The University of Central Missouri digital media production program recently approved a proposal to add a new concentration to the major, sports broadcasting and reporting.

Carol Atkinson, professor of communication and digital media, said the concentration has been approved and will be available in fall 2019.

Joe Moore, DMP program coordinator and professor, said no classes will be added to support the new concentration.

“There won’t be anything added, and that was one of the things we wanted to make sure of was that we weren’t adding classes,” he said. “When you start adding classes you really start thinning out your faculty and what we can offer and offer well.”

The concentration will have five required courses and the student’s choice of two electives. The required classes will include sports reporting, intro to sports broadcasting, advanced sports broadcasting, and multicam studio production.

Moore said this could be used for recruiting purposes in the future.

“Given the interest I’ve heard from students and schools around the state that are adding sports broadcasting, the only schools that are adding it are private schools, and we can recruit to it,” he said. “I get a lot of students that come in and say they want to do sports, but they can’t do that as a major. They have to do it as a major with a minor, which is great. We encourage you to do a minor, but if you know you want your career to be in sports, then I would like to see you do DMP with a concentration in sports broadcasting and reporting and then get another minor.”

Scott Hofsommer, a DMP instructor who teaches the sports broadcasting classes, said there is more than enough student interest to support adding a new area of study.

“As a faculty, I don’t think we would have moved forward had there not been some kind of interest on the ground,” Hoffsommer said. “I think we have a lot of students that come to this department, to DMP specifically, because they want to either work in film or they want to be in sports. I think sports and digital cinema are two of the aspects of our media program that have really taken off, so if cinema has (a concentration), try and give one to those students that come here and want to primarily work with sports communication.”

Alexis Ceja, a senior digital media production major, said students are interested in this concentration.

“I was going to switch my minor to sports communication, but I would have to stay here a whole other year just so I can be a sports communication minor,” she said. “It would have been easier if there was a sports concentration because from the jump I would’ve been on track.”

Ceja also said this concentration will be beneficial to women wanting to break into the industry.

“I think there needs to be more women in sports, so I feel like having a sports concentration could encourage that for women that are in the DMP program that way they can get a lead way into the sports world,” Ceja said.

Nikkala Randall, a junior digital media production major, also said she would liked to have had a sports concentration earlier.

“I would have chosen the sports concentration, but since they didn’t have it I just picked up the minor,” Randall said. “I feel like a lot of people in the minor would have chosen a sports concentration.”

Randall also said not having a sports concentration is detrimental to those students who want to work in sports.

“Right now it feels like there are a lot of things that you just have to go out and learn for yourself if you want to work in sports,” she said.