terpAMA hosts UMD Sports Marketing

The Assistant Director of Marketing for UMD Sports Marketing spoke to terpAMA and the Sports Business Society about her experiences with UMD sports and also available internship opportunities for students.

            Katie Thompson, who has been working for UMD Sports Marketing since she finished graduate school at Eastern Michigan University, revealed to the student audience how involved she is with every aspect of UMD sports.

            According to Thompson, she works primarily with the men's soccer and men's lacrosse teams, where she is involved in marketing the games to students and non-student fans, as well as coordinating music and entertainment for fans throughout the games.

            Thompson also spoke of her involvement with basketball game day festivities as well as her involvement with maintaining relationships with sponsors such as Capital One Bank and Under Armour.

            However, with all the pieces she puts together in order for games to go smoothly, Thompson said she has two main responsibilities, make fans aware of the games so they come and spend money and to make sure those fans keep coming back.

            On top of her responsibilities with marketing the games, incentivizing fans to attend and coordinating the events within the stadium, Thompson spoke of internship opportunities available for the student audience.

            "I want all of you to intern with us," said Thompson, who oversees the interns with UMD Sports Marketing.

            Junior kinesiology major and current game operations intern Kenny Bayton said he enjoys how his internship with Thompson puts him behind the scenes of the games.

            According to Bayton, the work is hard and the hours can be long, but it is a great experience learning how to balance multiple responsibilities.

            Even with all the hard work, Bayton doesn't view his work as a job saying that when it's "something you love, you don't even care."

            Senior marketing and international business major David Benbassett said that as a non-sports person it was great to see a different perspective on the marketing business.

            Benbassett also commented on how Thompson was a dynamic speaker who was less pretentious and more down to earth than other speakers he has seen previously.