SSAC

Moderator: Adrian Wojnarowski

Panelists: Zack Weiner, Kevin Martinez, Allison Feaster, Megan Rapinoe

Youth sports are at a crossroads, caught between rising competitiveness, professionalized pathways, and the original promise of play as a source of joy, growth, and belonging. This panel brings together leaders shaping that ecosystem from ESPN’s efforts to “Take Back Sports” to Megan Rapinoe’s advocacy for equity and inclusion. We’ll explore what Overtime’s athlete academy reveals about teenage development in an era of NIL, branding, and hyper‑visibility, and what it means to navigate the modern pressures placed on elite young athletes. The panel is moderated by Adrian Wojnarowski, who adds a front‑office lens, breaking down how shifting incentives around recruiting and transfers are reshaping what colleges now look for in 16–17‑year‑olds. Together, the panel interrogates what today’s structures get wrong, and what a healthier, more sustainable model would look like for all kids, not just the elite.

Moderator: Warren K. Zola

Panelists: CJ LaBoy, Arun Thottakara, Kayla Jennings Poston, Dan Murphy

The college sports landscape has become a high-stakes marketplace. With NIL money, transfer freedom, and professional contracts all on the table, today’s athletes are navigating complex decisions that blend loyalty, brand, and long-term career value. This panel will explore how NIL is reshaping the athlete experience, from agents entering the fold to players weighing whether to stay, transfer, or go pro, and what it means for teams trying to keep rosters together in this new era.

This panel builds on last year’s SSAC conversation around the emergence of GM-style roles in college athletics by shifting the focus to the athletes themselves. As NIL ecosystems mature, the next frontier is understanding how players and the agents and advisors around them are navigating a dynamic landscape of brand deals, transfer decisions, and early professional opportunities. It brings new perspectives to the table in a rapidly evolving space that no one can quite figure out yet.

Moderator: Jessica Gelman

Panelist: Don Garber

Over the past 25+ years, Don Garber has overseen the transformation of the Major League Soccer (MLS) from a small and fragile league into a multi-billion-dollar enterprise with global relevance, soccer-specific stadiums, record franchise valuations, and a landmark global media partnership. In this one-on-one conversation moderated by Jessica Gelman, Garber will reflect on the defining inflection points of his tenure: expansion strategy, investor relations, media innovation, talent development, and navigating moments of existential risk.

The discussion will also turn toward the future. As MLS enters a new era shaped by global competition, shifting media economics, data-driven decision-making, and the 2026 World Cup, what should the league’s next chapter look like? What leadership capabilities will matter most in a commissioner transition? And how should MLS balance commercial growth with competitive credibility on the global stage?

This conversation offers a rare look at long-term sports leadership: what it takes to build a league, and how to prepare it for what comes next.

Moderator: Contessa Brewer

Panelist: Jessica Berman, Valerie Camillo

Some of the most consequential innovation in sports today isn’t coming from legacy institutions—it’s coming from leagues that are rethinking how sports organizations are built from the ground up. As fan expectations evolve and business models are rewritten, these leagues are setting new standards for governance, growth, and value creation across the industry.

In 2024, the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) was named No. 5 on the World’s Most Innovative Companies list, with team valuations surpassing $100 million. Meanwhile, the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) is on track to reach pay parity by 2027—an industry-defining milestone reshaping expectations across sports. Together, the NWSL and WTA are redefining how modern sports leagues are built, governed, and monetized.

Join NWSL Commissioner Jessica Berman and WTA Chair Val Camilo for a conversation on building and scaling next-generation sports leagues. They’ll explore the strategic decisions, operational innovations, and business models fueling growth and what emerging enterprises can learn from these leagues as a blueprint for the future.

