Student Interview Global Sports Business Master, Truls Orneberg

Can you tell us a bit about your job?

Pedro Arnau (alumni AMOS Madrid, ESBS by AMOS): I am a project manager at Condor Media, we are a digital production and content strategy company based in Madrid and are working with clients from all over the globe. My daily routine consists of producing, developing, post-producing and scheduling social media content for various clients. These clients are working in different industries, sport is obviously one of them (Real Madrid and UEFA are part of our portfolio) but there is also the Entertainment, Fashion and Journalism industry. Ivan Fernandez (alumni AMOS Madrid): I am the assistant team manager for the women’s team at Atlético Madrid. My role is to work with both the coaches and the players, helping them with everything they need to make sure that they can perform at their best. It involves a lot of planning and logistics, making sure that every time the team plays, our players arrive on time, have everything they need, arrange the transport and many other things to allow our staff and players to solely focus on their game.

How important is digitalization in the sports industry?

Pedro Arnau: One thing to remember when it comes to digitalization in the sports industry is that content is king! Nowadays, the only way for companies to sustain themselves is to create engaging content daily and share it with their followers. Clubs like Real Madrid are present on all types of media as they need to reach a global audience, so we usually create content for YouTube, social media (TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, and Snapchat) as well as TV commercials and Radio. Therefore, whichever industry you are in, you need to be able to create content that can be published in different media that resonate with different audiences.

A word about Journalism in the sports industry?

Pedro Arnau: Sport is, according to my understanding, one of the only industries that is keeping print media, radio, and television alive. Understanding the importance of sports is crucial to deliver good content. Regarding journalism, creating stories is what matters the most: what sells, good research and having great writing skills. If you can do all of that, then your content will reach customers' expectations.

What type of skills and mentality clubs like Real Madrid are looking for when it comes to hiring?

Pedro Arnau: The first skill that comes to mind is creativity. Even though Football is more than 100 years old, the ways to cover it have changed continuously, and this is what they are looking for, someone who can think out of the box and allow the club to differentiate itself. Secondly, they are looking for people who can do multiple things, you can be a good designer or a good editor but what else can you do? The more you widen your knowledge, the more responsibilities you will be able to handle and the more people you will be able to manage. Finally, experiences. Whether it is through volunteering, internships, or previous jobs in any type of industry, recruiters are always interested to know, because most of the time, knowledge is transferable from one industry to another. Therefore, work and learn as much as you can, in technology, design, video production, sale, podcast, journalism, management, etc. the more knowledge you have the better chances you will have to find a position you will enjoy. Ivan Fernandez: In my case, Atlético Madrid was looking for someone who could speak different languages (Spanish, English and French in my case), who could work with people coming from different cultures (as our players and coaches are coming from all over the globe), and finally someone who was polyvalent. When working for an international company, there are always new challenges to overcome, and you need to have different skills to deal with them, so being able to work and understand different areas of the business is a big plus on your CV.

SportsPro is the world’s leading international media company for the sports industry in print, digital and events. This magazine has more than 20 million of impressions across digital, social and newsletter channels and is producing annually more than 3500 content pieces.

How has this partnership come up?

Paul Guest who is the commercial director of SportsPro, was a Lecturer of sports tourism at AMOS London 3 years ago, and he is the one who brought this partnership to our attention. As an educator of the industry, the magazine is always seeking to meet with teachers, lecturers, universities representatives and students to “understand the gaps and knowledge of the market”, specifically the ones of the younger generation as they “want to be able to write content that would be of interest to them”. For Paul the students “think differently than the professionals working in the industry for years, they inspire the change, they challenge ideas, and more people are willing to invest time and money in the younger generations”. Through their monthly newsletters and their different classes, SportsPro aims to "provide the students with insights that they could not have anywhere else".

What are the objectives for the students?

Learning from the best in the industry at what makes effective thought leadership content. Secondly, our AMOScians went through 2 sessions with the lead publicist of SportsPro regarding the production of a thought leadership article which was published in the following newsletter. Finally, they are offered a chance to compete against the best universities in the world in the SportsPro’s sustainability Hackathon whilst having access to some of the leading executives to support them. Once more, the winning group gets a chance to be published in the newsletter, providing visibility to the best AMOScians (the articles get 4 million views on a yearly basis).

