How K-Stater Travis Murphy ’06 creates global connections through sports
For many fans across the globe, their passion for sports is about so much more than
just a game.
It’s about that rush you feel when you’re watching your favorite team play, either
in a stadium or on a TV screen. It’s about the sense of camaraderie and community
you build with other fans who love this team as much as you do. You experience a sense
of pride when you wear your game day gear, and you feel an immediate bond when you
spot another person wearing your team’s logo.
Sports transcend borders, drawing together fans from different backgrounds to celebrate
their love of the game. K-Stater Travis Murphy ’06 has dedicated his career to helping
athletes and fans make those connections.
Murphy is the founder and CEO of Jetr Global Sports + Entertainment, a firm specializing in government affairs and international travel that offers services
for athletes, entertainment providers and fans across the world. Jetr Global assists
clients with navigating the complexities of international travel, such as expediting
visas and passports; creating opportunities for international business growth and
marketing; and crafting legislative strategies.
Jetr Global works with organizations such as Netflix, Major League Baseball, NASCAR,
Adidas and more, and Murphy has been quoted as an expert by media outlets such as
The New York Times and NPR.
“Sports is such a powerful tool in bringing people together, in building bridges and
connecting people around the world,” Murphy said. “Whether it's an international sporting
event, or just rolling a ball out onto a pitch, and seeing how kids of different ethnicities
and religions come together and just play.”
Murphy is originally from Natoma, a small town in western Kansas. He grew up on a
pig and crop farm, and when he graduated, there were only 26 students in his entire
high school. He earned an associate’s degree from Cloud County Community College,
and then transferred to K-State to study social sciences while working full time in
Clay Center as a news director for a radio station.
“I was lucky to have that opportunity, but also it was a very time-demanding job that
I had to be on top of the news and be available,” Murphy said. “I got to a point where
I was going into the radio station at 5 in the morning, recording my morning newscast
to run at 7, and then leaving to head to Manhattan so I could be there for my 8 a.m.
class. I'd hear my own newscast on the way to campus.”
His work as a news director also placed Murphy in a unique position: while taking
political science courses at K-State, he was able to interview some of the politicians
being discussed in class.
He got to know current U.S. Sen. Jerry Moran, who at the time was serving as a member
of the House of Representatives. Moran asked Murphy if he would be interested in coming
to Washington, D.C., to serve as his press secretary. No stranger to wearing multiple
hats at the same time, Murphy eagerly took on the role while finishing up his semester
of classes at K-State.
Murphy later served as Moran’s chief of staff, and also political director leading
up to the 2010 election, when Moran ran for the U.S. Senate. Murphy joined the State
Department's Foreign Service in 2009 and became a diplomat, where he was posted to
the U.S. embassies in Ecuador, Suriname and Côte d'Ivoire. He took great pride in
mentioning his home state — and his alma mater — in presentations to international
audiences.
“I always tried to keep Kansas close, in any way that I could, to the work that I
was doing overseas,” he said.
For his last tour of duty with the Department of State, he returned to Washington,
D.C., where he served in the office of sports diplomacy — a role that became his entry
point into the world of professional sports and the internationalization of sports.
That work led to his next job: overseeing international government affairs at the
NBA.
“I had a lot of interaction with the players, with the teams,” he said. “I always
made sure to touch base and get to know the K-State guys who were in the league.”
He said the NBA is a great example of a U.S. domestic league growing its international
footprint, not only by hosting games and events and opening offices around the world,
but also through recruiting talented international players.
“The internationalization of sports is really fascinating and how much that's accelerated
over the last decade that I've been working in this space,” he said.
Murphy started his own company, Jetr Global Sports + Entertainment, in 2022, and has
been busy ever since. And that trend isn’t likely to slow down anytime soon: the U.S.
will be hosting a number of high-profile sporting events in the next decade, ranging
from the 2026 FIFA Men’s World Cup, to the 2028 Summer Olympics and the 2034 Winter
Olympics.
“Establishing ourselves as subject matter experts has really been a valuable addition
to the sports ecosystem,” Murphy said of Jetr Global. “Understanding how the State
Department and Capitol Hill works, and then how international sports leagues operate
gives us a unique ability to assist in facing these challenges. We have a unique skillset
and expertise that allows us to navigate problems that appear pretty thorny if you
don't have that experience.”
He was even able to assist the K-State men’s basketball team in 2023 when they traveled
to UAE and Israel.
“As college basketball follows the NBA and has more and more international players,
there's a number of international players on the K-State men's basketball team, so
I was able to help them with some issues around visa and immigration. It's been very
cool to see that go full circle to be able to come back and help my alma mater.”
Murphy anticipates that sports will continue to be a major economic driver on the
international stage, especially as sports tourism becomes even more popular.
“There's tremendous value to the United States being a welcoming environment for international
athletes, whether that's teams coming to participate in the World Cup, or international
basketball players coming to play in the NBA or baseball players in the MLB,” Murphy
said. “The idea of sports diplomacy is really fundamental, I think, to our future
approach to international relationships. At Jetr Global, we meet regularly with the
U.S. Olympic Committee and Paralympic Committee, with FIFA, with these organizations
that are bringing in these events and serve as that connective tissue between the
different sports entities and governments.”
For Murphy, working at Jetr Global is a dream job, and it’s an opportunity he says
he feels grateful for every single day.
“Just the fact that I get to work in sports is pretty amazing for a western Kansas
kid,” Murphy said. “Right now in my inbox are emails from the NFL, from various MLS
teams, from NASCAR, from the NBA. And so at any given time, I'm working on dozens
of different cases around the world. I wake up and I have emails from Australia and
China and Japan, and over the course of the day, you'll hear from Africa, Europe and
then South America, Central America. That's really exciting and just a lot of fun.
“I think the ability to help people is really core to our existence at Jetr Global.
I pride myself on the lessons I learned coming up in Jerry Moran's office; he was
very constituent service focused, and that really ingrained in me a sense of service
from a public service standpoint. I've been so fortunate in the life that I've had,
the career I've had.”
Want to learn more about the role Travis Murphy ’06 and Jetr Global have played on the international stage? Read some of their recent news items: