Tech Exposure & Access Through Mentoring (TEAM) II
Organization
Founded in 2016, the mission of Tech Exposure & Access through Mentoring (TEAM) is to create a racially diverse technology workforce by engaging young learners with science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM), connecting youth with sports technology, and creating social change by providing access, opportunity, and mentorship for underserved youth in the sports tech industry. Combining STEM education and sports technology, TEAM introduces students to coding and design, data collection and video analytics with hands-on training, successfully building a pipeline for underrepresented youth in the sports industry and beyond. Since 2017, TEAM has served 67 students through its Core Program and 80% have earned industry certifications in the SportsCode platform. TEAM has placed 30 students with 12 NBA teams through its NBA Summer League Internship Program. Furthermore, basketball operations professionals from 29 of the 30 NBA teams have assisted TEAM during their training programs.
Situation
COVID-19 has indefinitely suspended TEAM’s in-person Core Program and Internship Program with the NBA summer league. In April 2020, TEAM launched an Online Boot Camp, and has since served 230 students. It also quickly pivoted to an Online Core Program to serve students remotely which offers TEAM the opportunity to expand its reach in the Bay Area and nationally. Career opportunities are broad in scope, market (professional, college, high school) and geography (US, Europe, Australia). In the summer of 2020, the NBA announced a Foundation it established to spur economic empowerment in Black communities, which aligns squarely with TEAM’s mission and program. In the fall of 2020, TEAM engaged an ACT team to refine its positioning platform and develop pitch and engagement templates to help facilitate their partnership efforts. This because although TEAM had partnered informally with a number of NBA teams, it had yet to secure a major partnership or investment.
Project Objectives
The objective of the project was to package and price TEAM’s in-person and virual training programs for NBA teams. Additionally, the ACT team sought to develop engagement plans for TEAM’s programs that outline roles and responsibilities of each of its constituents.
Project Overview
The project consisted of three phases. During the first phase, the ACT team reviewed TEAM’s current marketing and program documentation and costs, and participated in a TEAM training program. In the second phase, the ACT team drafted training program collateral and pitch decks, and priced each program based on costs and margins. In the final phase, the ACT team assisted in testing the pitch deck and program collateral with a few NBA teams, followed by recommendations and refinements.
Key Recommendations
The ACT team delivered the following marketing materials:
- TEAM Offerings: Packaged details on TEAM’s workshops and training programs: objectives, course structure, syllabus and learning outcomes
- TEAM Engagement Plan: An overview of activities in each phase of a workshop or training program, with corresponding responsibilities
- TEAM Program Presentation Slides: An initial pitch presentation providing a background on TEAM and its offerings
- TEAM Program Costs and Pricing Spreadsheet: Details on costs and a plug-in-play calculator for pricing
Final Report Outline
The final report included the following recommendations for TEAM to consider as they use the marketing materials the ACT project team developed:
Ourtreach considerations:
- Experiment with introductory email in advance of presentation, e.g. include summary table of pricing, like to press releases
- Plan for initial presentation to be 30 minutes (anticipate questions regarding workshops, leverage appendix as a parking lot)
- Upfront in the presentation, explain TEAM’s unique value proposition (leverage sports to get underserved youths interested in STEM)
- Emphasize impact of training programs on under represented teens, e.g. high completion rates, high career interest in STEM
- Bring to life workshops and training programs, e.g. include videos, emphasize outcomes
- Highlight investment by NBA Foundation (explain how money is and is not being used)
- Explain what is included in pricing, i.e. labor and software
Operations considerations:
- Test and track challenges and outcomes of execution options, e.g. technology, in-person vs. online delivery, partnerships
- Collect feedback from constituents: community relations, basketball operations, participants, corporate sponsors
- Identify demand (market opportunity) and forecast ways to reach goals of training 1K youths in 2021
- Determine resource requirements and bottlenecks