Sports Business Conversations

You can broadcast your kid’s baseball game globally. Yep, that’s right. Your kid’s team can go from selling candy bars to raise money to creating a global media empire with all the trimmings: high broadcast-quality, multiple camera angles, live graphics, AI highlights, and more. The whole deal. And better yet? Here’s what you don’t need: A production truck, crew, or six-figure cost.

That's exactly what's available to you right now, and Mike Kohler, Chief Commercial Officer of HomeTeam Network, is making it happen.

Home Team Network is developing a single platform f...

It’s probably no surprise that Ishveen Jolly’s parents both wanted her to become a doctor. They’re both successful doctors, after all, and they were probably measuring her for a stethoscope when she got into Oxford.

What mom and dad Jolly probably didn’t expect was that their daughter would major in economics, get bitten by the sports business bug, and launch a start up that counts Serena Williams and David Blitzer among its investors.

No, it’s not a medical career, but I suspect Ishveen Jolly’s parents are pretty proud nonetheless.

Ishveen...

A quick question: if your first job out of college was filling out labels on FedEx boxes, do you think you could picture yourself one day hosting a concert on Alcatraz Island — Blue Angels overhead, Creed on stage, the whole thing live on VH1? Probably not.

But that's path taken by Mike Belcher, T-Mobile’s SVP of Business Development, Partnerships, and Loyalty Programs.

After Mike graduated college, he spent eight years at Disney, where he began by perfecting that FedEx label creation. He left Disney with two things that shaped everything that followed: a deep beli...

Over the years, we’ve had a lot of conversations with sports business entrepreneurs. One thing they all share is a certain degree of risk tolerance. But even the most daring of them pale in comparison when it comes to this episode’s guest.

At 17 years old, Davyeon Ross left his home in Trinidad and Tobago and headed to Kansas to get his college degree and play basketball. Now Kansas winters aren’t for the feint of heart, most especially for someone who grew up on a tropical island off the coast of Venezuela. Were there some though...

It wasn’t too long ago that we had Peter Murray on this show to talk about his transition from running the Professional Fighters League to serving as the CEO of the Pro Bowlers Association. And if you think that’s an interesting career segue, let me introduce you to this episode’s guest, Patrick Lindsey.

You see, not that long ago, Patrick was running the PGA Tour stop in Las Vegas, the Shriner’s Open. When the sponsorship of that tournament fell through, Patrick began looking for his next opportunity, which he quickly found. In the form of...

If you’re looking to buy a used stadium urinal, boy, have I got a deal for you.

Well, in truth, I don’t have a deal for you. But Brandon Steiner, the founder of Steiner Sports and CollectibleXchange sure does. That’s because Steiner is in the process of dismantling HighMark Stadium, the former home of the Buffalo Bills, and in doing so, is offering a catalog of items from that venue for sale. As you can imagine, the fanatical members of the Bills Mafia are snapping them up. Urinals included.

Steiner began his legend...

Sports business is built on big transactions. In this new feature of the Sports Business Conversations podcast, we’ll take a close look at how some of these transactions came to be. It’s called “The Room Where It Happened”, and in it, we’ll deconstruct a recent sports transaction with the person who helped put all the pieces together.

This time, Eryn McMahan of Longhorn Sports Properties and Learfield is taking us into the Room Where it Happened, where she’ll pull back the curtain on the partnership she crafted with Humann to put their brand on every sin...

Hey this is Dave Almy of ADC Partners, and welcome the 100th episode of the sports business conversations podcast.

And look, I realize that in the grand scheme of things, making it to 100 podcast episodes isn’t exactly up there with stupendous human achievements like landing on the moon, writing Hamlet, or inventing bourbon (and thank YOU, Elijah Craig).

But it’s something worth celebrating a little bit, for sure. And frankly, I thought long and hard about who I wanted to feature on this momentous episode. For a while, I thought I wanted to try...

We're going to go out on a limb and say that if you’re listening to this podcast, you have a connection to high school sports. You’re probably not playing them at the moment, but we bet you did at some point. Maybe you have kids who play them now.

Doesn’t matter. Whatever your connection or association, you know what a big deal high school sports are to students, families and communities.

And that passion is what drives Adam Gouttierre, VP of Media for Hudl.

For the uninitiated, Hudl provides video servic...

If you’re like me, when someone mentions “bowling”, you get a flood of memories. For me, those memories include things like past birthday parties for my kids, the casual/only slightly ironic Friday night out with friends, and the ill-fated league I joined with my college classmate my junior year. Hey, the beer was cheap and we made cool shirts.