What are the objectives for AMOS?

Our first objective is to showcase the innovation of AMOS in comparison to other academic institutions. Secondly, it is about positioning our students at the centre of the sports business ecosystem and finally providing our students with unrivalled access to key sports business industry stakeholders.

What are the next steps in this partnership?

1. The Hackathon will be conducted between the 8th and the 10th of April 2. Full-page advertising in the July edition of the magazine 3. Access to a virtual conference on the 26th and 27th of April about the tools needed in the business to take smarter decisions as well as an in-depth look into the digitalization of the industry.

Today, we had the great pleasure to interview Nicole Allison, who is a women football expert and the Executive Director at the WCWFC. The occasion to speak about her position in the club, how everything has started, her vision for her football club as well as the global women football.

The role as an executive in the Worcester club

We announced our takeover of the club in March 2021, on international women’s day last year, of me being the executive director and co-owner of the club, to drive not just Worcester city women forward but women and girls’ football in the whole of Worcestershire and county. I’ve been very fortunate to be given that opportunity and I take my duty to young girls and women extremely seriously, and that they should have equal opportunities to have a career in football, this is my passion, it’s what drives me. So, my role is everything off the pitch – to drive the club forward and to grow the club.

The vision for the coming years

We’ve done a lot of work to build the club in a way that has a talent pathway, so we produce young talents and give them opportunities in the first team. It’s about developing a club, a sustainable club with the infrastructures that we already have in place. That’s what I know I’m good at – building a team of staff around us and building a group of players that believe in the vision as well and in the project because they are key. What my business partner and I always wanted to create with the club is this feeling of a family, and that is exactly what we are building now. For the first team, from next season, we want to be very competitive. We want to start focusing on promotions through the tiers. But for this first season, it has been very much youth development, fan experience and brand building, in and around Worcester, and we have done a fantastic job.

Her marketing approach

I think it is important when you are a club, a brand, to think of women’s football differently and recognize that it has different needs, as it has different audiences. It is closer to a gender balance, which is extremely attractive to sponsors. It is then about how you can communicate about that from a marketing perspective. I think digital has been crucial in the growth, and mostly around England now. Digital allows people to be their own content creators. Particularly when I look at Worcester, a huge amount of our growth has been through our social media channels because we know that our age group is generally younger. We connect with students, and so they are following us on Instagram and TikTok. We have Facebook - which tends to be probably an older audience now, and YouTube. So digital is - of course - huge and I think what I encourage people to do in the women’s game is to be more open. In women’s football, you can be different, you can be innovative because it’s probably a bit less tribal in terms of the support. You have a bit of room for freedom to do different things from a content perspective. So, an approach certainly, would be getting the digital strategy right and thinking about the different channels: what is Facebook good for, what is Instagram good for? And the demographics, knowing your research, knowing your stats, knowing your audience is key across absolutely everything.

Media coverage

From a top-level professional side, it has really improved in England. Big papers like The Telegraph commit to employing journalists specifically for women’s football and the coverage has been fantastic. We do not get this at Worcester. We’ve had only one local journalist come and cover one of our matches. I get students to come and write match reports, and other content. I think the national governing bodies need to start thinking about how we grow the game from lower levels as well. They have done a great job at developing the professional side of things and the coverage is increasing massively, which is great. But then we have got to think also about how we are going to get that trickle effect down to the lower grassroots as well. There is always a long way to go, but some research – which was done 7 to 10 years ago - found that and, if I remember well, only 4% of sports’ news were women’s. But we only see it at the top, at the elite level as opposed to the local level.

A message for younger students willing to work in the sports industry

I think my main message would be to” go for it”. Don’t hold back in terms of seeing a job. If you want a job with a particular organization, connect with them. I first got my foot in the door of the football industry because I wrote emails to almost every sports business in London. Nowadays you can connect via LinkedIn, you can do so much more. I think as women, we must put ourselves out there more. So, the message is to keep being confident and go for it and sell yourself. Really understand what your value is and what you would bring to the table. We need more diversity in the sports industry. Diversity brings diverse ideas and new ideas bring better businesses. It is not just the right thing to do to have diversity, more women in boardrooms, women in decision-making positions, it is also better for business as well. It will economically stronger. So be confident in that, and know what you want, know who you are, know how to sell yourself and go out there and do it!