Women in Sports: Rachel Steinberg, Digital Partnerships Manager at Madison Square Garden

BY: Madison Hedding

Who: Rachel Steinberg
​Digital Partnerships Manager at Madison Square Garden
Social Handle: @rsteinberg330

What’s your story? 

Rachel was born and raised outside of Philadelphia. Living in that area, she was blessed with an instant connection with sports. Her dad and older brother were super passionate about Philly sports in general, and it was fun for her to follow the teams through their success. As her family went to games growing up, it was easy for Rachel to realize what joy going to games brought her.  

“At around seven years old I realized that I had a love for fan experience. I wanted to get to the games early, engage with everything that was going on at the interactive stations, and was beyond immersed with the full in-game experience.” She wasn’t just engaged with the players and team performance (aside from Allen Iverson, of course), she understood that there was more going on behind the scenes from a young age, which eventually led to her current love for connecting fans to brands through sports.

She grew up playing basketball, softball and other sports but didn’t think they would carry on past high school. “I was a proud bench warmer on my varsity high school basketball team.” Growing up before social media, the main ways to follow sports (aside from going to games) were through TV, newspapers and radio. Out of those three, watching TV was the only outlet where Rachel physically saw the people working this career path. Once she saw a blonde female team reporter, Rachel felt like she finally saw herself. 

Rachel knew she wanted to go to a college with a large campus and pride for their sports teams – she didn’t know exactly what she wanted to do academically but wanted a school big enough where she could figure it out. Choosing Penn State, she started as a Broadcast Journalism major just like the blonde woman on TV. Penn State didn’t have a sports management program, so she said, “let’s try this route through broadcasting and just see what happens and if it’s actually what I want to do.”

In college, Rachel was active on campus and had joined a few clubs, including becoming the marketing chair of a non-sports related student organization her freshman year. “I was running our social media accounts, doing graphic design for print and digital collateral, controlling promotions on campus – anything that was branding and marketing I was doing and I loved it and was pretty good at it.” This passion caused her to change majors to Advertising her sophomore year. Still interested in writing, Rachel was hired as a volunteer blog contributor for a local Philly sports blog. “It wasn’t paid, but it was a way for me to work in sports, in a way, while fundamentally working towards my advertising major. It was my first real sports thing that I was able to add to my resume.”
While looking for internships the summer going into her junior year (the first summer of her not being a camp counselor), she unfortunately fractured her tibia in April in a freak accident, leaving her in crutches and unable to put weight on her foot for three months. Instead of having a summer internship like most of her classmates, she took online classes and continued contributing to the Philly sports blog, while building up her LinkedIn for the first time and creating her first online portfolio. Fortunately in one of her classes fall semester junior year, two representatives from Penn State’s Athletic Communications department came in seeking interns. “I was like woah, what is this? Who are these people? I have to apply.” 

Rachel applied, and used her writing samples from the sports blog, and creative portfolio from her marketing chair position and newly created portfolio website and was offered the role. She was an Athletic Communications Student Assistant and for two years it was across all sports so she was able to get a multitude of experience across the board. “I assisted the full-time SID’s (Sports Information Directors) with in-game statistics, facilitating press conferences, and general PR duties. While I realized I didn’t see myself becoming an SID, but I loved the atmosphere and people I worked with - I was determined to figure out where my place in this industry was.”

Heading into the summer before her senior year and looking for internships, Rachel applied and landed an Advertising-Sales Summer Internship with Philadelphia’s local sports TV network, NBCSports Philadelphia (ironically the one she saw the blonde female reporter on). “I worked with the sponsorship team and it was the first time I realized that brands spend money to put their logo and brand in front of people- and oh look they’re doing it in sports.” Rachel had a lightbulb moment and saw that this was where she wanted her feet to be planted – her advertising degree translated to brands advertising to sports fans.

After graduating from Penn State, and applying online for multiple jobs, she wound up in a temporary role working as an Event Trainee for a sports marketing agency, Advantage (under the same umbrella as Octagon). “I worked specifically on the LG Electronics account, as they had a traveling interactive mobile marketing activation at tailgates throughout the 2014 college football season. I spent four months traveling the country to tailgates and activating LG Electronics display.” During those four months, her group lived out of hotels, driving over 15,000 miles to nine different Division 1 universities across the country. 

Once that role ended, Rachel continued the trainee program at Octagon’s headquarters in Connecticut, on the BMW account, the agency’s largest account. In this role, Rachel helped plan and execute private auto launch events in top target markets nationwide for a new vehicle hitting the market later that year. She learned a lot about client management and event execution but ultimately saw herself in a role where she could connect more to the client’s target audience. “It showed me that my heart was rooted in sports and I needed to find my way back into that.”

