Know What Is Next

College athletics, media, and technology are all being forced to reinvent themselves at the same time. Alden Mitchell has spent her career navigating exactly those industry shifts at Disney, MTV, Uber, the Pac-12, Stanford Athletics, and now TrailRunner Sports . In this conversation, Alden shares why college athletics is being forced to operate more like a business, what sports still misunderstand...

The company that invented the first VR headset in 1968 is now powering one of the most talked about venues in sports. In this Best Of episode, we’re revisiting conversations with Cosm President Jeb Terry and Chief Product & Technology Officer Devin Poolman on how a 60-year-old planetarium heritage, an LED dome bigger than anything in the market, and 425 live sports productions a year add up to...

From record participation among women and junior golfers to new technology platforms, major investments in player development, and a reimagined fan experience, the USGA is helping shape what the next generation of golf looks like. In this episode, we’re talking to Chief Commercial Officer Jon Podany and Managing Director of Global Ticketing & Media Amanda Weiner about the Women's Open&apo...

Most sports technology companies spend years trying to get access to a live game environment. The UFL can put them in front of 600 players, coaches, officials, and broadcast operators in a matter of weeks. As SVP of Innovation and Media, Scott Harniman oversees the technology, broadcast, and football systems that make the UFL's innovation model possible. Scott explains how the UFL's FAST...

What patterns start to emerge when you put 10 sports tech leaders in front of a microphone at SBJ Tech Week and ask them what's next? While AI was a common thread, the discussions expanded into operational scale, fan engagement, accessibility, cybersecurity, infrastructure, and the leadership challenges that come with adopting new technology. This episode features the following guests: Michae...

Steve Mitzenmacher spent 25 years inside Apple, Oracle, Google, and Salesforce. Now he's helping sports organizations stop thinking like event businesses and start operating like platforms. Steve and Dave get into the Disney flywheel, and why it’s the most useful mental model for sports executives right now, the “buy vs. build” trap, why "greenfield development" is basically a myth,...

The NFL didn't build the next professional flag football league. The PGA Tour didn't build TGL. They handed those assignments to a startup called TMRW Sports - a signal of how leagues are rethinking fan engagement, media, and product development. Chief Marketing Officer Pete Jung is on the show to share what changes when leagues stop treating technology as a layer on top of the product a...

When The Famous Group was getting started, arenas were buying million-dollar video boards with nothing meaningful to put on them. That gap became a business — and 25 years later, that business now powers more than 500 live sports events a month across nearly every major team in the country. In this conversation, Jon shares how The Famous Group evolved from a creative production shop into mixed rea...

When Ryan Dillon joined Gotham FC as Chief Business Officer 2.5 years ago, he walked into what he describes as a distressed asset. A fully remote workforce, a league starved of investment, and a club with no real product discipline to speak of.  What followed was 2 championships in 3 years and triple the revenue, all built on a framework Ryan carried over from 6 years at Peloton: obsess over the p...

Sports media is becoming defined by the people who keep fans engaged between games: the insiders breaking news, athletes building their own platforms, and creators turning digital audiences into real media businesses. Matt Kramer, Co-Head of Sports Media Group at CAA Sports, shares how an unexpected call from Adrian Wojnarowski helped launch his career as a sports media agent, why he sees represen...

The USGA operates one of the most complex models in sports, delivering global championships, media, and fan experiences without a fixed venue. Amanda Weiner, Managing Director of Global Media and Ticketing at the USGA, oversees a broad portfolio spanning championships, media rights, digital products, and ticketing.  She explains how these functions are coordinated to deliver consistent fan experie...

This compilation episode brings together perspectives from senior leaders across leagues, teams, media, and technology, including the NBA, NASCAR, MLB, the USOPC, and emerging platforms like Cosm.  Plus, Dave’s book is out today. Get your copy of The Business of Sports Technology for a practical guide to making smarter, ROI-driven technology decisions. This episode features the following guests: S...

The New York City Marathon is the largest marathon in the world, drawing more than 50,000 runners and millions of spectators annually. As the race approaches its 50th anniversary, it’s evolving into a year-round platform spanning digital engagement, community programming, and global scale. Juliette Morris, Chief Marketing and Digital Officer at New York Road Runners , talks with Dave about how the...

