President of Varsity Spirit Speaks Cheer with Sports MBA Class of '22

SMBA '22 on Zoom with Bill Seely

President of Varsity Spirit, Bill Seely, visited the Sports MBA Class of 2022 via Zoom to discuss his career path and discuss the role that Varsity plays in the sports business marketplace. Varsity Spirit is the worldwide leader of all things “spirit,” which includes cheerleading, dance, educational camps, and their related tournaments and competitions. Seely began as an intern right out of college, electing to work with Varsity over a large sports company and a professional sports team. After a few years, he left the organization to follow his passion, starting a non-profit youth sports organization to offer multiple sport options to children in low-income areas of Memphis which, to this day, is the largest youth sports organization in Memphis. 

Varsity eventually asked Seely to return to the company, this time serving as President. During his career, he founded USA Cheer and helped build USASF, National Governing Bodies for Sport Cheering in the United States. These organizations promote educational safety for cheerleading and help to grow and develop the sport nationwide. 

Seely told the students that in the next few years, he would like to see Varsity expand into working with school bands, leveraging the company’s expertise to help make bands at all levels operate more efficiently. 

Finally, his parting advice to the Sports MBA students was to “find your ‘why’ in the sports industry,” stressing that discovering this purpose will help students drive their passion to new heights.

The Class of 2022 enjoyed their visit with Bill Seely, and look forward to keeping the connection with Varsity going for years to come. Thanks for joining us, Bill!