1/5/12

For the third year in a row, sport management students from the Laboratory for the Study of Intercollegiate Athletics (LSIA) will serve as hosts and representatives for the 76^th annual Cotton Bowl Classic.

Students spend the week before the game in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area marketing the Cotton Bowl to the public.  These students break up into teams to compete against in a friendly promotional competition.   Each team is given an area in the city to develop and deliver their ideas of effective marketing. 

The most creative and most successful campaigns are eligible for prizes from the Cotton Bowl organization.  Students also give feedback to the Cotton Bowl on what can done better marketing for next year’s game at week’s end. 

“We want you to go out into the community and really work to extend the Cotton Bowl brand,” says Michael Konradi, VP of External Affairs for the Cotton Bowl.

Another role will be to serve as hosts for the various luncheons and events in the week leading to the big game.  The students will also assist players and coaches during trips to local children’s hospitals. 

The experience is beneficial because it gives students a real time example of how the fast-paced sports industry works.

“This is about hard work,” Konradi says.  “We are doing that that; rolling up our sleeves and going to work.”

While the students will be busy a great deal of their stay in the Metroplex, lab director Shane Hudson also tells them to enjoy themselves as they will be near business leaders like Jerry Jones and T. Boone Pickens.

“There will be some times we’re not going 100 miles an hour,” lab director Shane Hudson says.  “Network, learn and enjoy those times.”

Each year the LSIA has worked with the Cotton Bowl, event organizers have been impressed with the future leaders in sports.  They specifically asked for students from Texas A&M to return again this year, based on the great work done previously.  The feeling is the same from Aggies who make the trip up to Arlington.

“Every year we walk away from the event with a great impression and we want to do continue to do that,” Hudson says.

For more about the Laboratory for the Study of Intercollegiate Athletics, please visit their website.