University of Charlotte Collegiate Football, at Raycom Sports

        Sarah really set the tone for the day this morning when she sent me a BBM that read "Can we be casual today on this rainy morning?"  I was off to work in my jeans before you could say "Brooks Brothers".  When we got to work this morning, we realized that we LEGIT had nothing to do, so we had to get creative.  And thus began my learning experience at the UCCF RS (University of Charlotte Collegiate Football at Raycom Sports).

        We decided to head up to the production hall to do some voice over work for fun.  Unfortunately, our trusty production intern, Duzan, was in God's Country (Clemson, for those of you who are sadly uninformed) today, and he was the one who offered to set us up to do some VO practice.  Instead, we decided to mosey around the production area to see what we could learn.  Luckily, they were feeding the ACC Football Impact show.  Don't worry, I didn't have any idea what that meant either, but I'm going to take my best stab at explaining it.  So they were "feeding" the show to a network in Atlanta.  I am not going to be able to describe this technically right, but my best understanding is that essentially, they are running a show from our raycom office and sending it to a the local network, which in this case was located in Atlanta.  So when we (as in Raycom) run it, they (as in Atlanta, or other local network) have the ability to record it, and they have 2 recording options from which to choose, HD and SD (standard definition).  From the Raycom end, Peter Rolfe was sitting at a desk with a phone, waiting to answer any questions or respond to any problems that the Atlanta network might have dealt with.  During the feed, they noticed a little glitch in the show.  It was so small that it almost seemed like an effect, but it was indeed something that needed to be fixed before it aired.  Luckily, Raycom feeds it twice with a couple of hours in between each feed, so they have time to fix any glitches.
        And I finally figured out the commercial thing.  So you know how there are all these different commercials some local, some that you see nationally?  Have you ever wondered how they are placed during commercial breaks? I have. But it's cool.  So the larger, national or regional companies make deals with networks like Raycom and so Raycom has those commercials "on file", pull them, and place them in the show BEFORE it gets fed to local networks.  Now the local networks have deals with local companies and so they have the local commercials on file.  When Raycom feeds the show to Atlanta, it is fed with the larger company's commercials already placed in it.  So those are set.  But it also has room for local commercials that the Atlanta companies can place at their discretion.  The space just is fed as a period of black. I'm sure I have massacred TV language and the general explanation of how a television show is run, but that is my general understanding.

        After our lecture, Sarah and I took a field trip to South Park mall to perform some research on clothing pieces that we might use for several CCF events.  After surveying a few floors, we found several options that I am sure will work well, so we decided to treat ourselves to a lunch break at Arther's.  Going through the lunch line, ordering simple sandwiches, I remarked to Sarah about how terribly we used to eat at the start of this internship, and how much better we had gotten.  That lasted through lunch.  On our way out of the mall, we took a convenient wrong turn that led us right past Yoforia, a frozen yogurt joint ( I tried to write "Fro Yo here...it just doesn't sound right coming from me).  I'm still contemplating whether or not to hold a grudge against Sarah for 'making' me walk into the store. But I'll be honest...I did not put up much of a fight.  

        When we got back, we went to our next 'class' with Professor Pitts on Sponsorships.  He showed us the contracts and presentations he has come up with for each of the prospective sponsors.  I asked Will if it was hard to be a Sales Person, like whether it's not easy to sell something that people are not necessarily excited about buying.  He said it was hard, but he enjoys what he does.  We talked about how it was hard to sell something that is not so much a physical product, but more of an experience.  We also talked about how to target prospective clients.  For instance, why would Bank of America want to be a title sponsor of the Bowl game?  Their logo is literally on every piece of collateral we use for both of the games already because we are using the Bank of America Stadium, so they would be paying extra for advertising that they are pretty much already enjoying the benefits of.  We also brainstormed some more innovative ways to cultivate relationships with prospective sponsors.  Productive class.  

        Our last lecture was with Chad Swofford on marketing strategy.  We have 1 pair of tickets to give away during the entire period leading up to the game.  What I want to figure out is how to best utilize the tickets in a way that is fun for our followers, but also promotes increased followership...Have I mentioned that I reserve the right to use questionable words in these posts?  One option I discussed was maybe putting it out there that we need to reach a certain number of followers and once we do that we will be giving away tickets.  We could use our current followers to invite their friends to the site, in the hopes that we will have this contest...the problem is that we don't know if people will care enough to invite friends.  It's frustrating because we are trying to promote 2 games that are essentially irrelevant until at least November.  Anyways we had some interesting conversations about all of this.  If you haven't already PLEASE follow us on twitter: @MeinekeBowlGame, @ACCFOOTBALLCLT, and @ExtraPointPass and "Like" us on facebook.  I'm trying to reach a social media goal here people.  Help me make the grade.  

