Ryerson Alumni - Summer 2019 - 23

Julio Ramirez is
an assistant in
international
scouting for the
Toronto Blue Jays.

to YouTube and watching a three-minute
video. This year we moved the show to
Instagram Stories. Now we do one video format for YouTube but our live show is posted
on Instagram every Tuesday. We use green
screens so we can superimpose graphics
and have videos playing in the background
because people want a lot of content, fast."

JUSTIN BOBB (Sociology '12)

From the basketball court to helping kids
reach their full potential

put all the pieces together. The data is as
important as the experience. The experience is only as good as the feedback."

For the love of sport

Ryerson Un iversit y Ma ga z i ne sp oke
to four alumni who are working in sport
marketing, media, scouting and community building, about how they landed their
dream jobs and the impact of technology.

MARIA PAPADAKIS (Sport Media '18)

From soccer fan to TV host for the Toronto
Football Club (Toronto FC)

Maria Papadakis grew up playing soccer
and watching it every Saturday with her
dad. She remembers being in her family's living room in Aurora, Ont., watching
SportsCentre and telling her mom, "Man,

I want to do that." After learning about
Ryerson's Sport Media program at a university fair, she joined its first cohort and
in her fourth year landed an internship in
media relations with the Toronto FC and
saw the team win its first championship.
During her internship, Papadakis took the
initiative to create online content for their
feeder team TFC2, something no other
team had done. Today, she is the Toronto
FC's TV and in-stadium host and a junior
producer, creating content for the professional soccer club, the Toronto Maple
Leafs, the Toronto Raptors, as well as corporate sponsors.
On technology: "Sport teams are always
focused on building fan engagement but
technology is taking it to another level. I
have a show called "Red Alert" that started
as a one-video format and was on YouTube,
Twitter and Facebook. Because people are
always on their phones, no one is going

Justin Bobb credits his time playing on
Ryerson's varsity men's basketball team
with preparing him to be flexible and agile,
and to use time productively. Now, he uses
these skills in his work as director of sport
programming at MLSE LaunchPad, a living lab piloting new innovations to help
youth who face barriers. "Sport gave me the
opportunity to build those competencies,"
he says. "I was also a part-time student-staff
member in the Tri-Mentoring program,
doing a lot of community work to provide
greater access for non-traditional university
participants, primarily young Black males,
like myself. This helped me understand
Ryerson's role as a city-builder. Now that
I work at a professional sports company,
the double bottom line is important for us.
We generate revenue through ticket sales
for Raptors and Leafs games but the value
system of MLSE is equally built on our commitment to community programs as a strategic pillar of our business."
On technology: "I work in an industry
where sitting is the new smoking. We're
using technology to get young people physically active. Scoreboard is a proprietary
app we're piloting that allows users to see
their program schedule, do their evaluation surveys, connect with other members
and stay on track. We're using it to quantify what we've been hearing anecdotally
for years: You become a better leader and
better understand the value of teamwork if
you play a sport. This tool will help measure
for the sport-for-development sector so we
can be iterative in building our programs
and refining them to make sure we're getting to the outcomes we're after."

JULIO RAMIREZ (TRSM '15)
From Toronto's Christie Pits to international
scouting for the Toronto Blue Jays

Wit h parents from baseba ll-lov ing
Summer 2019 / Ryerson University Magazine

Ryerson Alumni - Summer 2019

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