Editor’s note: This story is revised from the print edition.
With the Big Ten Conference’s media rights coming up for bid in 2017, Fox Sports is making a move to ingratiate itself with the conference’s schools.
The media company plans to expand its Fox Sports U marketing initiative to all Big Ten schools over the next three years. Fox Sports, which co-owns Big Ten Network with the conference, launched the program in 2008 with just two schools; it now has 27 schools on its roster.
“This program deepens our relationship with our partners,” said Chris Hannan, Fox Sports’ executive vice president of communications and integration. “We get to show that we’re more than just a rights holder that shows games.”
The idea behind Fox Sports U is that schools’ journalism and business schools come up with business ideas that Fox Sports can use. School administrators generally like the program because it helps connect curriculum with real-world work.
“We treat this as part of the classroom,” said Dana McMahan, a professor of the practice at the University of North Carolina’s journalism school, which was one of the first programs to join the Fox Sports initiative in 2009. “The students really take ownership over the material.”
The program launched in 2008 with the University of Southern California and the University of Florida around Fox’s regional sports networks. It has grown to include all Fox Sports channels and programming.
For example, Fox Sports used a social media marketing plan developed by UNC students for its coverage of the Daytona 500 earlier this year. With the tagline “Life at a different speed,” the campaign was designed to get people to the race.
“Fox repaid that work by taking the students to the race,” McMahan said.
At Missouri, which has been part of the program for four years, the journalism school breaks into teams and spends the semester coming up with campaigns for Fox. Missouri students have developed campaigns around the Women’s World Cup (“One Goal”), the Big 12 Conference (“Every Game Matters”) and Fox Sports Midwest (#TeamSTL).
“Students have 13 weeks to come up with the research and develop a marketing message,” said Scott Fuenfhausen, an adjunct professor with the Missouri School of Journalism.
Since 2008, the program has placed more than 30 internships and five full-time jobs with Fox Sports.
“There’s a pipeline of young, talented media-savvy students that we are tapping into,” Hannan said. “These are exactly the types of people advertisers are trying to reach, so it makes sense to tap into their ideas.”
It’s not clear if this kind of program will give Fox Sports an advantage with the Big Ten. But for execs like Hannan, it can’t hurt.
