Nielsen Sports is the leading source of sports measurement, analytics and insights around the world. With unrivaled data, products and consulting services, the company is uniquely positioned to provide leagues, teams, federations, brands and agencies with global solutions to optimize sponsorship portfolios and maximize investments in sports.
Nielsen Sports is deeply committed to developing new offerings that meet client needs, and last year launched a Nielsen Esports business vertical; created a new unified media measurement platform; and acquired artificial intelligence technology that will help shape the future of the sports business. Nielsen Sports is part of Nielsen Holdings plc (NYSE:NLSN) a S&P 500 company with operations in over 100 countries, covering more than 90% of the world’s population.
NBA2k is the second best-selling sports video game in the world. But how do you translate this popularity to the competitive gaming arena? Hear from the man driving the NBA 2K league detailing how the NBA is set to benefit and make it a long-term success
Senior Product Marketing Manager
Microsoft partnered with Astralis last year and is one of the company’s first moves into the Esports world. As Windows is the main platform Esports is used on, it’s a natural strategic partnership fit for them to enter into.
Chief Commercial Officer
Jordi has a livelong background in marketing within pro-sport and entertainment. He has worked with established brands, like 10 times Danish Soccer Champion Brøndby IF, developing existing brand- and fanbases into prize winning digital marketing assets and with new sport entertainment brand handball team AG Copenhagen, with whom he broke a lot of commercial records among others filling the national Danish soccer stadium twice with world record audience figure of more than 36.000 spectators. Outside pro-sports, Jordi has worked for Nordisk Film helping commercially develop entertainment clients like major Scandinavian opera- and music houses, rockfestivals and musical producers etc.
The outstanding audience experience is for Jordi key to any monetization potential within the entertainment industry, whether it be in direct star-to-fan communication, viewing experience on flow or streamchannels or live offline experience. The outstanding audience experience is what creates both fanbase size and fanbase affinity and thus allows for creating valuable strong emotional leveraged marketing platforms.
Jordi uses his vast experience in the field to build platforms bridging brands to a demanding hard-to-get target group that has developed its own communication channels, norms and values and that calls “fake” in a split second.
Managing Director
As Managing Director of the NBA 2K League, Brendan Donohue is responsible for overseeing the newly formed esports league set to launch in 2018. Donohue, a sports industry veteran with more than two decades of experience in team and league operations, manages a league that will feature 17 NBA teams in its inaugural season.
Prior to assuming his current role in April 2017, Donohue served as Senior Vice President of the NBA’s industry-renowned Team Marketing & Business Operations (TMBO) department, where he led the strategic planning and management for all teams across the NBA, WNBA and NBA G League, helping them innovate in sales, marketing, digital and analytical areas of their business. He was instrumental in several of TMBO’s accomplishments, including assisting with ownership transitions in Sacramento, Philadelphia, Detroit and Memphis. His responsibilities also included leading team business discussions at WNBA and NBA G League Board of Governors meetings and presenting at frequent workshops, including assisting NBA team presidents on best practices in marketing, ticket sales and sponsorship sales.
Before joining the NBA league office in 2009, Donohue spent five years as Vice President of Ticket Sales and Service with the Atlanta Hawks, Atlanta Thrashers and Philips Arena.  During his career in Atlanta, Donohue led five consecutive seasons of revenue growth, including ranking first in the NBA in ticket revenue growth during the 2008-09 season. He also previously held positions with the then-New Orleans Hornets, Milwaukee Bucks, Detroit Pistons and Palace Sports and Entertainment.
Co-Founder
As the Co-founder of FACEIT, Michele has been a competitive gamer for over 15 years. His passion for gaming is complemented by a career working in a top investment & consulting firm that’s worked with numerous Fortune 500 companies, and he has personally been involved in several technology start-ups.
FACEIT is the leading competitive platform for online multiplayer games, with more than 4 million users logging in a total of over 12 million online game sessions each month. FACEIT allows players to easily play in tournaments and leagues for virtual and real-world prizes through automated tournament management and matchmaking technology.
Consumer Marketing Lead
Yvonne is the Consumer Marketing lead for HP UK. Â She loves tech and anything to do with tech and is currently building the Omen by HP brand in the UK with a focus on supporting the eSports industry. Earlier in her career she was the Senior Online Advertising Manager for EE and has also been the Head of Retail Campaigns for T-Mobile.
