On Monday, Nov. 25, Pizza with the Pros hosted its last event of the fall semester, welcoming Executive Director of PHL Sports Larry Needle.

Needle grew up in Baltimore, Maryland, and graduated from the University of North Carolina. In his senior year, Needle was still figuring out what he wanted to do for his career. One of his family friends who worked for the organization Maccabi USA told him that the company was looking for a new communications director in the Philadelphia area.

Needle worked as the communications director for the next couple of years. When the time came to search for a new job, he credited the Sports Market Place reference book.

“It’s about a 500-page reference book, which I went to the library and checked out, and it’s a great way to figure out different sports-related organizations that exist across the country. Part of it is broken down geographically and I knew I wanted to either stay in Philadelphia [or] Baltimore or go back to Chapel Hill. It really also helped shine the light on all the different organizations, companies that are doing sponsorships, sports leagues, and just things that you may not think are out there,” said Needle.

In this reference book, Needle was able to discover the Philadelphia Sports Congress, which is now known as PHL Sports. He sent them a letter, but over the next two months, he didn’t hear anything back. It wasn’t until another month went by that Needle heard back, but it was worth the wait, as they hired him.

Needle, who has worked for PHL Sports over the past 33 years, explained to students what the company does.

“We are basically the sports commission for Philadelphia. If you’ve heard of sports commissions, it’s organizations around the country that work to bring sports events and activity to their communities for economic development. We want to be able to bring events to the cities that the community will embrace, be excited about, and make people want to either stay in Philadelphia or move to Philadelphia. We are always thinking about what events will people really be excited about and hopefully we are going after the right ones,” Needle said.

Neil Hartman, the Director of the Center for Sports Communication and Social Impact at Rowan University, asked Needle what he classifies himself as.

“I’m probably a salesman/facilitator first,” Needle said. “Our job really is just to connect the dots with folks, that’s what we’re always doing. Whether it’s a university, venue, city, or state, our job is connecting the dots.”

Needle played a significant role in the bid process for Philadelphia to secure one of 11 host city locations in the United States for the 2026 FIFA World Cup and has attracted other major sporting events to the Philadelphia region. Some of these events include the Army/Navy games, All-Star games, NCAA events, WrestleMania, and many others.

Pizza with the Pros will resume in the spring, concluding its fall semester that featured many guest speakers that students won’t forget.

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