Tonight in Unpacks: SBJ unveiled its third annual class of Best Places to Work in Sports, with the honorees representing industry segments covering the spectrum of sports, from major league teams to behind-the-scenes companies, reports SBJ’s David Broughton.
Also tonight:
- Big 12 to get investment stake in Players Era Festival
- SLC Winter Games organizing committee rebrands to Utah 2034
- Building a better ‘MaddenCast’
- Op-ed: Sport’s climate challenge -- Recognition is high, but delivery is slow
Listen to SBJ’s most popular podcast, Morning Buzzcast, where Abe Madkour looks at what sports leaders are focused on, Gotham FC winning the 2025 NWSL Championship, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell teasing Nashville landing a Super Bowl and more.
Best Places to Work in Sports 2025
This week, Sports Business Journal recognizes its third annual class of Best Places to Work in Sports.
The honorees represent industry segments covering the spectrum of sports, from major league teams to behind-the-scenes companies, with workforces that range from seven people to 554 employees.
More than 9,000 employees of 98 companies took part in a confidential employee satisfaction survey administered this summer by SBJ partner, Omaha, Neb.-based Quantum Workplace. Sixty-seven of those companies scored highly enough to be considered a Best Place to Work in Sports.
The survey measured more than 40 key areas that make up an organization’s culture, such as employees’ trust in leadership, company perks and communication.
The data also provides a comparison of these companies to organizations outside the sports world. For example, 79% of SBJ’s honorees offer paid maternity leave longer than eight weeks, compared to 49% of the honorees in the 3,201 non-sports companies in Quantum’s other studies.
Comments on the employee surveys from the 32 medalist companies describe why they consider their company to be one of the Best Places to Work in Sports.
Medalists
Professional Services Provider
National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics
Professional Team, League or Governing Body
Horseracing Integrity & Safety Authority
Agency
Priority Sports & Entertainment
Sports Media or Production
Technology
Facility Owner / Operator
Big 12 to get investment stake in Players Era Festival
The Players Era Festival was welcomed to the college basketball scene in 2024 with side eyes and skepticism.
A year later, the tournament is establishing an official link with one of the sport’s strongest conferences to bolster its broader mission — becoming the “March Madness” of the early college basketball season.
The Big 12 is set to announce a five-year deal to take a 15% equity stake in the Players Era Festival, along with a minimum guarantee from annual revenues, those involved with the agreement told Sports Business Journal. The equity stake begins immediately, while the minimum guarantee will begin with next year’s event.
As part of the deal, the Big 12 will receive eight bids to the Players Era tournament when it expands to 32 teams next season. Those teams will be selected based on conference standings from the previous year.
“I always think about how do we either create IP or have a vested interest in IP that we’re a part of,” Big 12 Commissioner Brett Yormark told SBJ. “It’s a different mindset. And if we’re going to create value, which we are, we want to share in that value. Taking an equity stake in [Players Era] affords us the opportunity to do so.”
That the Players Era and Big 12 found a match on such a deal comes amid vast growth and interest in the tournament.
The Players Era Festival was welcomed to the college basketball scene in 2024 with side eyes and skepticism. Were the NIL purses it promised real? Would high-major teams really take part? A year later, the tournament has its sights on becoming the “March Madness” of the early college basketball season.
Players Era is in the final year of a two-year deal with TNT for its broadcast rights. Tournament representatives are in discussions with broadcast partners that could include ESPN, Fox, Netflix and Warner Bros. Discovery, sources told SBJ.
The expectation, too, is Players Era would fetch a lengthier deal than its initial agreement with TNT, though conversations remain ongoing.
“We’re a big believer that the people creating the product should be part of the success of that venture,” EverWonder Studio CEO Ian Orefice told SBJ. “And if you look at traditional rights, media companies and other event organizers would pay rights fees to a conference for their rights, but then they go out and monetize those rights separately. We really believe in a long-term partnership and you can’t do that without both partners feeling like they have a stake in the success of a property.”
The Players Era, which is a subsidiary of EverWonder Studio and will be held in Las Vegas this week, made waves in college basketball for guaranteeing participants varying levels of NIL compensation.
Seth Berger, CEO of Players Era and the former founder of And1, noted the tournament is also set to put $50M-plus into Big 12 basketball programs in rights fees as part of the deal slated to be announced on Monday.
