Media Releases

The University of Toronto Sports Industry Conference Continues to Grow

January 30, 2017

Toron­to, ON – Already wide­ly regard­ed as the largest stu­dent-run sports indus­try con­fer­ence in Cana­da, the Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to Sports Indus­try con­fer­ence will expand to two days for its sixth edi­tion. The con­fer­ence, #SIC2017, is orga­nized by the Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to Sports & Busi­ness Asso­ci­a­tion (UTSB) and Rot­man Sports Busi­ness Asso­ci­a­tion (RSBA). It will take place in Desau­tels Hall at the Rot­man School of Man­age­ment on Feb­ru­ary 10 and 11.

Last year, the con­fer­ence attract­ed near­ly 400 stu­dents and young pro­fes­sion­als to hear from numer­ous thought lead­ers with­in the busi­ness of sports, gen­er­at­ing more than 700,000 social media impres­sions in the process. This year’s edi­tion will fea­tured rep­re­sen­ta­tives from a wide vari­ety of orga­ni­za­tions with­in the sports busi­ness indus­try, includ­ing brands, agen­cies and prop­er­ties. Tiff Mack­lem, Dean of the Rot­man School, will pro­vide clos­ing remarks. Oth­er speak­ers includes rep­re­sen­ta­tives from the Toron­to Blue Jays, NHL, NBA, CWHL, Rogers Com­mu­ni­ca­tions, Labatt Brew­eries, and Sco­tia­bank, to name a few.

Con­firmed speak­ers include:

  • Nigel Scott, Vice Pres­i­dent, Spon­sor­ship & Expe­ri­ence, Rogers Com­mu­ni­ca­tions;
  • Todd Allen, Vice Pres­i­dent, Mar­ket­ing, Labatt Brew­eries of Cana­da;
  • Jacque­line Ryan, Vice Pres­i­dent, Spon­sor­ship and Phil­an­thropy, Bank of Nova Sco­tia;
  • Yoeri Geer­its, Senior Vice Pres­i­dent Cana­da, Nielsen Sports Cana­da;
  • Matthew Logue, Chief Oper­at­ing Offi­cer, S&E Spon­sor­ship Group;
  • Mark Har­ri­son, Pres­i­dent & CEO, T1;
  • Ian Mal­colm, Pres­i­dent, Lumen­cy;
  • Bren­da Andress, Com­mis­sion­er, CWHL;
  • Kyle McMann, Group Vice Pres­i­dent, Busi­ness Devel­op­ment, Glob­al Part­ner­ships, NHL Enter­pris­es Cana­da;
  • Dan Macken­zie, Vice Pres­i­dent and Man­ag­ing Direc­tor, NBA Cana­da;
  • Mark Dit­mars, Vice Pres­i­dent, Cor­po­rate Part­ner­ships and Lux­u­ry Suites, Toron­to Blue Jays Base­ball Club;
  • Bill Coop­er, Man­ag­ing Direc­tor, Twen­ty Ten Group;
  • Bart Giv­en, Man­ag­ing Direc­tor, Torque Strate­gies; and,
  • David Gold­stein, Chief Oper­a­tion Offi­cer, U SPORTS Cana­da (for­mer­ly Cana­di­an InterUni­ver­si­ty Sport).

For post-sec­ondary stu­dents look­ing at a career in the sports indus­try, #SIC2017 will launch a ful­ly inte­grat­ed net­work­ing plat­form with­in the con­fer­ence designed to get stu­dents in direct con­ver­sa­tion with var­i­ous indus­try pro­fes­sion­als through­out the event.

“Our goal this year is to go beyond enter­tain­ment and pro­vide stu­dents with tan­gi­ble oppor­tu­ni­ties to engage with and gain per­spec­tive from lead­ing pro­fes­sion­als with­in a bur­geon­ing sports indus­try. Every­thing we have put in place keeps this vision in mind — atten­dees can expect to get clos­er to the indus­try than ever before,” says Matthew Hei­d­stra, Vice Pres­i­dent, Cor­po­rate Rela­tions for the Rot­man Sports Busi­ness Asso­ci­a­tion.

“We’re incred­i­bly proud to be expand­ing to two full days of con­tent and net­work­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties this year at SIC 2017. Tak­ing a more edu­ca­tion­al focus, del­e­gates can look for­ward to learn­ing more about the sports indus­try through var­i­ous per­spec­tives giv­en by pro­fes­sion­als and stu­dents alike. We are so excit­ed to be host­ing so many sport exec­u­tives at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to,” adds Melanie Yu, Pres­i­dent, Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to Sports Busi­ness Asso­ci­a­tion.

Fur­ther details and reg­is­tra­tion for #SIC2017 are avail­able online.

The Rot­man School of Man­age­ment is locat­ed in the heart of Canada’s com­mer­cial and cul­tur­al cap­i­tal and is part of the Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to, one of the world’s top 20 research uni­ver­si­ties. The Rot­man School fos­ters a new way to think that enables our grad­u­ates to tack­le today’s glob­al busi­ness and soci­etal chal­lenges.  For more infor­ma­tion, vis­it www.rotman.utoronto.ca

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For more infor­ma­tion:

Ken McGuf­fin
Man­ag­er, Media Rela­tions
Rot­man School of Man­age­ment
Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to
Tel: 416–946-3818
E‑mail: mcguffin@rotman.utoronto.ca