting events, entertainment, recreational equipment and leisure businesses. You might be cast as a content expert, client, customer, employee, supervisor, manager or entrepreneur; the event sheet tells you your role and the judge's role. All fourteen Series events share the same rules; the exam cluster and the role-play subject are what differ. The role-plays also draw on the Tier 3 Marketing Management Pathway performance indicators, which the exam does not cover. Round by round: you take the 100-question, multiple-choice Marketing cluster exam, built from the Tier 1 Business Administration Core and the Tier 2 cluster performance indicators. Then you do two preliminary role-plays. For each you get a written scenario with five performance indicators, 10 minutes to prepare notes, and up to 10 minutes with a judge who plays a business executive and asks the printed follow-up questions. Finalists do a third role-play. For the 2026-27 district level, DECA has announced the instructional areas as Market Planning (scenario 1) and Promotion (scenario 2); association and ICDC areas are not announced in advance. Scoring: each role-play evaluation is out of 100 points. In the preliminary round the exam and each of the two role-plays are worth one third of the total. In the final round the role-play is weighted twice the exam score, and the exam score carries forward. The judge scores the five performance indicators, the solution (unique, practical, effective), three Career Competencies and overall impression. No printed references or visual aids; a four-function calculator is allowed during the exam and prep.

What judges score

What's on the exam

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