Posted by Willy Franzen on September 2, 2009. Jobs updated daily.
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When we first posted on Professional Sports Publications, everything looked good. A little more digging turned up some not so good stuff about them. You can scroll down for more on Professional Sports Publications, and here’s more information on how to avoid job and hiring scams.
Programs! GET YA PROGRAMS HERE! You can’t go to a major sporting event without hearing that ring across the crowd. I’m not typically one to buy a program, especially now that I can look up anything important (like up to the minute stats) on my phone, but I realize that for a lot of people it’s about having the memento. New York City’s Professional Sports Publications and University Sports Publications (different names but essentially the same company) are in the business of publishing these mementos. They are respectively the leading publisher of professional souvenir magazines and yearbooks and college souvenir magazines and yearbooks. PSP Sports is also the publisher of the official NBA magazine HOOP.
PSP Sports and USP Sports have pretty simple business models. They publish lots of different magazines for specific teams, and they sell targeted, local advertising in these magazines. In fact, you could argue that they are more a local advertising company than a publishing company. And that’s where their entry level jobs seem to be focused. Take this Craigslist posting for an Inside Sales Representative. They very clearly are looking for new college grads to fill this positions, and they apparently pay $50,000 base salary plus commission and health insurance. That sounds way too good to be true, but the only negative thing that I can find about PSP Sports is this post from a disgruntled employee (have to take those with a grain of salt). Selling advertising isn’t glamorous, but it can definitely pay, so give it a look. I haven’t found any information on other positions with either company (for instance on the Editorial or Publishing side), but you can inquire about job opportunities by sending a cover letter and résumé to dgerschw@pspsports.com or dgerschwer@university publications.com (obviously the same guy).
Addendum:
I had some initial concerns about PSP and USP Sports before posting about them, but I spent about an hour researching them and couldn’t find anything substantive. Only minutes after our daily e-mail sent out, I received a note from a loyal reader who told me that she had friends who worked there and had bad experiences. That led me to this link and this video:
This is a perfect lesson on how careful you need to be during your job search. Always respect your intuition. I apologize for not having done more due diligence, but I hope that we can all learn from this. I can’t say definitively that these companies should be avoided, but be sure to do your research!
Links to Help You Begin Your Research
Do you buy programs at sporting events?
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Great point Willy. I’m not saying they’re a scam, but there are so many opportunists out there that will take advantage of the current desperateness of job seekers out there. Direct marketing, pyramid schemes, work-from-home scams, etc. It’s really important to pay attention like you say.
Big Warning to my fellow alumni’s, if you want to work in a deteriorated and dilapidated work environment then this is the place for you. And along with the decrepit atmosphere, if you would like to engage in master-slave relationships with your bosses then apply ASAP. by USP ex-employee and survivor.
USP/PSP are categorically, undeniably a fraud. Take it from one who has done business with them – they cheat, lie, misrepresent and do everything you would not expect from an ethical, well run business. They will use you until you have no further purpose for them and then look out! I have also spoken to former employees who have horror stories about the way they were mistreated. This is a modern day sweatshop and if advertisers only knew how little these books they produce were actually purchased and read, they would run. However, most of them are people who have no business making the buy and are bribed by USP/PSP to make the sale. Look at other sites like ripoffreport.com where there are multiple identical positive posts and decide for yourself how desperate these people are to cover their ass.
I recently got fired from a subsideary of PSP sports, Global Sports, essentially the same company, and they treated me terribly. the boss Mike Paul did nothing after training to help the newly hired employees, and let younger inexperienced kids yell at each other and curse at all of us and argue with us because no one had any fomal training in authoritative positions. I had 23 year old kids, younger than me, who were there for 6 months, yelling at me all day while I was on the phone and telling me how bad I was and I sucked, Im a Fucking idiot, etc. This is the most ridiculous company ever, which is run by a bunch of lazy idiots who are money hungry pigs and shuffle young kids in and out of the company to make them money, There is no good feelings, everyone talks shit on everyone all the time, and the job itself is a glorified telemarketing job, its terrible. The reason they typically hire and only hire new graduates is because no other person with any experience in the work world would stand for the atmosphere and insanity that goes on in their offices. Kids see the 40-50,000 dollar salary with full benefits advertised, and they jump all over it. If they hired experienced people, they have to pay them even more money and these people wouldnt stand for the laziness of the boss’s, and the brutal harrasment type atmosphere. I hope this company rots from the inside out, because thats what it is already doing. I sold 11,000 dollars of ads in less than 3 months and got fired for a lack of sales? Or so Mike Paul said. They made money off of me real quick and fired me. Fuck Global Sports, PSP Sports, and University Sports publications.
