Students are invited to apply for a summer sports marketing and communications class.

The class will work on projects for executives at NASCAR (no motorsports knowledge needed). The class will also take an overnight field trip to experience the NASCAR Chicago Street Race behind the scenes with execs. 

Below are details along with photos from our first experience in Chicago in 2023.

• Class will meet in-person in Iowa City from June 3 – 27. The field trip to Chicago will be July 5-6 for race weekend (there is a course fee to cover expenses).
• This year’s project will involve sports marketing and communications research and recommendations focused on NASCAR’s first-ever race in Mexico City (no travel to Mexico involved). Attached is an example of how NASCAR usually structures our projects; expect this year’s project outline to look similar but with the Mexico City race featured. In each of the past two summers, NASCAR has had our class work on first-year races. The Mexico City race will be an opportunity to work on another first-year race and an international location that NASCAR is very new to. The executives will encourage maximum creativity to try new things to achieve business goals in a new environment. 
• Students must apply for acceptance to the class. Apply by emailing a résumé to Dan Matheson along with your reasons for being interested in the class. No prior knowledge of motorsports is required for success in the class. Experiences in this class transfer to all sports – students have used this experience to go on to jobs with the Dallas Cowboys, Sporting KC, Creighton University Athletics Marketing, and more.
• The class counts for field experience graduation requirements in the Sport and Recreation Management program and has been used in the past by Tippie College of Business students for Tippie RISE requirements. Students from all majors are welcome. 
• Executives we will work with include Matt Nordby, Managing Director of Communications at NASCAR, and Cole McGinnis, Director of Licensing and Consumer Products at NASCAR (and an Iowa alumnus), in addition to others.
• High-quality student recommendations have been activated by NASCAR in the past. (NASCAR collaborations with Legos, Crocs and more were recommendations presented by students in this class before NASCAR brought them to life.)

Here’s a link to the story about our first summer NASCAR class that traveled to Chicago: https://stories.uiowa.edu/iowa-students-nascar-chicago-street-race.

Please contact Dan Matheson with questions or to apply.