Sports Media minor

Preparing student-athletes for the Prime of their lives

Anonymous — Mon, 29 Jan 2024 23:05:30 +0000

Preparing student-athletes for the Prime of their lives Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 01/29/2024 - 16:05

By Joe Arney

Deion “Coach Prime” Sanders saw the value of an athlete’s public persona long before his football or baseball contemporaries.

Now, as the ��«��Ƶ takes the wraps off a NIL-themed course on sports media, management and culture, it’s hard to imagine a better model.

Athletes are media celebrities whose identity gives them access to commerce, reputation, fame, all these kinds of things. But the person who puts on the helmet has to become another person in front of the cameras.”
Rick Stevens, associate dean

“Coach Prime recognized this model before there was a model,” said Rick Stevens, associate dean of undergraduate education and an associate professor of media studies at the College of Media, Communication and Information. “He understood how to perform an identity that allowed him to accomplish the business, social justice, performance and celebrity goals needed in our media system.”

College sports have undergone tremendous upheaval following the NCAA’s adoption of a “right to publicity” that gave athletes control over their name, image and likeness—NIL for short. But those changes have rippled throughout the landscape, meaning media professionals need a new set of skills and perspectives.

The new course—called, fittingly, Prime Time: Public Performance and Leadership—is about teaching student-athletes how to create those personas, while preparing aspiring media professionals to tell stories effectively in an age where what college athletes say as students can affect their potential earnings and influence.

“The course will teach student athletes to tell their stories strategically, in ways that help them be who they want to be, and will help journalists learn how to enable, challenge and help the stories they’re telling evolve,” Stevens said. “We have to rethink those relationships and dynamics between media icons and the media who cover them.”

A prime time to create impact

Few people anticipated the new age of college sports like Sanders, who demonstrated the value of an athlete’s personal brand as a two-sport phenom in the 1990s. As head coach of the Buffaloes football team, Sanders’ personality and social-media impact have driven incredible returns to the university and city.

Coach Prime has already delivered a lecture on managing social media to the class, but Stevens said the name of the course is more about the prime time personas each athlete has the opportunity to create in a limited window.

“Athletes are media celebrities whose identity gives them access to commerce, reputation, fame, all these kinds of things,” Stevens said. “But the person who puts on the helmet has to become another person in front of the cameras. The class is trying to build a particular kind of media literacy, so that those who need to develop a prime-time narrative can think about what the pieces are and how they fit together, and make the right choices accordingly.”

A deep bench of experts

In addition to an ambitious set of topics—everything from athlete personas and sports betting to confronting racism and how to empower others—classroom lectures will be enhanced through regular appearances by athletes, sportswriters and other media professionals.

Confirmed guest lecturers include Sanders; Kordell Stewart (Comm’18), former NFL star and media analyst; journalists Brent Schrotenboer (Jour’96) and Michael Lyle; analyst Joel Klatt (Econ’05); Tom Garfinkel (Comm’91), president of the Miami Dolphins; and Abbey Shea, assistant athletic director for NIL at CU.

Those choices might include which products to endorse, what organizations to follow on social media and what causes to align with. Case studies that the students will examine will follow the career arcs of athletes like Colin Kaepernick, Ricky Williams and Richard Sherman, whose prime times coincided with controversy. The final project will ask teams of students to consider the best possible paths for athletes entering their prime times, both theoretical opportunities for historic cases as well as—especially as the course becomes established—CU athletes exploring their social media identities or what endorsements represent the brands they want to build.

A range of perspectives

Invited lectures, which will feature athletes, media personalities and experts from CU's athletics department, will take place one day each week. The other course day will feature a rotating cast of faculty representing CMCI’s thought leadership expertise in media studies, information science, journalism, communication, advertising and public relations.

One of those professors is Jamie Skerski, associate chair for undergraduate studies and an expert in communication and culture. She sees the course as an opportunity to look at the individual components that make up sports culture to better understand how it’s created.

“We have this opportunity to pull apart the different elements—the representation, the producers, the consumers, the regulations, the identities—that go into this new athletics landscape,” Skerski said. “When you do that, you get a more nuanced, leveled view of the way the pieces of the culture interact and become normalized.”

