From Classroom Lessons to Real Deals: Her Sports x Aitana Bonmatí

Sports MBA Class of 2026 student Melissa Schueller is putting her SMBA experience to work this semester as a Soccer Strategy and Partnerships Intern with Her Sports, a women's sports media startup. Just weeks into the role, Melissa helped lead one of her first major projects: striking a partnership between Her Sports and the US Aitana Bonmatí Camp, a youth soccer camp led by the FC Barcelona and Spain national team star.

The project gave Melissa a direct opportunity to apply skills from the SMBA classroom in real time. As she worked to structure the partnership, she was simultaneously taking the program's partnerships and sales courses, which cover the exact skills needed to identify, pitch, and close deals like this one.

"Being in our partnerships and sales classes while actually working a deal like this was the perfect combination. I was learning frameworks for structuring partnerships one day and using them in real conversations the next. Getting to then stand on the field and meet Aitana, knowing I helped make that partnership happen, made it feel like everything had come full circle. It’s been a dream come true!" - Melissa Schueller

For Melissa, the experience was proof of what the SMBA program is built to do: pair classroom skill-building with real opportunities to put it into practice.