Blake Lawrence is the Co-Founder and President of Opendorse, one of the leading athlete marketing and NIL platforms in sports.

After his football career at Nebraska was cut short by injury, Blake turned to entrepreneurship, eventually co-founding Opendorse in 2012. Today, the platform serves more than 200,000 athletes and works with hundreds of teams and more than 200 college athletic departments.

In this episode, Blake joins the Sports Business Leaders Podcast to discuss the evolution of Opendorse, the rapidly changing economics of college sports, and why he believes the $4.5 billion NIL economy is still in its early stages.

Blake also breaks down what the revenue-sharing era means for athletic departments, how schools are competing to attract and retain athletes, and where college athlete compensation could be headed over the next several years.

We also dive into Blake’s lessons from more than a decade of building and selling in sports, including why relationships matter so much, why sales cycles take longer than founders expect, and why companies need to build relationships from both the top down and bottom up when selling to teams, leagues, conferences, and athletic departments.

Haley Carter, President of Soccer Operations for the Washington Spirit, joins the Sports Business Leaders Podcast to discuss leadership, building championship teams, and creating a high-performance culture in professional sports.

A U.S. Naval Academy graduate, former Marine Corps officer, professional goalkeeper, coach, and attorney, Haley has built one of the most unique careers in sports. Before joining the Spirit, she helped lead the turnaround of the Orlando Pride, building the roster that won the club’s first NWSL Shield and NWSL Championship.

Haley shares how lessons from the military have shaped her leadership style, why culture and fit are critical when building a roster, and how the small decisions made every day ultimately define a high-performing organization.

She also offers advice for companies looking to work with professional sports teams, including the importance of doing your research, finding the right decision-makers, and understanding how busy sports executives actually evaluate new opportunities.

Steven Aldrich, Chair and early investor in Oakland Roots Sports Club, joins the Sports Business Leaders Podcast to share how a purpose-driven vision helped build one of the most unique organizations in professional soccer.

Before entering sports, Steven built a career as an entrepreneur, investor, and technology executive, including more than a decade at Intuit and serving as Chief Product Officer at GoDaddy. Today, he helps lead Oakland Roots SC and Oakland Soul SC, two clubs built around using soccer as a force for positive impact in Oakland.

Steven discusses the journey from an early idea to a professional sports organization, why the Roots opened real equity ownership to more than 6,000 fans, and how community impact influences everything from sponsorships and ticketing to vendors and investment.

He also shares advice for entrepreneurs looking to sell into sports, including why understanding a team’s priorities, keeping pilots simple, and making implementation easy can make the difference when trying to earn a partnership.

Dexter Ang, Executive Chairman and Co-Founder of Pison, joins the Sports Business Leaders Podcast to discuss how the company is bringing neural sensing and cognitive performance technology into sports.

Pison has developed patented technology that reads neurological signals from the wrist, giving athletes new ways to measure and train reaction time, decision-making, alertness, and cognitive performance. The technology was developed over seven years with the military and is now being used across professional and collegiate sports.

Dexter shares the personal story that led him to start Pison, how the company is working with baseball programs to better understand the connection between cognitive performance and player development, and why neurological data could become an increasingly important part of how athletes train and perform.
We also discuss what Pison is learning from working with elite athletes and the lessons Dexter has learned building partnerships and introducing an entirely new technology category to the market.

Jason Syversen has built his career at the intersection of technology, entrepreneurship, investing, and innovation.

After spending more than a decade as an engineer and researcher, serving as a program manager at DARPA, building and exiting a cybersecurity company, and investing in more than 40 startups, Jason turned his attention to sports.

Today, he is the Founder and CEO of SportsVisio, an AI-powered sports technology company making advanced statistics, analytics, and video highlights more accessible across youth and amateur sports. SportsVisio has grown to roughly 250 B2B customers and 30,000 users across 16 countries.

In this episode, Jason shares how his experience as a longtime basketball player and coach led to the idea for SportsVisio, why he believes AI will dramatically change the way sports are played and experienced, and how the company is expanding beyond analytics into a broader technology platform for leagues.

