Alexia Lopes

Assistant Teaching Professor

Department of Sport Management

Contact

315.443.7679 aplopes@syr.edu

Department

Department of Sport Management

Location

MacNaughton Hall, #300I
Syracuse, NY 13244

Biography

Alexia Lopes (she/her/hers) joined the Department of Sport Management at Falk College in fall 2024 as an assistant teaching professor. She teaches classes in International Sports Relations and Introduction to Sport Management. Her teaching focus is on the international business of sport.

Prior to joining Syracuse University, Lopes was an assistant professor from 2022-24 at St. Norbert College, where in two years she started two sport management programs (i.e., a minor and a major) in the Schneider School of Business and Economics. Beyond developing the sport management curriculum and teaching business courses, she was actively engaged in the Green Bay community.

Prior to her move to the United States to pursue her Ph.D., Lopes worked as a career manager for Enzo Lopes, who is a professional motocross/supercross athlete. Her work experiences include internships at a solar energy organization in Brussels, and at the Anheuser-Busch headquarters in Leuven, Belgium, where she lived from 2014-2018.

Lopes’ research focuses on athlete migration and women in sport management. She has presented her research in major conferences in the United States and internationally. Moving forward, she intends to focus on writing case studies. Her newly found passion for cases allows her to research and mentor, as she intends to take students to compete in case study competitions nationally and internationally.

Education

Ph.D., University of South Carolina
MBA, KU Leuven, Brussels, . Major: International Business Area of Emphasis: International Business and Entrepreneurship
B.B.A., Magna cum laude, KU Leuven, Brussels, . Major: International Business

Specialization

Business of sport, athlete transnational migration and internationalization of American leagues.

Teaching

Currently Teaching

SPM 225 - Managing the Sport Organization
SPM 205 - Principles and Contemporary Issues in Sport Management
SPM 215 - Principles of Sales in Sport
SPM 245 - Race, Gender, and Diversity in Sport Organizations

Published Scholarship

Publications

Lopes, A. & Nagel, M., 2025. Women Professional Athletes and their Personal Brands on Social Media: An Analysis of 2020 and 2021 WNBA Player Photos on Instagram. Sport, Business, Management: An International Journal.
Lopes, A., 2024. ‘No tits in the pits!’ Women’s motivations to push through challenges and break the glass ceiling in motorsports in the United States. International Journal of Business in Sports, Tourism & Hospitality Management. Available at: https://www.gaics.org/userdata/upload/file/JBSM_V5I2_Articel%231.pdf.
Lopes, A., 2023. “No tits in the pits!” An exploratory analysis of the challenges and coping mechanisms experienced by women decision makers in motorsports in the United States. International Journal of Business in Sports, Tourism & Hospitality Management, 5(1). Available at: https://www.gaics.org/userdata/upload/file/JBSM_V5_I1_Article%231.pdf?n.
Pedo Lopes, A., Ballouli, K. and Mihalik, B., 2023. Push–pull analysis of motocross and supercross athletes’ migration to the United States. Sport in Society, [online] 27(3), pp.438–458. https://doi.org/10.1080/17430437.2023.2279635.
Pincus, B., Brown, M. and Lopes, A., 2023. One Nation, One Team: The U.S. Women’s National Team’s Equal Pay Victory and Its Broader Impact. Case Studies in Sport Management, [online] 12(S1), pp.S37–S43. https://doi.org/10.1123/cssm.2022-0028.
Kim, H., So, K.K.F., Mihalik, B.J. and Lopes, A.P., 2021. Millennials’ virtual reality experiences pre- and post-COVID-19. Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Management, [online] 48, pp.200–209. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhtm.2021.06.008.

Presentations

Lopes, A., Pincus, B. & Brown, M., 2024. Bridging Real-world Challenges & Educational Innovation in Sports Education.. In Chicago, USA.. 2024 North American Society for the Sociology of Sport Conference. NASSS.
Lopes, A., Brown, M. & Pincus, B., 2024. Case studies in sport management classrooms: a tool to promote discussions about women’s sports. In Teaching S Learning Fair. North American Society for Sport Management (NASSM).
Seidman, M., Nagel, M. & Lopes, A., 2024. Posting for a Cause? An Analysis of 2020 and 2021 WNBA Player Photos on Instagram. In North American Society for Sport Management (NASSM).
Pincus, B., Brown, M. & Lopes, A., 2023. One Nation, One Team: The United States Women's National Team's Equal Pay Victory and Its Broader Impact. In 2023 North American Society for the Sociology of Sport Conference.
Lopes, A. & Ballouli, K., 2023. Transnational Migration of Motocross and Supercross Athletes to the United States: A Push–Pull-Anti-Push-Anti-Pull Analysis. In North American Society for the Sociology of Sport Conference.
Lopes, A., Ballouli, K. & Mihalik, B., 2023. Transnational Migration of Non-team Sports’ Athletes to the United States: A discussion of the Push-Pull Framework and the Muscle Drain Phenomenon. In 2022 4th World Association of Sport Management (WASM).
Lopes, A. & Mercado, H., 2022. Motivators for women to pursue a career on the management-side of motorsports in the United States. In SMAANZ Conference.
Lopes, A. & Mercado, H., 2022. 'No tits in the pits!': An exploratory research of female leaders in motorsports. In 8th IWG World Conference on Women &Sport.
Dibble, C., Seidman, M. & Lopes, A., 2022. Power, Wealth, and Influence: A Conceptualization of the Impacts of Competition, Team, and Media on Esports Athletes’ Compensation. In 2022 Sport Marketing Association (SMA) Conference.
Lopes, A., Ballouli, K. & Mihalik, B., 2022. Push–Pull Analysis of Motocross and Supercross Athletes’ Migration to the United States. In 2022 European Association for Sport Management (EASM).

Honors, Awards, and Recognition

Pedagogical Faculty Fellows Program, Saint Norbert College (received: 2023)
Faculty Fellows for Community-Engaged Scholarship, Saint Norbert College (received: 2022)
Magna Cum Laude (Academic Excellence Award), KU Leuven
Dean’s List, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (received: 2016)

Department

Department of Sport Management

Location

MacNaughton Hall, #300I
Syracuse, NY 13244