Chief Executive Officer
The Sport Business Summit Major League Gaming/Cloud9/Immortals: The Esports Hype
ESPORTS LIVE FACEIT/Immortals/ESL: Governing Esports
With a background in data driven sports betting and dropping out of college, Noah Whinston leads the powerhouse esports franchise Immortals as founder and CEO. Whinston’s esports experience ranges from negotiating streaming and sponsorship deals and creating content strategy to cleaning up after Immortals’ professional esports athletes.
Director, Team Relations
As Director of Team Relations, Jan concentrates on the involvement of sports clubs, leagues and federations, based on his many years of experience in the sporting sector, in order to establish eSport and to create synergies with traditional sporting areas. From 2005 to 2015, Jan Pommer served as Managing Director of the Basketball League (BBL) and was also a member of the Supervisory Board of Euroleague Basketball during this time. In 2010, he was awarded the “Sportmanager of the Year” by the German marketing magazine Horizont. Prior to joining ESL, he was Managing Director of DSM GmbH, the marketing company of the German Olympic Sports Federation (DOSB). With nearly 20 years of professional experience in the sports sector, Jan Pommer is ideally suited to strategically place the ESL in this market and to link both markets.
Vice President of Strategy
Akshay K. Khanna joined the Philadelphia 76ers and New Jersey Devils/Prudential Center in July 2015 as the Head of the Business Strategy Department, where he is responsible for driving the organization’s strategic direction and new business initiatives and investments. Khanna was recently selected to be a part of the prestigious Forbes 30 Under 30 class in 2017.
Over his past year and a half with the Sixers organization he has played a crucial role in initiating some of the sports industry and NBA team’s most innovative and groundbreaking business decisions. Under Khanna’s guidance the Sixers have become the first team in North American professional sports to acquire and merge two eSports teams; launched the most dynamic Innovation Lab managed by a professional sports team in the United States; developed a groundbreaking ticketing platform that has revolutionized the live event industry and ticketing ecosystem; and signed a landmark agreement to become the first professional team in “Big Four” North American sports with a jersey patch sponsor.
The National Basketball Association (NBA) is the pre-eminent men’s professional basketball league in North America, and is widely considered to be the premier men’s professional basketball league in the world. It has thirty franchised member clubs (29 in the United States and 1 in Canada), and is an active member of USA Basketball (USAB), which is recognized by FIBA (also known as the International Basketball Federation) as the national governing body for basketball in the United States. The NBA is one of the four major North American professional sports leagues. NBA players are the world’s best paid sportsmen, by average annual salary per player.
WWE, is an integrated media organization and recognized leader in global entertainment. The company consists of a portfolio of businesses that create and deliver original content 52 weeks a year to a global audience. WWE is committed to family-friendly entertainment on its television programming, pay-per-view, digital media and publishing platforms.
WWE programming reaches more than 800 million homes worldwide in 28 languages. The award-winning WWE Network is the first-ever 24/7 direct-to-consumer premium network that includes all live pay-per-views, scheduled programming and a massive video-on-demand library, and is currently available in more than 180 countries.
Facebook brings together the world’s largest community of sports fans.
Sports are inherently social, with the power to build and connect communities around the world. This connection happens on Facebook, where the largest real-time social media audience comes together to talk about sports’ biggest moments. On Facebook, fans discover rich and immersive video that brings them closer to the sports, athletes and teams they love. Innovations such as Facebook Live and Facebook 360 video give fans unprecedented access to the action, taking them on the field and in the locker room, inviting them to interact directly with their favourite players and enabling them to watch live games from around the world.
By leveraging Facebook, partners can reach new audiences and experiment with interactive, social and mobile-first broadcasts. Facebook also helps partners achieve their business goals by growing and engaging their fan base; supporting current revenue drivers such as tune-in, subscriptions, sponsorship and ticket and merchandise sales; and providing new revenue streams such as branded content, Instant Articles and ad breaks in live video.
The City Football Group is a holding company established to oversee the creation and administration of a network of linked clubs and other footballing operations under the aegis of Manchester City.
Under the Bridge, Chelsea FC, Stamford Bridge, Fulham Road, London, SW6 1HS
