Students interested in a career in the sports and entertainment industry should be aware of the Sport & Entertainment Business Association (SEBA), a student organization that regularly hosts interesting events with big-name speakers.

Typically, SEBA hosts one or two large events a year in addition to periodic weekly events, but the ease of hosting online events now allows the group to host weekly and even biweekly meetings.

More than 200 people from around the world — including Gibraltar, Mexico, Canada, Egypt and the United Kingdom — tuned in on April 8 for SEBA’s first Women in Sports Panel, which was held on Zoom and streamed live on YouTube. The panel featured several trailblazing women in sports, including Carrie Taylor, a WSU alumna with a master of sports administration from the College of Education. Taylor was the first woman to coach a professional men’s club soccer in the United States and currently serves as managing director of the Alliance of the United Women’s Soccer and National Independent Soccer Association and as a technical consultant to the Jamaican Women’s National Team.

Other panelists included female executives with the Miami Marlins, Miami Heat, Philadelphia 76ers, and A-List Sports & Entertainment.

Annora Johnson, a junior majoring in marketing and management information systems in the Mike Ilitch School of Business and SEBA’s chief marketing officer, lined up several of the panelists and said she walked away inspired. The nugget of information that stuck with her the most came from Taylor talking about applying for jobs.

“She said to apply even if you’re not fully qualified because men apply if they’re only half qualified,” said Johnson. “That really stuck with me because I’m always looking at job requirements and saying, ‘oh, I don’t meet that.’”

Another advantage of the events is the opportunity to network.

“A lot of the women on the panel were like, ‘if you want to jump on a Zoom later, send me a LinkedIn request,’” said Johnson. “Some of these are really high-ranking women who are not easy to get a hold of.”

Ramy Badwi, a junior majoring in sports management, wants to become a director of marketing for an NBA team. After a previous meeting, he reached out to Chris Kaiser, senior director of marketing for the Cleveland Cavaliers, and the two now have a monthly Zoom call.

Upcoming SEBA virtual speaker series events include:

• Jim Lites, WSU alumnus and chairman of the Dallas Stars, via Zoom at 6 p.m. April 21. RSVP and submit a question.
• Ryan Maurt, operations manager for the Detroit Lions via Zoom at 6 p.m. April 22. RSVP and submit a question.

Students interested in getting involved with SEBA can get more information by emailing seba@wayne.edu.