That is especially interesting to her from a gender standpoint. Could a more nuanced understanding of the way we consume sports change how NIL deals are executed—say, if a male athlete gets a certain amount of sponsorship, an equal amount must go to a woman?

“Because it’s basically the wild west right now, it’s a good time to question the status quo,” she said.

Stevens said the new perspectives of faculty invited to participate in the course have helped him think differently about pop culture, sports and media influence. It’s a feature of CMCI, which was formed about a decade ago to solve the kinds of complex, future-oriented problems coming out of media-related disciplines that are increasingly interconnected in the real world.

“This course is very in keeping with our college’s spirit,” Stevens said. “You have this new condition of NIL, resulting in a new arrangement among media, athletes, institutions and systems, and none of our departments are precisely positioned to answer the questions that are arising. But most of our departments have a piece of the puzzle, so by involving this many faculty, we’re able to get a more complete picture of all the dynamics involved.”

NIL has changed the relationship between athletes and the media. As it happens, one NFL athlete was 30 years ahead of the curve.

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A minor for major-league sports

Anonymous — Mon, 29 Jan 2024 22:18:26 +0000

A minor for major-league sports Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 01/29/2024 - 15:18

By Hannah Stewart (Comm’19)
Photos by Jack Moody

The Olympics. The Super Bowl. The Final Four. The Stanley Cup Final.

Alumni from the ��«��Ƶ have made their mark reporting on and working in the sports world. Many are award winners—including National Sportswriter of the Year—and many more have seen their love of the game reach millions of fans worldwide.

That track record of excellence led the College of Media, Communication and Information to develop its sports media minor, which prepares students for careers in sports, whether behind the scenes or in front of the camera. Students take classes covering traditional topics, such as writing and broadcasting, but also courses that look at sports from academic and business perspectives.

And while a signature feature of the program is the opportunity to connect with the world-class alumni network in sports, there’s much more to the minor.

“Networking is just one of the components,” said Marina Dmukhovskaya, associate director of the sports media minor. “It’s also about finding their niche. By having a variety of classes, both conceptual and skills heavy, it can offer them a great choice.”

Interested in this minor?

If you are a CMCI major, you may discuss and declare the minor with your CMCI advisor. You can also declare by filling out a minor form online.

For students outside of CMCI, the minor can only be declared once you’re enrolled in CMCI 2001: Intro to Sports Media Practices.

Senior Kennedy Pickering credited the minor with helping her discover her niche. She came to CU ��«��Ƶ because she was interested in the relationship between people and social media. Thanks to the minor, she has had the opportunity to create replay packages for a CU volleyball game; develop technical skills, like working a camera; and network with media professionals when CU Athletics hosted Fox’s Big Noon Kickoff pregame show.

“With the sports media minor, I’ve been able to take classes that gave me more hands-on experience, like Sports Writing and Sport Broadcasting,” Pickering said. “One of my professors is in charge of BuffVision, and through him I’ve been able to work with the camera. At first, I wanted to be a sideline reporter, but then I realized that being on the screen was not for me.” Her goal now is to work in social media for the NFL or Nike.

Community through sport

More than 200 CU ��«��Ƶ students are currently enrolled in the minor. Not all are athletes, but most aspire to work in the industry, like Eli Grimm, a lifelong figure skater who wants to get into the sports communications field. Beyond their own interests in athletics, Grimm said they see sports as a way to create impact because so many people engage with sports. Even less-mainstream events like Formula 1 races have become more popular thanks, in part, to the Netflix series Drive to Survive.

“Sports are a platform for mass communication. In the Sports Writing class, I got to write about the events I was already watching,” said Grimm, a senior majoring in strategic communication who learned about the program after arriving at CU ��«��Ƶ as a transfer student. “It was nice to feel like the experience was personalized around my interests.”

“With the sports media minor, I’ve been able to take classes that gave me more hands-on experience.”
Kennedy Pickering, senior

Jacob Dilling, a junior studying communication and a member of the CU ski team, chose the sports media minor as a way to develop a fuller perspective of the industry.

“I still plan on skiing professionally after school. But I think this will help me build connections within my sport and other sports, so that once I’m finished, I have something to fall back on,” Dilling said.

