To make it big in the sports industry, you can ask anybody who has felt that success how they did it. Their answer? Almost always, “I knew the right person.” Knowing the right person is key, but what sports networking event is the right one for you? Here is my own list of the Top 5 Sports Networking Eventsin the nation to attend.
The Sports Industry Networking and Career Conference is arguably the best networking event in the country. The two day convention style event is full of opportunity. The number of well known faces and names is astounding compared to other events.
There is also a very large number of top executives that attend the even both as speakers and as registered attendees for you to meet. Who knows, maybe you can meet your future boss? However there are two downfalls to this event. The first is that there is a cost to attend the event and you must register ahead of time. The second is that there is a “business/professional” dress code you must obey to be let into the event. However, if you want to succeed in the sports industry, those aren’t such bad downfalls at all.
Kyle is a 23 year old Business Administration student and former NCAA D1 baseball player from Oregon. He is the owner and founder of west coast based, Gloves Off Sports llc, which is a new age sports marketing company specializing in online marketing for professional athletes and teams.
If you’re a rising star in the sports industry – or know someone who is – it’s time to make your nomination for the inaugural Thirty Under 30 Awards brought to you by SPORTS LAUNCH – The Magazine.
The Thirty Under 30 Awards have been established to recognize college students and young professionals under the age of thirty who epitomize one or more of the following attributes within the sports industry: hard work, innovation, creativity, leadership and entrepreneurship.
Winners of this special group will be featured in the next edition of SPORTS LAUNCH – The Magazine (March 2012), giving them the recognition they deserve.
To nominate your candidate, or apply for this award yourself, complete the application form found here: http://sportslaunch.net/30-under-thirty.
Chris McKinney is the president of SPORTS LAUNCH™, a career services firm dedicated to helping college students and career-changers launch sports careers. Chris' new book, How to Land Your First Job in Sports: 7 Simple Steps can be found on www.SportsLaunch.net.
After moving from Vancouver, BC to Eugene, Oregon to pursue my MBA at the University of Oregon’s prestigious Warsaw Sports Marketing Center, I was invited to attend the 2011 Women + Sports Summit held Sept.26-28 in Tucson, Arizona. The purpose of the summit was to provide a forum for working together on the future of women’s sports. My intentions for attending were two-fold; to learn more about this new initiative from ESPN and how it can propel the women’s sports industry forward and to create connections with prominent leaders in the US sports business industry, particularly the female leaders.
Connecting With Influential Women In Sports
espnW is ESPN’s first business dedicated to serving female athletes and fans. The espnW mantra is “One Letter Says A Lot.” The website was launched in December 2010 and was created by the ladies of ESPN, with Laura Gentile (VP, espnW) and Christine Driessen (CFO, ESPN) leading the way, gaining support from ESPN/ABC President, George Bodenheimer. The tipping point in espnW’s initiation was recognizing that this is not just the right thing to do; it’s the smart thing to do and makes good business sense. Thus, espnW was born and is growing quickly everyday.
I was fortunate enough to connect with many great women in sports at the Summit, all with lots of wisdom on how to start your career or build on your career in the sports industry. I’ve pulled together some of their advice in this video and added some of my own thoughts that I gathered from my new friends at the Summit, in this article.
“Proximity is power.” (Robin Roberts, Good Morning America)
You gotta show up. And don’t stop there – show up with intention. Do your research, know who’s in the room, seek out key women in sports that could help you in your quest and…drumroll please…talk to them! Be yourself and gently share your story with hopes it will spark some interest in their mind and lead into a friendly conversation. Networking is like training for a big competition – it’s about putting yourself in the optimal position to make things happen for yourself – just showing up automatically creates opportunity. In this case, it’s being amongst the industry leaders you aspire to be a part of. Like Steve Jobs’ said so eloquently, “You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future.” By just showing up, you are creating dots for yourself that are connectable later, somewhere, somehow.
“Think about why you win.” (Billie Jean King, Women’s Sports Foundation)
Too often we are taught to focus on what went wrong, or how we can improve our performance. Knowing what went well and why it was positive is just as important. Taking these key wins forward provide the confidence needed to succeed and create stories to talk about when at events like espnW. These stories are memorable and help others retain information about who you are. Be proactive, reach out to other women in sports, tell your story, and your chances of wining will increase exponentially.
