A Glimpse into the Owl’s Nest (Part I)
Hello everybody!! My name is Carla Bohman and I’ve spent the last few months doing an internship with the marketing sector in the Temple Athletics Department. To be honest I really did not know that I was getting myself into coming into this internship but I’ve been pleasantly surprised the whole way through. In this “part I” of this blog entry I will be describing what my duties have entailed working within the office and in “part II” I’ll be talking about my experiences doing in-game promotional work.
Being an athlete here at Temple University, I thought that I would have a good grasp on the inner-workings of the Athletics Department and the kinds of work that is accomplished there but I was soon to find out that their work, specifically the marketing department, is involved with things that I had not even fathomed. The marketing department is very much geared towards getting students to support Temple Athletics whether it be through being a spectator or being involved in pre or post game events (i.e. tailgating, pep rallies, fly-in’s). How the department accomplishes this feat is by extensive use of social media platforms, going out on campus and spreading the word about upcoming events through flyers, handing out free merchandise and tickets and having spontaneous pep rallies. In my internship I contributed to these efforts by executing countless flyers, updating facebook and twitter feeds along with going out on campus and getting students hyped about upcoming football and basketball games. I think what surprised me the most about my duties within the office were all the components involved with promoting the revenue sports of Football and Basketball. I never really considered all the work that must be put into generating fans and prospective funding for the sports.
Another part of my internship that I found to be surprising is the kind of responsibility I was given to help with promotion. Right from the very first day I was in charge of creating flyers, posters and social media graphics, all things I assumed were handled by an external advertising agency. While it was quite intimidating at first to be put in charge of creating advertisements that were to been seen by hundreds of students, I soon began to love the artistic freedom and responsibility of it all. I am extremely thankful for my boss for providing me with such an opportunity as it has given me a greater sense of how to construct a persuasive advertising piece and given me more experience with graphic design.
Overall I feel extremely fortunate for kind of experience I had in the Athletic Department. The work environment itself was fantastic as I was able to meet and develop valuable relationships with other student workers alongside being granted the opportunity to apply my advertising skills to the real world. I have also gained a greater appreciation for the Athletics Department itself, as I now have knowledge of the multitude of work put into promoting Temple Sports. Lastly, this experience has coerced me to consider wanting to pursue Sports Marketing in some capacity. The ability to tie in my own athletic experiences with my advertising interest has proved to be a stellar combination and something that I will most definitely try to keep intertwining in my future job ambitions.