For Peter Murray, the new CEO of the Professional Bowlers Association and Head of Media for Lucky Strike Entertainment, those memories, and the fact that almost all of us share some version of them, are key to his...

We don’t know if you’ve heard, but there’s a little soccer tournament coming to North America this summer. It’s apparently kind of a big deal.

In reality, the 2026 FIFA World Cup is the biggest version of the global event ever attempted. The most host nations. The most teams in competition. The most number of games. A global economic impact estimated at over $80 billion.

As CEO of New York/New Jersey FIFA World Cup Host Committee, Alex Lasry is responsible for helping bring this enormous event to life in North America’s largest ma...

Here’s your unexpected piece of sports business trivia for the day. According to Arctos, which is a major player in sports private equity, professional sports franchise values have compounded at a rate 13.0% per year for the last sixty years.

So it turns out that this whole sports ownership thing can actually be pretty lucrative. Which is why it’s currently boom times for teams looking for investors, and for the folks who help put together these kinds of deals.

It’s also why Tim Browne’s phone rang two or three times during our podcast...

Safe to say that the most common expression used to describe the current state of Name-Image-Likeness and college sports is “it’s the Wild West.” Which, in reality, may actually do a disservice to the wild west. There’s no way that period could be as nuts as this one…

Clearly NIL has completely upended college sports. In doing so, it’s produced a fabulously dynamic environment for new businesses that claim to have solutions for this burgeoning marketplace. In that sense, it really is a lot like the wild west and its accompanying Gold Rush.

But what s...

It used to be that sports sponsorships were a "nice to have". They were a way to use up the last part of a marketing budget after all the ad buys were completed. Find out what the CEO’s favorite sport is, buy some signage, get some tickets and call it a day.

Not any more. Sports are one of the last places that capture our extremely fragmented attention, so sponsorships have become far more important to marketers. Rights holders know this, so the cost of partnering with sports has exploded. Take F1: the cost to sponsor a...

The question on every stadium owner’s mind is what to with the thing when no games are scheduled. Think about it. An NFL team has about 8 regular season games, and 3 pre-season games. Other than that, a few concerts? Monster trucks? There’s a lot of days on at calendar where nothing’s happening.

That’s why a mixed use stadium district that pulls people in year round is at the top of every franchise owner’s wish list. And that’s also why David Carlock’s phone is always ringing.

David is the founder and Managing P...

It’s February 2026, and the Winter Olympic games in Italy are in full swing. And if you think the competition on the slopes and on the ice is fierce, it’s got nothing on the sponsors and advertisers trying to get your attention while you’re looking up the latest medal counts.

Unless you’re really close to the Games, you might not realize that athletes are highly restricted in what they can do or say to promote their individual sponsors. It’s all governed by the IOC’s Rule 40, which is designed to protect the Games’ TOP sponsors.<...

How does sports gambling impact fandom? Which sports are growing the fastest? What’s happening with youth sports participation? What’s behind the explosive growth of women’s sports?

That's a lot of questions! Fortunately, we managed to get Neil Schwartz, the president of SBRNet, to sit still for 30 minutes to provide the answers to these and other burning sports business questions. Neil has been using data and analytics to inform sports business about fans, trends, and opportunities for over 30 years, so there’s no one more qualified to provide insights into what’s going on in the sports...

Imagine driving your car about 65 miles an hour down a freeway. Not that hard to imagine, right? Nothing very special about it. Chance are you might do it every day.

OK, now imagine that you’re sitting on the roof of that car while it’s speeding down an uneven road at 65 miles per hour while someone throws water in your face.

That, my friend, is SailGP, which has about as much in common with traditional sailing as a biplane has in common with a fighter jet.

That excitement it what drew this epis...

It’s safe to say that there’s no part of sports business that’s as dynamic as college sports. That’s the polite way of saying it, anyway. There’s a bunch of other expressions that can be applied, and often are.

But think about it: conference realignment, NIL, the transfer portal, the House v NCAA decision, private equity investments… And this has all been in the last 5 years!

Sitting in the eye of this particular hurricane is this episode’s guest, John Cunningham, the Athletics Director for the University of Cincinnati Bearcats. Since joining the Be...

There’s a moment in every sports fan’s life where they entertain the idea of buying their team. Most times it’s just a fleeting idea. “Well, if I owned the team, I’d…” And that’s pretty much it. It’s just a fantasy.

But if you’re Spencer Gore, it’s an idea that sticks.

The lifetime soccer fan and founder of the European Medical Journal had spent years watching his local club, Chelmsford City FC struggle to remain solvent. Relegated to the 6th tier of English soccer (honestly, we didn’t even know there was a 6t...