“A hero is a hero not because of how they play the game but what they do with it.” (Richard Lapchick, Center for the Study of Sport in Society)
Everyone has the opportunity to be the captain of a team. However, only some step up, lead by example and project an appetite for success that the coaches and their teammates can’t ignore. Similar to landing a job in the sports industry, timing is everything. Yes, the captain role needs to be available when you are a member of that particular team, but other roles will often surface for the right person. Heros, as defined in the quote above, are hard to come by. If your story resonates strongly, you will be top of mind when the right thing becomes available. By being a hero everyday you are welcoming success for yourself and for all your teammates.
Women In Sports Share Their Tips On How To Land A Job In The Sports Industry
Trusted leader. Creative jedi. Multi-tasking wizard. Play-maker. Dedicated team player. Recognizes and nourishes opportunities. Passionate sports fan. Multi-sport athlete. Olympic enthusiast. Connector extraordinaire. Katrina is currently pursuing an MBA at the University of Oregon's Warsaw Sports Marketing Centre focusing on sport partnerships and sport for social change. A business professional with 7 years of marketing, sponsorship and brand activation experience at top tier companies in the sport industry including Nike, MolsonCoors and VANOC. An integrative thinker who believes in connecting people and ideas to create positive change.
http://twitter.com/katrinagalas
http://linkedin.com/in/katrinagalas
Social media can be a beautiful thing for your sports career. Especially when you learn how to leverage it in a way that leads to a job offer from your favorite sports team or sports brand.
However, as great as social media is for networkingyourself into a cool job, there’s an even more powerful tactic. And it’s available to everyone, free of charge.
I call it “Direct Networking.”
This is where you network – directly – with the person who has the power to hire you. Nothing (and no one!) comes between you and the decision-maker when you implement this job-search tactic.
Direct Networking can put you to work. Fast. It’s helped me with my career when I was just starting out. And it can work for you, too. I still use it today. [click to continue…]
Chris McKinney is the president of SPORTS LAUNCH™, a career services firm dedicated to helping college students and career-changers launch sports careers. Chris' new book, How to Land Your First Job in Sports: 7 Simple Steps can be found on www.SportsLaunch.net.
Plato once said, “You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation.” Plato lived almost 2400 years ago. Before social media, before the phone, before the fax, before e-mail and before the pony express.
In today’s value driven business climate I feel this getting to know the person, not the e-mail address or the @Plato, is where real connections and money are made. Notice! Connection comes first.
Technology has come a long way since Plato uttered these words, but the make-up of humans has not. Trust, respect and likeability are still found to be the top reasons people and companies do business with each other. Building rapport can come in many more ways these days, but I can’t argue with the logic in “you can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation.” [click to continue…]
Tyler Johnson is an innovative thinker inspired by the likes of Bill Veeck, Jon Spoelstra, Pat Williams & Brooks Boyer. Currently working for Kroenke Sports & Entertainment as a Group Sales Account Executive for the Denver Nuggets. Prior he worked as the New Business Development Executive with the Chicago White Sox. Tyler has also worked directly with the inventor and creator of Arena football and also for Mike Ditka’s former Chicago AFL franchise. As a former collegiate athlete and business sensed individual Tyler ventured to combine his passions to get into the business side of sports.
Every once in awhile, I come across a sports resource so innovative and dynamic, I just have to share it with the sportsnetworker readers. Katrina was referred to me by Jacinta Fisher, wife of retired NFL linebacker Levar Fisher, and when I saw Katrina’s website, Tomboi, I had to let you know about it.
Katrina was gracious enough to allow me to interview her on short notice and you will definitely be the benefactor of our conversation.
Michelle: What inspired you to start a sports website exclusively for women?
