Staff Directory
- Title:
- Senior Associate Athletics Director for External Relations
- EMail:
- Phone:
- (973) 761-9644
- Alma Mater:
- Northeastern '07
Thomas Chen is currently serving as the Senior Associate Director of Athletics for External Relations at Seton Hall, a position he was promoted to in September 2022 after previously holding the title of Assistant (2014-17)/Associate (2017-22) Director of Athletics for Digital Media and Communications.
Chen serves on the department's senior leadership team and oversees all aspects of the department's communications, marketing and ticketing, and is the department liaison with Learfield, which handles Seton Hall's corporate sponsorship and outbound ticket sales. On a day-to-day basis, Chen's responsibilities include media relations, publications, television and radio and managing the official athletics department website, SHUPirates.com. He also oversees the department's digital and social media properties, including the Pirate Sports Network, which Chen overhauled to become a student-run organization that educates Seton Hall students on live broadcast production and creative digital media. As executive producer of the Pirate Sports Network, Chen leads approximately 60 live broadcasts a year.
In addition to helping place student-athlete stories in the New York Times, New York Post, Gannett Newspapers and The Athletic, Chen has worked hand-in-hand with FOX Sports to enhance coverage of Seton Hall basketball on FS1. Chen was the point person for Seton Hall's 2016 BIG EAST Men's Basketball Tournament championship run, which made national headlines, as well as the men's basketball team's four consecutive NCAA Tournament appearances from 2016-19 and its historic 2019-20 campaign when the Pirates reached as high as No. 8 in the nation. Chen was successful in pushing Myles Powell's All-America candidacy, which resulted in Powell being named Seton Hall's first NCAA consensus first-team All-American since 1953 and the recipient of the 2020 Jerry West National Shooting Guard of the Year Award.
Under Chen's leadership, Seton Hall has vastly improved its broadcasts and creative communications on the Pirate Sports Network. Chen has served as executive producer of over 300 live broadcasts and oversees a group of students that provide creative services that have led to initiatives such as "A Pirate's Life" which told student-athlete human interest stories during the 2018-19 season and "The Voyage" a program series which chronicled the 2019-20 men's basketball season. "The Voyage" won a 2020 Sports Video Group College Sports Media Award in the category of Collegiate Student Outstanding Program Series. In addition, Chen has helped push the envelope with broadcast ideas such as placing microphones on head coaches to give viewers a glimpse into Seton Hall programs in-game as well as a unique pregame show called Morning Madness, which served as both a lead-in to a men's basketball game and a marketing opportunity. In total under Chen's leadership, the Pirate Sports Network has been named a finalist for a Sports Video Group College Sports Media Award seven times.
Chen's social media strategy has also paid dividends for the Pirates, which has seen exponential growth and engagement. The men's basketball team's Twitter account has seen an increase in followers by 400 percent since the start of the 2015-16 season and has seen multiple instances of 20 percent engagement rates. The department's Instagram account has seen a 60 percent increase in less than a year in 2018-19. Under Chen, the department also re-activated its YouTube channel, which had been dormant.
Chen has also assisted other external units at Seton Hall, serving as the lead producer and editor of Seton Hall's Athletics Hall of Fame Enshrinement Dinner videos, helping the department's fundraising efforts on Donor Matching Day and with numerous communications pieces, assisting marketing with media buys and graphic design, working with ticketing with offer promotions and microsite building and teaming with corporate sponsorship on partner fulfillment.Â
Prior to coming to Seton Hall, Chen spent four and a half years at Stony Brook University, where he was hired as the Director of Athletic Communications in September 2010 before being promoted to Assistant Director of Athletics for Communications in July 2013. In addition to overseeing all communications efforts and serving as media contact for the men's basketball and baseball teams, Chen also served on the department's management team, working directly with the Director of Athletics on longterm projects designed to enhance the student-athlete experience.
Chen was a part of a successful communications team that had garnered Stony Brook Athletics more attention than it had ever received. He and his staff worked with numerous members of the media to gain attention in such prestigious outlets as Newsday, New York Times, New York Post, New York Daily News, WFAN, SI.com, SNY, ESPN.com and many others. Chen and his staff were responsible for handling the media blitz surrounding the baseball team's 2012 run to the College World Series that shocked the world.
Chen's efforts in television and radio led to multiple television contracts with Cablevision for men's and women's basketball, and his negotiating efforts led to three nationally broadcasted games on ESPN3 using HD over IP technology in conjunction with Pack Network during the 2013-14 season.
Chen also successfully oversaw an overhaul of StonyBrookAthletics.com, which re-launched in Nov. 2010 and again in Sept. 2013 and saw an increase in web traffic by nine percent. His social media efforts, strategically coordinated with the hashtag #Seawolves, led to a significant increase in followers on Twitter and Instagram and led to consistent fan engagement during athletics events.
No stranger to national events, Chen served as the site media coordinator for the NCAA Women's Lacrosse Championship, held at Stony Brook's Kenneth P. LaValle Stadium in 2011 and 2012.
Before his experience at Stony Brook, Chen worked for six years at his alma mater, Northeastern University.
After serving as a student assistant at Northeastern for three years, Chen was hired as Assistant Director of Sports Information in June 2007. After earning a promotion to associate director in 2009, he successfully coordinated media strategies for the Matthews Arena renovation and the Sun Life Frozen Fenway event, which featured the Northeastern women's hockey team in collegiate women's hockey's first-ever outdoor game.
Also as associate director, Chen served as the managing editor for the official website of Northeastern University Athletics, GoNU.com. He also spearheaded the department effort to move GoNU.com's content management system to SIDEARM, which included a site re-design.
In addition to overseeing the day-to-day operations of the department, which included the hiring and scheduling of five employees and numerous student helpers, Chen also served as the primary contact for the Huskies men's basketball program, where he established relationships with media that resulted in coverage in the Boston Globe, Boston Herald, New York Times, FoxSports.com, ESPN the Magazine and ESPNBoston.com. Chen also served as the secondary contact for the Northeastern football team, where he was responsible for all media communications, statistics, press box management and road game travel.
A native of New York City and alumnus of Regis High School, Chen graduated Summa Cum Laude from Northeastern University in May 2007 with a bachelor's degree in Journalism and a minor in History.
