Sports PR

     Public Relations Practitioners work in a variety of organizational situations including businesses, public relation agencies and nonprofit groups of all types.  The work involves a wide variety of activities from planning public rations campaigns and special events to preparing various kinds of communication methods such as brochures, newsletters, news releases, speeches and annual reports. 
    Rather than addressing public relations only as a mean of supporting the marketing function or influencing the media’s interest in an event or organization, public relations is a function that is essential to many aspects of a sport organization’s goals.  The field of sports public relations is a key role for intercollegiate and professional athletics. 
    Students in the sports public relations field will deal with the workings and process behind executing proper techniques of sports information and media relations.  Students will enhance their writing skills, publication editing, crisis management, game management, current event management, law and ethical behavior and publicity campaigns in classes such as Reporting, Media Style and Structure, Mass Communication Law, PR Communication Methods, Sports and the Media, Sports PR and Advance Sports PR.
      After graduating with a degree in Sports Media with an emphasis in public relations, practitioners will deal with circumstances and issues that all sport public relations professionals encounter.  These issues include, sport public relations programs, the distinction from sport marketing, the benefits to sport organizations, strategic perspective on public relations and addressing issues related to reputation management. 
      Practitioners also need to know how to manage relationships with key publics using a variety of strategies, including media tactics, audience research methods, community outreach programs, crisis communications plans, and Web technology.  Sports Public Relation Practitioners should understand the full range of functions within the field of sport public relations and they will learn how to be proactive and progressive in their public relations practices, which will result in better relationships between sport organizations and their key publics. 
      Sport public relations know the foundations for effective media relations in sports such as generating a critical need for a crisis communications plan and how to execute the plan.  The diverse form of public relations practice includes encompassing employee, investor, customer, donor, and government relations.
                                                                        


Sports Broadcasting

      Oklahoma State University has one of the premier broadcasting schools in the nation.  Graduates from OSU are working all across the country in both large and small market television and radio stations, production companies and cable networks.  Their positions vary from working in front of the camera on the news, to working behind the scenes in audio and video production.
      The broadcasting program is unique in that it offers students a chance to work with untraditional professors while gaining valuable practical knowledge of how the media works.   OSU enjoys a real live television studio where students can learn how to produce newscast and make their own commercials. OSU has a strong, established relationship with many of the largest sports media throughout the country.  OSU sports are considered major sports venues, which attract national and regional media coverage. 
      Specifically, in 2005, ESPN chose Stillwater as the site to unveil their new sports channel dedicated to college sports.  Stillwater is a perfect example of classic collegiate sports and an example for how other schools should operate.  Broadcast students have the opportunity to work for those media like ESPN, because the producers know they can rely on expert trained students to support the live broadcast.
      The faculty is not only educators, but all have significant experience in the sports media. That sets OSU apart from other universities in that it not only offers the theoretical knowledge needed but the more important hands-on experiences to prepare students for their future.  Students are able to take classes in such areas as play-by-play announcing, field production and even hosting regional broadcasts. 
      OSU offers a unique opportunity for students to work in their own student-produced 30-minute cable newscast SJB News.  Cowboy Connection, the schools bi-weekly video feature program adds additional chances to increase their experience.  Students working in the radio broadcast field are able to work for OSU’s national public radio station KOSU-FM. 
      Students can also attend the School of Journalism and Broadcasting Sports Media summer camp to further their knowledge of practical use in broadcasting, production and sports writing.  Special guests like Dave Hunziker, voice of the cowboys, and Holly Rowe, of ESPN, will be there to provide valuable insight to the students looking to have the dream career.
      The sky is the limit for the sports media program and definitely in broadcast because OSU can offer what most schools can’t, to learn from distinguished professionals and get real hands-on experience.  The broadcasting program is top-notch and graduates are able to work all over the country at major media outlets.
                                                                           


Sports News-Editorial
   
      For many reporters and editors, the true reward for working at a newspaper, magazine or Internet publication comes from getting to the heart of an important issue or event and then accurately informing their readers.
      To succeed in this challenging career, students in the News-Editorial sequence learn to think critically as they gather information, determine what is relevant, organize the material and clearly communicate that information. Using state-of-the-art computer hardware and software, students at Oklahoma State University learn reporting, writing and editing techniques that dig beneath the source of a story so that they may independently evaluate information as part of their watchdog role. 
      They hone their abilities to locate, understand and use the great number of sources and documents needed for in-depth reporting of important social, political and economic issues. Through Oklahoma State University’s sports media program, students with intentions of pursuing a career as a sports writer are given these same tools, as well as an understanding of the intricacy's of the sports world.
      Students at OSU gain an advantage before entering the ultra competitive job market that is sports writing. As a part of the curriculum for obtaining a degree in Sports Media with an emphasis in print journalism, students will take specific sports classes, such as sports writing, sports media and sports in the newsroom.
      OSU also offers courses in sports broadcasting, sports public relations, sports marketing and sports economics, in order to gain a better understanding of the way the world of sports works.