Media, Sports, and Entertainment Trek: Exploring the Business Behind the Enjoyable

Oftentimes, the Media, Entertainment and Sports (MES) Club is an ignored one at Fuqua, paling compared to the likes of the consulting, finance, and advertising clubs. If you ask Laura Lane, sector director of media, leisure, and sports activities (amongst different industries), she’ll let you know that she’s fortunate to be working with college students who’re within the “fun industries.”

Each fall break, the membership organizes an MES Week-in-City Trek. It’s a three-day immersion in a metropolis the place college students go to main firms throughout the three industries to discover careers, hear from alumni, and expertise the enterprise behind the enjoyable. This yr, we returned to New York City. With my background in sports activities and a objective of constructing technical and strategic expertise via my MBA, happening this trek was a no brainer.

Stops on this yr’s journeys included New York City FC, The National Football League, The National Basketball League, Nike NYC HQ, Sirius XM, Warner Bros Discovery, BSE Global (Brooklyn Sports & Entertainment) and Major League Baseball. A large spectrum of firms with a standard theme in the event you ask most individuals: they appear like enjoyable locations to work.

Highlights of the 2025 Trek

1. Suit and ties aren’t required for these workplace visits as they may be for the consulting or funding banking treks. However, I want I had worn one when NBA Commissioner Adam Silver walked by our group as we took pictures with the Larry O’Brien Trophy. He stopped briefly after we instructed him we have been from Duke, as he himself is an alumnus.

2. Fuqua college students normally observe the principles, however we have been tempted to interrupt them when Nike staff on the NYC headquarters instructed us we couldn’t go to the third ground as a result of a soon-to-be-revealed product was being prepped for reveal, which turned out to be Project Amplify, the world’s first powered footwear system. I can’t say with full certainty that nobody from our group snuck onto the ground to take a peek whereas claiming to make use of the restroom.

3. While I can’t converse for each different business trek, I’m fairly positive none of them have seen something fairly like New York City FC’s new expertise middle for his or her soon-to-be-opened 25,000-seat soccer-specific stadium — full with a three-minute hype video that made us wish to run via a brick wall.

P.S. New Yorkers who’re eager about season tickets on the new stadium can be taught extra at: Etihad Park | New York City FC Stadium (shameless plug for my outdated employer).

Strong MES Partnerships

Beyond these memorable experiences and lots of others, what actually stood out was how these alternatives got here collectively. Most of those visits have been coordinated by present college students or alumni who tapped into Fuqua’s deep MES community. Brit Harding, MES membership co-president, organized our go to to Nike, the corporate he interned for this summer time. Sally Sandoval, the membership’s different co-president, hung out on the NBA earlier than Fuqua, giving us entry to their fifth Avenue workplace. I helped plan the NYCFC cease via my very own connections there, and former co-president Will Bartlett made positive Sirius XM and Warner Bros Discovery remained trek locations even after he graduated.

At each cease, alumni went out of their technique to host, advise, and join us. Scott Lewis, VP of Business Intelligence at NYCFC, not solely led our go to however took me to lunch afterwards and made an introduction to Bombas’ CEO Jason LaRose, one other Fuquan. At Nike and Warner Bros Discovery, panels of Duke and Fuqua grads shared candid insights about life in media, sports activities, and leisure, and we capped someday with a contented hour filled with alumni from each nook of the business. If we’d had extra time within the metropolis, I’m assured we might have added dozens extra firms with Fuqua ties to the itinerary.

I got here into Fuqua considering there was an opportunity that I’d pivot away from sports activities. After this Trek — seeing how the enterprise facet of sports activities thrives throughout New York and the way linked the Fuqua group is inside it — I’m not so positive anymore. MES may simply be too enjoyable to depart behind.