***Disclaimer: I am fully aware that the analogy was QUITE corny.  Thanks for baring with my sad attempt at creative writing.***

Stop the Flu BEFORE it stops you!

        Good news folks.  This kid will not be getting sick in the flu season.  I know what you Clemson people are thinking: 'Bryson can go through a year without getting sick? Impossible.'  But I'm getting 8 hours of sleep almost every night, and I got the key ingredient to health through the winter today...A flu shot!  Thank you, Raycom Sports.  It was funny to see everyone's reactions to the shot, until I got up to the front of the line and realized that the needle was 2 inches long.  Yikes.  Oh well, if I don't have an adverse reaction to the shot, I will be flu free this year!
        In other, more applicable, news, I have signed up to crew for the Clemson vs. Maryland game next weekend and I am really excited to see and work in the production side of Raycom.  From what I've heard, whatever responsibility they give to the utilities staff should be pretty simple, maybe even a little bit boring.  BUT, I'm just excited about working and being right in the middle of all of that game excitement. 
        I got the call today.  The wake up call.  I am 4 months out from being potentially unemployed.  I've started looking at job openings, but it's not like it was before I got this job, when EVERYTHING was potentially interesting to me.  I've narrowed down what I want to do, and there are not as many opportunities.  Also, I hadn't been searching for opportunities with other bowls before, and now I don't know where to go to find the available postings.  This is the bad part of being a glorified intern, as soon as you settle into one job, you've got to making your next career move.  Kind of scary!
        OK, y'all.  If you are living in the Charlotte area, I'm plugging it to you again.  Buy your Extra Point Passes.  If not for the benefits at restaurants like Fox and Hound, Morton's, and Ruths Chris, then do it because it's good for Charlotte and a great way to support the games!  We want to KEEP the ACC Championship in North Carolina, and we need to make the first year a major success to do so!  Go to www.extrapointpass.com to purchase your passes.

Orientation into Raycom

        This morning I woke up with a friend request from Michael Kelly, Associate Commissioner for the ACC-head of communications and football operations, and this job became all the more real.  The day started off with a staff picture and company luau...which was odd on a second  day of work, but also an interesting orientation with the staff.  I had no idea how many people worked at Raycom until I was standing in front of the Raycom bus, preparing to take a picture with about 40 people (don't you just love the awkward jokes people make when they are waiting around for the photographer to snap the photo?). 
        The group that I work with is a small one.  Charlotte Collegiate Football consists of Will Webb-executive director, Courtney Knowling-Events and Operations, Will Pitts-Director of Sales, and Sarah Stankavage & me-the interns.  We also work closely with a couple members of Raycom Sports: Chad Swofford- Director of New Business Development and Abby Christmas in sales.  I'm excited to work with a close group of people because it will give us an opportunity as interns to participate in almost all aspects of the bowl game and the championship game.  We spoke with Courtney at length today about how to make this internship our own and get involved in things that we are most interested in.  This means I'll be able to focus on projects that are in my direct interest area and even try out things that I am not really familiar with.  For instance, Sarah is really interested in the production/broadcast journalism side, which is something that I'm not particularly attracted to career wise (i am more interested in promotion and event management), but think it's pretty cool none the less.   Courtney does some work on the side with the Bobcats and the Panthers doing some crew work, so Sarah asked if we could shadow her and I think I will probably tag along, just to see what it's all about...and I think it would be a great opportunity to meet some other people in the sports industry. 
           As far as today's tasks went, we spent a good amount of time coming up with our plan for the social media tools we will be using.  We have facebook (Meineke Care Care Bowl & ACC Championship) and Twitter (Meineke Car Care Bowl & ACC Championship) accounts and came up with goals for the different accounts.  Goals included raising numbers of followers (100 for each twitter account...yikes!) and raising awareness of each game around the Charlotte community and some strategies to meet the goals for both twitter and facebook.  After speaking with Courtney and Megan Parete (who is a Clemson graduate, did this internship last year and introduced me to the position), we are still trying to decide whether a joint intern blog will be beneficial...especially if we are each keeping personal blogs on our own for this experience. We'll see how that turns out.  Courtney also asked us to head up the Gifts Committee for the Leatherheads...more on the committee and the Leatherheads in posts to come, but I'm really excited about the committee and working with this group of people so I just wanted to mention it!  Finally, we had a meeting with Luquire George Andrews, a marketing communications firm in Charlotte, to discuss one of the marketing strategies we will be using to promote the games this football season.  The project has not been launched yet, but from what I've heard it's something that I am interested in getting more heavily involved in so we'll see how that plays out.  At the end of the day, Chad and Will Pitts sat down with Sarah and me and explained a lot to us about the business side of Raycom Sports, sponsorships, etc...and it was a bit overwhelming but all good information to take in!  I promise that as I continue to write, I will find a way to consolidate my posts but for right now I am just too excited to leave anything out...whether frivolous or not!