Punching tickets to the Super Bowl
Stephen Logsdon ’12 helps fill SoFi Stadium as Los Angeles Rams account executive
By Kyle Hobstetter on February 9, 2021
Stephen Logsdon ’12 is going to the Super Bowl.
As a front-office executive with the Los Angeles Rams.
As a child, he preferred the morning edition of ESPN’s SportsCenter to Saturday morning cartoons. And while Logsdon loved playing sports, he knew he wasn’t going to have a career as an athlete. So he focused on the business side.
Working in the Rams’ ticket office, Logsdon specializes in large-volume ticket sales. His main duties are to promote season- and group-ticket packages as well as single-game suites at the recently opened SoFi Stadium right outside downtown Los Angeles.
With the Rams headed to their second Super Bowl in four years, Logsdon admits he’s excited to showcase the team’s growing success.
“I can’t make a tackle or throw a touchdown, but we help get these fans in the building,” Logsdon says. “During the [NFC Championship] game, the Rams got an interception to basically clinch the Super Bowl [berth], and the place erupted. It was one of the loudest environments I’ve ever been a part of.
“You look around the stadium and you see kids in their [Rams defensive tackle] Aaron Donald jerseys having the time of their life with their dad. When you have those moments and you see the crowds, it’s just awesome to watch everything come together.”
After transferring from Anne Arundel Community college, Logsdon studied sport management with Jessica Braunstein-Minkove, his mentor and an associate professor and internship coordinator in the program. Through Braunstein-Minkove, Logsdon found his first job in sports—retail with the NFL’s Washington Commanders.
“She was great for me to have someone to lean on, not only from a professor standpoint but also being able to pick her brain and learn more about the industry,” Logsdon says. “She helped me understand that the sports industry is a big, wide world [with] so many ways to get involved.”
And while he’s living on the golden coast and working for a Super Bowl contender, Logsdon admits he took the scenic route to Los Angeles.
His career path zig zags around the U.S. map, going from the Commanders to the Baltimore Orioles to the Arizona Diamondbacks and the Detroit Tigers.
Between his stints with the Diamondbacks and the Tigers, Logsdon spent a year unemployed.
As he thought of changing his focus, his dad told him not to give up on his dream. Logsdon left his client services job with the Tigers for the Rams. He beat more than 700 applicants for his current position.
When asked what advice he has for current sport management majors, Logsdon says that while students may get down while job-hunting, they should persist and never stop networking.
“During that period, I just applied, applied and kept applying to jobs,” he says. “I started with the Rams in March of 2018, and it was just a whirlwind of a year. You’re scratching and clawing for a job, and this is what I was searching for ever since I was at Towson University.
“I’ve worked with people who hit the ground running right from the start, but I took the scenic route. I’ve had ups and downs, success and failures, but I wouldn’t trade it for anything. Without those experiences, I’m not where I am today.”
With the Super Bowl in Los Angeles this year, Logsdon won’t have to travel far for the big game. But this isn’t his first Super Bowl, as the Rams made it in his first year on the job, losing to the New England Patriots in Atlanta in 2019.
That one was extra special though. Not only was it his first Super Bowl, Logsdon also brought a guest—his dad.
“Being able to pay him back for taking care of me while I was out of work, that was really cool,” Logsdon says. “I was only there because he pushed me. Being able to have that moment was special. Unfortunately, the Rams weren’t able to pull off the win that year, but hopefully this Super Bowl will be a little different.”