Sports journalism has been growing in popularity, especially on social media. Brother Matan Mann (Muhlenberg, 2020) is the Lead Social Producer at The Game Day, helping to create high valued sports videos and posts for social media.
Brother Mann had a strong Jewish upbringing in Teaneck New Jersey. His family kept kosher, he went to Jewish Day School, kept Shabbat and celebrated all the holidays. Brother Mann was a musician growing up and enjoyed being creative. He was also, along with his father and grandfather, a fan of the New York Football Giants and the New York Mets. “I wondered how I can combine the two things that I like as a creative position as well as a sports fan.”
There was no AEPi chapter at Muhlenberg when Brother Mann first arrived on campus. Towards the end of his freshman year somebody mentioned that AEPi might be coming back, asking if he was interested. “A friend of mine who was spearheading the whole project reached out to AEPI International and helped us get it onto campus. Eventually, after a year we got approval from the school. My parents weren’t so certain about me doing Greek Life, they didn’t fully understand. My grandfather was actually in AEPi when he was in college so he was like, ‘this is amazing.”
“Having grown up in such a saturated Jewish community and being so involved I considered leaving that world and taking my own path, but AEPi reminded me that I enjoy being Jewish.”
Being a sports guy, Brother Mann enjoyed a flag football event that his chapter did with one of the sororities. The chapter also put together an intramural basketball team on which Brother Mann played. He also enjoyed Sundays watching football with Brothers. “Talking about sports, watching sports and playing sports is a great way to hang out with your Brothers.”
At Muhlenberg, Brother Mann studied music composition and got into music production. During the pandemic he would then go into iMovie and edit his college acapella group’s virtual recording session. That led him to learn basic video production skills. After graduating, he leveraged those skills to get his current job at The Game Day. As the lead social producer he does all the video content for TikTok, Instagram reels, YouTube shorts and more. “I’m one of the decision makers in terms of what our content looks like and what is actually going up. I’m also helping editors and producers make the decisions of what edits they should make on a certain video.” He also works with the social coordinator who’s in charge of distributing all of the content and works with outside talent to conceptualize new shows. “I find it super fulfilling to be able to create something out of nothing.”
Brother Mann also gets to travel and create content interviewing fans and players. He had the opportunity to go to this year’s Super Bowl media week and meet players like Patrick Mahomes, Travis Kelce, Jalen Hurts and others and ask them some questions. He also got to ask some weird questions such as their guilty music pleasures. “I like asking those goofy questions because we know those videos are going to do well, especially if you have a big name player like Patrick Mahomes.”
Brother Mann also runs an NFL podcast called the ‘Caps Off Podcast’ as one of the co-hosts. They were able to record on the field during Super Bowl Media Day. “It’s a good group of guys who like to talk about sports and we do it in a funny and entertaining way. We got some amazing guests like players and former TV personalities. It’s honestly similar to my relationship with my friends at AEPi because we would always watch sports together and we would always debate hot topics in the sports world.”
“I got into the industry by using my resources like my college’s career center. I reached out to lots of people including Muhlenberg alumni. Eventually, I found an internship in the sports media world that gave me the stepping stones to get into the career and build more connections. I was able to use my creative abilities from a different skill and apply them to this new skill. Asking lots of questions and being super willing to learn and develop my skills helped me in video production. Also, not being so rigid about if I’m doing this right or wrong but getting better no matter what.”