The Sports Business Association at Arizona State University hosted a symposium Friday in McCord Hall at the W.P. Carey School of Business in Tempe.
“What we do here is we try and bring awareness to students here at ASU on how we can connect and join the sports business," SBA vice president Quincy Brown said.
Brown said that it’s important for students a part of the 18-23 year old demographic to take advantage and mingle with respected figures in the field whenever the chance presents itself like the symposium provided.
“We try to encourage students to do that because at the end of the day, people and employers would rather have one-on-one interaction rather than going through a stack of résumés,” he said. “That’s what we preach around here.”
The event commenced with “Sports Business Radio Interview” with Derrick Hall, the president and CEO of the Arizona Diamondbacks.
He spoke about his past and eventual ascension to his position with the Diamondbacks, and then fielded questions ranging from his success in the sports industry to whether he agreed Chicago Cubs’ third baseman Kris Bryant should have been optioned to Triple-A.
A former ASU student himself, Hall said he thought it was great to see SBA members so interested in wanting to succeed and seek instruction on how to do so.
“They can definitely relate now having come from exactly where they are,” he said. “Although, we didn’t have a sports business club when I was coming up, for them to know they can chase their dream coming from ASU and it can happen — I think it’s nice to be able to relate to that, and tell my story so they can have a little more confidence in their career paths.”
The proceeds were divided into three segments according to discussion topic of the panel: sponsorship, digital media and analytics.
The sponsorship panel discussion was led by Fox Sports Arizona reporter Jody Jackson and featured five panelists, including Greg McElroy, the associate vice president and chief business development officer of Sun Devil Athletics.
After a lunch break, the group reconvened with the digital media panel discussion, before concluding with the analytics panel discussion, which was moderated by Brett Kurland, a professor and director for Cronkite News and the Phoenix Sports Bureau of the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism.
The analytics panel notably included Navigate Research’s founder and president A.J. Maestas, as well as executive director of Society for American Baseball Research, Marc Appleman.
Those in attendance were pleased with how the symposium went, and the students felt that having an opportunity to interact with many who are in positions they aspire to be in eventually.
Antonio Cannavaro, a junior double-majoring in journalism and sports media studies, said that while you can learn from professors in classes, the panelists doing what he envisions himself doing one day.
“They can tell us what need to do to achieve and succeed,” he said.
“They’ve given us some guidance on how to get our foot in the door, and what to do once we have our foot in the door, how to take it from there.”
“Many times we get the question, ‘how did you get that internship?’ or ‘how did you get that job in sports?’” Brown said. “Many times, it’s literally having a connection in the sports industry or joining an organization like us. What we do is we get them the connection and at the end of the day they have to pursue that career.”
Reach the reporter at kajone31@asu.edu or follow @kaelenjones on Twitter.
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