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The sport management team—along with associate professor Annemarie Farrell—immediately hit the ground running after their arrival in Phoenix on February 7. They oversaw all kinds of liveevent management, such as checking credentials, greeting guests, setting up for private parties, and working with brand activations. Brenna Lorenzen ’24, a business administration major with concentrations in marketing and sport management, said they made sure to provide the best experience for guests by being available and assisting when needed. Working at the Super Bowl was an eye-opening experience for Lorenzen.

“There are so many different elements that go into an event that large, and it really made me develop a new level of appreciation for all the time and effort that goes into the planning and production, as well as the people who make it happen,” she said

For both groups, the experience, though exhilarating, was also demanding. A typical day was very busy for the crew at the Phoenix Convention Center. The students scheduled and conducted as many interviews as they could at their table, walked around the building with handheld recorders for other interviews, and participated in media conferences with the Philadelphia Eagles and Kansas City Chiefs players and coaches. They recorded their sportscast, put it together, and sent it back to WICB in Ithaca for air daily.

“I learned that many of your best opportunities come from the ones that you create yourself,” Richardson said. “I remember bringing this up to Matt Sosler briefly during our freshman year and a lot last year. If anything, getting to experience this only motivates me to want to get back there working in a professional market.”

On the day of the Super Bowl, the sport management students were on their feet for 18 hours, working for On Location’s Elite program—which catered to the ticket holders who had the best seats in the best section of the stadium. The students were at pregame and postgame events, organizing and distributing parking passes, directing guests around the site, and answering questions.

Hudson Hassler ’24, a business administration major with a concentration in sport management, said their main goal was to ensure guests came away with a memorable experience every day.

“It’s pretty awesome that we got to contribute to experiences that people are never going to forget,” Hassler said. “And in exchange, it gave us an experience that we will certainly remember forever.”

Despite the long workdays, students took to heart the concept of “fan first” emphasized by their professors and the companies they worked for. Hassler said that after the game, they staffed an elite event that lasted late into the night.

“We were tired and our bodies were in pain, it was hard to hide,” Hassler said. “But we were encountering all of these Chiefs fans who just witnessed their team winning a Super Bowl—probably one of the greatest feelings in the world—and we knew we had to match their energy. So, we smiled— we were happy for them and always remembered to put the fans first.”

The television-radio and sports media students talked to sports radio hosts—some of whom they had grown up listening to—as well as professional athletes. Richardson was able to interview a variety of people, including Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes, on opening night. “I somehow managed to get up front to be able to ask the best player in football a few questions,” he said.

Farrell also emphasized that the Super Bowl experience is only one part of the sport management program’s practicum experience, as students have also worked at other events, such as the NCAA Final Four tournaments and the Olympics.

“Entertainment is large, so students need a variety of different experiences,” Farrell said. “Many students that went to the Super Bowl want to go into live-event management, some into operations. Some will go into law school, so it’s a diverse group. It’s important to us that the group reflects the diversity of our major at Ithaca College.”

Hassler said the people she met there and the connections she made with her classmates were invaluable.

“It didn’t feel real. I’m still processing everything I experienced,” Hassler said. “To be able to work at and attend one of the biggest sporting events in the world is so special. Attending a Super Bowl is something that not too many people get to experience. To say I’m grateful is an understatement.

Jeremy Menard, television and radio operations manager, said the whole idea for participating in Radio Row was student initiated. The four students stopped by his office one day in the fall semester and asked if they could represent WICB at the big game. Menard encouraged them to apply for credentials, and they were ultimately approved.

This is an experience I’m sure the students will not soon forget,” Menard said. “To be a college student, to be able to go to the Super Bowl, and to be able to cover it with the biggest names in sports media—that’s unbelievably special. And to be one of a handful of colleges represented I think also speaks to what we do here in the Park School and how seriously we take broadcasting, sports media, and radio and television.”

“This is the culmination of four years of hard work by these students, in and outside the classroom, who also took to heart the ‘day one, you’re on’ promise that Park makes to incoming students,” said Amy Falkner, dean of the Park School. “These four young men have been covering big-deal sporting events during their entire time here, Cortaca at Yankee Stadium being the latest example. They definitely earned their invitation to Radio Row.”