"When I started And1 in 1993, all of my initial partners had a piece of the company," Berger told SBJ. “My thought has always been, ‘If I’m going to grow a business and I’ve got partners, everyone should have upside.’ A conference like the Big 12 is a partner. Why wouldn’t we want them to share the upside of what we’re building together?
“When we started this conversation, we offered it to them. This wasn’t a, ‘Hey, how do we get there?’ This is, for us, a really important part of the relationship so that we’re truly partners.”
The investment Berger and his tournament are expected to make in Big 12 basketball and beyond also comes amid changes to the sport’s calendar. Multi-Team Events (MTEs) that have long littered the early part of the college basketball schedule have faced increasingly difficult economics.
Those involved with Players Era and the participating teams see it as a way to help justify the rising costs of high-major college basketball, along with creating a product that can punch through a crowded sports television calendar.
“We had no choice,” Houston coach Kelvin Sampson said earlier this week as to why his team is playing in the tournament. “Have you seen our budget? Have you seen our fundraising? We have no choice. We have to raise our money. In recruiting right now, the schools with the most money get the best [players], especially in the portal. You gotta have money.”
That the Big 12 is involved in a business dealing such as nabbing equity in an early season basketball tournament shouldn’t come as a major surprise.
The league has pushed the boundaries of commercialization under Yormark, including a slew of headlines over the last eight months.
The Big 12 announced a deal with Monster Energy last week, which came just days after it made Edward Jones the presenting sponsor of its football championship.
The conference also previously agreed to a five-year deal worth an estimated $100M with PayPal in June and rolled out a multiyear agreement with Allstate in September. The deals with PayPal and Allstate are believed to be the largest and most valuable sponsorship agreements in conference history.
The Big 12, too, had been among the early explorers of private equity infusions at the league-level, though those conversations have been paused since earlier this year.
“My business, the business that I’m in, candidly, is value creation for my membership,” Yormark said. “Wherever I can create value, it’s incumbent upon me as the commissioner to explore it. This is a way to do it.”
SLC Winter Games organizing committee rebrands to Utah 2034
Salt Lake City won the bid to host the 2034 Olympics and Paralympics, but the organizing committee will rebrand as Utah 2034.
With 3,000 days to go until the Games open, organizers launched the rebrand to emphasize communities around the state supporting the Olympics and Paralympics’ return. Leaders made the announcement at Salt Lake City International Airport, where it revealed a branded art installation. It also released a merchandising program with the new wordmark.
The organizing committee developed the new design, with Salt Lake City branding consultant Molly Mazzolini overseeing the creative.
‘MaddenCast’ sequel showcases what EA, NBC and Genius learned in 2024’s debut
The “Madden NFL Cast” is coming back, and EA Sports and NBC Sports couldn’t have picked a better date for it: Thanksgiving, the holiday most associated with John Madden (this bit about the turducken ranks among my favorite sports TV moments. Watch to the end, please). The matchup features Bengals-Ravens in the nightcap on Peacock, and I’m hoping Ravens FB Patrick Ricard or DT CJ Okoye get to tear into turkey legs after the game.
This year’s “MaddenCast builds” on what the teams at EA Sports, NBC and Genius Sports learned from last year’s debut. The show is boasting improvements to its tech and presentation.
One of the key additions is a SkyCam, which will hang behind the QB and provide a perspective similar to what players see in Madden NFL. It shouldn’t interfere with the existing SkyCam, either, as NBC Sports has almost a decade of expertise working with two of these at NFL games. It was something EA Sports was shooting for last year, and its absence was the biggest point of feedback on the production.
“They wanted to see a game. They see it in Madden, so it’s in this year,” said EA Sports’ Evan Dexter, VP/brand strategy and marketing for American football. “We had about eight or nine creative concepts for last year, one of which was the SkyCam, and we just ran out of time. We were so fast in executing the ‘MaddenCast’ in its first year, and so new to the process, that all the things that we wanted to do, all of them were achievable, just on a certain time horizon that we didn’t have. So, we ended up cutting concepts out.”
Weather shouldn’t be an issue, either. A Bills game a week before last year’s ‘MaddenCast’ served as a test run, and it snowed. But that snow didn’t interfere with the overlays that provide the video game flavor. “We were ready for anything [last year], and I think we’re ready for anything again this year,” Dexter said.
Madden player ratings, always a hot topic among the fandom, are playing a larger role as well. An overlay will show ratings matchups between players at the line of scrimmage.
“That was part of our vision last year,” Dexter said, noting it was another idea cut for time.
