University of Southern Mississippi Athletics
Students Getting Real World Experience Selling Tickets for Athletics
9/24/2026 4:00:00 PM | Football
By Tim Doherty, Special to SouthernMiss.com
HATTIESBURG, Miss. -- The University of Southern Mississippi athletic department's efforts to attract folks in support of its sports teams is getting a hand from a classroom across campus.
In return, a set of students is getting a real-world glimpse into what could be a potential future.
This fall, the Southern Miss Ticket Office staff has been assisted by 25 students from Dr. Sabrina Reed's Sports Sales class in the College of Business and Economic Development's School of Marketing.
"These students are looking for real-world experience," said Robert Krause, USM assistant athletic director for ticket operations and sales. "This is a kind of a partnership that we have developed with Dr. Reed this year, having them sell some tickets while also giving them the experience of selling some tickets."
The class is broken into five teams sporting five students each, "differentiated for different targets" such as theme days, regular group sales and student Eagle Club, Krause said.
Each student is required to devote 15 hours to the Ticket Office, making and taking calls in the pursuit of selling tickets.
"So, we have them targeting different things, making for a little fun competition between the five teams," Krause said. "As we know, competition usually leads to better outcomes."
The partnership is a renewal of an effort in years past that had linked the classroom with the working world, giving students an up-close-and-personal look into a specific facet of collegiate sports marketing and management.
"It's a good thing, no matter what, that we can help give some of these students this experience," Krause said. "A lot of these folks are wanting to get into sports in some way or form.
"Obviously, ticket sales is the easiest way to step a foot in the door just became every team needs a ticket sales person, so helping them have some experience there allows them to kind of do that."
The partnership also gives Krause and his staff a list of in-house talent for potential future needs and possibilities.
"It allows us to go, 'OK', when we're looking for student workers or internships, we now have a pool of people that we can look at," Krause said. "It's kind of interesting for us to develop our own little pipeline, basically."
The Southern Miss Ticket Office partnership is not the only real-world project offering business students a hands-on experience, under the sports marketing/management umbrella.
These marketing/promotional/"shadowing" initiatives include opportunities like a longstanding agreement with the National Basketball Association's New Orleans Pelicans, initially initiated by Southern Miss Associate Professor Dr. Chris Croft.
Another partner includes minor league baseball's Biloxi Shuckers of the Southern League.
And in 2025, a group of sport management students worked the "NFL Experience" associated with Super Bowl LIX as well as the game itself at the Caesars Superdome in New Orleans.
"We try to partner with as many as many organizations as we can to do different experiential learning because it's definitely important," said Reed, an assistant teaching professor in CBED's School of Marketing at Southern Miss. "It's important in all jobs to network, but in sports, it is especially important that they're out there. They're networking. They are getting the experience they need to get a taste of it."
And those experiences can provide myriad lessons.
"Right now, there's a lot of voicemails, a lot of phone calls that are going straight to voicemail," Krause said. "The day we live in now, most people see a number they don't recognize and they don't answer it. I'm sure I do that as well.
"But, when they get (a person) on the phone, there are great conversations to be had. They are learning how to have a conversation. They have script that we give to them and tell them, 'OK, try to stay within the bounds of this,' but we also tell them, 'Hey, make (the call) your own and also listen to what the customer is saying, listen to what our fans are saying and see what you can develop off of that.'"
With the different relationships with different teams, students are exposed to the various components that go into the marketing end.
But the sales class is a bit different, introducing the often rough realities of cold calls.
"So, we're doing other things, but there are probably higher stakes, if you will, in terms of sales, because you're either making them or not," Reed said. "It's not (just) a pitch and then that's just what you do. You present it as pitches, but it's like, 'OK, did you sell or not?'
"There are a lot that say, 'You know, I don't like to be told no. I can't make a sale. I've tried so hard. It's so discouraging and stuff.' But, that's also the point of the class, to see if you're gonna go into this job."
Reed said the students learn they are selling more than just admission to a game.
"Sports marketing is not just marketing a (tangible) product," Reed said. "Instead, you are selling (an experience as a) product, and that product is immediately consumed, being the game, the experience, right?
"So, you can go to 50 games in a season, but all 50 of those games will be different. You will never see the exact same game, so you're not selling a shirt or a TV, you know, a product that is going to be consistent.
"Instead, it's an unpredictable, intangible product that we are focused on selling, promoting, whatever it may be, depending on the different avenue you go into."
Reed said the Sports Sales class is earmarked for seniors.
"We do want that to be a senior class if at all possible," she said. "We do still have some juniors in there, but we really want this to be (for seniors).
"You know, they're doing these shadowing things and stuff like that and that's what I talked to (Krause) about and said, 'OK, this is a good opportunity to grab a GA potentially for next year or if you have openings.' Things like that. This is like a semester-long interview, if you will, for some of these students."
Krause said the focus so far has been football, but as the semester progresses, other sports become incorporated.
"As the semester goes on, you have less games to sell," Krause said. "As soon as we're running out of games for football, we'll have some of them draw their attention to basketball. Kind of help where we need, try and get some sales there as well."
Krause said the bottom line for the partnership is that both entities benefit from the experience.
