When Ken Belson returned to New York to work on The New York Times’s business desk in 2004, he realized that an entire job could be devoted to covering the economics of sports.
After all, the city was home to some of the world’s most popular and lucrative sports teams and leagues, including the Giants, the Knicks, the Yankees, and the NFL. When he failed to sell the idea to his editors on the business and sports desks, he did the next best thing: He pitched stories one at a time.
“I essentially created the job,” said Belson, who worked as a business journalist in Japan for 12 years before returning to his native city to work at The New York Times.
It’s a lesson he often shares with students who are stuck between two fields.
In 2009, the editors finally asked him to cover the business of sports full-time. It is a sprawling job that has led him in many directions, including publishing a book in 2025 about the business of the NFL titled “Every Day is Sunday: How Jerry Jones, Robert Kraft, and Roger Goodell Turned the NFL into a Cultural & Economic Juggernaut.”
Belson will give a lecture and book signing on Monday, April 27, at 1:30 p.m. at Virginia Tech’s University Club as part of the Institute for Critical Technology and Applied Science (ICTAS)’s Kelly Lecture Series. He will talk about how the NFL went from a successful football league into an unrivaled media powerhouse and cultural touchstone. Registration is required and seats are limited.
Belson has also previously reported on the institute’s Helmet Lab research for The New York Times.
“Ken Belson has been writing about concussions and sports for decades and through that he has covered many of the stories from our Virginia Tech Helmet Lab,” said Stefan Duma, director of ICTAS. “Having Ken join us for this installment of the Kelly Lecture Series is exciting as he will share his in-depth knowledge of how the NFL became so successful.”
While on the Blacksburg campus he will also meet with students and communications professionals.
Hosted by ICTAS in partnership with the College of Engineering, the Hugh and Ethel Kelly Lecture Series is made possible by a fund from the estate of Ethel Kelly, who generously supported Virginia Tech and the College of Engineering in honor of her husband, Hugh. Hugh Kelly earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the university and went on to play key roles in multiple groundbreaking projects over a long career at Bell Laboratories.
To honor Hugh Kelly’s technical accomplishments and the couple’s support of Virginia Tech, the College of Engineering and ICTAS established the lecture series and renamed the institute’s headquarters building Kelly Hall in 2013. The Kellys’ generosity has allowed the institute to bring Nobel laureates, Pulitzer Prize winners, and other visionary leaders and thinkers to Blacksburg to share their work with the Virginia Tech community.
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