Hospitality
Hospitality
Fellowship Supports Charlotte Sports Business Careers
Have you ever considered how many tires the average NASCAR team goes through in a year? Or 5 years? Brandon Summers '25 has — this JWU Charlotte Corporate Accounting and Financial Analysis major spent 6 weeks crunching speedway data for Roush Fenway Keselowski (RFK) Racing, a major player in the Charlotte motorsports scene.
For Summers, the real-time experience has been invaluable: “One long-term project right now is implementing a new enterprise resource planning (ERP) system that controls company functions like finance and payroll.” He’s also using Excel to reconcile projected budgets with actual costs over time: “We look at past history to try to prepare for the future so we can budget properly.”
Summers was one of 17 Sports Business Fellows working across the greater Charlotte region at various sports-related organizations, from CAA ICON and FOX Sports to Michael Jordan’s 23XI Racing.
The fellowship program is overseen by Sports Biz Careers (SBC), a nonprofit founded in 2019 by JWU Associate Professor Jeff Longo and then-faculty member Pat Stack to help underrepresented students break into the industry. (It is run independently of JWU.)
Since its inception, the college fellowship program has supported more than 600 students from 250 universities. More than 60 students have been placed in part- or full-time jobs and program alumni have returned as mentors.
But the Fellowship is about more than just making career connections. “We train them up to look at this as professional development,” explains Longo. “Whoever they’re working for, we can be that middle ground to help support the student and the organization to ensure they’re getting the best experience.”
“The process of finding a job varies depending on what organization it is, what the culture is. We try to put everybody in the same room and help them figure it all out.”
The Selection Process
The Fellowship requires a lengthy application process. One of Longo’s priorities with the program is to make an internship about more than just on-site work; he wants every Fellowship participant to come away with widely applicable skills, from exuding confidence in video interviews to being able to articulate their career goals, personal strengths and ideal job roles.
This year, 114 applicants applied for 30 final spots. Each applicant chose their top 7 partner organizations, and the partners did the same. After one more round of final matches based on mutual interest, the final list was announced in mid-March.
Sports Biz Careers takes time to ensure every applicant is internship-ready; the rigor built into the selection process helps the students see the power in their potential.
“We take that group of 30 and give them interviewing skills,” explains Longo. “We make sure their resumes are the way they need to be. We tell them, ‘This is the development of your professional skills that you can use here or apply to other interviews and other opportunities.’” They’ve even had a few students reapply as seniors and make the cut.
A Day at RFK Racing
While every day at RFK Racing might look slightly different, Brandon has a routine: “I wake up at seven, and I’m in the office around eight o’clock. Then I work on various projects at a time.”
“We look at data, like how much the tires cost, how much gas is used. We look at past history and try to prepare for the future so we can budget properly.”
Those “various projects” include the ERP transfer documentation, budget documentation, and several smaller projects.
The ERP project is a daily task requiring attention to detail: “A lot goes into that, so I’m working on that every day, a little at a time.”
Because an ERP controls so many of an organization’s functions, including payroll, finances, human resources and other crucial data, Brandon is mapping out all the data points that might be affected once the new system is implemented. “It’s been a rewarding project — hitting milestones of how much I can complete a day or how much we need to complete.”
He’s also been plotting racing costs using Excel: “We budget, and then there’s actual costs. So just reconciling those is also fun.” There are a lot of variables to racing costs, he explains: “We look at data, like how much the tires cost, how much gas [is used]. Some tracks have higher tire wear than others, while for some tracks, like road courses, we’ll have to get specific tires. So we look at past history and then try to prepare for the future so we can budget properly.”
For Brandon, working with RFK’s close-knit team has been professionally rewarding: “The whole team for RFK is pretty small — roughly 30 people, including the hospitality, marketing, sponsorship, finance and payroll. Everybody is lovely, and they’re willing to help me out anytime I need help.”
He also has some flexibility to check in with other departments to see if they need any small tasks completed; he tagged along on a NASCAR tour of the racing shop: “NASCAR’s research and development is right across the street from RFK, so they came in for a tour. I was able to share my experiences with a high school engineering group.”
The SBC team also organizes group visits within the cohort organizations. Brandon gained insights from the CAA Icon team about their process for stadium renovations (next up: the Spectrum Center in Charlotte) and toured Michael Jordan’s 23XI Racing headquarters.
A Career Springboard
At the end of every summer internship season, Sports Biz Careers organizes a social meetup between the current cohort and the past cohort to share their experiences and connect as a group. It’s part of their emphasis on building a strong network of young professionals who share an industry.
SBC’s support system evolved because of how complex and mystifying the job application process can be, explains Longo. “The process of starting your career is really the first non-linear development that most of these young people have had, right? You graduate middle school, you go to high school. You graduate high school, you go to college, you graduate college — then what?”
He continues: “And now the process of finding a job varies depending on what organization it is, what the culture is. It’s different than any experience they’ve had before. So, we find ourselves supporting students quite a bit. ‘How do I network? What does that mean? Who pays for coffee? How many days do I wait to follow up?’ Those are things that they’re not formally taught anywhere else. We try to put everybody in the same room and help them figure it all out.”
Brandon’s rich experience at RFK Racing reflects the success of SBC’s supportive approach. He gained 6 weeks of real-time experience in the different types of accounting (general, corporate taxation and auditing) and networked amongst Charlotte’s premier sports organizations. Hopefully, he says, “this internship will give me insight into what I want to do.”