If you’re paying attention to the business of college sports today, it’s hard not to be overwhelmed by all the so called experts telling you they have the answers to what’s going to happen next. In this attention economy, loud and outrageous voices often win the day. It’s exhausting.

When you talk to Kevin White, though, it’s an opportunity to break through all that noise and hear from someone who has almost always been in “the room where it happened”.

White’s career in college sports is legendary, to put it mildly. The l...

If you use the phrase “sports tech”, people tend to think of things like artificial intelligence, data analysis, and apps that are meant to improve the sports experience. They’re typically heavily focused on software, subscriptions, and more often than not, have a pretty intense learning curve. This is especially true for the 100s of start ups out there using technology to help athletes achieve peak performance.

That’s what makes Raj Thiruchelvarajah and Hytro so intriguing. Raj and his partners focused on creating a product that leverages blood flow restriction, a much studied but little applied method o...

Here are some things you might not ordinarily think of when the topic of sports business comes up.

Information warehousing. Analytics. Data centers. Cybersecurity.

Typically speaking, these are NOT the topics that most fans concern themselves with when heading to a game. They just want their tickets to scan quickly, their payments to work seamlessly at concession stands, and their smack talking posts to load quickly.

And this is where Gabie Boko, the CMO of NetApp starts nodding enthusiastically.

No one knows more than Gabie about how interwoven sports and technology...

When we first spoke with Peter Frintzilas, the CEO of youth sports tech pioneer TeamSnap, the company was in the process of integrating the recently acquired Mojo Sports. As with any tech integration, it wasn't easy. "It’s not going to flip a switch and all of a sudden everything works together," Frintzilas commented at the time.

Turns out it took about 1.5 years to flip that switch: TeamSnap ONE is officially here.

TeamSnap One is a completely reimagined, end-to-end solution that sets a new standard in club, league and team management. In our conversation, Frintzilas ta...

We’re starting with a bit of a history lesson. In the dark ages of TV, people had about five channels to choose from, had to negotiate with family members over who got to control the remote, and had to make sure they were in front of the screen exactly when their favorite show started. And if that sounds like it sucked, that’s because it did. I speak from experience as someone who rarely (if ever) got to control the remote…

Fast forward to today — we live in a world where there are literally thousands of channels...

If you were in charge of the world’s most innovative sports experiences and hospitality company, and you were responsible for major global sports events, how would you spend your time at those events? Walking the sidelines like a boss? Maybe catching the action from the comfort of your luxury suite?

Well, if you’re Paul Caine, the President of On Location, you spend it wiping down tables, making sure everyone has a drink, and almost never catching the end of a game.

On Location is the gold standard for sports hospitality. Think of a majo...

I don’t know if you’ve heard about this new racquet sport that’s growing like crazy. Let’s see if you can guess what it is. It’s easy to learn, super fun to play, and begins with a “P”.

Yup, you guessed it. It’s padel.

Now, if you live outside North America, you probably guessed right and were unsurprised at the answer. Padel after all has been exploding all over Europe, Latin America, South America and elsewhere. But if you live in North America, you’ll be forgiven for thinking of pickleball. Perhap...

I’m sure you’ll be excited to know that my guest is John Stewart (no, not that Jon Stewart, and yes, he gets that a lot), the co-founder and CEO of Fastbreak.ai. And in many ways, this John Stewart has had as much of an impact as the other one.

In 2019, John sold his logistics optimization start up to Salesforce. Looking for a new challenge, he harnessed his expertise and growing AI capabilities to tackle a truly daunting task: streamlining sports scheduling.

In just a couple of years, John and Fastbreak.ai are mana...

Brian Ansah is a former University of Minnesota track athlete whose journey into entrepreneurship began not on the podium—but in recovery. After tearing his ACL, Brian suddenly found himself with time on his hands, and a lot of uncertainty about what came next. But instead of sitting still, he teamed up with his best friend, who, at the time, was recovering from an accident, to figure out their business futures. The result was X Hydration.

X Hydration isn’t your typical sports drink. In fact, it’s not a sports drink at all—it’s wellness water wit...

If you would, think back to the last time you got together with some friends after work to hang out for a bit. Maybe you grab some dinner, probably have a drink or two, shoot the breeze for a while. Do remember what you talked about? Was it anything, say, productive?

If you’re Ellen Hyslop, co-Founder of The Gist, that dinner out with friends in 2017 led to the creation of one of the fastest growing and most intriguing sports media brands around.

Ellen and her co-Founders, all life long sports fans, felt the market wa...

I’m wondering what you think of when you hear that sound? What goes through your mind?

