Sports MBA Students Pitch Partnership Ideas to LAFC
To present their culminating project for the Sports Marketing & Sponsorships course with Dr. Vassilis Dalakas, SMBA ’22, recently spent that day at Banc of California Stadium in Los Angeles. Students spent the entire fall semester preparing activation plans for LAFC and their new partner, Remitly, a money transfer app. The client for the class project was LAFC SVP & Head of Corporate Partnerships, Kristen Kuhn, and her team, including Sports MBA alumnus Jaime Kelm (SMBA ’17), LAFC’s Director, Business & Data Strategy. Teams were tasked with brainstorming creative activations and ways to engage fans with the Remitly app focusing on both a gameday fan expo and community engagement initiatives.
Professor Dalakas and Sports MBA alumna Amy Wesson (SMBA ’17), Director, Partnership Marketing with the Pittsburgh Penguins, guided the class. This was the group’s second sponsorship activation project of the course. The other presentation was to Monumental Sports and Entertainment and Luke Willardson (SMBA ‘15) in October.
LAFC rolled out the red carpet for Sports MBA, with all stadium assets, including the in-stadium scoreboards and LED ribbon boards welcoming San Diego State University. Kristen Kuhn gave students a sports business-focused tour of the stadium that highlighted its partnership assets such as executive suites and sponsor branding signage and ribbon boards throughout the stadium.
For the rest of the afternoon, eight teams pitched their sponsorship activation plans to four members of the LAFC corporate partnerships team. Presenting directly to industry executives offered students invaluable experience, particularly the sizable number of current students looking to pursue careers in corporate partnerships upon graduation.
Professor Dalakas, who set up the opportunity, raved about the value of experiential learning through projects like this one. “There is no question that applied, and experiential learning opportunities provide valuable benefits to the students. I am thankful for the program's alumni who help us to have strong connections with the industry and to be able to have such valuable opportunities for the students. Doing this real-world project with a franchise in the MLS and having the students present at the Banc of California Stadium to the LAFC Corporate Partnership group was a unique experience that adds enormous value to their educational experience. All eight student groups did an excellent job on the project, and I couldn’t be prouder of them!”
LAFC selected one team as the winner of the competition. The group was lauded for their creative ideas, their attention to club and brand values, and their incorporation of the dedicated group of LAFC superfans, The 3252. The winning team included SMBA ‘22 students Lilly Markusch, Manny Arteaga, Vasili Dallas, Astrid Enciso, and Devin Wilson. The team received LAFC merchandise and tickets to an LAFC home game in 2022 for their efforts.
Lilly Markusch, a member of the winning group, enjoyed the LAFC project experience, noting, “This was such a fun and unique experience being able to work with my classmates to research and create activation plans for LAFC and their sponsors. I’ve learned so much about corporate partnerships through this project and want to thank LAFC and Dr. Dalakas for the opportunity to give us real-world experience working directly with a professional sports team!”
SMBA ‘22 would like to give a big thank you to Kristen and Jaime with LAFC as well Dr. Dalakas for this amazing hands-on industry experience.
