SBJ Unpacks: The next-gen commissioner

Tonight in Unpacks: As the job of commissioner becomes more complex, leaders will face challenges never imagined by the likes of Kenesaw Mountain Landis or even Pete Rozelle. In this week’s cover story, SBJ reporters talk to dozens of leaders about how the next generation of commissioners will need to be different for a changing world.

Also tonight:

• USTA names Eric Butorac as U.S. Open director
• Arizona agrees to stadium naming rights deal
• Trackhouse closing in on deal for Project 91 ride
• Op-ed: What Rwanda’s global deals mean for Africa

Listen to SBJ’s most popular podcast, Morning Buzzcast, where Josh Carpenter opens the week with Commanders-Dolphins drawing over 78,000 in the NFL’s first game in Spain, the NHL looking at ways to maximize its trips to Europe with the Global Series, details of the deal that brought ESPN back to YouTube TV and more.

DEADLINE ALERT: SBA: Tech nominations close Monday at 11:59pm ET.

No vacancies exist now, but a majority of North America’s biggest sports leagues could be in the market for a new commissioner soon – and the world has changed dramatically since the last time most of them filled that position. Sports Business Journal surveyed dozens of senior leaders across the industry over several months about this challenge, and while every property is unique, there’s broad consensus about how the next generation of commissioner will need to be different.

This piece sets the stage for the task we embarked on. Click on the links below to jump to sport-specific stories: MLB | MLS | NBA | NFL | NHL | NWSL | WNBA

In the fall of 1920, Major League Baseball was reeling. One season removed from the disastrous “Black Sox” scandal, owners were losing a fight against widespread public perception that their sport was crooked. Many looked for some new form of governance, believing a three-man “national commission” wasn’t up to the task.

Enter U.S. District Court Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis, who already had a reputation for strict legal views and harsh sentences. He agreed to become the only commissioner on the condition that the owners hand over all power to govern the game. Landis’ contract prohibited owners from reducing his pay, firing him or even publicly criticizing him. He served for 24 years until his death, aggressively exercising his unilateral authority over everyone involved in the sport.

It worked. Illegal gamblers were forced into the shadows, and baseball grew and thrived. As other sports leagues emerged, the notion of an all-powerful commissioner sitting atop the owners became standard operating procedure. Over the ensuing century, owners and players have clawed back some of their power, but the concept of a commissioner vested with extraordinary authority survives. Everybody understands that a world-class executive leader in that role is critical.

But as sports reach previously unimagined levels of cultural and economic relevance in the 21st century, the need for an all-everything, all-powerful executive creates a tall challenge. The sheer scale and complexity of major pro sports leagues’ business, financial, labor, competitive and geopolitical interests demand a commissioner with a truly rare combination of leadership capabilities and subject matter expertise.

Many American leagues could soon be put to the test to find that person. After a long period of stability in the commissioner role, an unprecedented period of transition is coming. No vacancies exist now, but a majority of the North American “Big Five” leagues could be in the market for a new commish soon, and the world has changed dramatically since the last time most of them filled that position.

Sports Business Journal surveyed dozens of senior leaders across the industry about this challenge, and while every property is unique, there’s broad consensus about how the next generation of commissioner will need to be different.

They will deal less with labor issues and sport administration than their predecessors, and will need to be more globally oriented, more sophisticated in business and more revenue focused — all without losing a step in perhaps their hardest and most delicate job, ownership politics.

“Commissioners will always have headaches,” said Len Perna, founder, chairman and CEO of TurnkeyZRG, which handles searches for many high-level positions. “The complexity of all the stakeholders will literally make your head ache. That’s why commissioners are underpaid. I’m not kidding.”

Perna says competitive balance, international growth and rules around external investment from private equity and foreign actors will be the big challenges for the next commissioners.

“Sports has entered the P.E. era,” Perna said. “Growth is now top dog. Grow fandom. Grow engagement. Grow loyalty. Grow views. Grow revenue. Grow margins. Grow international penetration. Commercial business builders are in. Labor is a sub-specialty that can be retained. MLB aside, most sports in North America have solved their structural labor issues. Players understand that revenue growth is paramount, and the new breed of P.E. owners absolutely understand that growth is paramount.”

Of course, every league is different. Some deal from a position of strength; others are at a crossroads. Each incumbent will use his or her current leverage to influence the selection of their successor, in ways that might not be apparent from the outside.

But all will face a dilemma: How to find all these desired traits and skills in one person.

Traditionally, the next commissioner in most leagues has been an internal candidate, a long-haul senior employee or close attorney who has developed relationships and expertise over the course of decades, and who offers, by definition, an evolution, not revolution, in their tenure.

But the question looms: Is that internal candidate — who may well be the best choice for running the sport as it is today — best suited for aggressive, revolutionary growth and a change into what owners want the sport to become?

