Event Recap: Gary Schueller

On Friday, October 28th,the ILR Sports Management Club was privileged to have Gary Schueller from GroupM as a guest speaker.

Gary graduated from the School of Industrial and Labor Relations in 2003 and was able to offer our club great insight regarding the relationship between the professional sports world and sponsorship. Read about his presentation after the jump.

Gary first developed a love for sports as a kid. He does admit that his athletic abilities may not have been on the same level as his passion. (though claims to still hold the record for goals allowed in youth soccer, but we may need Elias Sports Bureau to check on that.) He began his career in sports in 2000 working for the Hudson Valley Renegades, a minor league baseball team currently affiliated with the Tampa Bay Rays. Gary stated that his experience working for a minor league club was valuable—he was able to get hands-on experience and get involved with the higher-ups of the minor league organization, an opportunity that would most likely not be available for a big league club at such a young age. While still in college, he was also able to intern for the New York Mets, the US Open (Tennis), and WFAN Sports 660 AM radio. Each job led to different learning experiences, and contributed their own challenges to help him learn how to conduct himself in certain situations.

Many of the job functions involved public relations and marketing, while others included local community work. For example, he played a central role in the U.S. Open's getting Vanessa Carlton to perform for Arthur Ashe Kids Day.

After graduating from Cornell, Gary went on to have jobs with Major League Baseball in Australia, the New York Yankees and the Jackie Robinson Foundation, where he again was involved in public relations and building relationships with MLB. He was also involved with the New York Rangers for three seasons, where he was part of a team called the Rangers Game Night Staff that executed in-arena promotions and worked on activation elements for team partners (sponsors). After returning to business school at Columbia University, he then landed his current job at GroupM.

After business school, Gary wanted to transition from working in public relations, as he had in the past, to working in sponsorship at GroupM. Many people believe that sponsorship is simply the transfer of money between two parties. Gary, however, describes sponsorship as “rigor and analytics combined with magic and art." It would be more apt to call the profession as a form of “partnership”that is mutually beneficial to two parties.

Media has transformed over the past few years, and GroupM hopes to shift the art of sponsorship from “interrupting what people are interested in to beingwhat people are interested in.” Among other things, GroupM is involved in naming rights and the art of negotiation to find the right mix and match of advertising for organizations. Gary discussed how the value of sports media will increase exponentially over then ext few yeras, especially as rights fees continue to skyrocket as they’ve done recently.

For example, Gary showed a graphic showing the eye-popping value of a 30-second commercial for Sunday Night Football (upwards of $500,000), which nearly doubled the price of commercials for other popular shows such as Dancing with the Stars.

In the coming years, Gary says to look for social media to be integrated in more sports-related campaigns. An example of this is the Patriots incorporating a JetBlue-sponsored virtual tailgate each and every Sunday. Teams will also need to be more concerned with providing a unique live in-stadium experience, as fans are starting to be able to have comparable experience in their home with crystal-clear pictures on gigantic TVs. In addition, brands will move in the direction of focusing on more user-generated contact, such as the FanCaveof the MLB.

Near the end of his presentation, Gary offered some tips and advice on the next steps to ultimately land a job in sports. While it is important to know what you want, Gary points out that it is equally important to know what you don’t want. He encourages students to read voraciously and build a brand, which involves making yourself marketable based on your owns values, skills, experiences, and personality that are unique to you. Lastly and arguably most importantly, Gary urged us to both build and maintain relationships, the latter part being equally important. Go the extra mile, and if you work diligently, your hard work will almost always pay off!