Breaking Into The Brazilian Sports Industry: The Sportcareer Of Kristian Dobrev
Geschreven op 15/11/2011 door Jelle Verdoodt — 3 reacties
De komende maand trekt Kristian Dobrev, een jonge Belgische sportprofessional, naar Brazilië. Zijn doel: internationale ervaring opdoen in de sportsector! Waarom hij dit doet en hoe hij het aanpakt, krijg je de komende weken op dit blog te lezen. Met zijn uitzonderlijk verhaal (in het Engels, want hij gaat dan ook internationaal) hoopt hij andere sportprofessionals te inspireren. Alvast veel leesplezier gewenst!
Breaking into the Brazilian sports industry: The story of Kristian Dobrev.
Name: Kristian Dobrev
Age: 23
Nationalities: Belgian and Bulgarian
Education: Bachelor of Business in Sport Management at BES La Salle (Barcelona, Spain)
Internships: Nike and Mediapro (Media Sports Marketing)
Languages: Dutch, Bulgarian, English, Spanish, French, German, Portuguese
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/kristiandobrev
Twitter: @kdobrev
First of all, a special thanks to Jelle Verdoodt who was very kind to propose posting my story on his fantastic website. Second, thank YOU for showing interest in my story; I hope you will enjoy this series of insights, experiences and opinions as much as I will, and hopefully it will spark some (crazy) ideas in the sport professional deep inside you.
Why Brazil?
Throughout my sport management studies in Barcelona, I’ve witnessed how Brazil became so successful in winning bids for mega sporting events (I’m sure the numbers 2014 and 2016 ring a bell?!). Consequently, after having graduated this summer I started the preparations for what was soon to be called Project Brazil. I was highly inspired by the idea of being able to participate in the build-up of Brazil’s sports industry as a whole, let alone the mere thought of being there while these great events take place. But I didn’t have any money so I immediately started waiting in a restaurant in Antwerp (my home town), five to six days a week and usually long shifts.
How to prepare yourself for this kind of adventure
Whenever I wasn’t working, I was looking up information, companies, and contacts on the internet, frequently using LinkedIn and
Twitter to find answers to my questions. Slowly but steady, my network grew and useful information or ideas kept pouring in. A particular help for spreading my CV and getting general information has been a Brazilian exchange student whom I met during my second year in college. In the meantime I also started learning Portuguese, which I knew was going to be indispensable if I wanted to make this whole thing work.
So here I am, less than 24 hours away from embarking on a plane to A Cidade Maravilhosa, also known as Rio de Janeiro. Aside from enough cash and basic Portuguese, I’m going with half a dozen scheduled meetings, one foot into volunteering at the Soccerex Global Convention 2011, and a hopeful attitude that will turn this project into a valuable trip regardless of the outcome.
Stay tuned!
Kristian
Read on: Kristian's story Part 2: First week of Rio: sports, good times and bad luck.
Read on: Kristian's story Part 3: Call me a lucky bastard... networking at Soccerex Global Convention!
Read on: Kristian's story Part 4, final part: Back in Belgium! And this is what I learned...
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