Baltimore Ravens / Shawn Hubbard
Michelle Andres
Senior Vice President, Ravens Media, Baltimore Ravens
Born: Madison, Wis.
Education: Furman University, B.A., political science; University of Florida, M.A., political campaign management
In Michelle Andres’ career, team-created digital content has gone from a whim to big business. She’s been there all along, having created the Orlando Magic’s first website in the 1990s, and she now oversees a staff of nearly 30 people at the Baltimore Ravens.
In that time, she’s tackled all the hard issues, setting precedents for digital media across the NFL and rapidly growing the Ravens’ fan engagement. Back when people were still learning what it meant for a team to run a news site, Andres’ team figured out how to balance credibility with the concerns of coach John Harbaugh and general manager Ozzie Newsome.
“Our line was always, ‘It has to be believable.’ It can’t just always be positive. If our team is performing terribly, you’ve got to be able to call a spade a spade,” Andres said.
Today, she sits on the NFL Club Digital Advisory Board, advising the entire league on digital strategy. She’s the highest-ranking female employee of the Ravens, and continues to add new responsibilities. She now oversees the growing world of business intelligence.
“More than anything else, what I take pride in is the staff I hire around me, and making sure they are high quality, highly productive, motivated contributing members of the organization, and tomorrow they could leave us and go somewhere else and do the exact same thing.” — Ben Fischer
Getting to know...
Favorite day-off activity: Writing a new blog post for my blog drivingmecrazyblog.com, sleeping, traveling, reading.
Guilty pleasure: Donuts. I feel guilty. I feel pleasure.
Something your friends would consider “so you”: Attending a Maroon 5 concert or complaining about bad drivers!
Woman in sports business you’d like to meet: Condoleezza Rice because she and I share a background in both sports and government/politics and because I think she is incredibly impressive.
Role of sports in social issues: Obviously, sport has a unique platform from which to reach vast numbers of people and effect change. Social issues like education, hunger, health and the environment afford sports organizations numerous opportunities to make a difference in the community without wading into the political fray.
