SPORTS CAREERS: Dann's Journal - Week #9

During this past week, media guides from every major-league team have been trickling into the office. It’s the annual kick-off to the baseball season – the arrival of media guides.

If you haven’t picked one of these up, you don’t know what you’re missing. They’re stuffed full of information – more information than even the biggest sports fan can digest in one sitting.

Media guides contain everything you’ve ever wanted to know – not just for reporters and broadcasters, but for job seekers as well. And few people realize this.

Here’s how it works:

If you really want to work in the sports industry for a big-league team, be sure to request a copy of their latest media guide. Sometimes they’re free; sometimes not. But trust me, they’re a heck of an investment.

Most media guides have a section reserved for bios of front-office employees. This is the section you should scope out. And once you flip through the pages, you’ll find that the reason is pretty obvious.

So you want to be a communications director of a professional baseball team? Well, I did. And I figured that the best way to prepare for this career was to see how the current communications director did it. I read his bio, and I realized a number of things. I found that I didn’t need a graduate degree, as I had originally assumed. In fact, I didn’t even necessarily need a communications degree. And best of all, I knew whom I could contact directly when I wanted an internship in that department.

Even if you have no idea about what area of the sports industry you want to work in, it’s not a problem. Pick up a media guide, and read the bios of the front-office employees. You’ll get job descriptions, find potential college majors, and get the names of people that could potentially be the head of your internship or department.

I’ve written a past column on SportsWorkers.com about the endless wealth of information you’ll find in media guides. I still stand by that philosophy. So if you’re looking for that extra edge in the job or internship search, call your favorite team and ask for a media guide.