Final Moved Due to Water Main Break

Due to a water main break on SDSU’s campus, the SMBA ’11 class took their Organizational Behavior final exam at the San Diego Hall of Champions today. Apparently, a 24-inch pipe broke around 11 PM Monday night, affecting the areas in front of the campus library and Manchester Hall.

However, even today, the A/C was still knocked out on campus and, luckily, our friends at the Hall of Champions were able to accommodate us. As Dr. Lackritz says, "You have to be flexible".

Organizational Behavior Presentations

Using the skills we’ve learned over the past couple of months in Organizational Behavior, the SMBA ’11 class presented to Dr. Amy Randal today. Eight groups were charged with analyzing companies in which surveys were conducted. The groups were responsible for analyzing the survey results and conducting follow-up interviews with the respective organizations to find out more information.

The presentations focused on eight different sports entities in San Diego. They included:

1) The San Diego Padres
2) The San Diego Chargers
3) Skinit.com
4) Bad Boys
5) San Diego State Athletic Department
6) University of San Diego Athletic Department
7) Hookit
8) Sportsforce

SMBA ’11 did a great job and, hopefully, the organizations are impressed with the final papers they will be presented in the next couple of days.

Octagon Internship - Mercury Insurance Open

By Victoria Hoe (SMBA '11)

Spending my summer as an intern with Octagon and their newly purchased tennis tournament in San Diego, the Mercury Insurance Open, proved to be an incredibly rewarding experience. The Mercury Insurance Open is a Premier event on the Sony Ericsson WTA Tour. Televised on the Tennis Channel and ESPN 2, the event comprised one of the 10 events of the Olympus US Open Series. As the Social Media Marketing Coordinator for the tournament, I was tasked with establishing a social media platform to promote and market the tournament, a premier event on the Sony Ericsson WTA Tour. This proved to be an awesome opportunity, since the tournament had virtually no presence on social media prior to this year, allowing me a great deal of creativity and freedom when it came promoting the event online.

I was fortunate enough to work with our great title sponsor, Mercury Insurance, and our presenting sponsor, Tri-City Medical Center, to develop cross-promotions on social media in an effort to enhance their sponsorship activation. Because return on investment (ROI) is important for any sponsor, I designed promotions, trivia contests, and giveaways in an effort to increase the profile of the event online. I also sought to provide fans with a behind-the-scenes look into a pro tennis tournament by providing live scoring updates from around the grounds, pictures and video uploads, press conference clips, and player features. For those on-site at the event, Twitter and Facebook proved to be an effective means for promoting daily autograph sessions and driving additional foot traffic to sponsor booths. Another interesting aspect of social media that I found (throughout the tournament especially) was the ability to ask fans what they wanted to see/hear/know. As we learned earlier in the year, "social media represent the cheapest focus groups in business."

A final point on my internship with Octagon and the Mercury Insurance Open -- it was absolutely amazing to see how much an event of this size and scope relies on volunteers. Former Speaker of the House, Tip O'Neil, once said that "all politics is local;" well, I would contend that most sporting events are local, as well. I've been to my share of tennis tournaments and volunteered at my share of sporting events, but I was absolutely blown away by how integral the volunteers were to the success of this event. From the hundreds of ball kids, tournament services volunteers, ushers, transportation drivers, and ticket takers, I can firmly say that this event would not have happened without their hard work and dedication. This event, so international in nature, featured a Russian player (Svetlana Kuznetsova) and a Polish player (Agniezska Radwanska) in the Finals, and despite relying on the WTA and USTA to brand the tournament internationally, it was really the local support of the La Costa Resort and Spa and the North County tennis community that help the event run behind the scenes. Overall, an excellent experience and one I won't soon forget.

Guest Speaker: Shana Gritsavage – Under Armour

Continuing the trend of impressive alumni visiting the classroom, Shana Gritsavage (SMBA ’07) stopped by to talk to SMBA ’11 during her vacation. Gritsavage is Senior Manager of Events & Corporate Giving for Under Armour, which has tripled their number of employees over the past three years and will hit $1 billion in revenue for the first time this year thanks to their increasing brand presence.

