Our final day on the New England Immersion trip began by checking out of our hotel in Boston and driving to the famous ESPN campus in Bristol, Connecticut. Our group split in half and were given tours by Stephani Foster and Chris Murphy around some of the most important and exciting parts of ESPN. The environment was great, and we were are all very excited to be
there. We also got a sense from our guides and everyone else we conversed with that ESPN genuinely cares about their
employees. They hold many sports tournament for the employees, hold exclusive
concerts, and have two gyms in which they provide work out and nutrition plans. In
addition, since most of the employees have children, ESPN also has a kid’s
center so their employees can focus solely on their work and don’t have to worry about their kids.
Chris' group was lucky enough to stand in the back of a live control room take of Tedy Bruschi and Will Arnett discussing his new Teenage Mutant Turtles movie and some football. Being able to watch a segment happen live was very exciting and changed the way we'll now watch the show. In addition, we were able to go upstairs and take pictures in an empty NFL Live Studio. The cameraman even explained how the jib-camera operates and how he uses it to shoot different shows.
We were also lucky to meet with John
Wildhack, the EVP, Programming and Production of ESPN - basically the NO. 2
guy. He is a very friendly man who greeted every single employee when they
walked by during his talk. John was also very patient and honest to us when we asked him questions.
He said he won’t be too concerned about their competitors like Fox because he
believes in ESPN can provide better content about sports and they also
collaborate with Fox in some way. It is more important to focus on making more
creative content. When I asked why there is no ESPN in China although it has
many branches in over 65 countries, he said it would be a huge investment to
put on a new ESPN in China. Therefore, ESPN would rather work with a partner who
is already there. Furthermore, ESPN provides content to sell to Chinese networks,
such as providing international rights of NCAA Men’s Basketball. John Wildhack is
very busy so we really appreciated that he gave us his valuable time.
The
final destination of our New England Immersion trip ended with a visit to the Sports
Business Journal’s #1 ranked Agency of the Year in 2010 and 2014, Team Epic. Founded
in 1999, Team Epic is a young company with a young staff dedicated to leading
the industry in sponsorships and marketing specialization. Team Epic recently moved
into their new office in Westport, CT where they were able to design a space
suited to meet their “work hard, play hard mentality.” The office includes
multiple conference rooms named after iconic sports venues, a recreational center
which with a Ping-Pong table and arcade basketball hoop, and open spaces inundated
with sports memorabilia. Everyone who we
spoke to in the office agreed that a component which makes their agency so
special to work for are the people, coincidentally there are at least 9
Syracuse Alumnus who currently work in the office. Outside of the office, employees
partake in sports teams, happy hours, and dinners. Another aspect of the
industry which I found unique is that roughly 50% of Team Epic’s 150 employees
worked their way up from the company’s 6-month training program. 
The
first member of the team we met with was Michelle Berg, Executive VP. Michelle
gave a brief overview of her background as well as the company’s structure and its
different divisions. These divisions include: Sponsorship Strategy/Consulting;
Experiential, Events & Hospitality; Measurement and Evaluation; Program Development
& Activation; Digital/Social Support; and Creative. Like many of the other
organizations we met with, Team Epic essentially has a company working within the
company focusing specifically on the analytics of the measurement and
evaluation division. Michelle also touched on some of their biggest clients
such as FedEx and AT&T, setting the stage for PowerPoints about their biggest
activations.
One
example of an activation Team Epic executed for AT&T was the Pulse Point station
at the NCAA Men’s Final Four this past year in Houston. The implementation was
basically an opportunity for fans to put themselves into a high pressure, technology-filled
environment in which they were only allotted a small amount of time to make a
shot. Fans waited in line for hours just to get a shot at experiencing a final
four game-like situation. Other examples of activations Team Epic created for FedEx
is the NFL Ground and Air Player of the Week as well as a pre-release of the
best-selling video game, Madden, to socially influential gamers. A common theme
that Michelle emphasized on these activations were how important technology has
become. This is because traditional signage sponsorships are boring and ineffective
for the most part. Another aspect discussed about the FedEx sponsorship was the
budget that Team Epic was given in order to create different events during
Super Bowl weekend. These events included a conference, golf outing, winery
tour, party, and brunch.
In
addition to meeting with Michelle Burke, we had the pleasure of listening to Alyssa Wood, Iain
McWhirter, Robert Stabenau, Michelle Bevilacqua, Denadjae Combs, Nico Amantia,
Alex Tavernier and several others all talk about their experience and their
responsibilities with Team Epic. It was evident that everyone was really
invested in their work and took a great deal of pride in their job.
Finally,
after meeting with 19 organizations and over 61 people, it was time to depart
Team Epic and head back to Syracuse University.
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