Major League Baseball is looking for ways to improve its website, and it’s enlisting students from Syracuse University’s School of Information Studies for help.

For the sixth consecutive year, employees from MLB Advanced Media will listen to ideas from participants in the MLB.com College Challenge, an overnight competition in which groups of students work together to create innovative concepts for the website. The 24-hour event takes place from Thursday, Nov. 12 to Friday, Nov. 13. Registration closes Nov. 7.

Each year, the challenge draws about 15 to 20 teams — which means more than 100 students take part, said Julie Walas Huynh, director of academic advising and student engagement at the iSchool and an organizer of the event, in an email. Only one member of each team must be an iSchool student.

“Each year it brings so much energy, enthusiasm and excitement to the iSchool,” Huynh said. “The students get an awesome opportunity to work on a real world project, and to partner with their best friends from across campus to make awesome ideas happen.”

She added that the partnership with MLB is “incredible” and the student engagement is “unmatchable.”

On the contest’s opening night, all participants and organizers gather for a celebration dinner, during which they announce the topic and welcome back SU alumni who now work with MLBAM.

The teams are then dismissed to Hinds Hall, where each gets a private space to “brainstorm, develop, work through their ideas and prepare a pitch for the next day,” Huynh said.

Students break from working only once so they can consult with professors and MLBAM employees. Most do not sleep.

The following morning, the organizers do a status check with the students while they eat breakfast. They reconvene in the afternoon at NBT Bank Stadium — home of the Syracuse Chiefs — where each team makes its final pitch to a set of judges in the preliminary round. The best team from each judging group moves on to the finals, during which one team is crowned as champion.

Each year brings a new topic, which the participants don’t know until the competition begins. Last year, the topic was product integration, and the winning team created a mock plan for a hypothetical toothpaste company — one of several hypothetical companies to choose from.

“The basis of our idea revolved around having our toothpaste company spearhead an anti-chewing tobacco campaign for MLB,” said James Franco, a member of the winning team and a sophomore history and political science dual major, in an email.

Matt Deeb, another member of the winning team and a sophomore information management and technology and finance dual major, said in an email that the toothpaste company would run public service announcements and have stands at the games, among other things.

One idea from the 2014 winning team was a #KeepYourShine 6th inning that incorporated the company, social media and dental education into MLB games.

Jeff Rubin, associate professor of practice at the iSchool and another organizer of the event, said in an email that this year’s topic will be something to do with ticketing.

The winning team will go to New York City for dinner with MLBAM employees, then stay overnight in the city. The next day, they will tour the MLB.com office before sharing their presentation with other MLB employees. All challenge entrants will receive participation prizes courtesy of MLB.com, Rubin said.

“This challenge is a prime example of experiential learning,” Rubin said. “Students have the opportunity to practice what they have learned in the classroom in a real-world environment.”

Published on October 19, 2015 at 8:39 pm

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