Romine-Black and Ruggiero Named Directors of New Media at the MAAC
MAAC Sports
EDISON, NJ – The Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference (MAAC) Commissioner, Richard J. Ensor has announced the addition of Tess Romine-Black and Anthony Ruggiero as MAAC Directors of New Media.
“The addition of Tess and Anthony to the MAAC staff provides the league with key skill sets as it moves forward in fully servicing its member schools with a wide variety of new media tools to publicize and market their athletic programs and student-athlete stories,” notes Commissioner Ensor. “Tess Romine-Black joins the MAAC from the University of Washington where she was heavily involved in marketing, promotions and game presentation of the school’s teams. She also spent time on the WNBA Seattle Storm staff. Anthony Ruggiero provides the MAAC with traditional SID skill sets in media relations and public relations. His tenure at Saint Francis in Brooklyn saw the school participate in a number of NCAA championships and he arrives at the MAAC with some knowledge of the league from St. Francis which is an Associate member of the MAAC in the sport of Water Polo.”
Romine-Black will serve as the Director of New Media for Broadcasting & Marketing. In her role, she will assist with the creation, managing and fulfilling of the marketing, and sales & broadcast budget for the MAAC, in coordination with the Assistant Commissioner of New Media, the Commissioner, and the management team at ANC Sports. She will assist ANC Sports with the new sponsors, and assist with servicing and renewal of existing MAAC sponsors with ANC Sports. Additionally, Romine-Black will assist with production of broadcasts on-site with the conference’s production company, currently ESPN Regional Television. She will also serve as the liaison to MAAC member institutions, MAAC staff, MAAC marketing & TV Committee and production crew to organize and plan all game day operations related to broadcasts and marketing outreach programs, including on-site interviews, half-time features and related programming.
Romine-Black joins the MAAC staff after serving as the Marketing & Promotions Associate with the WNBA Seattle Storm. With the Storm, she served as stage manager, working closely with the Game Day Director to stage all on-court promotions and presentations such as; live shots, National Anthem, halftime, Doppler (team mascot), Storm Dance Troop, coaches, players, and staff. Romine-Black also worked community outreach events to increase the fan base and help promote the Seattle Storm.
Romine-Black earned a double degree from the University of Washington in June of 2015 with a bachelors in business administration and a bachelors in English. While an undergraduate, she served as the UW Women’s Basketball Game Day Director and the UW Intercollegiate Athletics Senior Intern. As the game day director and senior intern, Romine-Black wrote all game day scripts, coordinated all game day elements, and worked closely with IMG to fulfill sponsorship elements. She also assisted with the staging of on court/field promotions and presentations of all big revenue and Olympic sports, performed grass-root campaigns in effort to promote UW athletics, and performed various office work task.
Romine-Black assisted with the 2015 PAC-12 Women’s Basketball Tournament and the 2015 NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Second and Third Rounds in Seattle, Washington.
Ruggiero becomes the MAAC Director of New Media for Communications. In this role, he will serve as the primary contact for selected MAAC sports during each season, select weekly awards, write press releases, compile statistics, tally awards voting, and distribute information to the media and member institutions. Additionally, Ruggiero will maintain specific sports pages on MAACSports.com and produce daily and weekly content for various social media sites related to assigned sports.
Ruggiero comes to the MAAC from St. Francis Brooklyn, where he served as the assistant sports information director. While at St. Francis Brooklyn, he served as the primary media contact for women’s basketball, men’s soccer, men’s and women’s golf and men’s and women’s tennis. He was in charge of writing press releases, pre and post- game stories, handling inquiries from local and national news outlets. Ruggiero travelled with the St. Francis Brooklyn women’s basketball team for their first NCAA Tournament appearance in the spring of 2015 after the team won their first Northeast Conference championship in program history.
Prior to St. Francis Brooklyn, Ruggiero held media and public relations internships with the Staten Island Yankees and Brooklyn Nets. In the summer of 2013, he worked for Major League Baseball, where he served as an editorial assistant during the 2013 All-Star Game festivities when the game was held at Citi Field.
Ruggiero earned his bachelor’s degree in communications with a concentration in digital media and journalism from St. Francis Brooklyn in May of 2013. As an undergraduate, he served as deputy editor in chief for the college newspaper, SFC Today, covering men’s and women’s basketball in addition to writing feature stories.