Melnychuk scores significant award
Titans executive named NBL of Canada’s top executive of the year
Melissa Melnychuk attended a basketball game as a spectator and saw missed opportunities to grow the brand.
Convinced she could make a difference, the marketing specialist talked herself into a job with the Kitchener-Waterloo Titans as the vice-president of business development and made a positive impact in her first season at the helm.
The rebranding effort, which included greater visibility in the community, improving relationships with sponsors and business partners, raising the excitement level at home games and an expansion of the team’s online/digital media presence, led to year-over-year increases in attendance (24 per cent) and gross revenue per game (33 per cent).
The National Basketball League of Canada has rewarded Melnychuk’s efforts by naming her this year’s recipient of the Ian Fowler Executive of the Year Award as the top member of the league’s executive committee.
“To be recognized as a female in the sports industry, it’s such an honour,” said Melnychuk, a Waterloo native and the second woman to win the award in its nine-year history.
“It’s a team effort, though, and we really had this amazing group of people that wanted to work together. We all had the same vision and we all worked passionately together to achieve it.”
The Titans season got off to a great start in late December when a crowd of more than 1,800 spectators took in the home opener at the Aud, a thrilling game that ended in a 115-107 win over the Sudbury Five. Thousands of streamers came flying down from the stands at the opening tipoff, the first signal that the franchise was going to try different things to enhance the experience for paying customers.
Players and coaches visited area schools, conducted clinics and were visible at community events throughout the season as the team continued its fight for relevance in a sports market that is dominated by the Kitchener Rangers of the Ontario Hockey League.
The Titans’ fourth season as an NBL Canada franchise came to a sudden end in March because of the COVID-19 pandemic. “Melissa did a remarkable job in leading the transformation of the K-W Titans’ brand in her first year with the team,” NBL Canada deputy commissioner Audley Stephenson said in a news release. “Fans were treated to a unique and memorable experience whether they interacted with the team digitally, at a community event or during a live game.”
The multifaceted Melnychuk also contributed to the Titans as a certified JOGA coach, training players in a movement system that hybrids the science of yoga with the biomechanics of sports movement. The health-andfitness enthusiast is also a JOGA coach for the basketball teams at Wilfrid Laurier University, as well as several of the Canadian Football League players who reside in Waterloo Region.
Melnychuk graduated from Wilfrid Laurier in 2005 with a degree in communications and worked at BlackBerry, Movati Athletic, D&L Laurin Construction and Rogers Media prior to joining the Titans. During her time at Rogers, the mother of three children served as co-host and producer of the parenting show “Vanessa & Melissa” that was popular with mothers across Canada.
The former Miss Oktoberfest (2003) has also served as K-W Oktoberfest’s director of community engagement since February 2019.
The NBL’s Ian Fowler award is named after the late Ian R. Fowler, a Moncton city employee who played a major role in developing sports teams in the city, including the NBL of Canada’s Miracles.