Bryce Hinton has spent much of his life playing sports, has planned on working in sports, and has chosen a master’s degree at UNLV to assist reach his goal.

What he never thought was that choosing to enroll in UNLV’s Intercollegiate Professional Sports Management (IPSM) graduate program would land him an internship with one of the world’s largest and most well-known sporting events, the Super Bowl.

He is one of roughly 40 students who worked as fully paid Super Bowl interns for the Super Bowl Host Committee in preparation for Sunday’s game at Allegiant Stadium between the Kansas City Chiefs and San Francisco 49ers. It’s the first time a host committee has hired paid interns, authorities added.

“It’s an amazing feeling to be able to consider our group trailblazers for this internship program and also just any sports internship,” said Hinton, who is graduating with his master’s degree in May. “UNLV is sending a really good message and letting people know that Las Vegas is striving to become a sports capital and is, if not now, the sports capital.”

Hinton and colleague Jelani Baker founded the program when it launched in the autumn of 2022 with 15 undergraduate students.

It was the brainchild of a few university administrators, notably Jay Vickers, the chief operating officer of the UNLV Sports Innovation Institute, a program formed in 2018 by the university’s division of research and economic development. Nancy Lough, director of the IPSM program and a professor at UNLV, introduced Hinton and many other students to the Super Bowl internship opportunity.

With the support of the NFL Foundation, Las Vegas Super Bowl Host Committee, and United Way of Southern Nevada, more than $300,000 was raised to fund the program and pay interns.

The interns paid $25 an hour and could work no more than 20 hours a week, said Solomon Escalante, a second-year student in the program.

Escalante interned under Myisha Boyce, chief community engagement officer, with the host committee to recruit firms for the committee’s Business Connect program. Fewer than 100 businesses had been recruited when he first started in January 2023, but it rose to roughly 700 by the time his internship was up.

“Helping the community of Las Vegas in the form of business contracts that get awarded to folks, that has been really, really special,” Escalante added. “The Super Bowl means a lot to them.”

When Baker got an email regarding the internship, he felt that it was only natural for him to apply. Vickers helped Baker spruce up his résumé, and the 25-year-old obtained a position where he became a “jack of all trades” for the committee.

He and Hinton did everything from reading contracts and dealing with activations to promoting the Business Connect program.

And it all started on Day One with the bid, a large binder that Baker said was over 300 pages and featured everything the NFL expects from host committees. Baker remembers the themes he took notes on and was awed to see them all come together.

Coby Carner, who graduated from UNLV’s IPSM program in December, spent last summer as a host committee marketing intern. Carner participated in marketing sessions, where guests included the likes of Raiders President Sandra Douglass Morgan. A Las Vegas native, Carner said he never anticipated the community would have an NFL team, develop a building as impressive as Allegiant Stadium, or bring a Super Bowl to town. The internship allowed him “a once-in-a-lifetime thing… to be able to capitalize on the Super Bowl coming here.”

Even a student at UNLV’s William S. Boyd School of Law received her opportunity to shine with a host committee internship. D’Ahna Scott, who’s in her last year at the law school, initially joined the internship program last summer while also working as a summer associate for a law firm.

Sam Joffray, the host committee’s CEO and president, fitted an internship to Scott’s schooling in the legal sector, Scott said.

The Vegas Sports Jackpot, the committee’s charity raffle for the United Way of Southern Nevada, became her duty. In that job, she obtained experience working with contracts.

“That aligned a lot with what I want to do when I graduate, which is: I want to work in the sports entertainment industry as an attorney, and I think that the internship for me really opened a bunch of doors,” Scott said.

And it seems this won’t be the last crop of interns to work at the Super Bowl.

The host committee has built a blueprint that future Super Bowl host committees in other cities would utilize, Joffray said.

Joffray stated that this “playbook” can even be used for future events like the Final Four, national college football championship games, or other important athletic events that will be making their way to Allegiant Stadium in the upcoming years.

Carner, who last week started a role as marketing director for National Youth Sports Nevada, said working as a Super Bowl intern was the topic of conversation during his job interview.

“Considering how many people work in sports and how many students there were, we’re really lucky to even be able to get that opportunity,” Carner said. “It really is such a great experience, and it’s hard to kind of compete with that if someone else wasn’t able to capitalize on an opportunity like that.”