Dr. Caleb Mezzy worked in sports marketing for over a decade in various roles. He then spent 10 years teaching sports marketing at a small private institution. More recently Dr. Mezzy joined TCNJ’s School of Business as an adjunct professor in the Marketing & Interdisciplinary Business department.
Recently, Caleb began looking into a new craze, players are collaborating with companies to create exclusive cleats and other footwear for their respective sports. It is a trend that began with Minnesota Vikings wide receiver, Justin Jefferson in 2022. Others, like WNBA player & Olympic Gold Medalist, Kelsey Plum, and Philly’s Bryce Harper, also have player-exclusive (PE) cleats and footwear.
In the summer of 2024, Caleb attended a video shoot for Professional Sports Authenticators (PSA) and met Steven Leonard, a Product Line Manager for Under Armour. As he tells the story, Caleb started asking Steven questions about the player-exclusive footwear, they began talking, and Caleb said, you have to come to my class!
Steven Leonard started as an entrepreneur, beginning in high school, with his own baseball bat company but, in 2015 he joined the Colorado Rockies after being selected in the MLB Draft. After his time with the Rockies, Steven would start his career as a part-time Customer Service Representative at Under Armour. Over the past seven years, he continued to work his way up and is now the Product Line Manager, Footwear – Athlete Outfitting. He has been working on the player-exclusive product line and collaborating with athletes in this projected $200 million plus business.
On September 18, 2024, Steven visited Caleb’s MKT370 (Sports Marketing) class. Steven shared his background and experience with the class and talked about the PE footwear at Under Armour. This visit kicked off a semester-long project for the students. The class was divided up into groups, and each group was assigned a professional athlete. The groups will spend the semester working on a sports management plan for PE footwear for their athlete.
The groups will look into who to collaborate with and what the benefit of this collaboration is for the athlete, conduct market research, design the product, create a prototype, and activate the marketing plan. All will culminate on December 4, 2024, when the groups will present their work as their final project for the class.
One student shared “I would like to thank you for bringing guest speaker, Steven Leonard to class. It was really great to see how he got to where he is today, but also just to hear him speak. I found the way he thinks and carries himself is very impressive and shows that he earned where he is.”
We look forward to hearing more about this exciting project!
