Ben Shields

Ben Shields is a Lecturer in Managerial Communication at the MIT Sloan School of Management.

Shields teaches Communication for Leaders, Advanced Leadership Communication, and Social Media Management: Persuasion in Networked Culture.

Shields’s research focuses on the intersection of social media technologies, data analytics, and audience behavior in the sports, media, and entertainment industries. He is the coauthor of two books: The Sports Strategist: Developing Leaders for a High-Performance Industry (Oxford University Press, 2015) and The Elusive Fan: Reinventing Sports in a Crowded Marketplace (McGraw-Hill, 2006). He has also written numerous articles and book chapters on sports media and marketing communications. He is currently working on a new project about the business value and persuasive power of social media platforms.

Shields served previously as the Director of Social Media and Marketing at ESPN. He oversaw social media strategy for the ESPN brand and collaborated across the enterprise to develop and implement company-wide social strategy. He also worked on marketing strategy for several ESPN brands and sub-brands, including the SportsCenter “DaDaDa” campaign and the Emmy Award-winning “It’s Not Crazy, It’s Sports” brand campaign.

Shields holds a BS and MA in communication studies and a PhD in media, technology, and society, all from Northwestern University.