The Michael Jordan Morehouse partnership now has a front door. On Wednesday, Sept. 23, Morehouse College cut the ribbon on the Morehouse Multimedia Center, a new production hub funded by Jordan and Jordan Brand. The space sits inside the college’s Journalism in Sports, Culture, and Social Justice department. It is also the clearest sign yet of what Jordan’s money is buying on campus. Its job is simple: turn Morehouse Men into the reporters, editors, producers and creators that media companies say they want.
The ceremony started at 11 a.m. The college expected more than 110 students, alumni, industry partners and Metro Atlanta creatives to walk through the space on day one.
What’s Inside the Morehouse Multimedia Center
Think of it as a working newsroom and a studio in one room. The center includes a modular production studio, editing bays and roughly $250,000 worth of equipment, according to coverage from TheGrio.
Students will use it for digital storytelling, sports broadcasting, podcasting and filmmaking. They’ll also experiment with emerging media tools. Award-winning content creators will teach many of the lessons. In other words, the training looks less like a lecture and more like a shift at a real outlet. Students no longer have to borrow gear or book outside studio time to finish a project.
Faculty get something too. Professors can use the center’s tools to digitize their research. Then they can push that work to audiences far beyond West End Atlanta.
How the Michael Jordan Morehouse Gift Got Here
This didn’t happen overnight. Back in 2021, Jordan and Jordan Brand committed more than $1 million to Morehouse. The college announced the gift that May. That money funded scholarships and academic programming for students in journalism and sports-related fields.
A year later, Morehouse launched its journalism major. Now the physical space has caught up with the curriculum.
The gift also fits a bigger pattern. In 2020, Jordan and Jordan Brand pledged $100 million over 10 years to organizations supporting Black communities. Education sits at the center of that effort. Morehouse is one of the clearest examples of where that money lands.
Shauncey Mashia Stelly, Jordan Brand’s senior director of global purpose, said the brand is proud to back Morehouse students as they prepare for their careers. She added that she hopes the space gives them room to learn, create and grow.
The People Running It
Mikki Harris chairs the Journalism in Sports, Culture, and Social Justice department. She is also an associate professor at the college. Harris explained that the major launched with a liberal arts focus. Students learn to ask why a story matters before they learn how to shoot it. The new center, she said, supplies the hands-on half of that equation. In her view, it connects classroom thinking to professional work. Harris also noted that the center changes how faculty share research, since they can now publish in formats that reach global audiences. When Morehouse announced the opening, it pitched the center as both a classroom and a research tool.
The center’s inaugural director is a Morehouse graduate. Emani Saucier, Class of 2019, co-founded the center and now leads it. So the person building this training ground walked the same campus just seven years ago.
Saucier framed the goal plainly. The center exists to prepare students “not only to participate in the future of media, but to lead it.”
The Results Are Already Showing
The center didn’t wait for a ribbon to start producing. Content made with its new equipment drew more than 1 million social media views in August alone.
Its training also played a part in a student Emmy win. The Maroon Tiger, Morehouse’s student newspaper, took home the award for an interview produced with the center’s help. For a student outlet, that’s a serious résumé line. The Maroon Tiger also runs Tiger TV, so the center gives both platforms a real production home.
The alumni numbers tell a longer story. Nearly 120 graduates of the journalism program currently work in media and sports careers. On top of that, more than 60 have earned advanced degrees in the field.
Why It Matters for HBCU Media
Black journalists remain underrepresented in American newsrooms, especially in sports media. Programs like this one attack that gap at the source. Instead of hoping graduates figure out the tools on the job, Morehouse is putting cameras, mics and editing software in their hands now.
Sports coverage is a natural fit. The department’s name puts sports first, and the funding comes from one of the most famous athletes in the world. For HBCU athletics in particular, trained storytellers matter. Classics, rivalries and recruiting battles need people who know the culture and can cover it well.
The timing matters, too. Media jobs increasingly demand one person who can report, shoot, edit and post. A center built around podcasting, broadcasting and filmmaking trains for exactly that kind of work.
Still, equipment alone doesn’t build careers. The real test comes over the next few graduating classes. If more Morehouse journalists land on sidelines, in studios and at major outlets, the center will have earned its place.
For now, the Michael Jordan Morehouse investment is no longer just a check and a press release. It’s a room full of students with the tools to tell their own stories. Keep up with the latest from the AUC in our Morehouse College coverage, and find more campus news in our Morehouse archive.
