Over the past two weekends, I've had the opportunity to leave Los Angeles on trips organized by my fellow students. In both cases, they turned out to be fruitful both from a career perspective and from a social perspective.
And I'm sure it is pure coincidence, but Mrs. V. wasn't on either trip with me (!)
I. MBA Poker Tournament, Las Vegas
During MLK weekend -- we get a bank holiday in January in the US for Martin Luther King, the civil rights leader who was assassinated in the 1960s -- my beloved Section B went to Las Vegas, coinciding with the MBA Poker Tournament, sponsored by Harrah's and held at Caesar's Palace. The whole weekend was an absolute blast. Just great fun in the clubs, dinner, and on the tables. I organized a section dinner at Pampas, and everyone had a great time.
Except for me, because I never made it.
Here's what happened: the poker tournament started on Saturday at noon -- actually, there were three tournaments, starting on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday at noon, but the Saturday one was the main event. After a heavy Friday night, I slept just a couple of hours, then went to the brunch hosted by Harrah's before the tournament (more on this later).
Then the tournament started with 202 players. Each Through some combination of luck (99%), stamina (0.99%), and poker skill (0.01%), I managed to stay alive, and worked my way past the first few rounds. All of a sudden, that 202 became 150...then 120...a couple of good hands later and I'm one of 99...then 80...then 50...then 27...then 18 -- in the money!
At this point, it was 7:30 and there was no way that I was making a 7:30 dinner. I had a decent chip stack - not the top, but well off the bottom - and I wanted to push for the gold. So on the break, I texted one of my classmates and told him I wasn't going to make it.
Ultimately, I finished 14th. I missed a fantastic dinner -- and was absolutely over the moon about it.
II. Sports Business Association career trek to New York
I was in Los Angeles for about 36 hours after the poker tournament when I headed off for the Sports Business Association's annual career trek (these are called "Days on the Job", or "DOJ" for short, in Andersonian). We met with executives from Madison Square Garden, ESPN, the National Football League, and the National Hockey League. All of the meetings were fantastic, and I had two very personal revelations from this trip.
Firstly, I realized how much I missed New York. I lived there for seven years, including four years as a student at New York University and three years working for UBS, the investment bank. But then I moved to London and took to the capital of the United Kingdom like a fish to water. I'd been back to New York before but this was the first time when I thought about how nice it would be to be back there as a resident again.
Secondly, while I always knew what was important to me about sports was building connections with fans, I learned that the roles that really excited me were the business development roles that were focused beyond game nights. Creating a link with fans through new sports events and properties was very fascinating to me. In my mind, this includes poker, which through ESPN and Las Vegas is experiencing a surge in popularity (including me); being able to build franchise links with casino fans would be very interesting to me as well.
Speaking of the Sports Business Association, be sure to read more about our Career Night, to be held here on campus on 16 February. It promises to be a blast!
I apologize to my readers for going too long without posting, but I promise to email with better regularity soon. In the meantime, enjoy the Caps Rap video and the posts of my fellow blogetteers!
-- Sreesha
