Daniels and DeSalvo Claim SPORTYS from Greater Orlando Sports Commission

UCF director of broadcasting Marc Daniels and assistant athletics director Eric DeSalvo both claimed SPORTYS Saturday night from the Greater Orlando Sports Commission (GO Sports).
 
Daniels and DeSalvo were among 51 finalists for the 2020 SPORTYS--selected by a voting committee made up of GO Sports board of directors members. The finalists in 12 award categories represented 21 different organizations throughout Greater Orlando.
 
Daniels won in the Best in Sports Media classification, while DeSalvo won in the Best in Communications & Public Relations category, with both groups featuring four finalists. Other UCF finalists were vice president and director of athletics Danny White (one of 10 in the Executive of the Year classification) and associate athletics director Bill Houston (one of four in Best in Corporate Partnerships).
 
When Daniels began doing play by play for UCF football in 1995, the Knights were a year away from becoming a full-fledged Football Bowl Subdivision program. While the UCF football teams have put the program on the map, Daniels has been there every step of the way—celebrating his 25th season in that capacity in 2019 and doing his 300th UCF game at midseason versus East Carolina.
 
Considering his UCF role also handling men's basketball, baseball and other broadcasts (not to mention voicing over videos and handling MC roles for coaches' shows and multiple other special events) and his own morning radio show, Daniels is arguably the most accomplished and well-known media personality in the market. His longevity has easily made him the institutional expert on anything involving UCF athletics.
 
Social media has been a strategic part of UCF's communication plan, given its young yet large alumni base and that group's appetite for social media in general. Add DeSalvo's expertise in this area and it has evolved into a perfect marriage. His own UCF institutional knowledge makes a great match for creating content that engages UCF fans. His work from a statistics standpoint far outperforms that of many Power 5 schools with far more athletic tradition and huge alumni bases.
 
Here are some recent examples:
--Total Twitter FBS engagements: @UCF_Football: 19th in the nation with 827,960 engagements
--Total Instagram FBS engagements: @ucf.football: 20th in the nation with 2.42M engagements and the 6th-best engagement rate in the top 25
--Total Facebook FBS engagements: UCF Football 25th in the nation with 513,580 engagements and the 3rd-best engagement rate in the top 25
 
All those are for the 12-month period from July 1, 2019-June 30, 2020, and there have been dozens more month-by-month and season-by-season rankings (from that same time period) where UCF is just as prominently listed.
 
Much of that is directly attributed to the great work of DeSalvo and his staff—in terms of creativity, graphics, embedded video and all the other tricks of the social media trade.
 
Daniels has been UCF's director of broadcasting since 2016. He has been handling Knights' play-by-play duties for 25 years and has been working in the Orlando market since 1989. He is originally from New York City.
 
DeSalvo, a UCF graduate, had been running UCF's social media accounts since 2013 and has been with UCF Athletics since 2011. He is a Jacksonville, Florida, native.
 
GO Sports is a private, non-profit organization established to attract and manage sports-related events, conferences and activities that drive positive economic development in the City of Orlando, Lake County, Orange County, Osceola County, and Seminole County. Founded in 1993, the organization has hosted or co-hosted more than 1,400 events in the Greater Orlando area with a total economic impact exceeding $1.78 billion in spending within the community. For more information, please visit GreaterOrlandoSports.com.