October Facts & Figures311 Fall Club Members - An increase from 157 last year -
SBC Flag Football Team in Action Alumni Feature Spotlight
Q & A
Please describe your journey to August United and the position you currently reside in?
After graduating in 2013, I had interviews at ESPN in Connecticut through connections made in SBC. I ended up declining an offer from them. This my first dang scary moment because I had aspired all through college to work for them. Something in my gut was like, 'Girl this is not your path'. A month after graduation I took a vacation to Arizona and fell in love with the desert and then intentionally missed my flight home. Here was my second scary moment because I had no job, no home, and one suitcase but something told me to stay. As Tim Gunn would say, it was a make-it-work-moment. I ended up at a marketing agency in downtown Phoenix working on social media accounts for 10-15 small businesses. Nothing glamorous but rigorous work managing a host of brands at once. I created content, scheduled content, managed communities, developed reports, and tried not to panic that I had no idea what to do next. After a year, I looked for other opportunities in the area and applied at what is now my current agency: August United (formerly Sitewire). With over a year of social media management behind me, I applied to August United/Sitewire - and they were looking for someone to help them run social media for their client who had an upcoming Super Bowl campaign. Suddenly my experience with SBC and my social media management experience came together beautifully! How crazy is that? This was 3 years ago. Today I am a Digital Strategist for August United. Past the typical suggestions of "networking and making connections" what is the best advice you can give to aspiring sports business professionals trying to break into the industry? Get uncomfortable. You are young and when you graduate it is the best point in your life to try out a new state. Do it. Find your favorite teams, brands, or companies outside of the Midwest. Save their 'job pages' and always be stalking that page. You have the rest of your career to move back to Wisconsin and start a family but there will only be several moments in your career you can jump into the open water that is the rest of the US and be as daring as you are right now. You will learn you set more limits on yourself than anyone else will and it's important to recognize your self-doubt and goal-limiting you do to yourself and conquer it swiftly! You seemed very interested in telling your story about the agency side of the business as opposed to brand/teams; in what ways do you think working for an agency can potentially be more beneficial or rewarding to a sports business professional as opposed to a team or brand? Marketing agency life is crazy. It's demanding as heck like sports, and you are always at the whim of the client wants and needs. What I've loved about agency life is seeing Super Bowl from the eyes of an advertiser, "How does one make splash on Super Bowl Sunday?" is a question I've wrestled with through three SB campaigns and its rewarding when that day comes. I think its very similar to how you feel when its game day except for us it's Campaign Day! At agency I've been able to play/learn various roles at any given time: like developing life-size bears, creative brainstorming sessions, writing storyboards or scripts, directing video shoots, staging lights, developing Super Bowl GIFs, or working with awesome talent like Jillian Harris and Jessica Mulroney. An agency allows you to explore ideas with clients in mind. Another thing about agency is the vibe. The vibe of an agency is hard to come by in other environments. If you thrive in chaotic/creative environments, don't like a ton of rigidity but enjoy thoughtful strategy and a roller coaster ride, then look at top marketing agencies and find one who works on a brand you love. Lastly, agency benefits are typically very competitive. I enjoy unlimited PTO at August United which is killer. What is your favorite memory from SBC (could be a professional event or social event)? So shoutout to Max Novak who one year scored us a tour and suite at the United Center. At the end of the tour, they lead us down to the court and you could hear everyone going NO WAY NO WAY. We were surprised with a private warm-ups viewing from the floor. No one could believe what was happening. Even us officers were like, whelp this was highly unexpected. Derrick Rose was there. Absolutely flooring experience. Do you work on non-sports projects as well? If so, will you explain how they differ and what things you have to keep in mind when working on each? Yes! Outside of Super Bowl campaigns I develop digital campaigns for various consumer-packaged goods brands. One hard pill to swallow in my work is to not get attached to an idea. Clients kill ideas. We kill ideas. Someone somewhere will kill what you think is a great idea and you've gotta have another idea ready to go or roll with the punches. I'm still trying to be better at moving on more quickly from a killed idea haha! Another part of my job role is translating digital-cultural trends for our brands. Trends like how/why the KFC Chicken Wars happened the way it did; or explaining how the NFL made tactical choices to reach Gen Z through Reddit content partnerships and TikTok this year. Researching the digital-cultural side of things is my jam and August United has been awesome in allowing me to do what I'm passionate about because it ultimately helps our clients understand what's happening in culture and why it's happening (which helps them think more creatively too). We appreciate all your help and advice as one of our proud alum... Why do you feel giving back to a club like ours is so important when you aren't necessarily required to do so? Simply put I wouldn't be where I am today without SBC. I developed confidence, public speaking skills, and business skills through the club that I wouldn't have been able to develop in a classroom. It has been crucial to my success today. It's precious knowing others are going through the same transformation and then will come out of college and go off and do wonderful things. If you resonate with anything I'm saying, want to learn more about agency life, or need to vent about uncertainty you can feel free to reach out :) Member Spotlight - UW Athletics Interns
Give us a snapshot of your responsibilities with UW Athletics? My role with Brand Communications allows me to do many different things. During day-to-day office hours, I'm working on things like website updates, creating graphics for social, and preparing items for events such as programs, flip cards, etc. As expected, it's all in preparation for game days. With volleyball, my game day role is live tweeting the match, updating Instagram story, and often taking photos. Favorite thing about working with/for UW Athletics? My favorite thing about working for UW Athletics is getting to be a part of creating memories that I have always been on the other side of. Sports have the power to bring people together, and a large amount of my favorite memories to this point in my life are around attending sporting events with my family. I love seeing the impact that our teams can have on fans, and I take a great amount of pride in being able to say I"m a part of it. Here is a few examples of Drew's work :
Give us a snapshot of your responsibilities with AreaRED? As the Football director, I serve as a liaison between UW-Athletics and the student body to increase school spirit. I also brainstorm ideas to help students stay involved athletics aside from a gameday events. Since we just became a student organization we are really working on spreading the word about who we are and what we do, in order to get our name out there. Membership and becoming bigger than an executive board is something that our organization is looking forward to. Favorite thing about working with/for UW Athletics? My favorite thing about working with AreaRED is having the ability to collaborate with other organizations on campus, especially organizations that are predominately students of color. This will 1) increase the amount of students of color who come out to games to support the team and integrate all students on campus and ​2) foster relationships between all students on campus to help them feel more welcomed on campus. AreaRED Block Party :
Give us a snapshot of your responsibilities with UW Athletics? In my role as a marketing intern for UW Athletics, I primarily assist in the preparation, set-up and execution of game and special event promotions. This can vary from helping with the brand new T-shirt cannon at the football games, organizing youth teams that play during halftime at various sporting events or the coordination of sport clinics/kid's events. In addition, I work more closely with UW Women's Basketball where I help with our Stars of Tomorrow program, organizing the Loyalty Program and much more! Favorite thing about working with/for UW Athletics? In the short amount of time that I have spent working for UW Athletics, I have found a lot of enjoyment in being able to plan, develop and fully implement various promotions and giveaways. Being able to work with great people while seeing your work come full circle into a finished product that you're able to share with others is something special. Here is a few things that the Marketing Team has been up to this year :
October Club Events Recap
October 1st - Legends Panel
October 7th - Northwestern Mutual Speaker Event
October 9th - Erik Haslam Speaker Event
October 16th - Women in Sports Panel October 21st - BSN Sports Panel
October 28th - Professional Development Workshop
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