Grand Rapids Gold Promo Team
Alex
Experience Information
Employer: Grand Rapids Gold
Job Title: Promo Team
Major: Sport Management
Received Credit: Yes
Paid: No
Abroad: No
Description of the Organization
The Grand Rapids Gold is an American professional basketball team, competing in the NBA G League as the affiliate of the Denver Nuggets. The Gold play their home games at Van Andel Arena, and brought in just over 8,000 fans in their biggest game of the year. You can expect there to be around 30 interns, as well as about that many full-time employees during the season.
Description of the Tasks/Projects Completed
As a promo team/game day intern, there are many different roles that need to get filled every night. Mainly there are people who throw t-shirts, rebounders/floor moppers, bench assist, bench security, working the merchandise tables, or people who run the in-game presentation. Each role uses a unique set of skills, and requires openness to doing something different on a nightly basis. There is also pre-game setup, and post-game teardown elements that each intern does that usually correlate to the job that they have been given on that night.
Skills/Knowledge Gained Through The Experience
Some specific knowledge that was gained through this experience was just understanding the inner workings of how these teams operate on a nightly basis. Learning about all of the little things that need to be done to make sure that each game goes smoothly, and that the fan experience is exactly what they want it to be. A specific skill that was gained was just growing to be better at communicating certain things. Each night, there were a lot of moving parts, and you never know who is really going to be doing what, so communication is a big thing to learn and grow in through this internship.
Favorite Part of the Experience
My favorite part was being able to interact with all the different players at these games. We got to be out there to help the teams during warmups by rebounding for them, so there were a lot of cool interactions that I had with players and coaches.
How the Experience Influenced Future Career Goals
This experience influenced me by reinforcing the thought of wanting to continue working in professional sports. I think that the biggest part is that I just enjoy the event operations side of it, and being able to do it on a bigger scale is something that I have enjoyed doing.
Internship Format
In Person