I’ll bet it’s something to do with F1 racing. Cars that look more like fighter jets than automobiles. Global destinations at exquisite racetracks. Things moving at such high speed that they’re more blurs than physical objects.

But what Jon Gardner hopes you’ll start thinking about is dinner and drinks.

That’s because Gardner is the President of F1 Arcade, that latest in a line of highly successful sports-entertainment properties that include Top Golf, PuttSh...

“The rumors of my demise have been greatly exaggerated”.

It’s a quote that’s attributed to Mark Twain, who was the subject of one of the first ever celebrity death hoxes. It was basically his way of saying “Slow your roll, people. I’m still around and producing great work”.

It’s a sentiment that Natasha Sinagoga, Senior Vice President Market Sales at Ampersand, can empathize with.

Sinagoga and Ampersand are on a mission to dispel the exaggerated rumors about the demise of cable tv. The future of sports television, as they see it, is a mul...

You may have heard that it’s the dawn of a new age in college sports. Actually, that’s underselling it. Let’s put it this way: college sports as you know it is over. Finito. Kaput.

In it’s place is… well, I think we’re still figuring out what that is. But with all the conference realignment, changes to the college football playoff, NIL and direct payments to players, there’s one thing we know with 100% certainty: the need for new revenue, and lots of it, is absolutely vital to college athletic departments.

And that is wh...

I don’t know if you noticed or not, but soccer is having a bit of a moment here in the US. The MLS continues to grow, Messi came to play in Miami, the US Women are literally the gold standard, and a lot of Americans became fully vested in a Welsh town called Wrexham.

Few people know more about this growth than this episode’s guest, Justin Papadakis, the Deputy CEO & Chief Real Estate Officer for the United Soccer League.

Papadakis has been at the epicenter of soccer’s expansion in the US. With new cl...

With House v NCAA now officially settled law, we took time to circle back with Dr Dan Rascher, the lead economist on the case, Director of Academic Programs of the USF Sport Management Program, and according to some, one of the most powerful people in college football.

Dr Rascher played an integral role in the case by helping unravel the complex economics of college sports. In doing so, he had a front row seat to the decision-making that has forever changed college sports.

We cover his role in the case, the the short and long...

I’m going to level with you.

Doing this whole podcasting thing isn’t exactly for the feint of heart, you know? It’s a lot of work. Scheduling guests, recording episodes, editing (ugh, the editing), posting, promoting, social media (ugh, socials…) All the while wondering if anyone is listening…

So when you you get a like, or a rating, or a positive comment, it can be pretty cool. But when you get an actual AWARD? Man, that’s just next level.

It’s a feeling this episode’s guest, EJ Cutliff, knows very well becaus...

There’s an African expression that people who serve in the Navy hear a lot: “Smooth seas do not make skillful sailors.” Basically it means that your skill isn’t developed unless you find yourself in tough situations.

No one knows this better than Brandon Doll, Founder of Sports and Entertainment Advisors. After leaving the comparatively smooth seas of the US Navy, Doll found himself working for the Oakland Raiders, a team that more-or-less lived in the eye of a hurricane.

Not one to shy away from choppy seas (sorry, the sea faring analogies are hard to...

Welcome to the 72nd episode of the Sports Business Conversations podcast.

We wanted to mention the number of episodes to give you a little perspective of the number of people we’ve had a chance to talk to since launching this show a few years ago. Over 70 people who are leading, changing, and improving sports business in different ways. Each of the brings things to the table that have helped them find success: intelligence, foresight, experience, charisma. And so forth.

Tamica Smith Jones, who up until recently was the Chief Operating Officer of Kennesaw State At...

We all have obstacles that we face in life. Sometimes these might seem petty. Like, oh my god the wifi is so slow today. But oftentimes these obstacles may be more substantial. Things like unhappiness in a job. Loneliness. Addiction. Relationship challenges. The list, unfortunately, goes on.

These things can impact us to such a degree that we become almost paralyzed by them.

It’s something that this episode’s guest, Robert Paylor, is uniquely qualified to speak to.

In 2017, Robert was at the true height of his physical powers. The 6’5”, 245 lb college sophomor...

There haven't been a lot of quiet moments for Tamzin Barriolhet since we last spoke: big time promotions, groundbreaking partnerships, and the arrival of Sophie.

ABOUT THIS PODCAST

The Sports Business Conversations podcast is a production of ADC Partners, a sports marketing agency that specializes in creating, managing, and evaluating effective partnerships between brands and sports. All rights reserved.

YOUR HOST

Dave Almy brings over 30 years of sports marketing and sports business experience to his role as host of the "1-on-1: Sports Business Conversations" podcast. Dave is the co-Founder of ADC...