We also discuss what Jason has learned building and investing in technology companies, why relationships are so important when selling into sports, and his advice for founders trying to build scalable businesses in a fragmented sports industry.

From professional jockey to Emmy-nominated sports technology entrepreneur, Nathan Horrocks has taken an unconventional path through the sports industry.

Nathan is the Co-Founder and Chief Commercial Officer of POVORA, a sports technology company developing live, broadcast-quality wearable camera systems that give fans a first-person view of the action.

POVORA’s technology has been used across football, rugby, baseball, MMA, cricket, motorsport, horse racing and more, working with major broadcasters and sports organizations around the world. Its innovations include CapCam, EarCam, BodyCam and HelmetCam, with its Wireless Tilt Control CapCam earning an Emmy nomination alongside ESPN.

In this episode, Nathan shares how technology originally developed for horse racing evolved into a global sports broadcast solution, what it takes to introduce new technology into major sports, and why first-person perspectives could become an increasingly important part of the fan experience.

We also discuss Nathan’s transition from professional athlete to filmmaker and entrepreneur, the importance of storytelling in sports, and where he sees the next wave of innovation in sports broadcasting.

Mayer Reich has spent more than 20 years building companies across technology, fintech and digital media. His latest venture, Prosperity AI, is taking on a unique challenge: helping professional athletes better understand and manage their money.

On this episode of the Sports Business Leaders Podcast, Mayer shares how Prosperity AI evolved from a consumer finance platform into a financial intelligence platform built for athletes, including tools around contract analysis, taxes, budgeting and long-term wealth management.

We also discuss why athletes face such unique financial challenges, how NIL and entrepreneurship are changing the way athletes think about money, and the lessons Mayer has learned from building five startups.

Mayer also shares his advice for entrepreneurs trying to break into sports, why listening to customers can completely change the direction of a company, and why relationships remain one of the most important parts of doing business in the industry.

Dr. Alfred Atanda Jr. has spent his career at the intersection of orthopedic surgery, sports medicine, healthcare innovation, and technology.

On this episode of the Sports Business Leaders Podcast, Alfred shares how AI and performance data are changing the way clinicians think about athlete health, including the potential to identify injury risks before an athlete ever enters the doctor’s office.

We also discuss the growing concerns around youth sports specialization, why young athletes need a more holistic approach to health and development, and what founders building sports medicine and healthcare technology need to understand about working with major health systems.

Alfred also shares why trust and relationships are critical to getting new technology adopted in healthcare and the vision behind Latitude, his new platform helping healthcare professionals navigate the career, financial, and personal decisions that extend beyond medicine.

Tom Koerick Jr. has spent more than two decades at the intersection of sports, video, and technology.

After playing professional baseball, Tom turned his own experience of being under-recruited into SkillShow, a company built to help athletes get seen by college recruiters. Since launching in 2001, SkillShow has worked with millions of athletes and partnered with organizations including Perfect Game, USA Baseball, Major League Baseball, the NFL, and IMG Academy.
In this episode, Tom shares what it took to build and scale SkillShow, the lessons he learned from selling the company and eventually buying it back, and why video is becoming increasingly valuable as sports, data, and AI converge.

We also discuss what entrepreneurs can learn from athletes, how smaller companies can build lasting relationships with major sports organizations, and where Tom sees the youth sports industry heading next.

Mark Floreani started FloSports in 2006 with his brother, a van, a camera, and a belief that sports like wrestling and track deserved more coverage.

Twenty years later, FloSports has grown into a major sports streaming platform with more than 400 employees, covering 25+ sports and streaming roughly 55,000 live events around the world each year.

Mark joined the Sports Business Leaders Podcast to talk about building FloSports, how the internet changed the economics of underserved sports, and why streaming has created new opportunities for emerging leagues and D2 and D3 college athletics. We also discussed FloSports’ expansion onto platforms like Amazon Prime, how AI is changing sports production, and what Mark has learned about building successful partnerships over two decades in the industry.
For companies trying to break into sports, Mark also shares a simple lesson from FloSports’ growth: understand what your partners actually need, execute, and think long term.