The new BA in Sports Communications will welcome its first students to Quinnipiac in the fall of 2025.

“There are so many opportunities for careers in sports—we are well beyond simply calling games or sideline reporting,” said School of Communications Senior Associate Dean Terry Bloom. “Everything from fan experiences, adaptive sports, youth sports, or newer aspects of the sports industries such as NIL and the proliferation of sports betting has grown the opportunities for skilled communicators to have an impact in sports media.”

The program combines courses taught by experienced faculty across all departments at Quinnipiac’s state-of-the-art School of Communications while also drawing on multidisciplinary offerings across campus including those at the School of Business, College of Arts and Sciences, and School of Health Sciences.

Quinnipiac’s deep bench of experienced School of Communications faculty, sports communications alumni, on-campus practicum opportunities and the BA’s required industry internships will prepare Sports Communications majors for multiple professional roles in the industry.

“Sports is embedded in the culture of Quinnipiac, and we have a lot of exciting plans for new sports communications and sports media content creation courses,” said Chair and Professor of Journalism Ben Bogardus. “Students can learn how to cover games, shoot and edit sports videos, news reports, documentaries, and photo galleries, create content for social media posts, produce podcasts, work with sports data and analytics, and more. Plus, they can put what they learn into practice by joining our award-winning student media groups and working with our athletics department to cover Division I games right here on campus, and beyond.”

Professor of Media Studies Lisa Burns said the new BA in Sports Communications stands on the shoulders of many existing Quinnipiac sports-related communications programs such as the Sports Studies interdisciplinary minor.

“At the School of Communications, we’ve been preparing students for careers in sports journalism, production, public relations, working in front offices for teams, and many other areas, from graphics to fan engagement. This new bachelor’s degree formalizes this work that we have been doing in the sports communications space, for which we have an incredibly successful track record. We have a long list of alumni in the industry,” said Burns.

Burns said the interdisciplinary aspect of the new BA in Sports Communications incorporates the strength across departments in the School of Communications together with partnerships and relationships that have been built with other schools and colleges on campus, as well as with Quinnipiac’s athletics program and the many opportunities which exist within student media.

“We had all these pieces in place as well as ideas for creative new things, and now, we’re really excited to hit the ground running,” said Burns.

Assistant Professor of Journalism Nick Pietruszkiewicz spent 14 years at ESPN and will be entering his third full-time year at Quinnipiac this fall. He said the new BA in Sports Communications meets the moment for students interested in a career in the industry.

“I think this is incredibly valuable to the students who want careers in sports, and there are so many of them,” said Pietruszkiewicz. “This major will highlight all the different opportunities there are to work within sports and prepares students to go do those jobs.”

Pietruszkiewicz said the creation of the new major is a credit to the Quinnipiac community’s ability to work collaboratively and across disciplines to support student success.

“We’re putting everybody together and bringing this all to one place and one focus and using all of our resources together. This is going to be a joint effort by a very accomplished and eager faculty,” said Pietruszkiewicz.