The morning after the group’s competition, where they had performed strongly but didn’t advance to the finals, Weiner texted them to meet up for breakfast, thinking they’d be ready for a low-key day after weeks of nonstop preparation for the competition.
“They said, ‘We're watching the winning group right now and taking notes,’” Weiner said. “I told them, ‘You had a good time, you worked hard, you haven't slept in two days.’ I had told them to just relax, sleep in, get some food, enjoy the conference. Now they can relax and exhale. And they didn't. They got up and watched all the winning groups, took notes on them and are going to come back and win next year.”
Freiri, a sport management major of Los Gatos, CA, said they wanted to learn as much as they could to strengthen their own presentation for next year.
“We take pride in representing UT and want to do the best job possible.”
It just made sense to do that, said Luther, a sport management major with a minor in marketing, of Palm City, FL. They are competitive and want to improve.
“It would be ridiculous to be content with losing and allow no room for growth and development,” Luther said. “Being our first year competing, we had a lot to learn, and there are things that we could polish and add for next year. By watching the winners, we were able to gather notes and resources, so we will be in a position to bring the trophy to UT next year.”
The Case Study Bowl, presented by the Aspire Group, asks undergraduate students to apply the concepts learned in their sport management classes to solve real-world problems. The topic of this competition was on AT&T’s recent acquisition of the eSport company ESL. AT&T worked with SMA to create a case study focused on helping AT&T understand the eSport space and how to align ESL with the company’s entire portfolio.
“This was a real problem that they had, and they gave our students a chance to try and tackle it,” said Weiner, noting that the panel of judges for the competition included executives from Complexity Gaming, one of the premier eSport organizations, sport marketing firm Wasserman, a vice president of AT&T and some of the premiere eSport researchers in the field.
“Everything we've taught them in class — Dr. Margaret Tudor actually teaches them marketing — everything she's taught them about consumer behavior and branding and marketing, they're going to remember forever through this case study,” said Weiner.