When students at Brown University pick their course loads next spring, one new class will be hyper-competitive: global sports management. The course is a new addition to the Ivy League school’s lineup, thanks to Charlie Pliner and Nikolas Rohrmann.
The pair graduate this month, but the curriculum they created will stay on College Hill.
Pliner and Rohrmann met during an international student-orientation event in 2022, bonding over soccer months before the World Cup. At the end of their freshman year, they decided they wanted to take advantage of a program that enables students to create their own classes, and they landed on their shared love of sports.
Over the summer, even as Pliner traveled the world for an internship he had with FIFA, the duo brainstormed. When they came back sophomore year, they were introduced to two Brown professors, Barrett Hazeltine and Thano Chaltas, who provided guidance.
“That changed everything,” Pliner, now 22, tells Front Office Sports.
