Chris Taylor
Associate Lecturer in Department of Media and Senior Director of Sports Production
Achieving Academic Excellence
Chris Taylor is a pioneer. In 2009, he launched and has since led the nation’s first digital sports production academic major with emphasis on live sports production, cross-platform distribution, storytelling, social media, interactive and mobile media. Read more.
A creative storyteller and producer with over 30 years of experience, Chris Taylor is the Senior Director of Sports Production (Ball State Sports Link) and an Associate Lecturer of Media at Ball State.
His graduates can be found at ESPN, Turner Sports, Tupelo Honey/Raycom, MLB, Indy Car, NASCAR, NBA, NFL, NHL and NCAA Athletics Departments across the country.
In 2019, Taylor was awarded a Ball State Benny Award. The Benny Award is the Alumni Association’s top award for service to Ball State University or the Alumni Association. The award gets its name from the statue of Beneficence, the University’s long-standing symbol of unselfish contribution of one’s talents, energy and time.
Taylor’s Ball State Sports Link grew internationally, with a transatlantic partnership with the United Kingdom’s only sports broadcast program at Cardiff Metropolitan University in Cardiff, Wales. In 2020 and 2024, Taylor and students travelled to Wales to produce Transatlantic Storytelling, a feature-length documentary on sport and culture in Wales.
His students have won over 230 state, regional and national awards for sports production and storytelling, including 43 Emmy and/or Student Production Awards from the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. Sports Link is the most nominated program in the Sports Video Group/College Sports Media Awards, earning recognition 27 times in the peer-judged competition.
In the classroom, the sports production academic concentration is the first of its kind by any college or university in the nation. The nationally renowned program offers skills and applications using digital technology to create sports content for distribution across multiple platforms. Emphasis is given to live event production to ESPN platforms and storytelling.
Sports Production prepares students for careers in a developing and changing sports media arena. Using the immersive learning model of Ball State Sports Link, Sports Production specializes in multiple areas. Students learn to produce a broad range of content from live remote productions, live-to-tape events, television programs, student-athlete features, Facebook Live shows and social media content creation.
Other facets of the program include Sports Link Digital Radio, social media management and analytics, podcasts and the use of mobile technology and interactivity via the web. Working closely with ESPN and Ball State Athletics, the program produces over 300 hours of sports programming, including over 150 hours of live sports to ESPN platforms yearly, with students in all crew positions.
In 2017, Taylor was honored with the Sports Video Group/College Sports Media Summit Pioneer Award. The national award recognizes innovators in video production and technology at the university level who have advanced the industry at large.
A former college sports information and marketing director, Taylor has served on numerous state, local and national organizing committees, including for NCAA Final Four and other NCAA Championship events. In addition, he has guided Ball State’s involvement as social and digital media producers for NCAA March Madness and other NCAA Championships since 2011, working with the NCAA and Turner Sports.
In 2014, Taylor also guided the social and digital real-time operations -- utilizing students -- for the 96th PGA Championship and the 2014 Ryder Cup. He also helped lead a team of Ball State students to the London 2012 Olympic Games, producing multimedia stories for national media outlets.
He is also active in his campus and local communities, including leading a 2021-22 pilot program with Muncie Community Schools and Muncie Burris Schools with high school students learning sports media production.
Also in the community, Taylor served as executive producer and mentor of 7th and 8th grade students as part of Muncie’s Inner City Educational Basketball League in 2015 and 2016. A league based on academic achievement and playing time as part of the 21st Century Scholars initiative.
Taylor is a graduate of Ball State University with his Bachelor’s in Telecommunications (production option) and a Master’s in Sports Administration.