I worked for USP for over 2 years and have to say, yes, people come and go, but it’s no different then any other company. It is a tough job, not for everyone, but for the people who do succeed, they payout is very good. Say what you want, it is phone sales, who cares what the desks look like…seriously now! You get to dress casually, not take work home with you, people tend to forget some of the good points. I laughed…”Joe Smoe” wrote he sold 11,000 in 3 months…in a year that would be 44,000….why shouldn’t they have fired him….if the pay is 40-50K….he was on pace to sell the same as what he got paid…very funny ! I left USP to work in my family business, otherwise I would have stayed. For those looking to work there, make your own decisions, don’t be influenced by people that didn’t cut it who post anonymously on this site, or any others for that matter. Think about, USP has probably had well over 1,000 sales rep over the last few years and you see a handful of anonymous posts…..Good luck
Josh – you sound like an apologist (or worse, current employee) looking to polish USP’s image. Problem is, you can’t polish a turd. “USP has probably had well over 1,000 sales rep over the last few years…” Over 1,000 people in only a few years…what does that say about the company and its culture? Would you want to work someplace with that kind of turnover? Yes, it is phone sales, but under combat conditions. And why do people post anonymously – what good would it do for them to be a target for these litigious bastards? And who said anything about the look of the desks, Josh? Now go back to yours and keep making those calls so you’re not the next one out the door. Loser.
USP sports is an absolute joke. they hire anyone who has a mouth and try to mold them into a submissive slave who will do anything for a paycheck. 50 thousand dollars isnt enough to sell your soul. the middle desks or managers there harrass you and scream at you but the truth is they only sell the best leads, they dont call the garbage everyone else does. marisa kravitz was the worst. she would scream and curse at everyone and try to diminish peoples self esteem, because she was one of the ugliest people i have ever seen. the bosses are white trash, the owners wife screams at you over the phone and then tries to be nice in person but everyone knows she slept her way to the top. all in all, job is a total and absolute joke. scam. fraud. illegitamate business who should be shut down.
I can honestly say this was the worst job I have ever had in my entire life! I have never been to prison but I can not imagine anything closer to prison than this company. They are slave drivers with no morals. I found myself counting the seconds until the painful day was over. The managers encourage you to lie to the buyers and to tell them what ever they need to hear in order to get them place an ad. You are not allowed to talk to anyone in the office and they make you work a 11 hour day and give you a 45 min lunch brake! I worked there two weeks and ran like hell after seeing how poorly they treat their employees. If you are a good sales person I encourage you to look at a real company unlike usp.
honestly there are over 50 people who make over 100k a year working there. They have been around for 18 year for a reason. they are the best at what they do. all these crybabies on these websites are just losers. go ask you parents for another loan to keep you afloat
Yea so this place is a scam, they work you ALL day cold calling people and only 45 minutes for lunch for 50 grand a year woww thats garbage…….the only way you would enjoy a job like this is if you were actually passionate about what you were doing, people who don’t quit within the first month are pussy’s…they want to quit, they complain about the job, but the training brainwashes you and makes you think you can’t quit…hated it happy i left
PSP SUCKS – you make no sense ! – “the only way you would enjoy a job like this is if you were actually passionate about what you were doing”
ummm–to be succesful you have to be passinate about what you do, otherwise, why do it !!
If it wasnt for you, and you were not passionate, it’s a good thing that you left. Find something that fills the hunger in your belly and go after it, with passion !!
I worked for PSP for 2 years, like any job, has it’s ups and downs, yes, lots of clod calling, lots of working hard, but nothing is life is obtained without hard work.
You can be negative about your experience, but clearly you lacked the passion, so it wasn;t for you. Perhaps you will find something that you become passionate about
It’s not a scam, anyone who thinks that is a moron. There is definitely potential to make a killing here but it’s definitely not for everyone…. actually it’s only for a very select few. It’s a terrible job, there is no room for creativity, no motivation, poor environment, management that only makes you feel like an idiot instead of helping in any way, and you won’t even start making commission for like 2 years. Decent base salary but way too old fashioned. You’re on the phones repeating the same thing for 9 hours a day and saying anything that’s not on a piece of paper is highly discouraged. If you can deal with that then you can do very well here but if you would like to wake up and not hate yourself every morning get a job somewhere else.
I have always considered myself a good sales person, and I have worked in call centers before. It was the only time in my whole professional career in which I felt bad after each sale. The place felt fishier and fishier especially the fact you can’t bring the piece of paper that you read out of out of the room. I just kept thinking to myself “Is this even legal?”
The work environment is absolutely horrendous. The boss actually liked me, but I dealt with co-workers that were quitting daily, gossiping, and even one who cried in my arms. Not to mention the fact that you work unnecessarily long hours. I have never seen a place that tense in my entire life.
