Missouri School of Journalism’s AdZou wins FOX Sports sportsmanship-themed PSA Competition
From Left: Connor Greene, Braden Dresner, Jayden Sudduth, Jackson White, Nathan McClellan, Reesi Nesbitt, Lucy Richardson.
COLUMBIA, Mo. (Aug. 4, 2026) — This spring, four teams of Missouri School of Journalism students worked to pitch public service announcements for Better Rivals, a PSA campaign from the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation in cooperation with FOX Sports. The campaign aims to encourage civility and sportsmanship in professional sports.
Conducted as part of the School’s AdZou capstone course, which challenges seniors studying strategic communication to create advertising campaigns for real brands, the project came with a twist; the teams not only competed against each other but also faced off against students at the University of Florida. They did it all while putting together their larger, semester-long projects: ad campaigns for FOX Sports’ FIFA World Cup campaign.
Ultimately, AdZou’s “Full90” team came out on top. Their PSA, “Who Will You Be?”, intercuts scenes of sportsmanship across a variety of sports with repeated calls for players to consider what kind of athlete they want to be.
“The students did a really nice job with it, and it just resonated,” said Scott Fuenfhausen, an adjunct instructor who led the class as he has for each of the 16 years AdZou has partnered with FOX Sports. “It was a really nice honor for them and a lot of hard work, something they will be able to put on a resume. And these ads will get produced, so they’re going to see some rendition of it.”
Eight graduating seniors formed the winning team:
- Tyler Batliner, BJ ’26
- Braden Dresner, BJ ’26
- Connor Greene, BJ ’26
- Nathan McClellan, BJ ’26
- Reesi Nesbitt, BJ ’26
- Lucy Richardson, BJ ’26
- Jayden Sudduth, BJ ’26
- Jackson White, BJ ’26
The public service announcements were designed to fit into both FOX Sports’ World Cup campaign and “Better Rivals,” an initiative from the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute and the Rose Bowl Institute in cooperation with FOX Sports. Better Rivals seeks to model better civic engagement and political discourse on the values of sportsmanship and respectful rivalry seen in professional sports.
In accordance with Better Rivals’ goal of modeling better civic engagement and political discourse on the values of sportsmanship and respectful rivalry seen in professional sports, the eight students on team Full90 won a trip to the Rose Bowl for the Sportsmanship Summit in early June. The summit billed itself as “bringing together athletes, diplomats, educators, executives, students, media leaders and community changemakers for two days of meaningful dialogue centered on the future of sport and society.”
From capstone to career
For Jayden Sudduth, creating a PSA for Better Rivals was a remarkable example of the School of Journalism’s Missouri Method of learning by doing.
“The hands-on work we were able to do at the School of Journalism was second to none,” Sudduth said. “Spending 16 weeks working on our FOX Sports Capstone project, then being challenged to present our Better Rivals PSA, stretched our team in ways I didn’t expect and gave us valuable experience working under tight deadlines, presenting to professional audiences and thriving in a collaborative team environment.”
But Sudduth took more than sharper skills and a deeper pool of experience from the project. Better Rivals, with its emphasis on bridging the civility of sports to civic life, served as a natural bridge to his post-graduation role as an intern in the office of the mayor of Kansas City, Missouri. Together, these experiences have helped him develop a more targeted and passionate approach to building a career.
“I’ve realized I want to build a career where I can make a direct impact on people — not only through media and journalism, but through hands-on, front-facing work in the communities I grew up in,” he added. “That has been one of the biggest takeaways from this season of my life.”
The team’s account manager, Jackson White, said the work itself wasn’t the only instructive part of the project. He credited AdZou’s team structure with effectively emulating what it’s like to work in an advertising agency.
“Working with the same team throughout the semester was especially rewarding because it allowed us to build a strong bond and collaborate the way a professional team would in the workplace,” White said.
Reflecting the interdisciplinary nature of strategic communication education at the School, White added that his leadership role at AdZou helped him strengthen public speaking and communication skills that will come in handy as he pursues a career in law.
The interdisciplinary thinking didn’t stop there. The team as a whole excelled at taking the various themes, assets and goals in its larger World Cup campaign and integrating them into its PSA pitch, showing an awareness of the multifaceted business of advertising that AdZou Director Tracy Draksler Brown believes gave them a leg up in the competition.
“One of the challenges that students often find with any of the projects they tackle in their capstones is integrating work in a way that is strategic, but avoids having every single piece of the campaign say the same thing,” Brown said. “It adds a layer of complexity. Full90 integrated their PSA into the campaign seamlessly, and that stood out to me.”
What stood out to Fuenfhausen — who worked in advertising for more than a decade before moving into teaching — was the parallels of the assignment with agency work students could expect to encounter in their future careers. In particular, he saw a lot in common with the process of “new business pitching,” which essentially involves auditioning for a brand’s business.
“You get some information and then you show your best concept, and whoever wins gets the business,” he said. “What is the client all about? What do they want to be? This is a concept, an idea, a vision of how athletes and sports can be. It was a great opportunity for students to stretch their creative minds.”
About AdZou
AdZou is the senior capstone course for strategic communication students. Directed by advertising and marketing professionals, students work in small teams to create a complete research-based campaignfor real companies or organizations at the national, regional or local levels. By the end of the semester, students have gained invaluable real-world, hands-on experience and have high-quality work for their portfolios that is, in many cases, implemented in future campaigns.
Updated: August 4, 2026