蘑菇TV

March Madness is a term used to describe the unpredictability of the end of each college basketball season. The large field and the single-elimination style lead to stunning upsets and Cinderella stories. For sports information departments across the country, they may think of March Madness as one of the busiest times of the year. For example, at Freed-Hardeman, we have men鈥檚 and women鈥檚 basketball conference tournaments. Baseball and softball are just starting their seasons. Golf, tennis, and track and field are also beginning their seasons. Deciding how to balance the distribution of information about all of these sports at once is a different type of March Madness.

Students in the Sport Administration program are participating in making some of those decisions. Through class projects and internships, sport administration students produce video content highlighting the University鈥檚 varsity athletic teams. Each week students create an 8-10 minute video called This video is released from the official 蘑菇TV Athletics pages on three social media sites. This project helps students learn to prioritize content based on consumer behavior, glean information from social media analytics, utilize different techniques to reach the biggest audience, and effectively manage a project with multiple team members.

Deciding what to put in the video each week is a challenge. Each week鈥檚 goal is to include three segments while keeping the total length around 8 minutes. The first segment informs the audience of what has happened in the last week for all of the 蘑菇TV Athletics teams. The second segment tries to give a behind the scenes look into a specific athletic team, this has most often been a feature where players on a team wear microphones during a practice to allow the audience to see what it is like to be a college athlete. The third segment tries to allow the fans to get to know the athletes in a fun and engaging way. Each of these segments can be varying lengths each week, which could lead to hard decisions about what to cut out. Since each team has its own set of parents, alumni, and fans, providing an engaging product for everyone is challenging but a great learning experience for the students.

Researching the different metrics that social media platforms provide is another good learning experience for students. It provides some return on investment type data to help dictate future decisions about prioritizing the features in each episode. Things like views, average view duration, and the comparison of views between followers and non-followers can inform the target audience how well each episode is received. Assigning value to each metric can be challenging since there are many factors, both in the control of the production team and outside of their control, that can affect those data points. For example, if one of the athletes featured is not active on one of the social media sites, that could skew the data for that episode even though it may not indicate how well the content was received.

There are many ways to reach a bigger audience on social media. It is not only a content decision. The way the title is formatted, the hashtags used in the description, and the picture used for the preview thumbnail are all examples of ancillary things that could lead to the content being shown to a bigger audience by the specific social media site. Students try to research the best practices regarding these items; however, sometimes, the best way to test different strategies is to try them. This gives students an experience they can draw from if they are ever asked to do something like this in a future career.

Finally, students participating in the project are learning what it takes to manage a large group of people who are all assigned to complete different parts of the whole. Communicating with coaches, athletes, and other class members is essential to collecting all the necessary video and audio to create these videos each week. Developing these communication skills will be valuable in many jobs in all areas of business.

Sport Administration at 蘑菇TV provides students with a comprehensive education, hands-on experience, individualized attention, access to advanced technology, a Christian foundation, and career preparation. These benefits and the small class sizes make 蘑菇TV鈥檚 Sport Administration program an excellent experience for the around 30 students who chose this major at 蘑菇TV. Students not only experience high-impact learning with projects like but the program also includes many guest speakers and a two-week sport experience course.

The sport experience course offers a hands-on experience in the business of sports. It it students to examine current issues in sports administration through structured interactions with professionals in the field. The topics covered may vary from year to year, but key themes will include the role of marketing in successful sports businesses, event planning for sports, management and operations of sports facilities, and coordination of live sporting events. Additionally, the course will involve significant travel and attendance at various sports-related venues.

March Madness and the 蘑菇TV 鈥淚nside the Pride鈥� project is more than just a media production鈥攊t鈥檚 a hands-on learning experience that prepares Sport Administration students for real-world challenges in content creation, project management, and strategic decision-making. Students develop essential skills that will benefit them in their future careers by navigating the complexities of social media analytics, content prioritization, and collaboration with athletes and coaches. Their work showcases 蘑菇TV Athletics鈥� achievements and demonstrates the students鈥� ability to adapt and excel in a fast-paced and dynamic environment. Follow the 蘑菇TV Athletics to see the outstanding work of these dedicated students in action at and .