The idea is to use the data to give a snapshot of a matchup, say a wide receiver with a 98 rating going up against a defensive back with an 80 rating. Dexter said the idea was to let that “drive a sub-narrative in the [viewer’s] brain, which is, ‘Oh, there is a mismatch here’ or ‘Oh, there’s a super matchup here’ and know where to see a play unfold based on the data ... viewers are going to be able to see how Madden’s attributes and overall ratings are driving predictive outcomes, before the play.”
Wading into ratings
Thanks to the integration of Genuis Sports, these ratings will receive real-time adjustments, with sideline reporter Kay Adams and ratings analyst Chad “Ochocinco” Johnson. Joining play-by-play announcer Paul Burmeister and analyst Kurt Benkert (a retired backup QB who’s also a game streamer) in the studio this year is former DB Tyrann Mathieu, who retired from the NFL in July after an 11-year career in which he earned numerous All-Pro and Pro Bowl honors.
“Kurt was such a hit last year. Everybody watching just loved his ability to analyze at a micro-level and then used the game to show what he’s talking about with precision,” Dexter said, adding that producers were eager to add a voice to balance out Benkert’s perspective as a former quarterback. “We’ll have a more rounded point of view [with Mathieu], which is really exciting. ... [We’re] taking what was so entertaining about Kurt and giving him a counterpart on the defensive side with Tyrann Mathieu.”
One way that the duties of the MaddenCast analysts differ from those of a normal NFL broadcast -- especially for Johnson -- are the ratings. Their job will be to reinforce how those are a snapshot of a player’s attributes, not the exact ratings for the game they are playing in Thursday night. Dexter acknowledged this was something that viewers don’t always understand.
“It’s one of the most vocal pieces of feedback that we hear all the time is somebody went off in this game -- why aren’t they higher? And we try not to be overly reactive with the ratings. We try and let them be driven by aggregates of performance on different time horizons,” Dexter said. “I do think fans, sometimes, they’re disappointed because they have a favorite player or somebody on a team that had an amazing game. They want to see it reflected in the game immediately, and we try and do that a little bit adjusting attributes versus overalls, but for the most part, we don’t want it to be representative of one game in a 17-game season. We want it to be representative of sustained performance over time.”
Special occasion
Playing on Thanksgiving makes any NFL game a bit more special. It even means more for a “MaddenCast” to air on Madden’s favorite holiday, one he turned into an even bigger football event than it had been before. And this goes hand-in-hand with Madden’s original vision for the video game as a teaching tool for fans.
“We feel a huge responsibility to that vision, so bringing the second ‘MaddenCast’ to prime time on Thanksgiving offers the ideal stage to celebrate Coach’s legacy,” Dexter said.
I just hope the MaddenCast includes a turducken or a turkey with six legs, just like Madden would’ve wanted.
Legal sports betting has its perils, but a college QB betting on the Chiefs isn’t among them
Update: More than two-thirds of NCAA schools voted to overturn a rule change that would have allowed gambling on professional sports, the NCAA announced Friday evening.
There’s been a lot of pearl-clutching around the NCAA’s decision to permit athletes and athletic department staff to bet on pro sports if it’s legal in their state, a policy change that will go into effect Saturday unless two-thirds of D-I schools vote to rescind it by 5 pm ET.
Thursday night, CNN reported that only 188 of 361 schools had submitted requests to block the change, well short of the 241 votes required.
Tabling the change would be more show than substance, an easy way for those still grappling with the impact of legalization to look as if they’re taking a stand at a time when players from the NBA and MLB and a handful of D-I mid-major basketball players have been accused of rigging player prop bets.
They’d actually be taking a stand against progress.
There’s a reasonable debate to be had around whether opening the spigots on legal online sportsbooks is good for sports, or society -- and especially whether it’s good for college sports and college-aged students, athletes or otherwise.
But a college quarterback betting on the Chiefs on a regulated sportsbook app really isn’t the issue. A college quarterback betting on college games using a friend’s account, a campus bookie or an unregulated offshore, where his activity can’t be tracked or monitored, is the threat college administrators should address.
A 2024 NCAA survey of more than 20,000 college athletes found that 21.5 percent of male student athletes reported that they had bet on sports in the last 12 months, with about 10% saying they bet monthly. Among D-I athletes, the overall number drops to 12%, with 5% betting monthly and 2% betting weekly. A 2023 NCAA survey of college-aged non-athletes showed 58 percent bet.
Two-thirds of athletes who said they bet on sports did so through a legal sportsbook app.