“The old formula, you came up through a league or a team. But I believe that moving forward, it is going to be more of a major corporate CEO path with media entertainment and/or tech feeding the leagues.”

—  John Tatum, CEO, Genesco Sports Enterprises

Maybe not. Some experts believe the ideal leader of the future is a more experienced executive from the outside, someone with a deep expertise in media and corporate strategy and a track record of big wins. That person would likely be further into his or her career than prior new commissioners, or even from outside North America.

Yet, owners and search consultants won’t overcorrect too far away from the sport itself, Perna said. Revenue growth and financial return is paramount, but the hardest part of a commissioner’s job is still relationships with owners — the extremely wealthy individuals who simultaneously compete and collaborate, take orders and give orders, and demand perfection and constant improvement.

Those owners are more demanding than ever, and not likely to trust someone they don’t already know, to one degree or another. Several industry insiders pointed to executives who are not directly in sports, but close to it — media, technology and consumer-facing companies that do extensive business with sports leagues.

“All these team owners are so invested in so many businesses outside of sports that you can see some out-of-the-box candidates emerge there,” said Nick Kelly, the former CEO of Tepper Sports & Entertainment, and former head of sports sponsorship at Anheuser-Busch InBev and Verizon. “Ten or 15 years ago, a name like [former Fox Sports CEO] David Hill would have been a shock. Today, those kinds will be in the conversation, certainly.”

In other words, at the commissioner level, major leagues are closer to a modern Fortune 500 company, and the best preparation for that role may not be in the day-to-day of the sport.

“The old formula, you came up through a league or a team,” said John Tatum, Genesco Sports Enterprises president and CEO. “But I believe that moving forward, it is going to be more of a major corporate CEO path, with media entertainment and/or tech feeding the leagues.”

In the following links, SBJ staff looks at seven top North American leagues, what they need next on the commissioner’s throne and who might be in the running.

Staff writer Terry Lefton contributed to this report.

Full list: MLB | MLS | NBA | NFL | NHL | NWSL | WNBA

The Univ. of Arizona has agreed to a 20-year naming rights deal with Casino Del Sol for Arizona Stadium. The agreement is worth more than $60M (around $3M annually) and will see the Wildcats’ home football venue renamed Casino Del Sol Stadium. The deal is believed to be the most significant in Big 12 history.

“The cost of running an athletic department has gone up,” Arizona AD Desiree Reed-Francois told Sports Business Journal as to why a naming rights deal was something Arizona sought. “... So we have to look and be aggressive in securing new revenue streams and naming rights has been a high priority since Day 1.”

Casino Del Sol, an enterprise of the Pascua Yaqui Tribe, will be within the highest rung of Arizona Athletics’ corporate partners and receive category exclusivity in casino, gaming, resort and tribal nation designations beginning next fiscal year. The naming rights agreement also includes exterior and interior branding, field logos and expanded integration into national broadcasts.

This deal was notably negotiated by Arizona Sports Enterprises, the school’s in-house multimedia rights and partnerships arm. Arizona brought its MMR rights in-house last year after previously utilizing Learfield in that capacity.

The USTA is looking inward for its next U.S. Open tournament director by promoting U.S. Open Sr. Dir/Player Relations & Business Development Eric Butorac to U.S. Open Tournament Director & Managing Dir/Tennis Business Development.

“It’s an incredible honor. [The U.S. Open is], in my opinion, the greatest sporting event in the world,” Butorac told SBJ. “I became so immersed in this event the last decade -- working on all aspects of it, trying to help it become better, be a cog in the wheel. That’s the approach I’ve always taken.”

Butorac will report to his predecessor, Stacey Allaster, who had served as U.S. Open tournament director since 2020 but late last year announced her intention to step away after the 2025 event, in that capacity for the time being. (Allaster will continue as the USTA’s Chief Executive/Professional Tennis through April 2026 before shifting into an advisory role.) Butorac will report to USTA CCO Kirsten Corio in his capacity as Managing Dir/Tennis Business Development, through which he will continue to ideate and implement revenue-generating events around the U.S. Open. One example there is his leading role in the planning and execution of the U.S. Open’s reimagined mixed doubles format in 2025, which saw top stars compete and sold out multiple sessions at Arthur Ashe Stadium during Fan Week.

“Overall, we feel like it was a great success,” Butorac said of the mixed doubles event. “The one thing we’re exploring now is how do we get access to a few more teams ... We’re looking at what some different avenues could be.”

Butorac has been with the USTA since 2016, when he retired from a tennis playing career that saw him climb as high as 17th in the world in doubles on the ATP Tour. He was the USTA’s Dir/Pro Tennis Operations & Player Relations until mid-2024, when he was promoted to senior director, and in 2022 served as tournament director of the Cincinnati Open (then the Western & Southern Open), before the USTA sold the event’s ATP sanction and WTA lease to Ben Navarro.

