Jeffrey Chao is a first
year student at Chicago Booth. As an active member of the Media,
Entertainment, and Sports Group (MESG), Jeffrey
helped organize MESG’s New York Career Trek in January. Once upon a time in college,
Jeffrey interned for Major League Baseball and the National Football League,
and he was excited to revisit his old stomping grounds. Jeffrey was recently
elected Co-Chair of MESG, and looks forward to helping plan events such as the
Trek and the annual MESG Sports Symposium, which he attended this past November
and wrote about here.
--Matthew Richman
 |
| College Jeff (top) and MBA Jeff (bottom) visit the NFL |
Earlier
this year, I teamed up with two other first year students, Maile Housel and
Phil Caruso, to plan the Media, Entertainment, and Sports Group’s New York trek.
These industries don’t follow a typical MBA recruiting cycle, making trek
planning an exercise in persistence. However, we found that companies in these
industries are increasingly looking for bright, ambitious MBA talent. In the
end, we secured visits to six companies: Ticketmaster, Brooklyn Bowl, Food
Network, Major League Baseball (MLB), National Football League (NFL), and Vox
Media. Here are three key takeaways we learned from planning and attending our
trek.
1. Network, network,
network
Breaking
into and succeeding in these industries involve a heavy dose of networking. We
utilized all the connections that our expansive Booth network afforded to coordinate
our company visits. Some of these contacts included the MESG’s alumni network at
MLB and NFL, our collective pre-MBA networks, and a range of Booth alumni. For
instance, Sergei Kuharsky ’88, General Manager at Food Network, hosted us for a
“lunch and learn”, and Nilay Patel, a University of Chicago 2003 graduate, discussed
with us his role as Managing Editor of The Verge, a popular technology
news website operated by Vox Media.
 |
| The Trek group at the Food Network with Booth alum Sergei Kuharsky '88 |
2. Data analytics is the
future
At
every firm we visited, data analytics were a prominent point of discussion.
Representatives from Ticketmaster’s ticketing department talked about utilizing
dynamic pricing to combat secondary market sales, while NFL employees discussed
quantifying success of its marketing efforts in areas like community relations
and corporate sponsorship. Dan Darien, Vice-President of Research and Strategic
Planning at MLB, touched on advanced pricing strategies and better
understanding of consumer habits through television and digital media data. Hearing
about the importance of data analytics made me glad that I secured a spot in
this spring’s Sports Analytics class with renowned professors and sports
enthusiasts John Huizinga, Tobias Moskowitz, and Kevin Murphy. Booth has a number of other classes
on the cutting edge of analytics and data-driven marketing, such as Data Mining
and Managerial Decision Modeling, that help prepare us for internships and jobs.
 |
| Ticketmaster corporate visit |
3. “A recipe without a
story isn’t fun”
When
Sergei Kuharsky spoke about how Food Network became one of the most successful
cable networks on air today, he philosophized, “A recipe without a story isn’t
fun.” Forging a career in media, entertainment, or sports requires hard work,
intelligence, and—as all of the people we met with will readily admit—a little
bit of luck. But the payoff is a fun job with fun stories. On our trek, we
listened to live music while knocking down pins at Brooklyn Bowl, admired all
47 Super Bowl rings prominently displayed in the NFL’s lobby, and checked out
Vox Media’s secret gaming cave hidden behind an ordinary bookshelf.
 |
| The group poses with the Lombardi Trophy at the NFL |
The Trek was a great opportunity for those of us with a passion for the intersection for sports and business to meet the Booth community in these fields, including both the alumni network and our current classmates (and hopefully future colleagues). This Trek, coupled with all the MESG events I’ve attended and specialized classes on the horizon, made me realize how critical my Booth experience will be in shaping my future career path. I’m excited to help facilitate these experiences as MESG Co-Chair next year!
 |
| Trek participants at Burger Joint, a “secret” burger place hidden in Le Meridian Hotel |
No comments:
Post a Comment