For the fifth consecutive year, the Syracuse University School of Information Studies is teaming up with Major League Baseball to develop ideas for the league’s website.

Registration for the on-campus competition aimed at creating ideas for MLB.com opened this past Thursday. The competition will start with a dinner on Thursday, Nov. 13 where students will receive official details regarding the challenge. Following the dinner, student teams will work through the night on their ideas and then pitch them the following day in an open forum at NBT Bank Stadium, home of the Syracuse Chiefs.

The winning team of the two-day competition will earn a trip to visit MLB.com’s headquarters in New York City, according to an iSchool press release. Registration for the competition closes Nov. 3 at 5 p.m. Teams can consist of 2–5 members and only one team member is required to be a full time student at the iSchool.

The competition started a few years ago when SU alumnus Josh Frost, ’08, wanted to do something with the iSchool focused on sports. The first competition took place over a full semester in NYC, but the past four years have been overnight lock-in events hosted at Hinds Hall.

Julie Walas Huynh, undergraduate programs manager at the iSchool, said this year’s competition will vary from past years because more MLB Advanced Media employees will be attending the competition.

“To have a whole bunch come to campus for the event means that they’re excited to meet our students,” she said. “With their advising and mentoring throughout the night our participants will learn a lot and make some great connections.”

The event has seen over 200 different students from across campus participate over the last four years with about 50 students competing more than once. This year, the school expects that around 80 students will sign-up, breaking down into about 20 teams, Huynh said.

Each year brings a different topic for the challenge. Previous years have seen subjects such and “big data” and “gamification.” And while this year’s topic has yet to be revealed, participants can expect the subject to set the tone for the night, Huynh said.

“The topics MLBAM chooses are always really fun and relatable and allow for a lot of creativity in the challenge,” Huynh said.

Jeff Kurkjian, a senior broadcast and digital journalism major, has participated for the past two years and says that the competition is an incredible experience.

“The nature behind the challenge is geared towards college kids — staying up all night and working on a project. It’s the definition of an all-nighter, something all college kids have done at one point,” he said.

The challenge was not only a memorable experience for Kurkjian, but he said it also helped him land an internship at MLB.com this past summer.

“When it came time to search for summer internships, I was in touch with them immediately,” said Kurkjian. “They offered me a position to be a summer intern with them in NYC simply because of the challenge. They are Syracuse graduates and they trust that Syracuse is pumping out the right talent because they were educated here.”

Frost, who helped create the competition, now works at MLB.com and encourages students to participate.

“It’s a good idea for current students to participate because it’s an incredibly unique opportunity to be face to face with a company that is working every day to improve a baseball fan’s experience through technology,” Frost said. “Plus we like to have fun too.”

Published on October 14, 2014 at 12:01 am

Contact Michael: mpassala@syr.edu