Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Aliyah Funschelle. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Aliyah, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to hear the story of how you went from this being just an idea to making it into something real.
Starting Sports with Aliyah was truly a way to carve a path for myself that would allow me to go out and create a better situation for myself. I was working a job that didn’t give me a space to grow in my career, so I decided to start my own brand to make a name for myself in the sports media world. The name “Sports with Aliyah” came naturally to me since I wanted to cover all things sports. As for my logo, I didn’t want to make it sports themed, so I went with quotation marks because the story behind everything will always be more important to me than the statistics of the sport. I played around on InDesign in between my college classes. I came up with the logo and ran with the idea.
The early steps of starting my brand consisted of making sure I had my bases covered when it came to income and opportunity. I started by having meetings with people of power in the Wichita sports community (which is where I was located). I told them some of my ideas and asked if I would be given the same access to cover games as I had at the job I was trying to leave. I was granted access to these games so the opportunity was there. The only catch? Leaving a job to start my own brand meant I wouldn’t have an income. I was paying my way through college so it wasn’t something that I took lightly. I had to make time to work for actual money alongside putting in countless hours of work building my own brand. That was a sacrifice I knew I had no other choice but to make. Even with balancing full time college classes and working at the Kansas Food Bank, I found ways to show up to every sporting event in my area. From high school, to college, to semi-pro, I would show up with my iPhone and get to work. I hardly ever said no to covering a game which was super important in order for me to grow. From there I kept building meaningful relationships in the sports community, creating content, and finding ways to propel my brand forward.
Aliyah, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
My name is Aliyah Funschelle and I am a sports reporter and content creator with my own brand called Sports with Aliyah. I like to think of myself as the bridge between sports teams, and leagues and the casual fan. I create all sorts of content that pulls the curtain back on the sports industry and gives people and inside look of various events, games, and careers in sports. Through Sports with Aliyah, I do a variety of things such as interviewing athletes, hosting events, social media, consulting, game and event coverage, and more.
What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?
Behind everything I do is the common mission of inspiring young girls wanting to work in the sports industry. Unfortunately, I had experienced sexism in the industry early into my career, so I’ve made it my mission to inspire and help create change within the industry. I do so, by not only speaking out about my own experiences, but being a mentor for those that are going through similar things.
What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?
Even though most of what I do as a creative happens on social media, the most rewarding aspect is meeting people in real life that know me because of my social media presence. A lot of what I do is helping other people that want to work in sports start their own journey in the industry, so having people come up to me telling me how I influenced them is the most rewarding thing. I regularly have people tell me that I inspired them to change their major or pursue a job in sports, and to me that is the craziest thing because it shows how big of an impact you can have it by creating an online community and being authentic to yourself.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://beacons.ai/aliyahfunschelle
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/aliyahfunschelle/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/aliyahfun
- Other: TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@aliyahfunschelle?is_from_webapp=1&sender_device=pc