BW sports management program takes on America’s biggest game with Super Bowl LVII trip

The BW marketing and sports management program embarked on their annual Super Bowl trip again this February.

The BW marketing and sports management program took on Super Sunday again this year, as a group of 21 students departed for Glendale, Arizona on Feb. 7 for the big game.   

During their time participating in the NFL experience, students worked at many VIP events and parties for high-end clientele, participating in an event for the Pro Football Hall of Fame and the Merlin Olsen luncheon among other activities.  

“I think it’s about seeing what it takes to put on a sports mega event,” said Dr. Charles Campisi, marketing and sports management department chair, “so all that goes around, from the marketing standpoint, from the execution standpoint, just in getting all the people in, getting them from place to place, and making sure you have all that you need.” 

Campisi said that students had the opportunity to watch how situations play out in the real world, allowing them to reflect on what they might change or what they might keep the same when it comes to their own careers.  

Hannah Dick, a senior sports management and marketing major, said that taking these trips to the Super Bowl over the years has given her communication and leadership skills while also making her more confident in her abilities.  

“I feel like, from an operational standpoint, it helps us realize what actually goes into an event of that magnitude” said Dick. “A lot of the time, things are behind the scenes, so you’re not really understanding what’s going on until you’re actually in that role working and helping them.” 

Experiential learning opportunities such as this one have been able to give students skills they wouldn’t be able to learn in a university setting, said Dick, helping them to think more swiftly and make connections with new people. 

“I feel like you can only teach so many skills from the book, so actually going out and physically doing it…where you have to think and be on the fly and just choose your best judgment to just assess the situation, that’s not something that’s gonna come from the classroom,” Dick said. 

In addition to their work at the NFL experience, students were also able to visit a BW alumni who works as the Senior Associate Athletic Director for media relations at Arizona State University, Campisi said. Students were able to take a tour of the university and its athletic facilities while also being able to hear about the alum’s career.  

The Super Bowl is not the only event that the sports management department has in store for its students, though, as they have a wide range of events for different sports in which students can take part, Campisi said. 

“Not everybody’s a football fan, not everybody wants to do the Super Bowl,” Campisi said, “so we have Formula 1 races that we work now, we have the Kentucky Derby, we have students going on a couple of PGA tour events, we have The Masters, the Men’s and Women’s Final Fours, so I think adding those other events is kind of the main difference.” 

Campisi said that doing these Super Bowl trips over the years has opened the door for the sports management program to be able to add additional sporting events, such as the ones mentioned above, to the experiential learning students receive. Overall, the goal of these trips is for students to have fun while gaining experience that will help them down the line. 

“The success is really based upon the students and what they get out of it, and it seems they had positive experiences,” Campisi said. 

Both sports management majors and non-majors can sign up to possibly be selected for these trips through a database in the sports management and marketing department if interested, as the department tries to include as many people as possible.