Kelsi Steele’s career working for the PGA Tour started at OHIO and WOUB

Kelsi Steele knew from a very young age that she wanted to have a career that combined journalism with sports. As senior content manager for tournaments at the PGA Tour, Steele is doing just that and loving every minute of it.

The PGA TOUR is the world's premier membership organization for touring professional golfers, co-sanctioning tournaments on the PGA TOUR, PGA TOUR Champions, Korn Ferry Tour, PGA TOUR Latinoamérica and PGA TOUR Canada.

“I never imagined I would end up in a role like this with an organization like the PGA Tour,” said Steele. “But it has been amazing.”

Steele grew up near Cincinnati and chose to come to Ohio University because of the reputation of the E.W. Scripps School of Journalism. She started working at WOUB during spring semester of her freshman year. Steele got involved doing sports at the station on programs like Gridiron Glory, Hardwood Heroes and NewsWatch. She also did sports work on campus outside of WOUB, by working for the Southern Ohio Copperheads, a summer collegiate baseball team in Athens, writing game recaps for the website.

“With the experience from WOUB and the Copperheads, I got my first job after graduation working for the Brisbane Bandits in the Australian Baseball League,” said Steele. “I worked as a communications and digital media manager doing game recaps, community relations, on camera features, on air play by play and social media.”

But Steele didn’t stay down under for long. After almost a year, she returned to Ohio to work as a digital marketing assistant for the NHL’s Columbus Blue Jackets. 

“My job at the Blue Jackets came from a connection and relationship developed at WOUB,” said Steele. “And the role with the Blue Jackets helped me to start looking at what a career in social media could look like.”

After the Blue Jackets, Steele moved on to the United Soccer League (USL). During her nearly four years at the league office, Steele worked her way up from social media coordinator to senior manager of social media and content. In 2021, she made her move to the PGA Tour where she started as a content manager and became the senior content manager, tournaments in July 2022.

“My job at the PGA Tour came from a Southern Ohio Copperheads connection,” said Steele. “I am a liaison between the PGA tour social team and all the individual tournament social media teams. I bring all the storytelling aspects together.”

Without the experiences she had in Athens, Steele said she wouldn’t be where she is today.

“WOUB was invaluable. I think about Gridiron Glory and that was a huge part of my development. From learning to speak with athletes, to understanding how to write and how to write for sports, it helped from a relationship and career jump standpoint,” said Steele. “So many talented people come out of WOUB, and I am still in contact with so many who are dear friends of mine. People ask me what sorority I was in while I was in college, and I try to explain that WOUB was our sorority. It was a career sorority. We worked until midnight on Friday night, and we were never upset that we were missing a Friday night out. We all wanted to be there to learn and grow in our careers.”

About WOUB Public Media

As a member station of both NPR and PBS, WOUB Public Media is a trusted source of news, local content and educational resources that have proven to be worthy of the time, effort and support of our users. WOUB, an experiential-learning unit of the Scripps College of Communication at Ohio University, is a non-profit, community-supported multimedia organization which provides online and broadcast services, along with non-broadcast educational services and student professional development. WOUB serves 55 counties throughout southeastern Ohio, western West Virginia and eastern Kentucky with its broadcast signals. WOUB Radio’s FM Network has transmitters in Athens, Chillicothe, Ironton, Zanesville and Cambridge, while WOUB AM serves the immediate Athens area. WOUB TV is made up of seven television channels (WOUB HD, WOUB Classic, WOUB World, WOUB Create, WOUB Ohio, WOUB Kids and WOUB Voicecorps Reading Service) which are broadcast from two transmitters.

Through its support of public service, teaching, research and administrative missions, along with its high-quality local content and programming, WOUB enriches, enhances and expands the lives and horizons of the people in the communities it serves, as well as Ohio University faculty, staff and students.