First D.R. Fundraising Venture

One of the unique experiences of the SMBA is that the International Business class takes place over a 10-day period in the Dominican Republic. More specifically, the program works with the San Diego Padres top-notch Dominican Republic school to empower the surrounding community through sports and the ideas generated from the SMBA class.

SMBA '11 will be traveling to the D.R. in late June, but there are a number of things we need to accomplish before then. The first being fundraising for the trip and raising money for the D.R. community.

Tonight, our first fundraising opportunity was held at Effin's. We raised a little more than $90 thanks to the support from the Effin's staff. However, we expect to raise more as the weeks progress, especially since we now have a website to aid our efforts (courtesy of Rebecca Cathcart, SMBA '11):

Dominican Republic Fundraising

If you have any suggestions on Fundraising ideas or would like to help out, feel free to comment.

Dick Freeman

As an added bonus to our Accounting BA 650 course, Professor Dave Debowski is bringing in Dick Freeman to offer real-world accounting experience. Today was our first class with Dick Freeman, who after serving in the Navy worked his way to Chief Financial Officer and CEO of both the San Diego Padres and Pittsburgh Pirates. For both the Padres and Pirates, he was an integral part of the team receiving the financing for a new ballpark. Even after retiring from his position with the Padres in March, he's now serving as a consultant for the Minnesota Twins and their new ballpark, Target Field.

Even after our first Statistics exam, SMBA '11 was thrilled to have such a high-profile guest lecturer.

Once again, the SMBA has gone above-and-beyond to provide us with not only another fantastic opportunity, but a valuable source of information. SMBA '11 looks forward to more classes from Mr. Freeman.

Sports@Lunch with Tony Gwynn and Rich Hill

By Aileen Berran (SMBA '11)

At the beginning of January some of the members of the SMBA '11 had the opportunity to help the San Diego Hall of Champions with their Elite Eight High School Basketball Showcase held at the University of San Diego. For those of you who may not be aware, the San Diego Hall of Champions is the nation's largest multi-sport museum located in beautiful Balboa Park. The San Diego Hall of Champions recognizes San Diego's outstanding athletic accomplishments and traditions, and athletes such as Ted Williams, Tony Gwynn, Bill Walton and many more are honored in the museum.

As a thank you for our help with the event, the Hall of Champions offered us a ticket to their Sports@Lunch with Tony Gwynn and Rich Hill, the San Diego State University and University of San Diego Baseball Head Coaches, respectively. A few members of SMBA '11 joined them as they discussed their respective team's outlook for the upcoming NCAA Baseball season. The event was emceed by Craig Elston, of 619 sports in San Diego, and was conducted as an open forum.

Now, being a baseball fan my entire life it was an honor to hear one of the greatest hitters of all time, Tony Gwynn, discuss his outlook on both the SDSU season and San Diego baseball in general. Tony noted that the quality of baseball in San Diego is great, but they need to find a way to try to keep this talent in the area when the players come of college age. Both men discussed their recruiting strategies and their opinions on the outlook of San Diego College Baseball in the national limelight. They agreed that until either team gets to the College World Series it would be very hard to be known as a dream college for those top prospects in high school.

However, USD is currently ranked #24 in the Collegiate Baseball preseason top-40 poll and SDSU reached the Regionals last year. Tony stated that having former SDSU player Stephen Strasburg, drafted #1 overall by the Washington Nationals in 2009, helped the SDSU program, but it was up to his guys on the current team to build upon that to strengthen their program. Rich Hill stated that his team's strength is their experience and being able to build a great schedule and having a strong RPI can only help them when it comes to College World Series Selection time.

You could tell that both men have great respect for one another, as they discussed the upcoming Black and Blue rivalry games, being held on February 25-28th at both Tony Gwynn Stadium (SDSU campus) and Cunningham Stadium (USD). The SMBA '11 class will definitely be in attendance on the February 25th game cheering on those Aztecs against their in-city rivals. At the end of the lunch, Tony Gwynn was more than happy to sign autographs and even take a picture with the SMBA '11 crew.

Who Dat?

Last night served as a microcosm of why many of us would like a career in sports. The New Orleans Saints defeated the favored Indianapolis Colts 31-17 to win their first Super Bowl. Saints fans started the party in Miami, but in New Orleans fans spilled on to Bourbon Street and hugged, kissed, and celebrated their team's accomplishment.

However, the fact that a football team could lift the collective spirits of so many in a city that only 4 years ago was ruined by Hurricane Katrina is exactly what is right about sports. With hope, a number of us in SMBA '11 will experience a national championship and the feeling of a city coming together as one for a team we're working for in the future.

Aztec for Life!

By Luke Epp (SMBA '11)

After a quick break for lunch, the SMBA class reconvened at the Aztec Athletic Center. The beautiful facility is home to the SDSU Hall of Fame, has a state-of-the-art weight room, houses the Aztec coaching staffs, and also has an academic center for student-athletes. Our SMBA class was privileged enough to be invited over by the SDSU Athletic Department. In the weeks prior they had tasked us with evaluating the experience of the mens' and women's basketball games.

Lucky for us, the Athletic Department has provided us with season tickets to the Aztec basketball games this year! Our class has come out in full force to show our support. The highlight for me was the BYU game. Although SDSU lost a close one to BYU (currently ranked #12), the capacity crowd was absolutely rocking. The Athletic Department ran a "Black Out" promotion in which each student received a black towel with the SDSU fight song printed on it. The class thought this was a tremendous idea and as you can see from the picture, it was executed very well. Joe Shemanski (SMBA '11) stepped up and presented the class' feedback directly to the Athletic Department panel. Great job, Joe!