It was the easily worst job in my professional career. I quit after I asked a series of questions to management.
Good point Beatrice. For the first few months after training I was motivated and would get excited over every sale that I made. After I found out what was really going on and that they werent even printing some of the ads that I was selling I started to hate myself for “tricking” people into buying from me. I know that some of the people that I sold to could not afford to pay for the “ads” and even if I knew it would be an easy sell, I would let them off the hook. Once when I did this I got a call from one of the POS managers asking me why I didnt close(they frequently listen in on your calls without telling you) and I explained that the guy(out of work painter) needed his money($595 for a 16th of a page ad that probably didnt exist) alot more than we did. Those greedy bastards did not like that one bit. Up until then I was selling more than just about everyone in the office but after that conversation they stopped giving me decent leads.
I luckily was able to find another job and leave this hellhole. In between the day I quit and the day I started my new job I took every opportunity I saw to encourage new hires to start looking for other jobs and I would encourage anyone looking into working for usp/psp to run like hell. The people who run this company are awful, terrible human beings. I still feel bad about selling this crap to people and hope that one day the owners/managers of usp/psp get what they deserve. I cannot imagine that what they do is completely legal and I have thought quite often about trying to get in touch with the proper authorities to investigate the business practices of this company. These people deserve to be in a hardcore “pound me in the ass” prison for a long time!
PSP isn’t a scam for the way they treat employees, but instead for what they do to their advertisers. I was only at PSP for 6 months, about 5 years ago, and I learned how to smile and dial, but it wasn’t for me. The real issue is the “hospitality” that PSP offers. For every ad purchased, 20% of the cost is given to the customer as a “hospitality bank” that they could use for tickets for sporting events for clients or anything like that. Many of the guys buying these ads are regional or brand marketing managers and their companies don’t know about this “hospitality” because they wouldn’t be able to use it. PSP basically bribes their advertisers with this “hospitatlity” and corporate knows nothing about it and then they use it for non-corporate events. During my time, PSP paid advertisers personal credit card bills, and even sent these guys on personal trips with the corporate “hospitality bank.” That’s embezzlement, and PSP encouraged it.
I will also agree with one the guys above about the Christmas story as I’m not Jewish either and had the same thing happen to me.
This job definitely taught me to not be afraid of the phones, but it also taught me exactly what type of company I never want to work for again.
I worked for PSP sports for about 4 months. Like every job it has its pros and cons. I enjoyed working in a bullpen and getting help from people who were better at it then I was. It was a good young crowd that I got along with but a better opportunity came up selling a real product in outside sales. But most of the people that buy the ads are the people who really can not afford it or are not smart enough to know what they are getting into. Their is no possible way that a couple inches of ad space in the back of aprogram is going to generate any sort of revenue. Most of my sales came from “Mom and Pop” places that I am sure were stuggling to make rent let alone pay for a 600 dollar ad. PSP also does not let you pitch women when they say they are the owners. And they have you try and trick the gatekeepers by saying the call is “regarding” a pro sports team. The pay was good for right out of college but totally it was totally unecessary for you to work from 8 to 6 everyday and your interent was blocked for most of the day. They also say they pay you a commission when you sell over 200,000 dollars. But you do not get it until they collect all of it which could take a year after you hit that amount.
My name is Former Slave. One of my favorite quotes that I have ever heard was on the day that I was fired, As I was walking out the door another former slave said ” Dont Worry Dude – Just remember, you cant fire a slave, you can only set’em free”.
Management is the some of the most disgusting, fat, money hungry, pathetic individuals you will ever met in your life. The level of disgusting greed that flows through upper management is enough to make even the cheapest mofo out there puke in their mouth.
There are so many things wrong with this company I cant even list them all but I will tell you that if you want to die inside and stare at a comp screen until your eyes bleed, PSP is the place for you : )
Spread the word about these duplicitous assholes – no one should have to work in this kind of blatantly fraudulent environment. The scam that they perpetrate on potential advertisers and teams they do business with is inexcusable. Everything that’s been pointed out here from “hospitality banks” to the lack of readership to any of their publications to the local phone numbers/addresses to give the fake impression that they are a local company is all, sadly, spot on. I did business with them after they bought their only competition, and after that, it only sucked much worse. These people gives Jews a bad name – liars, cheats and frauds who abuse people with no regard for their health or well-being. Beware anyone who tries to defend these people – they were put up to it by USP/PSP/etc. The fact that they operate under so many different names speaks volumes. A more sue happy bunch you can not find – it’s their only defense against their obviously immoral business practices. From the fat, lying bastard Mitch all the way down the line – do your friends a favor – AVOID THESE PEOPLE LIKE THE PLAGUE THEY ARE!