Hockey Jobs: Meet Jim Biewer, director of event marketing and game presentation for the Red Wings

 

By Zach Libby –

Supporting the Detroit Red Wings was a bond that Jim Biewer and his father shared growing up in their Marine City home.

Opting to watch the hometown favorite on their television rather than making the trek to Joe Louis Arena, it wasn’t until his first job opportunity following graduation when he finally fell in love with the sport as a whole, however.

Biewer had a desire to go into business back when he was completing high school, but didn’t know what aspect of the field he wanted to pursue.

His father once owned a wholesale sporting goods store in Marysville, which gave Biewer the drive to follow in his father’s footsteps, resulting in him attending Northwood University for sports management.

A self-motivating and goal-oriented attitude provided Biewer with multiple internship and part-time opportunities while working towards a bachelor’s degree.

What Biewer yearned about Northwood was the fact that in order to graduate, a student must have at least three professional experiences, giving them the proper skills and knowledge for a full-time position fresh out of college.

Biewer’s first big break was a summer internship with the Saginaw Spirit, a member of the Ontario Hockey League. With the help from one of his professors, Biewer landed the job, not knowing how important that valuable experience would be today.

“I sold raffle tickets, I put on the mascot costume every now-and-then, I did the small things,” Biewer said. “And then [Saginaw Spirit] asked me back the following year after my internship was done, so I worked with the Spirit part-time my sophomore, junior and senior years.”

Each year that Biewer was rehired, the amount of responsibility and daily tasks grew, so by his senior year, Biewer was running game day operations. And once he graduated from Northwood back in 2006, the Spirit had a full-time job waiting for him, essentially falling into it after receiving his diploma.

Nearly two years of holding the Director of Game Day Operations position for the Spirit, Biewer felt too comfortable, feeling like there wasn’t more to grow within the company. He wanted to take on fresh challenges and accomplish different objectives.

Biewer’s journey to the National Hockey League began by telling his boss how he truly felt and where he saw himself going in his career path. Then a simple phone call to a contact within the Red Wings organization about whether there was a job opening gave rise to an interview for the Director of Game Day Operations role.

While Detroit gave the position to an individual from the San Jose Sharks, the team enjoyed the interview with Biewer and found a way to bring him back to the Motor City.

A few weeks prior to the Red Wings’ 11th Stanley Cup victory in 2008, Biewer began his new occupation as Coordinator of Events, overseeing the organization’s event department. Around that time, however, Detroit didn’t hold many events in the metro area, because they didn’t have to.

“[Red Wings games] were always sold out, life was good,” Biewer said. “But then they were like, ‘we need to start getting out to the community more, we need to start developing viewing parties and other type of events. So I kinda created that from scratch, I started out doing 10 events and now we’re up to 75 a year.”

Biewer’s latest role with Detroit as the Director of Event Marketing & Game Presentation consists of three aspects, the first being the overall coordination and development of the in-arena entertainment at Joe Louis Arena.

The second is running any events outside of the arena – autograph sessions, fan festivals, sponsor promotions or any other big event that the team is in charge of.

The final aspect is supervising the school assembly program, where the Red Wings reach out to 115 schools and talk to 50,000 students annually, talking to children about eating right, exercising and the importance of a good education.

Check out this Red Wings’ highlights video from the school assembly program that Biewer operates:

Since arriving to Detroit, because of the many team events that Biewer holds, which feature former Red Wings players, some of Biewer’s close friends happen to be past greats, including Darren McCarthy and Dino Ciccarelli.

“We’re so blessed in the NHL with our alumni association,” Biewer said. “A lot of teams don’t have what we have, as far as the alumni that live in the vicinity. We have 50 or so guys that I can go to for a viewing party or event. It’s fantastic, we’re blessed in that aspect.”

It was a bit of a shell shock for Biewer when he first started out with the Red Wings, when noticing the vast differences between working for an NHL and OHL organization. Biewer says that close to 10 people oversaw everything for the Spirit, so some of his roles included painting the ice logos and putting in dasher boards.

“My first day with the Red Wings, I remember going up to Al Sobotka asking if he needed help painting the ice, but he just looked at me and started laughing,” Biewer said. “That’s just not how it works, my job is marketing, and yeah, maybe there are times where we help out departments, but it’s not nearly as comparable to minor league.

I’m focused on my marketing role, granted we’re all in sales at the end of the day, we’re there to create a positive experience for fans and generate revenue, but it’s so different. At the same time, I’m glad that I got that experience in minor league, I was able to fall into what I like and knew what my passion was.”

 

Whenever a college student approaches Biewer about working with a professional organization, he always recommend them to start off in the minor leagues. Or if they do begin with the Red Wings or someone else, he says to go talk to other departments, go see what they do and see if your passion correlates to what you’re doing.

“The quote that I always say when speaking to people is: It’s the degree that gets you the interview, but the experience gets you the job,” Biewer said. “I always recommend starting off doing internships or a part-time job. To get that experience on a resume with a minor league team and start building those contacts.”

Biewer loves the state of Michigan and what he’s doing with the Red Wings for the past seven years. Making things even more interesting is that soon, he will have a brand-new, state-of-the-art ice arena and events center to operate from.

“There’s no way I want to miss out on that,” Biewer said. “I don’t see myself leaving any time, I’m really engrained in Michigan and the area here.

“[Red Wings] are a good organization to work for, the Ilitch’s are an amazing family to work for and they take good care of us.”