hosts a

 Baseball Career Conference

December 2-3, 2012
Winter Meetings - Nashville, Tennessee

What: The 2012 SMWW Baseball Career Conference will be held in Nashville, Tennessee. This conference is to gain valuable insight into a variety of careers from those working at all levels in baseball including MLB and the minor leagues. Today, 20 minor baseball leagues operate with 246 member clubs in large, medium, and small towns, as well as the suburbs of major cities, across the United States, Canada, Mexico, the Dominican Republic, and Venezuela.
This day long career conference offers unique panel discussions and question-answer periods designed to start or advance your career on the business of baseball. The day will be split up into diverse speaker panels; including scouting, marketing, management, media, public relations, digital video editing, athlete representation, broadcasting, and sports career strategies.

Goal: To provide members of the sports industry with an opportunity to work with and learn from leading industry experts regarding the representation of athletes and the challenges of operating professional teams, leagues, facilities and media outlets.

Read an article "Inside the Baseball Winter Meetings" by Maury Brown, Biz of Baseball

Read an article from an attendee at the 2009 Baseball Career Conference

Read an article from The GM Perspective, an attendee at the 2011 Baseball Career Conference (Check out Day 2 of the Winter Meetings Blog


When:
Sunday, December 2, 2012, 7:30pm-9:30pm Welcome Reception (optional)
Monday, December 3rd, 2012,  9am-5pm Conference Sessions

Where: SMWW Baseball Conference sessions take place in Nashville, Tennessee, walking distance to the Winter Meetings Headquarters Hotel, the Gaylord Opryland Hotel.  With baseball executives and representatives from Major League Baseball, Minor League Baseball, as well as international baseball convening in one setting to discuss the game, network and prepare for the upcoming season, Nashville will become the center of the baseball universe.

Who should attend: Anyone 16 years or older working on the business side of baseball or wanting to work in baseball!

Networking Opportunities: One of the advantages of this conference is the ability to network within the industry with fellow baseball minded indviduals. Some work for a team, others are looking to break into the industry. Following their presentations, most speakers chat one on one with attendees. Most attendees come alone, but make many new friends, and peers within the industry. And they return year after year!

College Credit:  Most attendees are not college students but sports people looking to start or advance their career in professional or collegiate sportsl. However, for those of you who are in college and would like transferable credits (graduate or undergraduate) to your school, one hour of college credit is available. After you register for the conference, one college credit is available here.

PBEO Job Fair: A few of you might be attending the Annual Baseball Winter Meetings Job Fair. If you can stay the entire few days and you are looking for internships this is a good chance to practice your interview skills. If you attend our event and you get selected for an interview during the day on Monday, you would just slip over to do your interview. The staff interviewing you will be impressed you are participating in our event! Lynn University which has one of the top Sports Management Programs in the country, brings 10-30 students each year and they do both! In addition, we have team employees attend our event, and if their team is hiring you will have inside scoop. Attend both and make the best use of your time! 

Conference Fees: (Registration not available yet.)
Read all choices below. Refunds will not be issued so please make sure you pick the correct registration fee the first time!

Conference Registration Includes: Registration includes name badge, registration packet, all conference sessions, Monday Lunch and Sunday night Welcome Reception and great networking!

• General Admission register here: $225.(Registration not available yet.)

• College Students, SMWW Alumni, and Faculty register here: $150 (Your university will be on your name tag) (Registration not available yet.)
  
  
• Team and Agency Employees register here: $125 (The team or agency you currently work for will be on your name tag) (Registration not available yet.)
  
  Speakers:
  
  2011 Speakers: (Note: 2012 Speakers will be similar but have not yet been announced.)  (Teams & Executives do not yet know their schedules for the Winter Meetings. We put together a rough draft of the agenda for the day to give you an idea of what to expect. Speakers are added as learn their schedules and make flight arrangements and the agenda below will continue to grow and change.)

• John Mozeliak - St. Louis Cardinals Sr. Vice President & General Manager
  
• Cory Schwartz, Vice President, Stats, MLB Advanced Media
• Jayson Stark, ESPN Senior Baseball Writer
• Rob Neyer, SB Nation National Baseball Editor and well known author
• Jay Miller, Texas Rangers Senior Vice President
• Harold Reynolds - MLB Network Studio Analyst
  
• Will Carroll, Contributer, SI.com
• Craig Calcaterra, NBC Sports.com-Hardball Talk
• Don Welke - Texas Rangers Senior Special Assistant
  to the GM & Scouting
• Toney Howell, LA Dodgers, Special Assistant to the General Manager
• Larry D'Amato, former scout for Houston Astros, Texas Rangers, NY Yankees, Pittsburgh Pirates, and Cincinnati Reds
• Maury Brown, Biz of Baseball & SMWW Faculty
• Tony Ciccolella, MLBPA Agent
• Jeff Gray - Minnesota Twins Pitcher
• Tracy Ringolsby – Baseball America and FoxSports.com. 2005 Spink Award winner (the highest award given by the Baseball Writers Assoc of America)
• Dr. Lynn Lashbrook, SMWW President
• Ryan Latham, Tacoma Rainiers Group Event Manager & SMWW Alumni
• Michael Lawlor, Boston Red Sox Fan Services
• Mark Smith, Oakland A's Minor League Video Coordinator & SMWW Alumni
• many, many, more!
• Note: Speakers are not guaranteed and will change. The closer we get to the date, the more accurate the schedule becomes.
  

More about the Baseball Meetings: For those of you who have never experienced the Winter Baseball Meetings, it is fascinating!  Executives from all 30 Major League Baseball organizations attend, as well as more than 160 Minor League Baseball teams. This event is the major baseball event of the year. GMs, player agents, executives, managers, and yes, a few players all attend. It’s an event worth attending if you are looking to network, report on the signings and trades that go down, or for fans to feel the energy and excitement. Where else can you have Tommy Lasorda, Bill James, Frank Robinson, Scott Boras, Bob DuPuy, Billy Beane, and Bobby Cox all within 20 feet of each other? (As reported by Maury Brown) There’s also trainers, scouts, media, reps from the leagues, ESPN, Baseball America, MLB Network, MLB.com...it is a plethora of baseball who’s who. Attending the SMWW Baseball Conference and walking around will be enough for most of you, but for those who want more, read here.
Simply put, if you are looking to work in baseball, it is a must attend event.

 STILL curious? We have videos available about our past Basketball and Hockey conferences. We get rave reviews, and conference attendees keep coming back!