Southern Miss students gain ticket-sales experience through athletics partnership

The Southern Miss Ticket Office is working with 25 students in Dr. Sabrina Reed’s Sports Sales class this fall, giving the students hands-on experience while assisting the athletic department’s ticket-selling efforts. The class is part of the College of Business and Economic Development’s School of Marketing.

Each student must spend 15 hours working with the Ticket Office, making and taking calls aimed at selling tickets. The class is divided into five teams of five students, with teams assigned targets that include theme days, regular group sales and the student Eagle Club.

The partnership renews an earlier effort that connected the classroom with the working world and exposed students to collegiate sports marketing and management. Reed said the Sports Sales class is intended for seniors, although some juniors are enrolled.

The students’ work initially focuses on football. As the semester progresses and fewer football games remain to sell, some students will shift their attention to basketball, according to Robert Krause, USM assistant athletic director for ticket operations and sales.

The Ticket Office partnership is part of a broader set of hands-on opportunities for Southern Miss business and sport management students. Other projects have included work with the New Orleans Pelicans and the Biloxi Shuckers. In 2025, sport management students worked at the NFL Experience associated with Super Bowl LIX and at the game at Caesars Superdome in New Orleans.

The partnership also gives the Ticket Office an opportunity to identify students for possible future student-worker or internship needs. Krause said both the athletic department and the academic program are intended to benefit from the experience.

Source: Southern Miss Athletics.