After presenting our feedback, we heard directly from the Athletic Department. Don Oberhelman - Interim Athletic Director/COO, Sean Briner - Associate Athletic Director/Marketing & Sales, Bob Moosbrugger - Associate Athletic Director Development/Major Gifts, Nick Pettit - Associate Athletic Director, Steve Schnall - Associate Athletic Director, Jay Larson - Assistant Athletic Director of Compliance, Chris Carlson - Director of Marketing and Ticket Sales, and Diane Penny - General Manager of Aztec Sports Properties for Learfield Sports all gave a quick overview of their experience in college athletics and their main responsibilities. It was great for the class to get exposed to the inner workings of a Division-1 collegiate athletic department. Each presenter's passion and enthusiasm for their job was clearly evident. They definitely take great pride in Aztec athletics, their student-athletes, and the entire SDSU community. A BIG THANKS goes out to Aztec athletics. SMBA '11 is excited to get involved and help in any way possible!

Our day ended by getting a behind-the-scenes tour of the facilities. Wow...if I was being recruited by SDSU, I know I would be signing! The tour started out at the weight room, where the football team was finishing up with a workout. It kind of reminded me of the days when I used to pump iron as a member of the Purdue University golf team (yes, the golf team actually did work out). We then strolled into the Tony Gwynn Stadium, which is widely considered one of the best college baseball facilities in the country. Check out the picture...it's pretty easy to see why. I think I even caught a glimpse of the man the field was named after.

After working up a sweat on the baseball diamond, the class decided to a quick dip in the new Aztec Aquaplex. I will surely be going over there later in the semester as the temperatures rise! The last stop on the tour was the Aztec Tennis Center where we got a chance to speak with men's head coach, Gene Carswell. He gave us some background on both the men's and women's tennis programs, their upcoming schedule, and how the Aztec Tennis Center has been a great tool to help recruiting. I even saw and heard the next Maria Sharapova practicing. Another big thanks goes out to Chris Carlson for being such a great tour guide. SMBA '11 really appreciates Chris and Sean Briner being the liaison between SDSU Athletics and our program.

Go Aztecs!

Football or Futbol?

By Jessica Ceresino (SMBA '11)

After a long week of Statistics and Accounting, we were delighted to have Mark and Yuki Zeigler stop by and speak to the SMBA class about an often-forgotten sport in America: soccer. Mark is a sports columnist for the San Diego Union-Tribune. He covers a lot of soccer domestically and abroad, including the World Cup. Yuki works for Soccer United Marketing, focusing daily on the massive challenge of creating popularity for soccer in a country that seems to have no interest.

Soccer is the world's favorite sport, and the number one sport played by youth in America. However, after the youth level, something happens and its popularity plummets in the U.S. So, what happens?

Well, Mark and Yuki offered their experience and first-hand knowledge of the sport here in America to try to explain just where the disconnect happens. They showed us how soccer is different than other American sports in that it's divided into different sections. Those sections of fans only care about one level of soccer. That is, it's not the same as baseball, where the fans only have the MLB to watch. Soccer fans can watch the EPL, MLS, World Cup, youth games, college games, and the list goes on. So, generally, a soccer fan is only a fan of one of these leagues. Therefore, it's difficult to get the same backing the Chicago Cubs have in Chicago, behind the Chicago MLS team, the Fire. It's not that there aren't fans out there, they just aren't all watching the same games. This presents a difficult task to Yuki and her colleagues of combining these fans under the same umbrella and driving them to watch the same thing.

Mark and Yuki happened to hit a nostalgic note with me, as Mark mentioned his coverage of Olympic Gold Medalist, Rachel Buehler. I remember my first game playing against Rachel; we were 9 years old. I quickly learned that Rachel was going to be something special. She was a perfect combination of athleticism and finesse, which is a rare thing in the soccer world. We went on to play on the same team for the 9 years that followed that game. In fact, Rachel and I held a sign at the 1999 World Cup championship that read, "Surf girls u-15, future U.S. national team."

While that wasn't true for 17 of us, last year in Beijing, Rachel and the U.S. Women's National soccer team took home the gold medal after defeating Brazil. I can't explain the feeling of watching Rachel celebrate and carry the American flag around with some of the greatest names in the game. It's moments like that that Yuki and Mark are looking for to reignite the passion of youth players in America to follow soccer intensely, like baseball and football fans have their entire lives.

I'm not sure where the disconnect happens, but it does, and I speak from experience. Once a devoted soccer fan, watching Brandi Chastain and Mia Hamm whenever I could, I now--regretfully--only tune in to World Cup games. Hopefully, Yuki and Soccer United Marketing can figure out a way to fix the current disconnect.

The Farmers Insurance Open

As Torrey described below, the SMBA class volunteered for the Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines this past weekend. While most volunteers had to pay $50 to volunteer, we were able to help out thanks to the Sports MBA connections.

As part of volunteering, we were the first-line of hospitality and we made potential customers aware of the Century Club seat upgrade experience. To make us look more professional the Farmers Insurance Open armed us with a nice golf fleece, parking passes, lapel pins, weekend passes to see the top golfers, and (most importantly) knowledge.

Ben Crane won the weekend's tournament, but more attention was paid to San Diego's own Phil Mickelson. Mickelson wasn't able to win the Farmers Insurance Open, but he did win a spot in this picture by Oumar Ganame (SMBA '11):