Emily Black’s childhood career dream hasn’t quite come true yet, but the University of the Ozarks marketing graduate has landed pretty close to her target in the decade since graduating.
The Clarksville, Ark., native grew up watching the WNBA on television and dreaming of someday being the commissioner of the women’s professional basketball league. Today, the 2015 U of O graduate is living in New York City and working in the front office for the WNBA as the organization’s business development lead.
“Other than my parents and grandparents, nothing inspired me more as a kid than the WNBA,” Black said in a recent interview. “I loved basketball growing up — my parents aren’t sports fans so they still ponder where my passion came from — and I played in junior high and high school. Watching the WNBA and seeing women excel on the court, as well as women leading the league’s business off the court, made me feel like I could do it too someday. I used to dream of being the commissioner of the WNBA, and now I sit just a few feet outside of the commissioner’s office.”
As the business development lead for the WNBA, Black is responsible for generating revenue through the sale of large-scale marketing partnerships, or sponsorship sales. She helps identify prospects uniquely aligned to the WNBA’s mission and values, conduct sales outreach and host meetings with senior-level marketing decision-makers at brands and agencies. She develops integrated marketing partnership pitches and proposals, and leads negotiations from initial conversation to contract execution. Over the past year, she has spearheaded WNBA efforts to secure partnerships with such companies as the handbag brand Coach, Ally Bank, Delta Airlines, the dating app Bumble.
Black has worked with the WNBA since 2023 has been a part of an amazing growth spurt that has seen the league become one of the fastest-growing brands in the world. Since 2023, attendance has grown by 50 percent, television viewership has grown by more than 150 percent and merchandise sales are up a whopping 600 percent.
“Having the opportunity to contribute directly to the league’s growth trajectory during this historic period is unlike anything I’ve experienced in my career to-date,” Black said. “I love knowing that every single day, my work has an impact that I can directly see. I am also motivated by helping to grow the league that inspired me so much as a young girl.”
After graduating from Clarksville High School in 2011, Black enrolled at Ozarks to study marketing while also working in the University’s sports information office, an experience she treasures to this day.
“Working in the sports information department was my favorite ‘extracurricular at Ozarks,” she said. “I spent dozens of days, nights, and weekends doing everything from keeping score at baseball games to taking photos on the sidelines of soccer matches to live tweeting basketball games. In the office, I would help with anything from writing articles and game recaps to updating pages on the website. It was my first opportunity to work in sports, and it gave me hands-on experience that I took straight into the workforce.”
After graduating from Ozarks with a marketing degree and high honors in 2015, Black participated in a summer immersion program designed for students and recent graduates interested in working in sports marketing. Through this program, she made important connections and started building her network in the sports industry.
She soon began her career at a startup called Hashtag Sports that produces industry conferences and award programs. She was the company’s first full-time employee, and since they were in startup mode, Black found herself wearing several hats, including both sales and marketing, from newsletter editor and social media manager to event programming and sponsorship sales.
“In my first week of work at Hashtag Sports, I remember being assigned my first couple of tasks and thinking, wow I already know how to do this because I did it in the sports information office,” she said.
While she loved the creativity of marketing while working at Hashtag Sports, Black soon discovered that she appreciated the importance of strategic sales as she learned more about sponsorship development and revenue strategy.
“In 2023, I was offered the opportunity to join the WNBA’s business development team in a role focused on securing new marketing partners for the league,” she said. “It’s my dream job.”
Black, whose parents James and Angel Black also attended Ozarks, called her time at the University “the best career prep I could have asked for.”
“From my advisor offering me the opportunity to participate in a marketing research group focused on studying enrollment and retention at the University to my senior capstone project teaching me how to understand and analyze financial statements, I entered the workforce not only knowledgeable about business and marketing but confident that I had the real-world experience needed to immediately contribute,” she said.
Black’s advice to current students is to “capitalize on opportunities to gain hands-on experience while on campus, and if there isn’t an existing opportunity, raise your hand and see if someone will create one for you.”
“As a freshman, I reached out to the Sports Information Director Josh Peppas to share my interest in working in sports marketing and asked if I could shadow him or work in his office,” she said. “I ultimately worked in the sports information department for all four years of college and the skills and experience I gained were directly transferable to working in marketing for a startup early in my career.”
Topics: Alumni Stories