Students Interested in Sports and Entertainment Media Attend Alumni Career Panel

On April 1, NYU Steinhardt’s Department of Media, Culture, and Communication (MCC) convened alumni who work in the sports and entertainment media industry to give career advice to current students.

Around 30 MCC students attended the virtual event, which featured a panel of alumni who work at some of the largest media and sports organizations in the world:

• Travis Tan (BS ’14), director of global marketing at World Surf League
• Marissa Ablack (BS ’18), director of integrated sales and marketing at the National Football League
• Zach Blatter (BS ’24), social media graphic designer at Fanatics Collectibles/Topps
• Patricia Gounardes (BS ’10), senior manager of NBC Olympic rights and sponsorship at NBCUniversal Media, LLC
• John Tejada (BS ’05), senior director of media partnerships at Major League Soccer

MCC is a unique academic program in the higher education marketplace, allowing students to examine the many intersections of media and technology within cultural, social, political, and global contexts.  

“The MCC curriculum does a great job giving a broad foundation in things like media criticism and communications theory, so that our alumni can have an incredible range of careers in industries around the world,” says Tan, who is part of the MCC Alumni Council and both organized and hosted the career chat. “We try to craft these events for students in a way that allows them to learn more about how their MCC degree can set the stage for lots of different roles.”

During the event, Tan and his fellow panelists discussed topics such as what they love about their careers and the different ways in which they entered them; the industry’s biggest challenges and opportunities; and the role of influencers, athletes, and other celebrities as drivers of culture. Alumni also had the opportunity to reflect on their time in the MCC program and how it influenced their career paths.

“The theoretical foundation and the academic thinking I learned through my MCC degree was really challenging, but it has really pushed the way I think about things professionally,” says Tan, whose job sees him leading the World Surf League’s creative and marketing campaigns, from fan-facing ads to merchandising to working with athletes. “The historic knowledge I have about changing media and communication habits leads me to a deep level of critical thinking in the work we produce and the way we build engagement with our audience.” 

With a range of graduation years and time spent in the industry, the panelists were able to share a variety of outlooks with students.

“Professionally, I’ve meandered through fashion, entertainment, and now sports media, all because of the preparation I had from my years at NYU Steinhardt,” says panel participant Ablack. “For me, MCC was different from other media programs because it teaches you how to think rather than what to think; it provides a framework for how to evaluate and question the world. It encouraged me to enter industries I never pictured myself in by empowering me with the knowledge that I was capable of enacting change in those spaces.”

Learn more about the MCC program at NYU Steinhardt.