The MBAT (the MBA Tournament) - an annual 3-day sports event hosted by HEC Paris at our beautiful 300-acre wooded campus - is now in its 20th year, and in a few days time HEC MBAs will welcome over 1,400 MBA students from top Business schools across Europe. 

Sounds fantastic, doesn’t it?  Everyone here at HEC Paris is excited; you can feel it amongst the student body. Every second email we’re sending or receiving is about MBAT; who’s going to be doing what, how important is it for us to win at sport, what to wear at the dress-up parties on campus, attending the grand finalé party at one of Paris most exclusive nightclubs, Le 1515.

I just received an email about helping to paint some support banners, and word is that the cheerleading squad is looking for some extra guys!  Meanwhile, let’s get to organising the 1,400 MBAs who are due here in 3 days! Visiting MBAs will be arriving by the bus load: some with their own beer-bus (LBS); some with their own supplies of bresaola, prosciutto, mozzarella & olives for the food stalls (do I have to mention that it’s Bocconi?); some, like warriors, have victory set firmly in their sights; but all are ready to have a good time!

Being part of the organization of MBAT is a must in the HEC MBA, I couldn’t recommend a better way to be active outside the classroom and work with your MBA peers on creating an awesome event.  As it’s entirely student-run, it’s totally what you make it, so given the significant blood and sweat that’s gone into the preparation of this year’s event; everyone is looking forward to pulling off something special. 

The process is run as a mini business, we have a finance team, marketing team, events, logistics, sports, sponsorship & HR teams – in total almost 120 students were intimately involved in the process and the remaining students chipping in where necessary (of course there are hundreds of other things to get involved in so can’t expect everyone to be working on MBAT!).  We had two great leaders running the show, Dan & Anne (aka, as Hollywood would term them, ‘’Danne’’), without whom MBAT 2010 wouldn’t be what it’s about to be. 

Today marks approximately 8 months since the word MBAT was first muttered by an HEC MBA from our intake, and we find ourselves 3 days from the opening. We’ve journeyed from the election phase - where we voted in the organization team - to the months of organization to 3 days of competitive sport and partying.  It’s been a once in a life-time opportunity to be involved in something like this and I can honestly say that I see some winning smiles appearing on my peers’ faces, let’s hope they remain, perhaps become exaggerated after victory on the sports field!”

To learn more about this year’s event why not check out the MBAT website: www.mbat.org or watch the 2010 MBAT video