For my first day on the job, I decided to come into the Sharks offices and get my feet wet. After introductions, we were immediately put to work. We started by re-rolling T-Shirts. Our manager, Nick, who heads up sales and marketing for the Sharks, brings in a box of T-Shirts that we were planning to shoot out of the cannons on game day. Though the shirts had been rolled, they weren't rolled tight enough, so the cannon would not be able to fire them. Luckily a more experienced intern was on hand to show us how to roll them correctly. We finished all 200 shirts, and moved on to the next project: Banners.
Sponsorship is the lifeblood of the Arena Football League. Because ticket sales pale in comparison to that of the National Football League, much of a team's operating budget is derived from companies looking to advertise their product or service during the game. Much of this advertising comes in the form of large banners that we display around the stadium, both in the upper ring and along the side walls (there are no sidelines in Arena Football). Part of our duties during office hours includes preparing these banners for game day. To that extent, we were asked to organize our sponsor's banners in order of placement around the stadium, then roll them all together and load them into our equipment van: "The Chum Bucket".
Once loaded into the van, it was time for some general cleaning. The banners are kept in a third floor room where our telemarketing staff also works to sell tickets to prospective fans. The telemarketing area tends to get pretty trashed, so part of our job is to clean up the mess. Once cleaned and organized, our duties were completed for the day. I was just starting to think that this internship would be fairly easy...that is until I worked game day.
Sponsorship is the lifeblood of the Arena Football League. Because ticket sales pale in comparison to that of the National Football League, much of a team's operating budget is derived from companies looking to advertise their product or service during the game. Much of this advertising comes in the form of large banners that we display around the stadium, both in the upper ring and along the side walls (there are no sidelines in Arena Football). Part of our duties during office hours includes preparing these banners for game day. To that extent, we were asked to organize our sponsor's banners in order of placement around the stadium, then roll them all together and load them into our equipment van: "The Chum Bucket".
Once loaded into the van, it was time for some general cleaning. The banners are kept in a third floor room where our telemarketing staff also works to sell tickets to prospective fans. The telemarketing area tends to get pretty trashed, so part of our job is to clean up the mess. Once cleaned and organized, our duties were completed for the day. I was just starting to think that this internship would be fairly easy...that is until I worked game day.