I have known for a long time that one of my favorite things about working in sports is the people. Not just the people in my immediate professional circle, but genuinely anyone I cross paths with in a room connected to this industry in any way. Last week I was in New York for Fanatics Fest at the Javits Center, and it reminded me of that in a way I have been thinking about ever since.
Fanatics Fest is now in its third year and it has grown into something genuinely hard to describe to someone who has not been there. This year it expanded to four days for the first time and took over an additional 25% of space inside the Javits Center, with more than 400 athlete appearances spanning every major sport, live podcast tapings, brand activations, and a FIFA World Cup Final watch party built into the weekend given that MetLife Stadium was hosting the final on Sunday. The event draws fans, collectors, athletes, media, brands, and industry professionals all into the same space at the same time, which is part of what makes it so interesting to be at from where I sit.
What I keep coming back to from last week is the range of people I got to talk to and learn from over the course of being there. I talked to event staff who had been working the floor since early that morning and had a depth of knowledge about how large-scale activations come together that I found genuinely fascinating. I talked to media covering the event from angles I would not have thought to consider. I met people who had nothing to do with sports communications professionally but whose perspective on fandom, on collectibles, on what draws them to events like this, added something to how I think about the audiences we are ultimately trying to reach in this work.
That is something I have tried to be intentional about throughout my career, and it does not always come naturally in environments where the professional instinct is to move toward the people most directly relevant to what you do. I think there is something worth pushing back on in that instinct, because some of the most useful things I have learned have come from conversations I had no particular reason to seek out. Everyone you meet carries a perspective shaped by experiences you do not have, and being genuinely curious about that, across roles, across industries, across whatever the context happens to be, is something I think makes you better at this work over time without always being able to point to exactly how.
Community is something I think about a lot, and I mean it in a broad sense. Not just the professional network you build deliberately, but the wider circle of people you stay curious about and present with over time. In a field like sports PR, where so much depends on understanding how people think and what moves them, that curiosity feels foundational. The more different kinds of people you know and have genuinely listened to, the better equipped you are to do the work well.
These large events is a good reminder of that every year. It puts an enormous range of people in the same building for the same reason, which is love of sport and everything that surrounds it, and within that shared context there is an enormous amount of variety in who people are, what they do, and what they care about. I find that energizing in a way that is hard to manufacture anywhere else, and I always leave wanting to carry that openness with me past the event itself.
You can also read this issue and subscribe to Built in Public on LinkedIn: Built in Public
Built in Public is a newsletter where Amani Marie documents her growth as a young sports public relations professional in real time. It focuses on what she is learning, what she is observing across the industry, and the people and work that stand out.
Some issues will examine moments in sports and how they are communicated. Others will reflect on career development, access, and what it takes to build in this space over time.
This is intended to be a space for learning, sharing perspective, and tracking progress along the way.
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