Entertainment/Sports

Industry Overview
Film, television, and music, as well as sports—each a form of entertainment raking in millions of dollars. The first three of these businesses are dominated by enormous, vertically integrated companies such as Sony, Time Warner, and Walt Disney, which have interests in multiple segments of the industry. But there are also thousands of jobs in the entertainment industry at smaller, less corporate companies—film and television production or distribution companies, for instance, and small independent record companies, talent agencies, and management companies. Similarly, pro sports is dominated by the four biggest spectator sports—baseball, football, basketball, and hockey—but there are many other sports out there with varying degrees of business sophistication, and even at the Big Four there are numerous, albeit unglamorous and low-paying, jobs in minor-league outfits.

In entertainment and sports, the profits come from discretionary spending, so these industries enjoy the most success in economically stable countries where leisure dollars flow freely. Industry companies supply their audiences with large-scale sporting events, music concerts, TV situation comedies, and silver-screen masterpieces. Simply put, they're in the business of fun.

Even during economically depressed periods, this industry flourishes as an escape from hard times—for all walks of life. And standing at the pinnacle of entertainment culture are the celebrities: the movie stars and quarterbacks and rock stars and talk-show hostesses who seem to realize our dreams and thereby give us hope. This is the only industry whose product is an illusion—neither a good nor a service, and yet both at the same time.

The culture in this industry is one of anti-corporate, studied casualness. There are still uniforms—an ever-changing array of baseball caps and jackets in the music business, for example. But they're invariably less starchy, more expressive of individualism, than anything worn to work in the fields of finance or law. The people? Well, there's no people like show people, and the sports world has even more pep. This is a high-energy crowd. It's also a big-ego crowd, and working with its members can be both stimulating and frustrating.

What You’ll Do
Interns do a lot of grunt work, so be ready for it. "We have problems with students who come in and complain," says Lindsay Sayles, the internship coordinator for Mercury Nashville, a country-music record label. "A lot of the work is really menial."

Some argue that interns are an exploited class, but if you're going to get in this door, grin and bear it. Sometimes you'll learn from the experience, other times you'll just be getting lunch. "There's a lot of on-your-feet work, so many people asking you to do things at the same time," says Cohen. "Always, always be willing to do things for other people."

Use the Internship to Network
Besides experience, interns gain the contacts that will help them land jobs after the internship ends. Collect business cards from everybody you meet. You never know who could help you get a job later on. Once you're in the industry, you'll find that moving ahead is about who you know, who those you know know, and who you end up knowing.

Internships are what you make of them—and what you take away from them. In the entertainment industry, you won't make much money, so you need to make sure you're getting the experience you need to land a job later on. And that experience is something money can't buy. InternZoo offers positions with both large entertainment corporations such as CBS and Paramount Pictures as well as smaller firms.