US Soccer is heading into a defining stretch, and David Wright is helping shape what comes next. As Chief Commercial Officer, he sits at the center of it all, from partnerships and media to events, marketing, and business ventures.  In this conversation, he breaks down how US Soccer has grown its business more than 300% in a short period of time and why its nonprofit structure has become a real di...

Scott Rosner collected hundreds of rejection letters he got trying to break into sports. And it shaped exactly how he thinks about the candidates knocking on Columbia's door today. Private capital has rewritten ownership, NIL and conference realignment have blown up college athletics, and AI is changing how every function operates. The curriculum can't look the same as it did ten years a...

San Diego FC is only a few years old, but COO Bill Miles and his team are already taking an ambitious approach to building a modern soccer club.  In this episode, Bill shares why San Diego FC is betting on a long-term, academy-first model, what makes the club’s ownership structure so distinctive, and why San Diego is uniquely positioned to become one of the most important soccer markets in the Uni...

Live sports is evolving beyond the traditional broadcast model. New venue formats, new production workflows, and new distribution strategies are reshaping how fans experience games outside the home. The question is no longer how to enhance the fan experience, but how do we redesign the operating model behind it? Jeb Terry, CEO of Cosm, joins Dave to explain how Cosm is combining dome-scale LED imm...

If you’re going to talk about generative AI in sports, don’t start with the tools. Start with the operating model. Are you structured to deploy it at scale? Scott Gutterman is back, drawing on two decades of experience inside one of the most complex sports in the world. His lens is operational. How do you prioritize? How do you govern? How do you create space for innovation without introducing cha...

Digital transformation in sports only works when the fan journey is treated as a SYSTEM. And what does it actually look like inside a multi-team, multi-venue sports organization? In this episode, Keia Cole shares how Brooklyn Sports + Entertainment operates when one leader owns cybersecurity, data and insights, web and mobile, AND venue systems across the Brooklyn Nets, New York Liberty, and Barcl...

Youth sports operates at a scale few people realize, with millions of games, volunteer-run teams, and technology that has to work for everyone from coaches to grandparents. GameChanger CEO Sameer Ahuja is here to walk through how the company approaches those challenges, and how that thinking shaped their most significant product update in its 15-year history. He shares how GameChanger has leaned i...

What does it take to build Team USA in a rapidly changing global, political, and digital landscape? In this Best Of episode, USOPC leaders Sarah Hirshland and Katie Bynum Aznavorian are breaking down how Olympic success is engineered, the road to Milano Cortina and LA 2028, the role of storytelling and personalization, and how they’re evolving fan engagement.  You’ll hear from the following guests...

How do sports teams achieve faster alignment, fewer reworks, and digital products that move from idea to launch more reliably? Bora Nikolic’s views of technology in the sports industry have helped shape many of the fan experiences you see from leading sports properties today. And today, he’s challenging the idea that design is about aesthetics, arguing instead that it’s an execution discipline. Da...

If your organization is still talking about a “360° fan view,” chances are your technology stack is already working against you. Jordy Leiser, Co-Founder and CEO at Jump, argues most clubs are stuck with disjointed legacy systems that are blocking direct-to-fan experiences, especially in ticketing, identity, and mobile.  Jump was built to unify those layers into a single, seamless ecosystem so clu...

Power in sports is becoming more distributed, and Pete Vlastelica has seen that shift from nearly every angle: early digital media, league operations, esports, and now venture investing.  In this conversation, Pete reflects on how operating through multiple cycles of disruption shapes judgment, partnerships, and long-term strategy in sports and technology. You’ll hear about the operating lessons h...

AI is hitting consumers faster in sports than almost anywhere else, and PGA of America GM Rob Smith argues that’s exactly why the industry has become a real-world testing ground for emerging technology. In this episode, Rob digs into how AI is already reshaping day-to-day work, what “anticipatory” AI could look like when it earns a seat at the event-ops table, and why the real shift is carving out...