MLB opens doors to female NYU undergrads

NEW YORK -- Rebecca Licht sometimes finds it difficult, she admits, to share her passion for sports with everyone around her. Even in her classes for sports management, which Licht majors in at New York University, doing so can be daunting.
"You feel like you don't necessarily want to voice your opinion, because you get looked at like you don't know what you're talking about," Licht said. "Like girls aren't supposed to understand sports, because it's a guy thing."
It's barriers like these that Major League Baseball remains committed to breaking down. The latest step in the league's continued efforts in inclusivity came Wednesday, when MLB hosted female undergraduate students from NYU's Tisch Institute at its corporate headquarters on Park Avenue. There, more than two dozen students mixed with female professionals of various disciplines for a morning-long exchange of networking, learning and professional and personal development.
"It's a challenge, being a woman, trying to break into this male-dominant field," said Licht, the NYU freshman whose aspirations include working in social responsibility in coordination with a sports team. "But it's also intriguing at the same time -- knowing what you're doing won't only change something for you, but it'll also change something for the people who will come after you."
Female employees from 10 departments participated in the half-day session, which was coordinated by MLB Women, a business resource group dedicated to cultivating an inclusive environment for MLB's female employees. Officials described MLB Women's core mission as two-fold: to support initiatives that focus on building a female talent pipeline for entry into MLB, and to work toward developing and increasing leadership opportunities for talent already within the company.
"We start by giving them an open door to reach out us," said Jennifer Zudonyi, a senior manager of marketing. "We want to make sure once women are here, they are thriving."
In large part, that's happening. Baseball has seen an influx of women in mental skills performance and athletic training roles, as well as upticks in analytics and baseball operations involvement. More than one-third of women full-time hires and two-thirds of the women in on-field roles have been hired in the last two years.
Those hires are the direct result of MLB's robust Diversity and Inclusion agenda, which aims to build on the legacy of trailblazers like Jackie Robinson. The Diversity Pipeline Program and MLB Women are both part of this initiative, which provided scholarships to 19 students and two Commissioner's Office interns from diverse backgrounds to participate in last spring's Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) Analytics Conference and offers a competitive fellowship program open to people of color and female candidates. Minority students are also encouraged to apply for MLB's long list of internships, offered in an array of departments. Internships are available in the Office of the Commissioner, MLB Advanced Media and MLB Network, and applications can be found at www.mlb.com/careers.
"It's actually proven that diversity of thought helps companies respond to challenges," said Dr. Ellen Keithline Byrne, who led a 30-minute session on leadership. "To respond to the fast-paced nature of the world that we have, you need to have creative thinking. Diversity of thought brings that creative thinking."
Students were also given the opportunity to network with female employees representing a variety of MLB's business divisions: faculty from community affairs, public relations, finance, security, baseball/softball development, marketing, compliance and engineering all participated. Zudonyi moderated a four-person panel that focused on marketing, and Corey Smith, a senior director of strategic sourcing/diversity and inclusion, also addressed the group.
Officials said the goal was to highlight the range of opportunities available in the industry.
"Even if you don't know what ERA stands for," said Ileana Pena, senior director of public relations, "you can still work in baseball."