Gritsavage provided more insight into Under Armour and spent time discussing the four pillars of Under Armour’s philanthropic initiatives: Power in Pink, UA Green, UA Freedom, and UA Youth Athletes. Gritsavage explained the needs in each pillar and certain programs that Under Armour does in each to increase awareness and funds. Gritsavage also explained that out of the three things that her company can give out (money, product, volunteer service), product is her favorite because it increases brand awareness and doesn’t cost as much.

Gritsavage fielded a lot of questions from the SMBA ’11 class, which included topics like expanding internationally, starting UA Youth Athletes, brand marketing, steps she took to secure her job, the Rookie program, launching in to other sports, and event management.

The class thanks Gritsavage for stopping by. If you’d like to learn more about Under Armour or the charitable work they do, please visit this UNDER ARMOUR website.

Guest Speakers: Brittany Johnson & Jenny Price, LA Angels of Anaheim

Lawren Wolf (SMBA ’11) brought in Brittany Johnson, Manager of Training and Recruitment for the Angels, and Jenny Price, Director of Human Resources at the Angels, to speak to the class.

Johnson and Price informed the class of the year-long internship that the Angels offer. The Angels hire eight interns total to cover marketing, corporate sponsorship, media relations, fan relations, and ballpark operations.

Johnson and Price also fielded questions from SMBA ’11, which included questions about the application process, the number of employees at the Angels (125 year-round), resume tips, HR pet peeves, the 2010 All-Star Game, and the growth of social media.

The SMBA ’11 class thanks the Angels for taking time to visit the class. With any luck, members of the class will be working in Anaheim next year.

LA Day

By Greg Moore (SMBA ’11)

Now that the SMBA class is in the final stretch of this busy year, it’s time to start putting networking and job searching at the top of the priority list. With that said, I, as well as classmates Aileen Berran and Lawren Wolf, decided to take a trip up to Los Angeles to shake some hands.

Our first stop was talking to Lisa Jenkins (SMBA ’06) and Erika Lamiell (SMBA ’10) at IMG Worldwide. Besides discussing recent acquisitions by IMG and the intricacies of their current jobs, Lisa and Erika also imparted their sage wisdom of job searching, networking, narrowing job opportunities, and—of course—recruited us for possible assistance with upcoming IMG events.

After a quick stop at ESPN Zone for lunch, we then met Carl Ossipoff, Western Sales Director for ESPN, for a tour of ESPN studios in downtown Los Angeles. The highlight of the tour was sitting at the ESPN LA Sportscenter desk, but discussions about ESPN operations, radio affiliates, the company structure, and progressive ideas were more valuable. Carl even informed us of an 8-week internship with ESPN.

Since we were in the neighborhood, we caught the Rockies-Dodgers game at the third-oldest baseball park in the country. The Dodgers won 6-0, but we promise our Padre-fandom was not hampered. On the ride back, I made sure to read our Organizational Behavior reading out loud.

Alumni Sponsorship Panel

The SMBA flexed their alumni muscle today, as Jack Tipton (SMBA ’06), Matt Balvanz (SMBA ’08), and Matt Furrie (SMBA ’10) collectively led a sponsorship panel for the SMBA ’11 class.

Tipton, who currently works in sponsor sales for the Pittsburgh Pirates, discussed the questions that one needs to answer when partnering with sponsors. These questions included 1) who are you?, 2) what is your audience/demo?, 3) what opportunities exist?, and 4) what value does your property bring to the table?. Tipton also clearly went through his Seven Steps to landing a sponsor.

Furrie, who currently works for Momentum Worldwide, then led the panel. Furrie discussed how to develop an activation plan and identifying ways to hit activation, which included target demo, consumer touchpoints, feasibility, costs, audience, data capture, and ROI.

Balvanz, who currently works for Navigate Marketing (a sponsorship measurement company in Chicago), then took over and discussed the before, during, and after of researching sponsors. Balvanz discussed how to quantitatively research sponsors and measure their effectiveness, which is becoming increasingly important in today's business world.

After the three guests taught us about sponsors, the SMBA ’11 class was given an assignment that included coming up with creative ideas to partner new or existing sponsors with the San Diego Rock ‘n' Roll Marathon. Despite only having a 2 hours, the SMBA ’11 class impressed the panel with presentations that included sponsors like Hard Rock Café, Garmin, and Oakley.

The SMBA ’11 class thanks our three guests for their insights and further knowledge about sponsorship.