I came up in sports when the data was a stat line in the morning paper and the fan experience was a hot dog, a bad seat, and a prayer that your team didn’t blow a lead in the ninth. I worked marketing for four professional sports teams. I spent time at a sports licensee … Read more
Most industries talk about AI transformation in the future tense. Sports just moved it to the present tense. Two deals announced this week look like separate news items. They’re not. Together, they signal a structural inflection point that will separate the organizations that thrive in the next decade from the ones that scramble to catch … Read more
Most note-taking apps are still pretending the job is capture. It isn’t. Capture was solved years ago. Tap a button. Speak. Type. Sync. Done. The real problem is what happens next. That’s where almost every “quick note” workflow collapses. You jot down an idea while walking through an airport. You dictate thoughts after a meeting. … Read more
There’s a moment when a company stops being a product and starts being a platform. Then there’s a second, rarer moment when that platform decides it’s actually an intelligence layer. Spotify just declared it’s in that second moment, and the implications reach far beyond music. At its 2026 Investor Day, Spotify’s co-CEOs Alex Norström and … Read more
Gary Bettman does not get enough credit. He has spent 33 years running the most efficiently managed league in North American professional sports, expanding its footprint, negotiating broadcast deals, and managing labor relations in ways that would have broken lesser executives. And now, quietly, he has done something no other commissioner has done. He got … Read more
The Verdict Is In. Now the Real Fight Begins. A jury found Live Nation guilty on every count — and the breakup question just got a lot harder to dodge. Someone I’ve known in the music industry called me the morning after the April 15th verdict. He has managed mid-size touring acts and stadium artists, … Read more
The archetypes of today’s NHL grassroots and amateur hockey programs were not originally league-driven. They were community-driven, sponsor-driven, entrepreneur-driven, and in many cases arena-driven. The NHL eventually institutionalized what local hockey people had already proven worked. There are several foundational archetypes that shaped modern hockey participation systems. To find out, I asked ChatGPT for the … Read more
Detroit has always known something the rest of the country is still figuring out. Hockey isn’t a sport played in that city. It’s a religion. And like any good religion, it was only a matter of time before the women got their own church. The Professional Women’s Hockey League announced this morning that Detroit will … Read more
Major League Soccer announced its 2026 MLS Innovation Lab cohort last week. Five companies. Five focused bets across player performance, fan engagement, and media production. And almost every mainstream coverage angle missed the actual story. The story isn’t the companies. The story is the laboratory itself. What Was Actually Announced MLS selected five companies for … Read more
The invisible layer wins. Every billion-dollar sports business running today, streaming rights, fantasy platforms, betting exchanges, and performance analytics all run on APIs that most executives couldn’t name and most investors never audit. That’s the opportunity and the risk sitting in the same sentence. The Plumbing No One Talks About Is Now the Product Over … Read more
