Journalist Darren Rovell, who covers sports business for ESPN, will be speaking at Penn State today as part of an event sponsored by the Center for Sports Journalism. The lecture and question-and-answer session, which is open to the public, will begin at 3 p.m. at the Carnegie Cinema located in room 113 of the Carnegie Building. The visit marks Rovell's first trip to Penn State.

In addition to writing around 200 articles per year for ESPN.com, Rovell makes regular appearances on ESPN News, ESPN Radio, and occasionally on Sportscenter. He is also the co-author of one book, On the Ball: What You Can Learn from America's Sports Business Leaders.

Not bad for a 26 year old.

"What he does is some of the best sports journalism out there," said Steve Sampsell, Coordinator of College Relations for the College of Communications.

The topics that Rovell focuses on are not what you would expect from a typical sports journalist. He is one of the few journalists who reports specifically on sports business on the national level. Recently, he has written columns on subjects ranging from the sudden presence of "LIVESTRONG" wristbands used to raise money and awareness for Lance Armstrong's foundation to a new sport drink developed exclusively for basketball phenom LeBron James, Flava-23.

Rovell always knew he wanted to go into sports journalism, but it was while attending Northwestern University that he realized he wanted to go into sports business aspect of journalism rather than the traditional forms of sports journalism.

"I realized that I didn't want to write game stories," Rovell says. "When I was in school, I really started to get into business journalism. There had been trade publications that had combined the worlds of sports and business together, so I thought it would be a great challenge to try to do that for a general audience on a national level."

In his junior year at Northwestern, Rovell faced that challenge by starting the first sports business show on student radio in the nation, called "The Sports Business Beat".

During that summer he interned at Foxsports.com and developed Foxsportsbiz.com, the company's sports business web site. After graduating in 2000, Rovell was immediately hired by ESPN.com to cover sports business.

The free event is part of an ongoing series of visits by members of the sports journalism industry.