Both students said one thing they enjoy most about the program is the challenge to explore new perspectives on sports and topics they are passionate about. Dmukhovskaya said that enthusiasm is a good indicator of their success after graduation. She herself has worked in the sports media world for years—in addition to covering the Olympics four times, she has been a media manager for the Russian Skating Union, worked with the International Biathlon Union and wrote for the International Paralympics Committee.

“Our students feel equipped, competent and confident as they are entering the job market,” she said. Just as important to their success, though, is the students’ enthusiasm for the course material—key for aspiring professionals looking to enter a highly competitive field.

Those aspiring professionals also benefit from the extensive network of media experts, who offer mentorship and exposure to career opportunities. Winter graduate Cassidy Davis (StratComm’23) said she found professional guidance from alumnus Mike Davies (Jour’94), an executive vice president for Fox Sports based in Los Angeles.

“The best part of my time at CU has been getting such broad experience, including public relations, sports media and graphic design,” Davis said. “Being able to study all of my little niches and learning how to put them together has made me confident about applying what I’ve learned at work.”

Students in CMCI’s sports media minor regularly have opportunities to network and get hands-on experience while completing the program.

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Sharing Stories of the Summer Games

Anonymous — Thu, 22 Jul 2021 22:08:29 +0000

Sharing Stories of the Summer Games Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 07/22/2021 - 16:08

By Tayler Shaw (Jour, Span’21) and Stephanie Cook (MJour’18)

After a year-long delay, the Tokyo Summer Olympic Games captured the world's attention in 2021

As this year’s events unfolded, sports reporters and storytellers––including alumni, students and faculty from CMCI––hit the ground running to capture the victories, struggles and emotions of athletes from around the globe.

The experience has likely been both familiar and thrilling for Olympic veterans such as USA Volleyball Communications Manager B.J. Hoeptner Evans (Jour’90), who marked Tokyo as her sixth Games. Another longtime pro, AP photographer Gregory Bull (Jour’91), captured an iconic photo of Gabby Douglas’ gold medal-winning beam performance during the London Olympics in 2012 and returned to cover gymnastics and swimming in 2021. Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times journalist John Branch (Bus’89; MJour’96) also headed to Tokyo this year with a focus on newer events such as skateboarding, rock climbing and surfing.

For more recent graduates, like NBC Sports Event Management Assistant Lina Takahashi (Jour’19), the 2021 Olympics represented a personal and professional milestone. Attending the Tokyo Games, specifically, has been a longtime dream for Takahashi, whose father works with Japanese Olympic runners.

“I think my love for the Olympics was partly because of my dad,” she told CMCI in 2019, “but I also think that I was just amazed at how the world comes together every two years to compete, watch and celebrate their nation’s players.”

Paralympian, veteran and author Melissa Stockwell (Comm’02)––whose memoir, The Power of Choice: My Journey from Wounded Warrior to World Champion, was published in 2020––is competing as a triathlete after two previous Games. The first woman to lose a limb in the Iraq War, Stockwell has previously won three paratriathlon world championships and a bronze medal at the 2016 Rio Paralympics.

“Even with some of my fastest times, I was not confident that I was going to be named to the team as I needed an international invite slot, the same I had received in 2016 prior to Rio,” Stockwell wrote on Instagram, adding, “I think I am still in shock."

Some Olympic events this year brought current and former CMCI Buffs together. Television producer Peter Lasser (Comm’76)—who has covered 10 previous Games—recently captured the Olympic swimming trials in Omaha, Nebraska, alongside CMCI sophomore Abbie Snyder, who was there as a production runner for NBC.

"What a difference a year could make," Lasser says. "The athletes already compete for an opportunity that occurs in a very small window of time. Training for years, so that on a singular day you will perform at your best and hope to win a gold medal or any medal, or just make finals to compete for a medal. There were probably a dozen U.S. swimmers that would have made the team in the summer of 2020 but were surpassed in trials a year later by others who were reaching their peak. To quote the old ABC Wide World of Sports opening, it is the epitome of 'the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat'.

While journalists and producers have traditionally covered Olympic events in person, much of the reporting on this year's Games was conducted virtually due to the pandemic.

Lasser, who once filled in for Turner Sports to produce a hockey game virtually during the 1994 Winter Olympics in Lillehammer, believes that remote production will continue for future Olympics, for both technological and financial reasons.

"There are two major factors – first, the quality of the production that the world feed provides. Olympic Broadcasting Services has continued to add to the technology of coverage at each Olympics," he says. "The second factor is cost. It cost NBC roughly $50,000 per person sent to Tokyo––that is for airfare, hotel and per diem. It doesn’t even cover pay. At those numbers, it just doesn’t make sense."

CMCI Instructor and Sports Media Minor Director Marina Dmukhovskaya is one of many journalists who reported on the Games virtually for the first time this year, and despite having two previous Olympics under her belt—Sochi in 2014 and Pyeongchang in 2018—the Tokyo games made her feel like a novice again.

“You get used to coming to a place, talking to athletes, talking to coaches and attending press conferences,” she says. “And then suddenly all you have is a computer, your notes, internet and your colleagues.”

This was also Dmukhovskaya’s first time writing for the Olympic Channel, the platform of the International Olympic Committee. Based in Berlin, Germany, she began her coverage at 8 a.m. CEST—3 p.m. in Tokyo, Japan JST—and didn't wrap up until at least 6 p.m. CEST. Though she wasn't reporting on site, Dmukhovskaya met virtually with editors and production teams based in Tokyo and Madrid, as well as fellow journalists scattered around the globe.

“I think this is becoming a new norm,” she says, adding that, while she would have preferred to report from Tokyo, she understands the rationale for limiting exposure to the athletes, as well as the increasing importance of reducing travel for environmental reasons.

For feature stories, Dmukhovskaya focused more on individual athletes than on specific events, she says, noting that for many athletes, the real battle is not with their competitors but with themselves.

When looking for potential leads, Dmukhovskaya says, she examines the relationship dynamics between athletes and seeks details that capture the personal and often emotional stories of their Olympic journeys. Recently, she produced stories on athletes' mental health, on a rock climber who was forced to train alone after the death of his longtime coach, and on two former canoe racing rivals from the same team who realized they work better together.

“The way that they went from competitors to people who are looking forward to getting the same medal—from being these individuals to becoming a team—it’s amazing,” she says.

Part of what makes the Games so special, Dmukhovskaya adds, is the way each event brings together an international and diverse group of individuals.

“[The] Olympics is, I feel like, the greatest event on Earth because it brings the talent and the stories and the representatives of the entire planet,” she says.

Lasser agreed, noting that the international broadcast center is often a hub for broadcasters from around the world.

"I have always thought that the most unique aspect of the Olympic Games was the international broadcast center," he says. "You can walk through the facility and literally see broadcasters from hundreds of countries all bringing the story of the Olympic Games to their homeland. Just sitting in the commissary, you see the faces of the world in one room and hear so many languages. While the variety is great – the purpose and focus is the same."

While the main events take place over the span of about two weeks, producers like Lasser and journalists like Dmukhovskaya spend far longer preparing. Dmukhovskaya's assignments required extra research this year, as she needed to familiarize herself with summer events after spending most of her career focused on the Winter Games.

“It’s kind of an unfamiliar situation to me because I’m not an expert in summer sports. And it’s funny because I’m always telling my students who take up sports writing with me, ‘Hey, it doesn’t matter if you’re an expert, you can always research,’” she says. “So I’m actually following my own advice and I’m like, ‘Oh, now it’s me who has to do that.’”

For her first Games at Sochi in 2014, Dmukhovskaya, who speaks five languages including Korean, worked as a translator for Viktor Ahn, a six-time Olympic short track speed skating champion who represented Russia and was born in South Korea. She eventually began writing stories on the Olympics and fell in love with capturing the experience.

“The atmosphere was just so amazing,” she says. “I just wanted to experience that feeling again—the euphoria of being at this big event. And look at me now. I’m at home covering the Olympics in Tokyo.”

This year, especially, journalists and producers were critical in keeping fans engaged while they weren't allowed to attend in-person events. As a storyteller and fan herself, Dmukhovskaya says it was a responsibility she was proud to take on.

“When you have so many people from so many different countries—I couldn't think of anything else that brings people from all over the world together, and this is [what is] so special about the Olympic Games,” she says. “For me, it’s a great honor to be able to tell the stories of these athletes.”

As the Tokyo Olympics unfolded during a delayed run in 2021, CMCI sports reporters, producers and storytellers hit the ground running to capture the victories, struggles and emotions of athletes from around the globe.

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