Briana King

The best piece of advice I've received overall has been to remain myself. As corny as it may sound, there were times before when I didn't know what I was doing. I knew I wanted to work in sports, but I didn't know exactly what I wanted to do. But when I started figuring out exactly what I wanted to do and I was able to connect with the right people, it was just up to myself, honestly, to secure certain roles or to secure certain partnerships by being myself. I'm a talker. I like getting to know people, speaking with people, but getting to understand people is, I think, my strong suit in my career, whether that was working in sports, working in education, or working with a mental health care company. It was always being able to understand. I'm the definition of an empath, so I literally feel for everything, and I think just showing up as my true self has been the winner in my life. And probably never being afraid to help the next person. I'll take a call from anybody. There have been students, there have been people older than me that have reached out to me asking for advice on how to break into the sports industry, and they come to me not knowing necessarily what they want to do, just like me. But once you speak with certain people, I always encourage them to speak to people in the field they want to move on from there. I always like for people to follow up and let me know what they're doing in their career.

The challenges I face include staying in contact with the players and managing our schedule with theirs, especially since we're in the middle of training right now with the draft class coming in and some players being free agents. The partnerships are probably more challenging because every football team has 55-plus guys on the team, so they're all trying to secure partnerships and sponsorships, and having those endorsements means more money for them. That's been the hard part, especially with having to figure out every single player. I work with different players on different teams, so understanding their felt needs has been something important. I used to work in player development as well, so being able to relate to the players and understand them on a deeper level has been a super important trait in my role because I want them to be able to work with these partnerships and understand and relate to the mission of their partnerships and sponsorships that they're looking to get.

Work life and personal life are two totally different things because I have to keep them separate a lot of times since I work with athletes and their business. I would love to tell people what we're working on, but discretion has been extremely big, just working in sports and working whether it's an agency or a club. I think integrity is important. Honorability, or being honorable, has been something I like to be honest about. There's a difference between being honest and honorable. When you're honest, you're telling people the truth and being straightforward to their face, but then behind the back there could be a whole different thing. So showing up as myself and being myself completely and being honest, whether I own a mistake or whether I mess up on anything, I'm gonna say, hey, I'm this type of person. I want to say integrity, discretion, being honorable, and being a self-starter. Working in sports, it's a different ballgame, it's competitive, so being able to know exactly what you're doing is important. You have to move fast because people notice when you make mistakes, whether it's the smallest thing. They're gonna notice it for a fact, and then you could be out of there quickly because there's always someone better than you, so being the best or attempting to be the best is the best way to be, honestly.