Unique New Sport Management Course Offers Graduate Students Real-World Experience

This semester, the University’s Sport Management Department offered “Sport Sponsorship Strategy and Sales,” a new course that enabled students to gain hands-on industry experience. Offered as a mini-term course, it enabled students to collaborate on a project for a real client, United Entertainment Group.

"Collaborating with a real-world client is a great experiential learning opportunity for our sport management students,” said Bo Yu, Ph.D., the students’ professor. “Our Chargers worked hard, and they made a deep impression on our clients with their creative sponsorship-activation campaigns.”

“The University’s sport management program is committed to bringing real-life experiences to class,” added Ceyda Mumcu, Ph.D., chair of the Sport Management Department. “United Entertainment Group provided an exceptional learning experience for our students by challenging their critical thinking skills and creativity as well as growing their business acumen.”

During the seven-week course, students developed campaigns for their client that promoted sponsorship between a real corporation and professional sports teams. They then presented their work to industry leaders, their professors, and their classmates.

“I appreciate all the work the students did,” said Michael Brown, head of sports at UEG. “I was impressed with their ideas and thinking.”

Below, two of the students reflect on the experience and discuss what they learned from the course.

Mike Pantera ’24 M.S.

As a student who came into the M.S. in Sport Management program with no previous management or business experience, I wanted to look for every and any opportunity to grow my skills pertaining to my new career path. In my first semester as a graduate student, I had the opportunity to work with the global marketing agency United Entertainment Group to create a sponsorship-activation campaign between a corporation and a professional sports.

My group and I were tasked with creating a series of activations that would educate the team’s fans about the company’s efforts to bring awareness to aluminum recycling. The company’s most prominent product, an aluminum cup, was the main highlight of this partnership. Our group collaborated to figure out the best way to put these cups in the hands of fans and how to encourage them to continue to recycle when they leave the stadium.

Throughout this seven-week process, we received feedback from our professor, Dr. Bo Yu, and department chair, Dr. Ceyda Mumcu, to ensure that our ideas were being communicated properly and our narratives were consistent. Between this feedback and our weekly lectures, I was able to improve my storytelling, visual creation, public speaking, and collaboration skills.

Prior to beginning this project, I never thought about pursuing opportunities in marketing or sponsorships, but the chance to work in conjunction with a real client gave me insight as to what working in this field entails. Now, thanks to this course, I am intrigued by a career in sponsorships, and I want to continue developing my skills in this area.

Derrick Seldon ’23 M.S.

This semester, I took the “Sport Sponsorship Strategy and Sales” course with Dr. Yu, where we were tasked with compiling a sponsorship audit as well as a proposal for UEG as our client. We acted as consultants, of sorts, developing promotional activations for our partnership with a corporation and our chosen team.

While we constructed all of the background and logistical information that would coincide with the audit, and laid out the financials behind the proposal, the selling point was our ability to conceptualize our activation ideas and create a visual for our client. Through this, I made my largest contribution. Developing our slogan and creating our logos and branded mock-ups was my calling card to help our team put forth our product.

As we put our heads together to develop innovative and implementable activations, this project became more than just another assignment. We quickly realized the value of the lessons and the tangible experience we were gaining through this process.

I am grateful for this opportunity to not only produce a viable product, but to also have been afforded the privilege to present that product in front of industry leaders and professionals, as well as our peers. This unique opportunity is what makes the Sport Management program at the University of New Haven truly special.

Opportunities such as these are sought out and provided by our professors. This project and presentation for UEG was the epitome of the mission and intentionality of the program and the focus on optimizing our opportunities for success.

Mike Pantera ’24 M.S. and Derrick Seldon ’23 M.S. are candidates in the University’s graduate program in sport management. Seldon is also an assistant men’s basketball coach for the Chargers.