Laurel Walzak: two years at CRSA, and a connection meant to last
Laurel Walzak has been with us as an Academic Guest since December 2024, and that stay was never a visit. She came to Zurich because the work here matched her own, in sport management and in scientific collaboration, and because Switzerland and Europe are home to many of the world's major sport governing organisations. She wanted to learn that market from the inside, academically, economically and culturally.
Associate Professor of RTA Sport Media at The Creative School at Toronto Metropolitan University, she founded the Global Experiential Sport Lab (GXSLab) in 2018 to keep scholarly work and industry practice in the same room. At the Center for Research in Sports Administration she works mostly alongside Prof. Dr. Helmut M. Dietl, Dr. Marco Henriques Pereira and Dr. Yu Pan.
Right now she is working on a paper called AI Commentary: Bridging the Gender Gap in Football, together with Yu Pan, Carlos Gómez-González of the University of Lausanne, and Helmut Dietl. It asks what happens to the coverage gap in women's football when the commentary is generated rather than broadcast.
Her most recent publication, written with Louis-Etienne Dubois, takes on esports as a geopolitical economy, a field where states, platforms and tournament owners all have a stake in who gets to play and who gets to watch: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003725817-5
What has made her presence count is not only the research. She has given her time to our younger researchers, and she has been clear about why:
"I aim to stay deeply connected to Switzerland by bringing a Canadian and broader North American perspective to the CRSA, continuing to contribute to its mission of coordinated scientific collaboration, supporting young researchers, and advancing economic and academic interests that strengthen both Swiss sport research and international partnerships."
That intention comes with an open door. Laurel is looking for collaborations in sport management, marketing, and economics, as well as applied sport technology research, in partnership with industry. She is sport-agnostic, with a working interest in European football and in Swiss and European ice hockey, and a personal one in tennis and Formula 1.
If that overlaps with your work, reach out to Laurel directly, or write to us and we will gladly make the introduction.