Associate Manager, Nick Aconfora and Program Coordinator, Jake Fedida from ESPN presented virtually to a group of Sport Management and Sports Communication students the evening of February 1st. Their presentation was focused on promoting their ESPN Next post-graduate program. This program is open to Seniors, Graduate Students and Alumni interested in beginning their career in a content producing role in the sports industry. Their presentation included the mission statement of the program, in addition to speaking on the pillars of the program – leadership, exploration and diversity. The program is essentially a rotational program, lasting 18-months, that can span across their 7 pods of: Storytelling, NFL, College Sports, Daytime Entertainment, Event, INET & Deportes and Sports Center (SC) @ Night.
After the students complete the program, they will go through a final evaluation where it is determined if the student will be transitioned into a full-time role. Typically this comes with a promotion to the Content Associate role. Nick & Jake also touched in ESPN University, which features courses taught by ESPN professionals for those employees looking to improve upon skills. Courses are taught in the following areas:
Intro to feature storytelling
Intro to graphic producing
How to segment produce
Intro to investigative storytelling
Intro to live events
Advanced editing
Potential career growth opportunities do exist at ESPN. Employees at ESPN who started in the ESPN Next program have matriculated to roles as: Associate Producer, Social/Digital, Programming, Marketing, Graphics Producer, Video Editor, Researcher, Management Operations, Disney Streaming, Creative, ESPN plus Coordinator, FX Networks Associate Producer. Since October 2020, 84 people have been promoted into various departments and roles.
The job posting is coming soon via their ESPN Next social media platforms (Instagram & Twitter). They did make sure to mention that it is easier to be employed at ESPN in a full-time role/rotational program, than it is as an internship. ESPN does not have very many internships themselves, but internships that do exist within the company can be found through Disney Careers here: https://jobs.disneycareers.com/professional-internships
The full video from Tuesday night’s event can be found here: https://shuconnect.sacredheart.edu/videos/espn-next-info-session-2-1-22/
