Opinion: How sports industry internships benefit students, properties

Philip Rothschild

“Dr. Rothschild, I want to work in sports. Can you help me find an internship? Are they typically paid or unpaid? And what can I do to make the most of it?”

As a professor of entertainment and sports management at Missouri State University, it’s not uncommon for me to receive some form of this question from students pursuing a degree in entertainment management.

It’s also a norm for me to get inquiries from sports properties asking to announce their internship opportunities to our EM majors. Over the past 20 years, I have connected 850-plus students with internship providers – a good number of them sports properties. The sports business benefits from young, energetic college interns as much as the students benefit from gaining experience.

Of course, many students aspire to work in the major leagues. We have plenty of our graduates who have interned and later found employment with the Cardinals, Royals and Sporting KC, and at those teams’ respective stadiums.

But just as valuable to our up-and-coming “young pros” are the internships with local sports-related properties like the Springfield Cardinals, the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame and Ballparks of America. Notable and generous professionals Dan Reiter, Kari Norris and Scott Bailes, respectively, have provided students with the holy grail of good pedagogy – experienced-based learning. Universities encourage it, students hunger for it and employers require it.

Most students report interning with sports properties as both exhilarating and exhausting. Exhilarating when they see their hard work pay off with a venue filled with fans and athletes, and exhausting when they’ve worked 10- to 14-hour days to help execute the details of a tournament. These experiences reinforce what most of us “older pros” have known for a long time: Hard work pays off and attention to detail absolutely matters. A big thank you to each of our sports industry partners who provide a place and the supervision for developing our future leaders.

Now to answer the questions.

Can you help me find an internship? And the other side of the coin, can you help us find interns?
MSU EM majors benefit from a private database of over 850 contacts I have collected. But for others, I recommend setting up an “email alert” using Google Alerts where you can specify keywords like sports, intern, major league or minor league. Google will crawl the web and send you email notifications daily or weekly whenever internships are posted on the web. One caveat: Not all internship opportunities are structured and announced formally. So be proactive and develop a personal network of who’s who. You do this by going to the sports venue or event and asking questions of anyone you see dressed for the part or wearing a nametag.

For the sports properties seeking interns, I recommend going directly to a department chair or professor who teaches entertainment or sports.

These niche academic programs tend to have faculty with strong ties to the students. I always prefer an email without attachments that I can copy and paste and send on to an email list or post to our social media platforms. I only need one or two paragraphs that make the opportunity sound appealing to trigger interest. Students can get more details by visiting your website.

Are internships typically paid or unpaid?
Ten years ago my answer, based on survey data, was that internships in general were 60% unpaid and 40% paid. However, in the past five to 10 years, I’ve seen more sports properties hiring associates and then giving the students an opportunity to count it for academic credit as an internship (academic requirements are worked out between the student and the instructor of record). This shift toward hiring interns came about for many reasons, chief among them concerns of impending lawsuits for violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act. Today, based on anecdotal evidence, I would say internships break 60% paid and 40% unpaid.

What can I do to make the most of an internship?
For the student, I would say come to the internship humble and hungry. When you’re humble, your curiosity quotient will rise. When you’re curious, you’ll ask questions and realize there are more moving parts than you see. To the internship provider, I would suggest you balance the tactical with the strategic. Be sure interns see how their work fits into the bigger picture. Build relationships with these college students whenever you can.

These young pros will be indebted to you and pay it forward.

Philip Rothschild is an associate professor of entertainment management at Missouri State University’s College of Business. He can be reached at philrothschild@missouristate.edu.