The Temple professor will contribute to an initiative designed to share SL Benfica’s expertise and connect academic research with sport practice.
Thilo Kunkel, a professor at Temple University’s School of Sport, Tourism and Hospitality Management (STHM) and a member of Temple University’s Sport Industry Research Center (SIRC), has joined the scientific council of the Benfica Institute for Sport Excellence. The initiative brings together SL Benfica’s experience in sport with academic research to share knowledge and inform practice beyond the club.
The institute launched on July 21, 2026, at Estádio da Luz in Lisbon. Kunkel joined Benfica President Rui Costa and Institute Dean Elizabete Cardoso in presenting a vision for connecting the club’s methods and expertise with researchers and sport professionals.
Benfica’s approach places education and applied research within the same initiative. Its institute is designed to turn knowledge developed through sport practice into opportunities for professional learning, while giving researchers access to organizational questions and settings in which ideas can be examined.
“What particularly excites me about the Institute is its ambition to connect sport practice, education, research, and innovation,” Kunkel wrote in a public post announcing his appointment.
The institute’s research opportunities extend across health, performance analysis and technology. Through Benfica Xplore R&D Collaborations, researchers can propose projects involving real-world data, facilities and specialist expertise. A separate pathway, Benfica Xpert Innovation Partnerships, invites companies to propose products or solutions for testing in the club’s environment.
The education side includes online, hybrid and in-person learning in coaching and development, analytics and technology, and sports business. The introductory Foundations of the Benfica Methodology course addresses the club’s approach to player development and is intended for coaches and other professionals seeking to understand its principles.
Together, these activities connect practical experience with opportunities to study it and share what is learned. For researchers, the value lies in examining questions within an operating sport organization. For practitioners, the institute aims to make knowledge accessible through training and collaboration, with potential applications across sport settings.
That exchange is consistent with SIRC’s mission to generate and translate evidence-based insight for the sport industry. Kunkel’s appointment provides another setting for the applied work reflected in the center’s research and consulting, where academic expertise is connected with the needs of organizations and the people they serve.
Kunkel’s work at Temple examines strategic management and marketing, including athlete branding, consumer engagement in digital environments and the relationships between brands. His research on athlete brand development has informed Name, Image and Likeness policy discussions and he has consulted sport teams, sponsors, athletes and technology developers on brand positioning, fan engagement and sponsorship activation.