Hi friends,
We're so excited to welcome our first guest blogger, the incredibly talented Danielle Hunt, aka "The Sports Brat". In a two-part feature, she shares her non-traditional path into the sports industry through blogging. Her story highlights the many different ways you can get involved in sports and we hope it inspires you to follow your dreams! Follow her on Instagram and check out her website for more.
DANIELLE HUNT, THE SPORTS BRAT
When I graduated from the University of Oklahoma in 2008, I had a communications degree in hand that I had no clue what I was going to do with. I had no job lined up. Not even an interview anywhere. I left Norman, Oklahoma, with a full understanding on how to communicate with people in a variety of ways, but not the slightest idea of who I was going to work for. I have to make one thing clear. I was a communications major. Not Mass Comm. After a few years, a detour into the education space and the decision to obtain a Masters in Technical Communication, things started to make sense and my path was looking a little more clear.
I started blogging in 2016 and dedicated my platform to sports and fashion. I loved sports. I played sports, watched sports, and come from a sports-centric family. The easiest topic that I knew I could talk about and that would allow me to stand out amongst the numerous fashion bloggers out there was sports. Thus, The Game Day Stylist was born. It was fun - I was curating looks for games because women don’t always want to wear a t-shirt and jeans or a jersey to the game. I was also knee deep in writing a thesis on influencer marketing and how bloggers are reshaping the marketing landscape in the retail industry. It was perfect. The stars were aligning. I was studying something I was actively doing, and I understood the influencer landscape. Except the sports part wasn’t exactly there yet.
I’ll never forget in early fall of 2018, I was headed into a faculty meeting (oh yeah, I’m still teaching full time at this point, American Literature), and I have a DM from Jess Ceresino (Bidonde) of The Sports Brat. She wanted to turn the whole platform over to me. I was like, "Wait, what?!" I couldn’t believe it. Here I was, a sports and fashion blogger who closely followed The Sports Brat, having realized I wanted to be like TSB, and here was TSB asking me to come over and take the helm. I just couldn’t believe it. By the end of October, Jess and I were celebrating my takeover at a Rangers game with a few other friends. Things immediately started shifting. The fashion heavy mindset I had at TGDS was shifting into a game day and travel focus. I was more in the sports world. Brands were reaching out to me to attend games and highlight the fan experience on their behalf. This was new. Exciting and fresh. I felt like I was finally getting started. I was becoming an ambassador for boutiques, creating travel guides, and blogging more. There was a real purpose behind everything I did.
Then, Oklahoma City and the Big 12 called.
Stay tuned for Part 2 next week!
---- Danielle
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