“Spending so much time on tour and making friends from around the world, understanding their mindsets as much as possible, was super helpful to then take on the role in player relations,” Butorac said. “Then the learnings became, the last decade, sitting in U.S. Open strategy meetings, between partnerships and broadcast and marketing and [facilities] -- being in that room gave me so much understanding of how the event comes together, and also confidence.”

The hire fulfills one piece of pressing business for the USTA. The organization is also, with the help of Elevate Talent, searching for a new CEO after Lew Sherr departed this summer to become the Mets’ President of Business Operations. That process is understood to be in its final stages and could conclude by the end of the year.

Trackhouse’s Project 91 venture is still alive and will likely return in 2026, and the team also expects to grow its sponsorship deal with energy drink giant Red Bull, according to founder Justin Marks. Those were some of the highlights from an interview with Marks at this month’s NASCAR championship in Phoenix. Project 91 is the all-star car program that Trackhouse established in its second season in 2022 in which Marks brought major international stars to compete in NASCAR in a part-time No. 91 Chevrolet. The first participant was former F1 world champion Kimi Raikkonen, followed by Shane van Gisbergen in 2023, a second outing with Raikkonen and then Helio Castroneves in 2025 (Project 91 did not compete in 2024). Shane van Gisbergen now drives for Trackhouse full time, having moved to the U.S. from Australia after he won his NASCAR debut for Project 91 in 2023. Asked if Project 91 was dead, Marks indicated it’s very much alive and will come back next season, saying: “No -- it’s never dead, never ever ever dead, ever dead. Where Project 91 is now is we go promote the program in the sponsorship market and sign a sponsor, and then we try to work with the sponsor on what kind of athlete they’d like to see. I would bet on it coming back in ’26, and we’re pretty close to getting that deal done. There’s some good opportunities.”

BULL BY THE HORNS: Another way that Trackhouse has distinguished itself is by bringing Red Bull back into the NASCAR fold after having previously been out since 2011 in what felt like an eternity for the sport given the energy drink company’s marketing muscle. Red Bull joined Trackhouse this season, and Marks said that the Austrian brand now wants to do more with the team including potentially beyond NASCAR. Trackhouse also has a team in MotoGP, has participated in sports cars and is considering a future entry into the Indy 500 with Connor Zilisch. Marks said Trackhouse has an “amazing” relationship with Red Bull. “This company is as good of a brand as there is in motorsports, and a tremendous amount of assets across the world,” he said. “They know everything about racing that you would want a partner to know about. They’ve got a very ambitious and robust plan for activation and promotion around the partnership and there’s a lot of opportunity to scale it beyond just the NASCAR team, so there’s a lot of really great conversations happening there.” And as NASCAR tries to take “that next step into popular culture,” Marks said Red Bull “can really grease the wheels of that because everybody knows Red Bull,” adding “they want to make big moments happen just like we do.”

The Los Angeles Clippers unveiled their Visit Rwanda partnership on Sept. 29. It wasn’t just another logo deal; it was the next chapter in one of the world’s most ambitious sports branding campaigns.

Rwanda has turned sport into a cornerstone of its global business strategy, partnering with Arsenal, Paris Saint-Germain, Atletico Madrid, Bayern Munich and now an NBA powerhouse. Beyond sponsorship, the nation is showcasing its ability to host world-class events, most recently the 2025 UCI Road World Championships in Kigali from Sept. 21-28.

Strategically, Rwanda is positioning itself as a sports nation using the global influence of major partnerships and international events to market its tourist attractions, enhance national visibility, and drive economic growth through worldwide recognition in sport.

Rwanda’s growing sports portfolio reflects three major shifts: the use of sport as a nation branding tool; Africa’s evolving sports economy; and the new sponsorship frontiers redefining the continent’s global influence.

Sport as nation-branding and building

Rwanda’s strategy hinges on nation branding: presenting a new image of stability, development and tourism potential through international sports prominence.

According to reports, the nation’s 2018 deal with Arsenal cost £30 million over three years. This was followed by multimillion-dollar agreements with PSG and Bayern Munich. According to analysts, Rwanda spends more than $32 million a year on these sponsorships, which is a significant amount for a small country.

However, the benefits are apparent. In its first year, the Arsenal campaign alone garnered £36 million in media exposure, according to independent marketing firms. With more than 1.4 million tourists visiting last year, tourism revenues have increased from $164 million in 2021 to $650 million in 2024 since the start of Visit Rwanda.

While causation is complex, the trend line is clear: sports partnerships have amplified Rwanda’s reputation, elevated its tourism sector and opened doors for foreign direct investment.

