A quick glance at the major sports leagues suggests that Jews are well represented in the front office. Of the 32 teams in the National Football League, nine have Jewish owners, including Springfield resident Zygmunt “Zygi” Wilf (Minnesota Vikings). In baseball, Fred Wilpon is chair and CEO of the NY Mets (his son, Jeff, is senior executive vice president and COO, while Saul Katz serves as president of the club). Jerry Reinsdorf is chair of the Chicago White Sox and of the National Basketball Association’s Chicago Bulls. Theodore N. Lerner became owner of the Washington Nationals this past June. Theo Epstein holds the rank of senior vice president and general manager for the Boston Red Sox, while Princeton alumnus Mark Shapiro holds similar titles with the Cleveland Indians.

In basketball, in addition to Reinsdorf, Ed Snider serves as chair of the Philadelphia 76ers (and NHL Flyers), and the maverick and outspoken Mark Cuban is owner of, naturally enough, the Dallas Mavericks. Sen. Herb Kohl (D-Wis.) bought the Milwaukee Bucks in 1985.

Three of the commissioners for the major sports leagues — Bud Selig (baseball), David Stern (basketball), and Gary Bettman (hockey) — are Jewish.

Jews operating in the uppermost regions of pro sports are a relatively recent phenomenon, according to a panel discussion on the Future of Jews in Sports, held Oct. 17 at Yeshiva University in Manhattan.

The concept of the program, according to Gil Fried, chair of the management department at the University of New Haven and an adjunct professor at YU and Columbia, was to examine how Jews have changed “as a society and a culture in how we view sports.”

“About 100 years ago, we were the ones doing the playing,” Fried told NJ Jewish News in a phone interview after the event. “The original boxers and basketball players, a large percentage of them, were Jewish. Now…we don’t have that many Jews who are actively competing at the professional level in the same kind of numbers, but we are the majority of owners, managers, and administrators, relatively speaking.”

What’s responsible for that change? Jewish family values, said Fried. Given the poor economic status of immigrant and first-generation families in the early 20th century, kids were hard pressed to complete high school, let along go to college. For them, salvation came through special talents, such as sports, music, or acting, Fried said. As parents began to understand the value of education as a means of improving standards of living, they emphasized the academic and downplayed the athletic.

The panel discussion was held “to make sure people understand what’s really going on in the sports world [today] and how to become part of it in meaningful, tangible ways, if that’s a career goal,” said Fried.

“There are opportunities for people who want to play or be involved in management,” he said. “The focus becomes knowing the industry and being able to work. Finding internships are a valuable component in getting a foot in the door.”

Brent Fisher, a former pro basketball player in Israel who now works as an affiliate sales account manager for the NFL Network, discussed the value of finding a sports internship. He himself had worked his way up the ladder, from summer employment in JCC camps to playing high school and college basketball to playing professionally in Israel. “He was able to channel his passion for sports from the playing field to the career field,” said Fried.

Other presenters at the Oct. 17 event included Larry Baras, founder and president of the Israel Baseball League; Steve Becker and Joy Ann Brand of the Jewish Community Centers Association; and Jed Margolis, executive director of Maccabi USA/Sports For Israel.

Fried acknowledged that a career in sports can be at once difficult and satisfying “because of the emotions involved. If you’re working for People’s Bank or Citicard or American Express, you might like the product category itself, but there isn’t the passion for the day-to-day person out there to talk about around the water cooler. In sports, every decision you make is being scrutinized by those armchair quarterbacks who think they can do better. That’s why fantasy sports have become such a big deal. Instead of talking about it, why don’t we put up or shut up…on paper, at least.”

A follow-up presentation — Marketing Professional Sports: What is the Future of Professional Sports and How Can It Maintain Its Strong Growth? — is scheduled for Tuesday, Nov. 7, at 6:30 p.m. at the Sy Simms School of Business at Yeshiva University. Scheduled speakers include Chris Brown, director of Fan Experience for the New York Mets; Skip Prince, president of The Prince Companies; and William Squire, principal of The Right Stuff Consulting, Inc., former general manager of Giants Stadium and Disney’s Wide World of Sports, and director of stadium operations at Yankee Stadium.