In the summer of 2018, three Syracuse students from Long Island got together with one goal in mind: to bring a sports business conference to central New York. 

Ben Alon, then a freshman at Syracuse, had attended the Mary Kline Classic Sports & Business Symposium in Philadelphia earlier that year and was inspired to create an event himself. The symposium’s director was Alex Kline, a Syracuse alumnus currently working as an NBA scout, and speakers and attendees all spoke of how amazing the event was, Alon said.

The symposium helped plant the idea for a Syracuse Sport Business Conference in Alon’s mind. Alon met with Ryan First and Evan Weinberg, both Syracuse students from his hometown. They crafted a 16-page outline of the conference that included goals, event operations and plans for recruiting student committees and speakers.

The inaugural Syracuse Sport Business Conference was originally scheduled to be held April 17 at the Turning Stone Resort Casino, but the in-person event was canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic. The conference has since gone digital and has held Q&A sessions on Zoom nearly every Friday with leaders in the sport business industry, including NBA Summer League founder Albert Hall and William Hill Chief Marketing Officer Sharon Otterman.

Although an online conference wasn’t what the founders expected, the reception to the digital series has been overwhelmingly positive, the founders said. SU students and alumni have tuned in from around the world to hear from industry leaders, said Ian Sher, SSBC chief of staff and vice president of operations.

“What I think is special about this is that we’re pulling all this helpful information for people to just access over the internet,” Sher said. “It’s about getting that type of content to students and having it accessible.”

Accessibility to the industry and the business side of sport management was the conference’s objective in the first place. Of the three founders, Alon and First are students in the Martin J. Whitman School of Management, while Weinberg recently graduated with a sport management degree from Falk College. The intersection of the two schools, which aren’t part of a dual program at Syracuse, is very important to the trio.

Michael Veley, the sport management department chair, and Dave Meluni, a professor in the department, helped Alon create a plan for the digital series at the beginning of the summer. Meluni and Veley had been advising the team for over a year to help create the conference and wanted to help continue it remotely.

But even with Veley and Meluni’s advising, students have led the conference almost entirely. Students have contacted speakers and advertised panels with little help from advisers, Alon said.

Veley and Meluni played a big role in the planning process, helping to bring the conference to Turning Stone. The event was originally going to be held at Falk College, with tables lining the hallways and events in lecture halls. But as more speakers signed on and more participants expressed interest, the conference quickly outgrew campus facilities.

“When we first emailed Turning Stone to try and see if we could rent out space for the event, they didn’t even answer our emails,” First said. “Then we got the Falk staff involved, and they took us as legitimate.”

Sharon Otterman, the Chief Marketing Officer at William Hill, was one of the conference’s speakers who delivered a Q&A session via Zoom. Screenshot

With a Turning Stone sponsorship, the conference arranged housing for speakers and transportation for students at a low cost. The larger venue grew the conference from a school to a regional event that was expected to draw attendees from the Northeast and even southern Ontario.

Turning Stone was a perfect location for the conference because the theme of the event was sports betting in New York, Meluni said. Since mobile sports betting isn’t legal in the state, the casino is one of the few places in central New York to bet on sports.

But then COVID-19 swept through the United States and Syracuse suspended residential instruction, forcing the conference committee to adjust. Sport management students across the country have lost internships this summer, and the digital series allows students to continue building connections with industry leaders even without a formal internship, Alon said.

“When students are reaching out to their connections, they’re the one maintaining that communication stream,” Alon said. “It’s not us trying to take their connections and run with them — it’s us trying to help them build a stronger relationship with those people.”

Many of the speakers —  including former Turner Sports President David Levy and Tracy Barash, vice president of marketing at Turner Sports — are Syracuse alumni. Current students are now able to listen to professionals who were once in their position, which wasn’t possible with the in-person conference. Only one speaker at the in-person event would have been an SU alumnus.

“We’re bringing a variety of panelists that are SU alumni specifically,” Sher said. “And I think that helps because it shows students at Syracuse that there are people in industries that you want to enter that want to give back and speak to you.”

As the current conference continues throughout the summer, planning for the 2021 conference has already begun, Alon said. Although First and Weinberg graduated last May, Alon, Sher and the rest of the executive staff have their eyes set on next year’s theme: bringing in a diverse team and speakers to show that sports business is for everyone, not just white men.

“I’m super excited to see how our team can incorporate all we have planned with students and the university to promote change among society … (and) promote that change within our university,” Alon said.

Published on July 19, 2020 at 3:54 pm

aekaylor@syr.edu | @cincinnallie