Beyond basketball: A continental business shift

Rwanda’s strategy aligns with a broader trend in Africa, where sport is being viewed as a field that contributes to development.

To diversify their economies and provide employment, governments are investing resources on professional leagues, arenas and academies. Major regional events like the Basketball Africa League (BAL) finals are held at Rwanda’s $104 million BK Arena, formerly known as Kigali Arena, which was constructed in 2019. BAL events generated $9 million from tourism and hospitality during its first two seasons.

Meanwhile, Morocco hosted the 2022 FIFA Club World Cup; South Africa continues to lead in sports media rights and event hosting; and Nigeria’s private sector is investing heavily in football and entertainment crossovers. From exporting sports talent to creating sports ecosystems, including media rights, infrastructure, sponsorship, sports technology and tourism, these examples suggest a continental shift.

Africa’s sponsorship frontier

The developing sponsorship opportunity gap in Africa is highlighted by Rwanda’s model. Africa accounted for fewer than 3% of the approximately 24% increase in worldwide sports sponsorship spending between 2019 and 2024. This disparity is challenged by Rwanda’s rise to prominence on the international scene.

Analysts estimate that Visit Rwanda advertisements generated $160 million in global media value in 2022 alone, contributing to its tourism revenue of $455 million. Because of these numbers, Kigali is now a case study at international conferences for sports marketing.

Replicating this strategy responsibly might help African countries attract investors, monetize soft power and use sport to gain international respect.

Managing risk and reputation

Still, such high-profile transactions are scrutinized. Rwanda is accused of sportswashing by critics, who contend that glitzy sponsorships mask persistent human rights issues in the area.

Amnesty International recently urged the NBA to reassess its partnership due to regional conflicts, while the Democratic Republic of Congo has denounced Rwanda’s football sponsorships. Bayern Munich responded by restructuring their contract with Rwanda to place more of an emphasis on community initiatives and youth development than on straightforward advertising.

These disputes illustrate a broader truth in the sports industry: exposure is reciprocal. Governments and teams must combine commercial ambition with social responsibility, transparency and quantifiable impact in order to maintain credibility.

What it means for Africa’s sports development

African investors and governments could pick up a number of lessons from the Rwandan model:

1. Sports are not charity; they are infrastructure. Long-term value can be created through local jobs, tourism and event hosting at establishments like BK Arena and Nigeria’s emerging sports cities.
2. Global capital is drawn to brand partnerships. Deals with credible teams or leagues that are well-structured can improve perception, encourage investment and raise FDI inquiries.
3. Regional collaboration is important. Cross-border sports tourism, CAF competitions and the BAL all have multiplier effects that help several countries.
4. Transparency is essential. Public confidence and international credibility can be swiftly damaged in the absence of a transparent accounting of sponsorship expenditures and returns.

Africa’s new sporting identity

Rwanda’s Visit Rwanda brand has established itself as a global fixture, appearing everywhere from Emirates Stadium in London to Intuit Dome in L.A. Beyond the commercial spectacle, however, there is a more profound change taking place: Africa is starting to embrace sports as a tool for international influence and economic growth, in addition to entertainment.

This case will confirm a new form of sports diplomacy for the continent if Rwanda is able to realize even a fraction of its estimated $400 million–$500 million in tourism and investment profits from its alliances.

Either way, Rwanda has proven that sport can be a currency of reputation, growth and pride; and that Africa’s sports future will be shaped not just on the field, but in the boardroom. From Kigali to L.A., the business of sport has found a new center of gravity.

Ayobami Olarinde is founder and CEO of CardinalEdge, a boutique sports and entertainment firm with offices in the U.S. and Africa.

• The PGA of America is making a handful of executive moves as the organization heads into 2026, including the addition of Vanessa Vogler as its new chief administrative officer, reports SBJ’s Josh Carpenter.
• Prominent Proskauer sports law partner Jon Oram is leaving to become head of the sports practice at Davis Polk, writes SBJ’s Ben Fischer.
• Perkins Coie last week launched a cross-firm “Venues of the Future” initiative to better serve team and venue owners and the novel issues they’re facing with modern sports developments, notes SBJ’s Bret McCormick.
• CarMax is expanding its “Wanna Drive?” platform through multiyear deals with Cavaliers G Donovan Mitchell and Wings G Paige Bueckers, reports SBJ’s Mary Gaughan.
• Prince Cheddward, the mascot who made his debut in 2021 at the Iowa State-Clemson game via a zipline from the light tower but retired in 2022, is coming out of retirement at the 2025 Cheez-It Citrus Bowl on Dec. 31, writes SBJ’s David Broughton.
• The PFL hired Lenny Daniels as its new COO, as the presence of former Turner executives at the MMA property grows, notes SBJ’s Adam Stern.