Moderator: Emily Olsen

Panelist: Heimo Schirgi, Paul Caine, Carolyn Tisch Blodgett

The 2026 FIFA World Cup will be the largest and most commercially ambitious sporting event ever staged, spanning three countries, sixteen host cities, and an unprecedented footprint across North America. But it is only half of a broader transformation as global soccer experiences a cultural and commercial explosion in the United States across both the men’s and women’s games. This panel brings together Heimo Schirgi (COO, FIFA World Cup 26), Paul Caine (President, On Location), and Carolyn Tisch Blodgett (Governor, NJ/NY Gotham FC) to examine how massive operational scale and high growth investment are reshaping the global soccer economy. The discussion will explore how learnings from the Club World Cup in the United States are informing planning for 2026, and how insights from the men’s tournament may flow into the 2027 FIFA Women’s World Cup in Brazil. Moving beyond broadcast exposure, panelists will discuss the rise of premium hospitality, data driven fan engagement, and new models of commerce rooted in gender equity and long term audience growth. Ultimately, the panel will highlight how FIFA, clubs, and investors are establishing a new blueprint for how mega events can drive both cultural impact and unprecedented commercial returns.

Moderator: Sue Bird

Panelist: Adam Silver

In this wide-ranging conversation, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver joins moderator Sue Bird to explore how the league is navigating a period of rapid change on and off the court. The discussion will focus on the unique opportunities from player development to fan interactivity to analytics and international expansion. Hear how new player development models and NIL are changing the approach to global talent pipelines. Learn how the league continues to be at the forefront of advanced analytics and AI to enhance decision-making and fan engagement while simultaneously balancing international expansion, driving arena development and creating a potential new league in Europe. With a global talent pipeline reshaping the game and basketball entering a pivotal moment amid emerging challenges, this conversation offers a rare look at how today’s decisions are shaping the future of the league.

Moderator: Jessica Gelman

Panelists: Paul "Triple H" Levesque, Bela Bajaria

From Drive to Survive to Quarterback, Netflix has reshaped how fans engage with sports through immersive storytelling. Now, with WWE’s flagship Raw moving to Netflix, the streaming giant is making an even bolder play in live sports entertainment. But what makes for compelling sports storytelling? How do you build anticipation for big events, cultivate new audiences, and sustain engagement beyond the game? This panel brings together two of sport’s most influential content executives, Netflix’s Bela Bajaria and WWE’s Paul “Triple H” Levesque, to explore how sports media is evolving, what it takes to craft narratives that captivate global audiences, and the future of sports entertainment in the streaming era.

Moderator: Ben Alamar

Panelists: Jackie MacMullan, Jeff Bennett, Rebecca Dyer, Brant Berglund

Storytelling plays a vital role in the fan experience. Across the sports landscape, storytellers are relied upon to convey the drama and excitement of sports, bring new fans in, and satisfy fans' hunger for knowledge. The tools available to storytellers have expanded significantly over the last few years with the expansion of new data sets and metrics that provide new insights and perspectives on sports. The recent advances in AI also provide the opportunity for new tools, but also a potential to replace certain types of storytelling through automation. This panel discusses how the role of the storyteller has changed, skills and perspectives needed to tell good stories, and how AI is and will change how fans engage with sports stories.

Moderator: Valerie Camillo

Panelists: Shelley Pisarra, Tim Clark, Kathryn Kai-ling Frederick

In 2025, sports are fighting harder than ever for fans’ attention – contending with an unprecedented news cycle, shorter attention spans, and changing modes of content consumption. This panel will discuss how teams and leagues are using data to adapt in this rapidly changing world, and how they can play – and win – the attention game.

Moderator: Danny Rensch

Panelists: Alexandra Botez, Levy Rozman, Daryl Morey, Ella Papanek

Chess is experiencing a global renaissance, fueled by emerging innovations in streaming, social media, and format variety, but where does the game go from here? Join Levy Rozman, Alexandra Botez, Ella Papanek, Daryl Morey, and Danny Rensch as they explore how chess is evolving to engage new audiences. This panel will dive into the growth of chess content creation and how the sport is expanding into new mediums and formats.