Emerging Trends in Sports Seminar Focuses on Esports and Mobile Ticketing, Features Cleveland Cavaliers CEO Tuesday, April 2, 2019
L to R: SAEM students Marcyssa Brown and Matt Whitaker, and Halina Malik, manager of content and marketing, Cavs Legion
Photos by Hannah Johnston, junior English major
“The SAEM program has been incredibly helpful to reaching my career goals. I transferred to Point Park last spring and since then I have worked on building my resume and networking with as many people as I can to improve my skills."
The exploding popularity of esports, trends in apps and mobile ticketing and a keynote speech by the Cleveland Cavaliers and Quicken Loans Arena CEO Len Komoroski were the highlights of the 2019 Emerging Trends in Sports seminar hosted by Point Park University.
Komoroski's speech "Reviltalizing a City: Sports and its Economic Impact" centered on the renaissance of Cleveland led by the Cavaliers, as well as Cleveland’s other professional sports teams.
In addition to Komoroski, speakers included:
- Danny Gardner, manager of database marketing, Pittsburgh Penguins
- Kristen Lewandowski, director of ticket and premier seating sales and retention, Pittsburgh Steelers
- Halina Malik, manager of content and marketing, Cavs Legion
- Matt Roche, corporate and strategic partnerships manager, Pittsburgh Knights
- Doug Vanderheyden, director of ticket operations, Pittsburgh Pirates
“Learning about tickets for the Steelers was the most interesting to me because that is the team I know the most about,” said Tudor Shelton, a sophomore business management major from Dominion High School in Sterling, Va.
Senior sports, arts and entertainment management major Morgan Day was most interested in the panel on esports.
“I took the Business of Esports class last semester and really enjoyed it. The recognition esports has been getting is incredible. Seeing that it’s being recognized by schools and sports industries shows that it is a booming business, which is great!” said Day, a graduate of Big Spring High School in Newville, Pa.
“The SAEM program has been incredibly helpful to reaching my career goals. I transferred to Point Park last spring and since then I have worked on building my resume and networking with as many people as I can to improve my skills,” she added.
For freshman SAEM major Justin Joyce, a graduate of Commonwealth Charter Academy, the discussion on mobile ticketing piqued his interest.
"I work in ticketing, and I wanted to see how other teams did things, and how the speakers thought that the industry would evolve through the use of technology. There are many similarities through each team/sport, however they all had great insight and different approaches that could be used across the business," Joyce said.
Joyce added: "The SAEM program does an amazing job of immersing you right into the industry, and offers every chance to gain experience and knowledge from professionals who have just about every job that you could want with this major."
The seminar was organized by SAEM students and led by Jessica Martin ’17, SAEM alumna, MBA student and Rowland School of Business graduate assistant.
Komoroski was secured as the keynote speaker based on the SAEM department’s partnership with the Cavaliers.
“We have a Cavs Sales Team comprised of 10 student volunteers who sell Cavaliers tickets and will be honored at the April 7 Cavs vs. San Antonio Spurs game. In addition, the Cleveland Cavaliers organization and its esports team, the Cavs Legion, have partnered with Point Park University, the Pittsburgh Penguins and the Pittsburgh Knights to host the upcoming Steel City Showdown esports event at the Pittsburgh Playhouse,” explained Robert Derda, M.S., assistant professor and chair of the SAEM department
Derda added: “On-campus seminars like this give Point Park students insight into the sports industry and the opportunity to learn from and network with professional sports experts. We are thrilled to have terrific partnerships with the Cleveland Cavaliers, Cavs Legion, the Pittsburgh Pirates, the Pittsburgh Steelers, the Pittsburgh Penguins and the Pittsburgh Knights and look forward to offering our students continued personal connections to the sports industry.”