"Hopefully, we get enough out of it each way where this is something helpful to both of us here," Krause said.
HATTIESBURG, Miss. -- The University of Southern Mississippi athletic department's efforts to attract folks in support of its sports teams is getting a hand from a classroom across campus.
In return, a set of students is getting a real-world glimpse into what could be a potential future.
This fall, the Southern Miss Ticket Office staff has been assisted by 25 students from Dr. Sabrina Reed's Sports Sales class in the College of Business and Economic Development's School of Marketing.
"These students are looking for real-world experience," said Robert Krause, USM assistant athletic director for ticket operations and sales. "This is a kind of a partnership that we have developed with Dr. Reed this year, having them sell some tickets while also giving them the experience of selling some tickets."
The class is broken into five teams sporting five students each, "differentiated for different targets" such as theme days, regular group sales and student Eagle Club, Krause said.
Each student is required to devote 15 hours to the Ticket Office, making and taking calls in the pursuit of selling tickets.
"So, we have them targeting different things, making for a little fun competition between the five teams," Krause said. "As we know, competition usually leads to better outcomes."
The partnership is a renewal of an effort in years past that had linked the classroom with the working world, giving students an up-close-and-personal look into a specific facet of collegiate sports marketing and management.
"It's a good thing, no matter what, that we can help give some of these students this experience," Krause said. "A lot of these folks are wanting to get into sports in some way or form.
"Obviously, ticket sales is the easiest way to step a foot in the door just became every team needs a ticket sales person, so helping them have some experience there allows them to kind of do that."
The partnership also gives Krause and his staff a list of in-house talent for potential future needs and possibilities.
"It allows us to go, 'OK', when we're looking for student workers or internships, we now have a pool of people that we can look at," Krause said. "It's kind of interesting for us to develop our own little pipeline, basically."
The Southern Miss Ticket Office partnership is not the only real-world project offering business students a hands-on experience, under the sports marketing/management umbrella.
These marketing/promotional/"shadowing" initiatives include opportunities like a longstanding agreement with the National Basketball Association's New Orleans Pelicans, initially initiated by Southern Miss Associate Professor Dr. Chris Croft.
Another partner includes minor league baseball's Biloxi Shuckers of the Southern League.
And in 2025, a group of sport management students worked the "NFL Experience" associated with Super Bowl LIX as well as the game itself at the Caesars Superdome in New Orleans.
"We try to partner with as many as many organizations as we can to do different experiential learning because it's definitely important," said Reed, an assistant teaching professor in CBED's School of Marketing at Southern Miss. "It's important in all jobs to network, but in sports, it is especially important that they're out there. They're networking. They are getting the experience they need to get a taste of it."
And those experiences can provide myriad lessons.
"Right now, there's a lot of voicemails, a lot of phone calls that are going straight to voicemail," Krause said. "The day we live in now, most people see a number they don't recognize and they don't answer it. I'm sure I do that as well.
"But, when they get (a person) on the phone, there are great conversations to be had. They are learning how to have a conversation. They have script that we give to them and tell them, 'OK, try to stay within the bounds of this,' but we also tell them, 'Hey, make (the call) your own and also listen to what the customer is saying, listen to what our fans are saying and see what you can develop off of that.'"
With the different relationships with different teams, students are exposed to the various components that go into the marketing end.
But the sales class is a bit different, introducing the often rough realities of cold calls.
"So, we're doing other things, but there are probably higher stakes, if you will, in terms of sales, because you're either making them or not," Reed said. "It's not (just) a pitch and then that's just what you do. You present it as pitches, but it's like, 'OK, did you sell or not?'
"There are a lot that say, 'You know, I don't like to be told no. I can't make a sale. I've tried so hard. It's so discouraging and stuff.' But, that's also the point of the class, to see if you're gonna go into this job."
Reed said the students learn they are selling more than just admission to a game.
"Sports marketing is not just marketing a (tangible) product," Reed said. "Instead, you are selling (an experience as a) product, and that product is immediately consumed, being the game, the experience, right?
"So, you can go to 50 games in a season, but all 50 of those games will be different. You will never see the exact same game, so you're not selling a shirt or a TV, you know, a product that is going to be consistent.
"Instead, it's an unpredictable, intangible product that we are focused on selling, promoting, whatever it may be, depending on the different avenue you go into."
Reed said the Sports Sales class is earmarked for seniors.
"We do want that to be a senior class if at all possible," she said. "We do still have some juniors in there, but we really want this to be (for seniors).
"You know, they're doing these shadowing things and stuff like that and that's what I talked to (Krause) about and said, 'OK, this is a good opportunity to grab a GA potentially for next year or if you have openings.' Things like that. This is like a semester-long interview, if you will, for some of these students."
Krause said the focus so far has been football, but as the semester progresses, other sports become incorporated.
"As the semester goes on, you have less games to sell," Krause said. "As soon as we're running out of games for football, we'll have some of them draw their attention to basketball. Kind of help where we need, try and get some sales there as well."
Krause said the bottom line for the partnership is that both entities benefit from the experience.
"Hopefully, we get enough out of it each way where this is something helpful to both of us here," Krause said.
Monday, September 21
Sunday, September 20
Monday, September 14
Wednesday, September 09