My Summer Internship: Madison Compare

Madison Compare takes a photo during a Vlaor football game.

Each summer, students from the University of Delaware’s Alfred Lerner College of Business and Economics gain important real-world professional skills through internships. In each installment of this series, you’ll hear firsthand about how one Lerner student secured their internship, what their experience as an intern was like and what comes next!

 

Madison Compare, Class of 2021, double major in sport management and marketing with a minor in international business studies, has spent her summer in Washington, D.C. as a game night staff and global partnerships intern at Monumental Sports and Entertainment.

 

Q: How did you find out about this internship?

Compare: I have been fortunate enough to attend many Washington Capitals [professional hockey team] games throughout the past few years and I always had an interest in working for Monumental Sports and Entertainment [the company that owns the Capitals and several other professional sports teams] because of the experience I had gained at those hockey games. I knew that a summer internship would be out of season for the Capitals and the Washington Wizards [professional basketball team] but after researching the company further I found out that I could work with the arena football team, Washington Valor, and the WNBA team, The Mystics. I thought that applying for this internship would allow me to get my foot in the door and hopefully come back my senior year and intern while the Capitals are in season. 

 

Q: What is the most exciting task that you have undertaken in your role?

Compare: My job centered around Monumental Sports and Entertainment’s partnership with Anheuser-Busch. During three of the Washington Valor’s home games, Anheuser-Busch ran a promotion with one of their products, Bud Light, called Bud Light’s General Manager of the Game. During this promotion three fans were selected to join the team for a day and go through all of the motions that the general manager does on a game day.  

 

The new GM met the team, helped them through warm-ups and sat on the bench with a headset in hopes to lead them to victory. Throughout this process I made sure to photograph every event and that Bud Light was getting the press that they set out to get. I also made sure that the fan was having the experience of a lifetime in order to assure that he would go home and tell everyone about the time that Bud Light gave him an amazing opportunity. 

 

Q: What did you learn through this internship that you don’t think you would have learned anywhere else?

Compare: Throughout this internship I learned how to recap a season in terms of partnership deals. This entails going back to the original contract and highlighting everything that the partner had requested in order to make the deal. For example, if Anheuser-Busch requested three minutes of on-screen promotions during a game, I would have to go back to that game and make sure that we have picture proof of the three minutes of on-screen promotions. I then compiled all of the pictures into a presentation that can be used to assure Anheuser-Busch that their deals have been honored. 

 

Q: What is an example of a time you were able to apply something you learned at the Lerner College to your role?

Compare: The photo requests for a game night are made on an Excel document. All of the games for the season for both the Mystics and the Valor are placed on one document. As one can imagine, this is a lot of information to store in one place. I was beyond thankful to have taken MISY160 and MISY261 because these classes gave me the skills that I needed to survive this internship. If I did not take these classes, a task that took me five minutes may have taken me two days because of all the information that was on one document. 

 

Q: What has been the most fun part of your internship?

Compare: I was able to attend game nights and walk around on the courts and fields taking pictures. This was truly a fun and exciting experience. I still got nervous every time I approached the field even though I had an access pass. 

 

Q: How do you think this internship will help you with your professional goals?

Compare: Hopefully, if I return during my senior year, this internship could lead into a full-time job offer. But it also helped me gain confidence in a fast-paced work environment and improve my networking skills. 

 

Q: What are your plans or next steps once this internship is over?

Compare: I plan to stay in touch with my boss over the next academic school year in hopes to return back and to complete my senior year internship with Monumental Sports and Entertainment during the Washington Capitals season.  

 

Q: Is there anything else you want to tell us about this experience?

Compare: This internship was overall a very valuable and eye opening experience as I was fortunate to see every aspect of working for multiple sports teams as well as collaborating with a billion dollar company and the world’s largest brewer, Anheuser-Busch.

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