SBJ Tech: C-suite pickups have firms targeting 2025 growth

We cover many hirings at SBJ -- just look at our Executive Transactions list in any given edition of SBJ Daily. This week, in particular, has started with three key C-suite pickups in sports tech that resonate both in their acquisition and the potential impact on the future of their respective companies.

A quick rundown of those:

1. Digital solutions firm Deltatre picked Peter Bellamy as its CRO, bringing him over from competitor Endeavor Streaming.
   
   
2. Marketing tech company SportsBiz scooped up proven sports sponsorship manager Michael Robichaud as chief strategy officer.
   
   
3. Evolv hired former board of directors' member John Kedzierski as its new CEO and president.

I wanted to offer three looks at these hires as their companies gear up for various levels of growth in 2025.

Deltatre: A widening stream of opportunity 

Deltatre has developed and maintained league relationships with the NFL, NHL, MLB and MLS. In hiring Bellamy, who has a background in streaming and OTT platforms, the company bolsters its capability to provide full digital ecosystems for sports teams and leagues.

While most of its U.S. sports relationships are at that league level, Bellamy expects the mix of that to “change quite significantly over the next 12-to-18 months.” The on-and-off difficulties of the RSN landscape, paired with sports franchises pursuing their own DTC solutions, has opened up a wider lane for new potential business. “Teams in general need to have stronger digital propositions,” Bellamy said. “That’s still a very large area of opportunity.”

His last six years at Endeavor featured the support of UEFA’s digital expansion, and previously with BSkyB (now Sky), he helped to create their streaming and on-demand offerings around the Premier League and the Champions League.

Bellamy said that teams considering their own digital paths have much to account for -- the headcount of their digital teams and the various other personnel, the ideal cost and partners to support, the larger data flow for more insights and understanding -- and need to do so with a slow-and-steady pursuit when it comes to a DTC or full-scale OTT offering.

“It shows that there are an awful lot of things that these teams need to consider in trying to define what that strategy should be,” Bellamy said. “And coming up with a phased approach to doing that, where you're not trying to do everything in one go. You prioritize, you deploy sensibly, you select the right partners, and then you learn from that, and then you expand.”

SportsBiz: Sponsorship's growing global scale

SportsBiz added a major boost with the addition of Robichaud and his experience overseeing the sports sponsorship portfolios at Mastercard (as SVP/global sponsorships) and Sprint Nextel (as VP/sports sponsorship).

I asked Robichaud, a Power Player in women's sports in 2022, what the next big challenge sports sponsorship (and brand marketing in general) might face.

“That you've got so many new sports trying to come to the U.S.,” Robichaud said. "You’ve got so many sports -- the NFL and other sports -- that are trying to grow, and it's just that whole blending of things is always going to have fighting for the schedule, fighting for opportunities.

"Technology could help. I don't want to say it will, but it could help, because audiences just engage so differently.”

Evolv: Securing stability at the top

As for Evolv, the need in the short term is stability and calmness. The security screening company has weathered months-long turbulence as of late -- an internal investigation, a fired CEO, a CFO that quit and the departure of four other personnel members.

My colleague Bret McCormick had a breakdown of the ongoing situation for Evolv, which has 40 sports venues in its clientele list, that resonates even after the settlement of its Federal Trade Commission investigation and this new hiring.

Kedzierski comes to Evolv after spending 23 years with Motorola Solutions, which uses Evolv AI. He served on Evolv’s board of directors from January 2022 to November 2023. His first official day is next Dec. 16.

ICYMI, SBJ announced its third class of 10 Most Innovative Sports Tech Companies in this week’s magazine. This year's cohort features a wide-ranging set of offerings to the sports industry.

As my SBJ Tech colleague Joe Lemire explained it, “they are being honored not only for what they have done but what they are on the verge of doing, all while maintaining a spirit of forward-looking progress.”

Here are the 10 companies (in alphabetical order):

1. AiFi
   
   
2. ASB GlassFloor
   
   
3. Camb.ai
   
   
4. Cosm
   
   
5. FlexPro Grip
   
   
6. Hawk-Eye
   
   
7. Immersiv.io
   
   
8. Misapplied Sciences
   
   
9. Plantiga
   
   
10. Wicket

These companies will be recognized at the Sports Business Awards: Tech ceremony on March 4, along with the winners of our eight awards categories, as the kickoff event for SBJ Tech Week. Come join us in New York City that week.

SBJ's Rob Schaefer here with the update you all have been waiting for. The SBJ Tech fantasy football league’s playoffs are underway -- and, yes, the team we left in the hands of ESPN’s “auto control” feature is among the four vying for the title.

For those just tuning in, the Tech Titans of the Gridiron has hovered near the top of our standings all season, adeptly navigating injuries (finding a fill-in for QB Jordan Love) and early-season underperformance (TE Mark Andrews) en route to an 8-5 regular season record. It did so entirely through waiver pickups and lineup tweaks -- as ESPN’s automated function does not allow for trades -- making 16 player acquisitions, second most in our league.

Now, it could eliminate our No. 1 seed, newsletter writer Ethan Joyce, from playoff contention. After one week (our league format has two-week playoff matchups), the bot leads Ethan by 22 points and nabbed Colts WR Michael Pittman off the waiver wire as insurance for the banged-up George Pickens, whom it had started every available matchup since Week 8 before his hamstring injury kept him out last Sunday.

If it hangs on to its lead, it will take on the winner of the opposite semifinal matchup between Joe Lemire and me for the championship. Stay tuned.

A final note from Ethan -- of course my starting quarterback, the Ravens’ Lamar Jackson, was on a bye for the opening week of my playoff matchup against TToTG. I’m concerned yet still hopeful that I’m heading to the title game -- and I’ll need a full-on point eruption to do so. Please cheer for me from afar.

• Joe Lemire highlights the usage of StatusPro Visualizer and the Meta Quest headset for telestration on ESPN’s NFL Live.

• My SBJ colleague Bret McCormick breaks down the impact of mobile driver’s licenses (and the boosts they can bring) for fans and sports venues in this week’s magazine.

• SBJ finance writer Chris Smith catches up with SimpleBet co-founder/CEO Chris Bevilacqua following the completion of the company’s sale to DraftKings.

• Monday night featured a Bengals-Cowboys matchup and its “Simpsons”-themed alt-cast. My SBJ colleagues Lemire and Mollie Cahillane each offer different looks at the game, which featured alt-cast streams on ESPN+ and Disney+.