Natasha Brison has studied and practiced law. She has also worked in the entertainment industry, especially music and sports, and started a business as a marketing consultant for professional athletes. Those two things may seem pretty different, but Brison wouldn’t have it any other way.
“I always joke and say I have a dual personality between my marketer and my lawyer sides,” Brison says, “and when they can hang out together, it's always a nice, cool thing to experience.” She has embraced that duality to inform her approach to teaching and research.
Brison’s road to law school was a winding one, and so was her path after law school. But the diversity of her interests has proven to be a great strength.
Now an associate professor in the College of Hospitality, Retail and Sport Management’s Department of Sport and Entertainment Management, Brison converted her diverse interests into a double major in English and communications with a minor in Spanish at Florida State University (1995), a juris doctor from the University of Georgia School of Law (1998), a master’s in sport administration from Georgia State University (2000) and a doctoral degree in kinesiology (sport management and policy) from the University of Georgia (2015). And that’s just her degrees.
In between and during her educational pursuits, Brison interned with an entertainment law firm, served as assistant legal counsel for USA Track and Field (handling sponsorship contracts — working with intellectual property, trademark registrations and copyrights — as well as their drug-testing program) and even opened her own agency to represent athletes and artists.
The road has taken her halfway across the country and back. But, as her present location would attest, teaching and helping people attain their goals and conducting research are her passions.
Brison came to USC from Texas A&M University, where she had tenure, and she didn’t anticipate the move, “but people say when you’re not looking for an opportunity, it will find you,” she says.
“My family is on the East Coast, and my parents are getting older and are just three hours from here. And as I kept digging and doing research on South Carolina, I realized it was a great fit.”
Brison has settled in nicely at USC. She taught SPTE 380 Sport and Entertainment Marketing and SPTE 402 Entertainment Law this spring, bonding with students and finding time to work on her first legal issues textbook with a co-author.
“With my marketing class,” she says, “they get a real-world client and have to come up with a plan. I bring in a little bit of budget and finance as they get three different levels for their pitches. For small businesses, $10,000 is a lot of money. So I have my students come up with some activations they can do for $1,000, $5,000 or $10,000.”
In the fall, Brison’s marketing class partnered with a sports agent to help him with personal branding. “But he also brought in three of his clients who have businesses,” Brison says, “so my students were working with former NBA players to develop marketing campaigns for their business ventures. And so this is very real-world stuff the students are doing.”
“It’s exciting,” she says, “and I joke with my students that they’re doing what people pay me to do. I don’t expect them to give them the same level of service as I do, but I set the bar high.”
Brison says teaching entertainment law here was important to her because “being a lawyer is part of my core, and I love when I can take my marketing research and blend the two,” Brison says.
At USC, Brison is also conducting research. She’s looking at topics like athletes and entrepreneurship and coaches and their personal brands, such as best practices for social media and using LinkedIn.
Her work with high school coaches began at Texas A&M, and she is looking to extend that work here. “My hope is that if I can give a coach the tools, they will teach their athletes,” she says.
While there were many shifts in her focus and career over the last couple of decades, all of those different interests have given her a great view of multiple interrelated professions. And it’s made her a better professor, able to more successfully guide her students.
“I tell my students, ‘You never know where life is going to take you.’ If 12-year-old me was asked about her career, she would’ve said ‘Oh yeah, I’m going to practice law for the rest of my life.’ But an opportunity presented itself — teaching — and I found something that I love,” Brison says.
“Nothing ever turns out the way we plan it to be, and if I had never been open to doing something different, I wouldn’t be here,” she says. “And I tell my students, I’m here because I love it.”
“And it’s going to be an interesting journey.”