What Can Sports Teach Us About the Future of Business?

Sports and big business have always been intertwined. But the way value is being created in the industry—and who gets to capture it—is changing.

Athletes have more ways to monetize their audiences, live experiences have more economic weight, and fan loyalty is attracting new forms of investment. None of these forces are new. What’s changing is their scale and convergence.

So, what can the rest of us learn as these forces evolve?

On November 12, Forum@535 brings leaders from sports, media, marketing, and business together to explore where these shifts could lead, and what they might mean for anyone competing for attention, loyalty, and value. The goal is to turn what’s happening in sports into ideas we can put to work well beyond it.

Sports Is Just The Starting Point

Connecticut has long had a front-row seat to the business of sports, helping shape how games are produced, distributed, marketed, and experienced. That makes it a fitting place to ask a bigger question: What can the forces reshaping sports tell us about where business is headed next?

Because the most interesting ideas coming out of sports may ultimately have very little to do with the game.

Workshops

What Can Your Business Co-Opt from Sports? Sports offers a range of great use-case examples. Our workshops will put them to work, inviting leaders from across industries and sectors to apply one of the day’s examples to their specific challenges. Together, we’ll compare experiences, question assumptions, and leave with plays they can put right to work.

View All Workshops

An audience isn’t the same as a community. You direct your efforts to an audience, hoping to gain their attention. Community is what happens when that attention translates into loyalty.

Sports places a premium on loyalty in countless ways, from tickets and premium experiences to merchandise and access. Fans will often spend more and buy deeper into something they love, but that loyalty has its limits.

Digital access has made almost everything available to everyone. But live experiences and human attention can command an even greater premium.

Teams and leagues share priceless fan relationships with platforms, broadcasters, sponsors, and other partners.

Athletes, creators, and other high-profile talent have been building influence far beyond the organizations they work with.

Featured Speakers

Check back as we continue to add new voices.

Carol Stiff

Founder/President, Stiff Sports Media Consulting

Amanda Rodgerson Devitt

Vice President for Student and Campus Life, University of Saint Joseph

Bob Lynch

Founder & CEO, SponsorUnited

Christopher Salem

CEO & Co-Founder, EFA Movement

Freddie Vargas

CEO, Tater Baseball

Gordon Hay

Co-Founder, ALINE Systems

John Roe

Founder, Chairman, President, SportsBug

Steve Wasik

CEO, VKTRY Gear

George Stella

Founder & CEO, BIGtoken

Michael Dresner

Founder, Business and Corporate Development, Forward Media Partners

David Sternberg

Head of Media Consulting , Range Sports

Jeffrey Lizotte

Director of Operations, The Foundry Hospitality

Tim Restall

President, Hartford Yard Goats Baseball

Chris Prescott

Owner, M-Pact Mentoring Inc.

Tim Braz

Chief Commercial Officer, SponsorUnited

What Sports Knows About Building Value

Sports has a way of turning attention into something more valuable: loyalty, community, revenue, and more.

We’ll explore the value drivers across sports and how they can be applied to your business. We’ll discuss lessons learned from athletes building their own brands and audiences, shifts in live experiences, and direct fan relationships, and explore how they can build value in any business.