Katrina: All my life I have been involved in sports, both as an athlete and as a spectator.It’s something I’m very passionate about.And, as I thought about my close circle of girl friends, I realized that some of the best times we’ve had have involved sports – Superbowl parties, little league games, NBA All Star Weekend(s) and the list goes on.I knew there were more women like us and as I looked for the group(s) online, I didn’t find them.I only found sites about women who played sports…nothing for the spectator.Nothing for my 72-year old grandmother who’s been a NASCAR fan for decades.Nothing for my next door neighbor who’s been a fan of Texas A&M football since she graduated from there almost 20 years ago – and I knew there were more…that was my inspiration! [click to continue…]
Michelle Hill, the Strong Copy Quarterback for Winning Proof, is a sports and fitness copywriter. My mission is to help pro athletes, coaches, and sports agents increase their success score in their entrepreneurial endeavors with my writing expertise and creative turn of mind.I write website content, client letters, media pitch letters, sponsorship proposals, and brochures for sports-related companies. www.winningproof.com
There are many types of pitches. Some pitches are for raising money for a new company. Other pitches are designed to pique the interest of a book publisher or a movie producer.
The pitch I’m going to help you with is designed to get you in front of the person who has the power to hire you, specifically in the Sports Industry.
We’ll call this pitch, the “First Pitch,” because it will be the first pitch you’ll make to the Hire Authority.
The primary goal of the First Pitch is to establish a connection. Making a connection is a lot different that just making contact. A connection with someone is more personal, more meaningful and much more memorable. (Please note: The First Pitch is not designed to land you a job on the spot. Think of it as the “first step” toward getting an interview.)
Chris McKinney is the president of SPORTS LAUNCH™, a career services firm dedicated to helping college students and career-changers launch sports careers. Chris' new book, How to Land Your First Job in Sports: 7 Simple Steps can be found on www.SportsLaunch.net.
As toddlers, A few of us were dressed up in cheerleader outfits of our dad’s favorite team. As we got a few years older, we wore the youth-sized jerseys which weren’t so bad when we were young girls. As we grew into young women however, we just had to make the youth-sized jerseys or boxy men’s jerseys do (if we bothered to wear a jersey at all) because we really didn’t have much of a choice.
The major leagues seemed to finally take notice only a few short years ago when a few teams introduced pink jerseys but I – and not so surprisingly – many other women do NOT like the color pink so I continued to wear my ill fitting youth XL jersey until FINALLY – the major leagues made available, licensed jerseys in our favorite team’s colors with a woman’s fit.
It might be that more women are working at the offices of some of these major league teams now and they helped the old brass notice the increasing numbers of women filling up the stadiums and arenas. I’m not quite sure what it was that caused the leagues to finally have this epiphany that women are a viable, strong and growing segment of their fan base but I am very happy to be recognized. [click to continue…]
It is the third week of the Overtime Post, and both Lewis and I are on the road this week. Ironically, he went from the east coast to the west, and I’m going from the west to the east. Twitter is great, but nothing beats real hi-fives, fist pumps, and sharing stories in person. If you’re in New York for the week, I’d love to meet you, just shoot me a mail, and don’t get left behind in the offline networking shift!
I took Virgin America for the first time and they have this neat feature of being able to chat with other passengers on the plane according to seat number. Much props to them for trying to make the flight experience more social. It could be a cool tool for networking in the future. I’m literally writing this on a plane so I’m going to keep it short.
Sam is the community manager of Sports Networker and the Sports Executive Association. He is passionate in all things sports, mobile, and social media. His dream is for the Vancouver Canucks to win a Stanley Cup in his lifetime, although so far, its looking kind of bleak. In the past, he worked with BlackBerry and helped relaunch their Business-to-Business network. With his experience there, he can probably help you change your ringtone, maybe. When he finds time (never), he also writes infrequently at his personal blog. If you would like to talk sports, write a guest post for us, or argue about why iPhone > BlackBerry, you can find him on Twitter, Facebook or email.
After successful networking events in New York and London, we’re headed to the City of Angels – Los Angeles! However, this event will be run a little differently than the ones in the past. As space is limited, it will be an intimate event capped at 50 sports executives in the L.A. area. Also, part of this event will be filmed during a live online web reality show.
If you want to be part of this limited-space event, fill out your information below and I’ll email you with more details about the time and venue for this event. It will either be in the evening of Nov 10 or 11 and I’ll email you soon if you qualify. Hope to see you there! [click to continue…]
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