A junior in the Honors College at Baylor University majoring in Sports Strategy and Sales, Will Evans ’15 recently got real-world experience in developing a multimedia marketing campaign – specifically one that creatively tells the story of the new era of Baylor Athletics.
Evans participated in Fox Sports University’s fall 2017 competition at Baylor, and his team’s winning campaign, “Wherever you go, BU” will inspire a real-life campaign this year. The campaign’s message is being a Baylor Bear doesn’t end with graduation, but continues to impact one’s personal and professional life.
“Towards the end of this semester we will be working with the Fox Sport Southwest team in putting together all of the deliverables – like advertising and commercials – so that we can roll the campaign out in the fall,” Evans said.
Founded nine years ago, FOX Sports University is the largest, most comprehensive program in the country intent on bridging the gap between academia and the sports industry. Together with 38 university partners, the FOX Sports University program provides unique and enriching educational opportunities to students from coast-to-coast. Students gain necessary tools and resources, and establish networks to make successful transition from college to their careers of choice through unprecedented exposure to real world challenges.
In the fall of 2017, Fox Sports University officials presented the parameters of the competition to junior students in the Baylor Sports, Sponsorship and Sales program. Split into several teams, the students had about eight weeks to develop their campaigns to present to Fox Sports.
As project manager for the winning team, Evans led efforts to conduct surveys to gauge opinion about how distinctive and innovative Baylor is compared to other universities and how the school is viewed both academically and athletically. “We had to take all the raw data and tell a story with it,” he said. “It was a lot of hard work and a lot of late nights, but when we presented our campaign to Fox Sports and Baylor Athletics they absolutely loved it. To see them engage with it, made all the work worthwhile.”
Meanwhile, through connections made while participating with the Fox Sports University project, Evans was tapped to help with social media at the 2017 Big 12 Football Championship held in Texas last December. “I was on the field during the game recording videos and then posting those to the Fox Sports College social media page,” he said.
Evans has a heavy academic workload as an Honors Student, which includes taking Great Texts courses in which he reads works by Aristotle and Plato, various Honors courses within and outside his major, and participating in book and film clubs. He is also starting work on a required thesis in which he will examine whether or not sports stadiums, arenas and ballparks are more profitable using taxpayer money or funding from within the sports organization.
He says O’Dowd prepared him well for the rigors of college. “I feel like I was able to really hit the ground running, and I had all the tools I needed to succeed here at Baylor – especially study and writing skills,” he said.
Looking to the future, Evans hopes to work for a professional sports team, and will get a taste of what that is like this summer when he completes an internship with the Phoenix Suns.
“I’m excited to get into the real world and start working,” he said.