Understanding the Intrinsic Value of Emotional Intelligence and it’s Impact on Athletes at Every Level of Sports Organizations

***The paper needs to be directed at the importance of emotional intelligence and how athletes, along with the organizations they play for can benefit from understanding how Emotional Intelligence effects player performance, future value pertaining to leadership and high stress situations, examples of players at the professional level who have excelled because of their perceived emotional intelligence and players who have failed to rise to the occasion and perform as expected because they lacked emotional intelligence, need to have a clear understanding of what determines emotional intelligence, an existing or new emotional intelligence assessment screening, why emotional intelligence in high school athletics is important and ways to for student athletes to improve their emotional intelligence, how EI shapes the transition to college athletics and ways college athletes can improve their intrinsic value and marketability to professional organizations, and how professional sports organizations can quantify that information to make informed decisions when considering draft picks and player evaluations. What economic impact, either dollars gained or lost for the organization can be attributed to poor or exceptional player EI. Create an instructional course aimed at improving emotional intelligence, and what a potential course would cost for varying party interest at the high school level, college level, semi/pro, professional level. We need to answer the WHY? Why should these organizations care about emotional intelligence and what does the future look like for organizations who fail to take our findings into consideration.