Sports PR and Marketing

Samantha Hughey
Digital Brand Manager
Adidas

My name is Samantha. Sam for short. I am a Western Kentucky University alum and Hilltopper fan for life. I have a Bachelors of Fine Arts in advertising, photojournalism, and sales. I completed my Master’s of Communication at the University of Louisville where I worked alongside adidas as the Coordinator of Social Media for U of L’s athletic department. From Louisville I moved to Colorado to live at the Olympic Training Center to be a part of Team USA on their #RoadToRio. At the moment I am in Portland with adidas.I can be summed up as a: Buffalo Bills Fan.Coffee Fiend. Creative. Bourbon Snob. Leftie.

Bryan Bellows
Director of Corporate Sponsorships
Minnesota Wild

Bryan has been with the Minnesota Wild since 2005, currently serving as Director, Corporate Partnerships.  In this role, he oversees a sales team responsible for renewing corporate sponsors in addition to generating new sponsor revenue. Prior to this role, Brian was responsible for the sales of the 66 annual suites at Xcel Energy Center and New Business Development in the Wild Customer Sales and Service department. Before his time with the Minnesota Wild, Bryan was with the St. Paul Saints minor league baseball club, most recently as Director of Promotions.  He received his BA in Marketing from the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, MN.  He also serves as Chairman of the Board for United Heroes League, a non-profit with the mission of keeping the children of our nation’s serving military active and healthy in sports. Bryan lives in Farmington, Minnesota with his wife Amy and their three children; Ava, Jameson, and Annalise.

Renata Hays-Kukowski
VP of Marketing & Licensing
Top of the World

Renata Kukowski serves as the Vice President of Marketing & Licensing at Top of the World, one of the largest manufacturers of licensed apparel and headwear and which holds more than 700 licenses with major universities and brands such as John Deere, Wrangler, Coca-Cola and Disney. From 2009-2015, Renata worked in OU's athletics department as Assistant Athletics Director for Branding & Licensing, where she oversaw OU’s $4 million trademark licensing program and a variety of branding-related initiatives. Prior to that, she spent three years at the National Football League as a member of the inaugural Blue Chip Program—a rotational program within the NFL’s business ventures division—and in Partnership Marketing & Sales, in which she worked closely with a number of NFL sponsors, such as Visa and Bank of America. Renata graduated summa cum laude from OU in 2006 with degrees in journalism (PR emphasis) and marketing and received her MBA from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2017. Always looking for opportunities to give back to her alma mater, Renata began serving as an adjunct professor in 2013 in Price College’s new Sports Management program and continues to teach this class, Licensing & Intellectual Property in Sports, each spring semester. She also sits on Gaylord College's Board of Visitors and began teaching a business-related class in the college in Fall 2018.

Mike Veeck
Author
Co-Owner of Several Minor-League Baseball Clubs
Restaurateur
Former Citadel Professor
Philanthropist and Founder of Fun Is Good - Employee Engagement Consultants

Mike Veeck is a nationally renowned speaker, entrepreneur, college professor, marketing, promotions and advertising expert as well as an owner of several successful minor-league baseball clubs and the business consulting firm, Fun Is Good.  His name is synonymous with fun and creativity and he continues to blaze new trails each year. He believes anything is possible and that passion drives performance!   This is the premise of his acclaimed books; Fun Is Good and his newest irreverent book; Another Boring, Derivative, Piece of Crap Business Book.  Through stories of his successes and failures, Mike demonstrates that every good idea starts with innovative, creative and many times totally outrageous suggestions. Who else would train a pig to deliver baseballs to the umpire, hire mimes to perform instant replays or lock fans out of the stadium to set an all-time attendance record for fewest people at a game?  He has been recognized and praised by reputable business critics for exceptional employee engagement by bringing, joy, innovation and inclusion to the workplace.

Patrick Hayes
Co-founder Waterhouse Hayes
OU Alum

Patrick attended the University of Oklahoma from 2009-2014 with a degree in Public Relations and a minor in Health and Exercise Science. At OU, he was an athletic trainer for the track and field and football teams. After switching to PR, he worked in the digital media department for OU Athletics where he helped in the digital strategy and content creation for SoonerSports.com and the @OU_Football and @OU_Athletics Twitter and Instagram accounts. Upon graduating, Patrick went back to his hometown of Lincoln, Neb. and worked as the talent relations coordinator for a startup called opendorse. They are an NFLPA licensee for digital endorsements. He spent 2 years there before moving to LA to be the Sports Content Strategist at an agency, handling all the player social and digital needs. He spent another year at a new agency before forming his own agency, Waterhouse Hayes, in November of 2017. He currently runs the marketing endorsements for 9 clients.

Cyone Batiste
Assistant Director, Communications and Community Engagement
Atlanta Super Bowl Host Committee

Cyone Batiste joined the Championship Hosting Division of Atlanta Sports Council in 2016, where she is working a three-year span of major sporting events including the 2018 College Football Playoff National Championship, Super Bowl LIII and the 2020 NCAA Men’s Final Four. In her current role, she’s responsible for digital and social communication, including website management, managing the organization’s brand standards and promoting community engagement efforts.  During Super Bowl LIII, Cyone led the Social Media Command Center, the social media agency relationship and a volunteer team of 75 to ensure engaging, creative content, rapid fan response and thoughtful crisis management immediately across all social media platforms for the Atlanta Super Bowl Host Committee accounts and website as well as the NFL’s Super Bowl channels. Prior to joining the Championship Hosting Division, Batiste served as the manager of marketing and communications for the 2016 and 2017 NCAA Men’s Final Four in Houston and Phoenix respectively. Through her years with the Final Four, Batiste organized the largest statewide literacy program in Final Four history, securing 34,000 students at more than 400 schools across the state of Arizona to participate in a March Madness bracket-like challenge. Batiste is a graduate of Louisiana State University (LSU) and currently resides in Atlanta, Ga.

Dr. Cyndi Frisby
Professor at Missouri School of Journalism

Dr. Cyndi Frisby is a nationally-recognized authority on media portrayals of minorities, athletes, women and teens. Frisby studies how media messages contribute toward creating or maintaining stereotypes and biases against minorities, athletes, women and teens. Among other topics, she has investigated the sources of American viewers’ fascination with reality television and the effects of idealized images on perceptions of body esteem among African American women. Frisby also studies race and gender representation in sports; she analyzed coverage of black male athletes by magazines and news websites from 2002-2012 and demonstrated that news stories involving instances of crime or violence were more heavily covered when they involved black athletes.

​Additionally, Frisby provides research-based decision-making assistance to health organizations developing communication campaigns for underserved populations. She conducted two separate studies focused on effective messaging on breast cancer prevention among African American women. She found that testimonials from cancer survivors are the most effective way to increase awareness and willingness to have mammograms among this group. Frisby’s enthusiasm for her research is reflected clearly in the classroom, where she has won numerous awards for excellence in teaching. In 2002 the University of Missouri awarded her one of its highest teaching honors, the William T. Kemper Fellowship. Student-athletes recognized her outstanding teaching by naming her one of the four Most Inspiring Professors on the MU campus in 2007. Several Mizzou ’39 honorees have named Frisby as their mentor. Mizzou ’39 honors outstanding seniors for their academic achievements, leadership and service. Frisby earned her doctorate degree and her master’s degree from the University of Florida’s College of Journalism and Mass Communications. She joined the Missouri School of Journalism faculty in January 1998 and is a full professor of strategic communication with a joint appointment in the communication department in the College of Arts and Science.