Mercer University alumnus N’Kyzie Hawkins got the news in a group chat. The production team that he worked with during a summer internship last year had just won a Sports Emmy Award.
One of his friends had spotted some posts on X about it and sent them to a group of former fellow interns, including Hawkins.
“He was like, ‘Bro, all of our teams are on here!’” Hawkins recalled. “We were all just kind of in shock for a minute. The group chat was just kind of like, ‘Wow! We gotta call our moms. We gotta call our dads. We gotta call the homies back home.’”
Last summer, Hawkins spent six weeks as a digital commercial operations intern with NBC Sports in Stamford, Connecticut, where he helped with production of the 2024 Summer Olympics. He graduated from Mercer with his bachelor’s degree in journalism in May.
“Our job was to insert commercials during breaks in the action and make sure that the right sponsors were portrayed at the right time, making sure that the advertisements were up to date,” he said. “We were in charge of making sure that the commercials didn’t run too long and making sure there wasn’t any dead time in between the action and coming back from break.”
This involved monitoring three to five screens at a time across multiple streaming platforms, including NBC and Peacock, during a 12-hour shift.
NBC and Peacock won 10 Sports Emmys at the May 20 ceremony in New York for their coverage of the 2024 Summer Olympics. The two awarded to the team that Hawkins was on were for Outstanding Technical Team Event and Outstanding Interactive Experience.
As a student at Mercer, Hawkins gained a lot of on-camera experience, working on campus at ESPN3 and WMUB and as an intern for local news station 13WMAZ. The internship at NBC Sports allowed him to work behind the scenes and grow his understanding of production on a deeper level.
The internship specifically strengthened his skills in multitasking, paying attention to detail, and working as a team, he said.
“Let’s say I’m in charge of a basketball stream and somebody gets hurt. When somebody gets hurt, you have to have an injury time out. When the injury time out comes, now I have to insert an ad, and the ad can only be between 30 and 45 seconds,” he said. “So being able to multitask and make sure that I’m focused enough and using my time wisely in between breaks, that was something I learned a lot about.”
Hawkins lived at a nearby hotel during his internship and took a shuttle to and from NBC Sports headquarters, often waking up at 3 a.m. to be ready for his 4 a.m. shift. He had access to the employee cafeteria, which was open 24/7 and served food from a variety of countries.
He became friends with some of his fellow interns, and they continue to stay in touch through their group chat. They’re currently saving the $350 needed to buy an Emmy statue to share. (Each winning entry receives one statue, and any additional statues must be purchased.)
“It was a good experience for someone like myself trying to understand more about the journalism industry,” Hawkins said. He is now a basketball coach at Coastal Alabama Community College – North in Monroeville, Alabama.
