Breaking Soccer Records

“This was PRIMETIME’s biggest event of the year and I got to just jump right in,” Peña Moscoso said. “I helped with all sorts of things leading up to the event and beforehand, including working with sponsors coming in for the match and working the fan fest before the game. It was an experience like no other.”

That type of invaluable hands-on experience is thanks to an ongoing partnership between the USF MS in Sport Management program and PRIMETIME. First launched two years ago, the partnership provides selected students with a $5,000 scholarship and an internship with the Southern California-based sports marketing and media agency.

PRIMETIME focuses on the Latino market and selected students must demonstrate fluency in Spanish. As with Peña Moscoso, they’re immersed immediately in the fast-growing Latino sports market in the United States, working with the PRIMETIME team both in the Los Angeles office and at events across the country. The day before the Clásico de México, for example, PRIMETIME produced the first ever Clásico Regio soccer match at Houston’s Shell Energy Stadium last fall. Both events broke attendance records, as did two other of the company’s events.

In 2023, PRIMETIME produced 12 matches in 10 major cities across the country. The matches drew more than 300,000 fans in attendance, more than 3.5 million broadcast viewers in the United States, and more than 70 brand partners. The Clásico de México was a finalist for the North American Soccer Business and Media Awards’ Event of the Year.

“We are a Latino agency really focused on making a change in the media landscape and sport industry,” said Waldo Amador MA ‘19, PRIMETIME’s partnership marketing manager. “We’re really focused on serving the underrepresented Latino community and elevating that market. Our USF interns help make that growth happen. On top of that, this partnership helps support Latinos seeking graduate degrees. Only a small percentage of Latinos have graduate degrees and, additionally, Latinos are underrepresented in the sport industry.”

The combination of supporting students while giving them direct sport industry experience aligns well with the Sport Management program’s focus on experiential learning opportunities, said Ashley Sloper, associate director of USF’s Sport Management program.

“Exemplifying the university’s mission to be ‘people to others,’ our partnership with PRIMETIME demonstrates the deep connections that our community has in the sport industry, and the support that our Sport Management alumni continue to show to young professionals,” Sloper said. “Engaged learning opportunities allow students in the Sport Management program to implement what they are learning in the classroom into practice. This partnership is also critical to our program’s success as it illustrates our depth in connection to sport across the state of California. Even though they are not physically in the Bay Area, our students in Southern California have just as many opportunities to thrive in the sports industry through the Sport Management program connections and community."