UF students flown to Los Angeles by FOX Sports after winning competition

In one UF class, the reward for having the best final project wasn’t an A, but a free trip to Los Angeles.

Four UF students were flown out to L.A. on Fridayafter creating the best project in their Creative Advertising Competitions class in Spring 2018.

The project was to pitch an advertisement to FOX Sports University, which is a program that connects classes at universities around the country with partners of the FOX Sports Media Group to find student-created marketing strategies for the businesses.  

The winning students, Megan Rosenoff, Lauren Mazzarisi, Erica Steinkohl and Justin Alicastro, were flown out to watch the filming of the public service announcement they pitched to FOX Sports University, said Micaela Asercion, an associate manager with Strategic Partnerships at FOX Sports.

The PSA was written for Ticket to Dream, a foundation that helps foster children take part in extracurricular activities, Asercion said.

Rosenoff, 23, who wrote the team’s script, said it was surreal to watch her words be filmed in front of her.

“We saw it become tangible right before our eyes,” she said.

On Saturday, the group was given a tour of the FOX studio lot and live production sets, said Cati Hance, an associate manager with Strategic Partnerships. On Sunday, the students watched the PSA be filmed and were production assistants.

As production assistants, they were tasked with doing odd jobs around the set. For Rosenoff, this meant spending time with the children who were acting.

The students were also able to meet three anchors for FOX Sports: Kate Abdo; Nick Swisher, a former professional baseball player for the New York Yankees; and Alexi Lalas, a former professional soccer player who played on the U.S. men’s national soccer team.

Hance said the group was able to see the ins and outs of a production day.

“It was about eight hours for a 30-second ad,” she said. “It’s not always as glamorous as one may think, but so much goes into even the smallest take.”

This is the 10th year that FOX Sports University has worked with students in the UF advertising class, Asercion said. The program began with UF, and now FOX Sports has partnered with 13 universities.

“The purpose of the program is to bring real-world experience into the classroom,” she said.

Rosenoff, who graduated last Spring with a degree in advertising, said that the experience bolstered her portfolio and gave her an advantage when she applied for jobs.

She now works as a copy editor at &Barr, an advertising agency in Orlando.

“I’m very confident that if I hadn’t had this experience with FOX Sports then I wouldn’t have landed my copy-editing job,” she said.