Near the end of the auto launch schedule, Rachel applied and interviewed for full-time roles, including with the Philadelphia 76ers. “They hired internally for two coordinator roles I interviewed for, but their seasonal associate program came up around that same time, including a marketing position. They already knew me so it was easy to apply again.” It wasn’t a full-time role, but it was a full hours, in-office position – to Rachel it was worth any potential risk even a year out of college, moving her back home.
She used that season to network throughout the organization by day and work 41+ games by night. “I met with the head of HR, an executive assistant…everyone I could. I wanted to keep my foot in the door in sports and nothing was off the table in who I was going to meet or what I was going to learn in that job that season.” She helped execute in-arena promotions, theme nights and giveaways while assisting the newly-created Corporate Communications department – anything she could do to stand out. As the season progressed, she wasn’t sure if she would get a full-time offer, so she had to play it safe and look elsewhere as well. 

Combining her college advertising skillset, her agency account experience and with a season in the NBA under her belt, she saw a role on LinkedIn that she had never heard of before that seemingly combined all three. The Brooklyn Nets (as part of what is new BSE Global) were hiring a Partnership Strategy Coordinator which involved supporting the partnership's team by creating customized proposals for brands to partner with BSE’s portfolio of properties. She felt like this was her calling and did her research on LinkedIn to find and contact the recruiter. After two quick interviews, she got the job and relocated to NYC where she spent four years at BSE Global, being promoted to manager during her time there.

Over the years, she became a natural in NBA partnerships but felt like there was still room to grow even if that meant externally. “I liked partnerships and strategy but to me, the area that I could learn the most in, and was the most innovative and always changing is the digital space.” The digital space (social, web, mobile, and more) is constantly growing and evolving - and Rachel saw that as her next opportunity.

“I found this role at MSG and was intrigued by the digital aspect of it. It was a mix of sponsorship, partnership, and digital so it truly was exactly what I wanted to do.” Rachel applied, and ended up being offered the role in January of 2020 with a start date in early February – right before the pandemic hit. Now, she is the Manager of Digital Partnerships, leading the digital strategy and activation efforts for a dynamic roster of corporate partners for the New York Knicks property within MSG. It’s tactical, it’s strategic – with the digital side coming first.

It took Rachel two years and three temporary jobs out of college to get her first full-time role in the sports industry. Looking back, she wouldn’t trade anything for her story. She was able to explore the sports world, found what she wanted, and is now in a role that is a mix of every part of sports that she loves. With partnership, activation, strategy and now digital media Rachel is beyond thankful to have found her place in the industry.

Share some struggles/challenges you have had to overcome that you face as a woman working in sports? 

As Rachel has gone through her career, she feels as if she’s experienced these types of struggles in different phases.

“The first few events I worked in my early career were more so partnership/activation based. My other coworkers who were males were physically built stronger so they could carry more weight, stand for longer, lift heavier boxes and I sometimes felt like I couldn’t keep up.” With this, Rachel felt like she had to do more to make her bosses think they should keep her around longer.

Later in her career and shifting from temporary roles to full-time roles, Rachel now sees that the struggles she has aren’t necessarily more physical ones, but more so personality and leadership based. “It now comes in the form of trying to project myself as someone who could lead, make those tough decisions and still be good at my job while still being liked.” Especially, being a woman working in a male dominant industry, it is hard to find how to balance not being perceived as being too strong or too weak. “I feel like men have a little bit more leniency - whereas for women, you have to be direct without being whiny, emotional or harsh.” 

The gap is less for women. The margin of error is less for women. Being a woman in sports, we’re held to a standard that is less forgiving and more criticizing than our counterparts. When you’re trying to grow in your career and learning to lead, it’s significantly detrimental to all females to have to fight any battle uphill when our counterparts may be fighting it on flatter ground.

What is the best advice you can give a woman who is either just getting her foot in the industry, or already working in sports about how to navigate the struggles and challenges we face? 

“Having real conversations and meeting people in the industry and doing it informally – even if it’s reaching out to them on Twitter, LinkedIn or even Clubhouse – will take you so far in life.” In any field, and more so specifically the partnership field that Rachel works in, it is relationship-based. Women especially are good at having conversations – so use that to your advantage.

“The more conversations you have, especially with those who are within 10 years of where you are in your career, the more opportunities you could potentially get.” Having conversations with VPs and above are great, but it’s the conversations with the people who realistically could hire you and be your boss are the ones you should be reaching out to.

By having these conversations now, you already have a foundation rather than right when you’re applying. “It’s more genuine, it’s more authentic, and it can help you get hired over someone else. Being front of mind, and authentic is everything when it comes to hiring.” 

Being on both sides of the hiring stick, Rachel is a strong proponent of making those connections as soon as you can. “I have been in a position where I needed to hire someone fast and wound up interviewing and hiring someone who reached out to me three months prior to chat informally.” Reaching out to people in your industry and within sports in general, Twitter, LinkedIn and Clubhouse are great platforms to take your connections and network to the next level.

If you are interested in sharing your story, struggles, and words of encouragement for other women in sports, please send me a DM through social media (@MadisonHedding) or email me at 15mhedding@gmail.com 

Support Women in Sports. ALWAYS. 
Madison Hedding