Chelsea Siegal ’20 had a front-row seat to one of the best sports stories of the year.

Three years after graduating from the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, she joined the New York Knicks as a digital content coordinator. During her tenure, the Knicks climbed from the Eastern Conference semifinals in 2024 to the conference finals in 2025 before capping last season with the captivating run to an NBA title.

“They’re so determined, and when you’ve got a good group of guys like that working together for a common goal, they find a way to win,” Siegal says.

She followed a similar upward trajectory in her career after earning her bachelor’s degree in broadcast and digital journalism (BDJ).

Promoted to senior digital content coordinator in December 2024, Siegal followed the Knicks last season as they won 15 of their last 16 playoff games to claim their first NBA title since 1973. On Tuesday, she started her fourth season with New York when the Knicks open their title defense by hosting LeBron James and the Philadelphia 76ers.

It’s a long way from her first internship in 2018 with a collegiate summer baseball team in Elmira, New York. Siegal appreciates the role Newhouse has played in her career.

“Working in the major leagues is great, but I really valued the lower-level experiences because you get to home in on those skills you learned in school and then you have a better handle on them when you do get to the major-league level,” Siegal says.

Climbing the Ladder

Siegal, of Port Washington, New York, on the north shore of Long Island, kept busy during her time at Syracuse. She played trumpet in the Marching Band and Sour Sitrus Society pep band, joined the Sigma Delta Tau sorority and earned a minor in sport management from the David B. Falk College of Sport.

Siegal gained valuable experience with two summer internships. She was the de facto media manager in Elmira, overseeing everything from social media to video packages to media relations, and she spent the summer before her senior year in Rochester, New York, working with Newhouse alum Matt Miller ’15 on video production for the Red Wings Triple-A baseball team.

After graduating from Syracuse in 2020 during the pandemic, Siegal worked briefly as a digital reporter at a local news station in Albany, New York. A year later, she started work as the social media and marketing manager for the Reading Royals of the East Coast Hockey League in Pennsylvania.

From there, Siegal moved to Cleveland, where she was hired by the NFL’s Browns as an intern but given the responsibilities of a full-time employee as she covered training camp, practices and community events, and filmed on-field pregame content on Instagram stories. She also researched trends, created content for TikTok and ran the team’s Facebook page on game days.

“In the sports industry, it’s imperative to get practical experience and often first jobs are seasonal jobs that make the first couple of years a bit uncertain but also extend the development of skill sets in a good way,” says Jordan Kligerman, assistant professor of television, radio and film.

“A Moment I’ll Never Forget”

Siegal was a student in Kligerman’s Sports Documentary class that he taught through Newhouse’s Sports Media Center. Kligerman said he often shares with students Siegal’s COVID-era job search strategies and her subsequent success.

“Chelsea understands that her preparation and hard work coalesce with her creativity and technical skill sets and that mix equals engaging content and storytelling,” Kligerman said. “She is a rising star in the league.”

With the Knicks, Siegal works for the team under the Madison Square Garden Sports Corp. umbrella. She covers all practices and games as a videographer and photographer creating vertical video content for Meta Reels (Facebook and Instagram), TikTok and YouTube Shorts.

She also covers other team events, such as an all-girls basketball clinic recently hosted by the Junior Knicks to help celebrate International Day of the Girl. The clinic featured former Knicks and Syracuse star John Wallace, and Siegal said she put “all of my BDJ education” into action as she captured still photos and cellphone video, conducted interviews and created a 60-second VO/SOT video (voice-over with sound on tape). Visit Siegal’s Gondola page to watch examples of her work with the Knicks.

Although she’s always on the job with the team, Siegal did take a moment to soak in the historic run during the ticker-tape championship parade down the “Canyon of Heroes” in Manhattan in June. While riding on a float with players Josh Hart and Landry Shamet, the parade stopped briefly in front of a park filled with fans and Queen’s “We Are the Champions” blasting through the air.

“I tried to be locked in the entire time, but for those 15 seconds when we passed that sea of people with Queen in the background, it was a moment I’ll never forget!” Siegal says.