Senior Speaker 2020: Madison Perlmutter, Sport Management

A turning point for McCormack Sport Management senior Madison Perlmutter came during her sophomore class, Sociology of Sport. “It opened my eyes,” she recalls, “to social and societal aspects of sport—how it is so much more than competition and business.” Inspired, she enrolled in a second course, taught by Associate Professor Nicole Melton, that explored socioeconomic and gender issues involving diversity in sports. At Isenberg, Perlmutter has pursued diversity and inclusion as president, vice president, and social media director of UMass Amherst’s Association of Diversity in Sport.

In June, Perlmutter will join the New England Revolution soccer club as an inside sales rep. In that role, she will focus on individual and group ticket sales. “One of my goals is to join the club’s multicultural marketing team,” she notes. For her new employer, she brings a wealth of experiences to the table. Since 2018, she has excelled as a social media intern with UMass Athletics, photographing football, basketball, and hockey games and the fans who attend them. Earlier, as a summer intern, she handled the Charlotte Eagles soccer team’s social media accounts and created gameday programs and graphics. Closer to home, she has been a student ambassador for McCormack for three years, reaching out to prospective students and organizing events to inform and attract them. Plus, she is president and captain of the UMass Polo Team, overseeing its vendor contracts and budget.

Polo? “I never played until my freshman year, but I grew up around horses in my hometown of Charlotte, North Carolina,” she explains. It was as a high schooler in Charlotte that Perlmutter discovered sport management through classes in sport and entertainment marketing. “I fell in love,” she recalls, “with the profession and decided then and there to pursue it in college. At first, my parents weren’t enthusiastic because so many sport management programs were in athletic departments. But then we learned that McCormack was in a business school. That made the difference that launched my college career.”