Faculty Spotlight: Matthew Perl
After ESPN, Professor Perl’s interests shifted away from production and towards the business side of sports and sports marketing. He was especially intrigued by why and how sport organizations generate revenue. To learn more about these topics, he enrolled in the Master of Science in Integrated Marketing and Communications program at West Virginia University. Simultaneously, Matthew started working as the Chief Marketing Officer for a Lead Generation Company in Washington DC, where his responsibilities were centered around consumer acquisition and fan engagement.
In 2016, Professor Perl got an opportunity to work with the NFL as the Manager of Customer Acquisition and Sales Operations in San Francisco. This led to his current position with the Oakland Athletics where he has served as Director of Marketing and Broadcasting since 2017. These experiences in marketing in two major sports operations have allowed him to fully understand the nuts and bolts of how to run a sports business.
As he gradually established his footprint in the sport industry in the Bay Area, Professor Perl developed an increased interest in a career in academia. The latter emerged as he was offered the opportunity to be a guest speaker in one of Professor Nagel’s classes, about which he states “I thoroughly enjoyed the students’ engagement and being able to share my contributions to the sports industry through my platform and work experience with the A’s.” This resulted in Matthew being hired to teach the External Relations course, KINES 372, at Saint Mary’s College which focuses on Media, Public Relations, Marketing and Sponsorship. To reflect trends in the sports business industry, he reviewed and revised the course’s syllabus to tackle these topics from a more digital and data perspective. Matthew has now been fully engaged in the SMC Graduate Kinesiology program as an adjunct professor since Fall 2019.
When asked about the Covid-19 pandemic and its impact on the sports marketing world, Professor Perl shared some valuable insights. He states: “In dealing with a challenge like this, sports organizations are increasingly allowing community stakeholders to leverage their platforms to share critical information. When it comes to decisions about the safety of athletes, social media, channels and platforms, we need to be smart in the way we approach this challenge and look at it as a learning experience. I integrate these real life examples into our course and ask students to think through how the pandemic should be managed through the lens of external relations and community involvement.”