I began working part-time with the Minnesota Timberwolves as a Marketing Assistant in January of 2022. As I was nearing completion of my undergraduate degree, I needed an internship to fulfill the last requirements. This led to some negotiation with my leaders at the Timberwolves/Lynx requesting if they would help convert the Marketing Assistant position with the Lynx into an internship. Thankfully, I was granted the internship. My responsibilities as a marketing assistant were game-day operations specifically in game presentation and event set-up, fan engagement, community engagement events such as Pride festivals, art fairs and the state fair. With the Lynx, my biggest highlight was being able to help coordinate and be a part of two jersey retirements.
After interning at the Minnesota Lynx in the summer, I began my Training Camp Fan Engagement Internship with the Minnesota Vikings. I had responsibilities of interacting with fans through fan engagement activations, set-up and tear-down of training camp, assisting with vendors, and assisted with NFL player and fan interactions. The highlight of my internship was learning about youth marketing and being voted MVP by my fellow intern cohort.
I was a B2C (business-to-consumer) Marketing Intern this past spring for the Minnesota Wild. My tasks included writing and editing copy for all marketing efforts such as radio ads, TV ads and other content as assigned. I assisted in creating, writing and proofing copy for wild.com and email marketing communications through HTML coding. I supported the marketing team with all in-arena, community activations and events for all promotions, ticket pack activations, giveaways and graphic requests across many different campaigns including playoffs. Lastly, I assisted our internal partners and communicated with external partners to organize paid media planning and trafficking to push our campaigns and marketing efforts to our consumers/fans. During my experience, I had the opportunity to work in the office alongside the top dogs and even presented my accomplishments and contributions to the CEO and CFO of the Wild!
This past summer, I had the amazing opportunity to intern with the National Basketball Association in New York City, NY. I was an intern for the Player Development department, a sub-department of the Social Responsibilities and Player Programs department. The Player Development focuses on aiding, providing resources and building programs for athletes to succeed outside of basketball (in other words, creating space for athlete aspirations to thrive). As an intern, I had miscellaneous responsibilities and I would help anywhere that was needed. In New York and with the NBA, I gained some of my best experiences, including life experiences and work setting experience (corporate setting). There were many highlights of my internship experience but one I will share was being nominated by my fellow intern cohort to give a capstone speech about my internship experience.