You could read this as evidence that the policy is working. Some schools use a monitoring service that supports the prohibition, blocking athletes and staff from placing bets at legal sites using their own names. It’s a sound strategy.
But wouldn’t it make even more sense to use the software to block only college betting while permitting them to bet on the NFL and NBA, reducing the likelihood that they’d find their way to illegal offshores and campus bookies?
Not one of the recent arrests or NCAA eligibility revocations stemmed from a player betting on another sport. Most were the result of inside information, or manipulation, around player props. The NCAA has successfully lobbied to keep those off the board on college games in 15 states, but sportsbooks in about half of legalized states still offer them.
That’s a substantive issue that college administrators should be concerned about.
So is transparent injury reporting, a policy college programs were woefully slow to embrace.
Online sports betting had been legalized across eight of the 11 states in the Big Ten’s footprint by the time it became the first conference to require its football and basketball programs to release injury reports in 2023, a practice meant to keep bettors from benefiting from inside information -- and players and support staff from being tempted to leak it.
The SEC did the same last year. The ACC and Big 12 didn’t get around to it until this year, seven years after the first legal online sports bets outside Nevada were placed.
The NCAA will require injury reports at the men’s and women’s basketball tournaments for the first time in March.
A tad late, to be sure, but certainly substantive.
That should be a focus. The increased risk of gambling addiction among college students should be a focus. Education on integrity risks should be a focus.
But I would much rather the college quarterback who wants to bet on the Chiefs on Sunday do so on his own account than someone else’s, which he might also use to take the over in his own game next Saturday.
Sport’s climate challenge: Recognition is high, but delivery is slow
Sport has always been shaped by the elements. From rain delays at Wimbledon to heat waves disrupting marathons, the weather is as much a part of the game as the players themselves. But as the climate crisis intensifies, the risks facing sport are no longer seasonal inconveniences; they are existential threats.
This was made clear in our recent global research, carried out in partnership with Global Sustainable Sport. The survey, which gathered responses from federations, Olympic committees, clubs, venues, event organisers and NGOs across more than 20 countries, paints a picture of an industry that recognises the danger, but has yet to act at the scale required.
Awareness without action
The headline finding is striking: 76% of respondents said climate change poses a “real” or “extreme” risk to their organisation. Yet just 3% reported making significant progress on reducing emissions, and only one in 10 said they were on track to meet their climate targets.
It is a disconnect that reflects broader struggles across industries, but one with sharper consequences in sport. Extreme heat has already forced changes to competition timetables, with the Tokyo Olympics and recent U.S. Open (tennis) among high-profile examples. Winter sports are seeing shrinking seasons. Floods, wildfires and poor air quality increasingly pose risks to events and athlete health. For an industry that thrives on live gatherings and global tournaments, the threat is immediate.
Barriers at the top
So, what is holding sport back? Our research points to two clear barriers: funding and leadership.
Nearly a third (28%) of respondents cited financial constraints as their biggest challenge to being more environmentally sustainable, while a quarter (24%) pointed to a lack of prioritisation from leadership. In many organisations, sustainability teams are small, passionate and committed, but lack influence at board level. That makes it hard to embed climate action into strategy, operations or commercial planning.
This gap is all the more stark when compared to the platform sport holds. Rights holders command global audiences, brands see sport as a unique engagement channel and athletes are increasingly vocal advocates for climate action. The opportunity to lead is huge — but leadership remains absent.
Commercial pressure still inconsistent
Our research also highlights the mixed role of commercial partners. Sponsors and brands are beginning to scrutinise the climate impact of the organisations they support, and while sustainability is not yet the dominant factor in negotiations, it is rapidly gaining ground.
Of the organisations we spoke to, 52% said sustainability credentials were important in sponsorship negotiations, with a quarter (24%) agreeing they are “extremely” or “very” important. Far from being a marginal issue, this marks a significant shift: sustainability is now a factor in more than half of sponsorship discussions, and its influence is only set to rise. For rights holders, that presents a clear commercial opportunity. Embedding credible climate action into a sports brand doesn’t just strengthen reputation; it can directly grow sponsorship revenue, with studies suggesting uplifts of around 10% when sustainability is integrated effectively.
Data blind spots
Yet even where intent exists, measurement remains a stumbling block. More than a quarter (28%) of organisations do not measure their emissions at all, and among those that do, reporting is patchy. Only one-fifth (21%) include fan travel, despite this often being the single biggest source of event emissions in their footprint.
That lack of visibility undermines confidence. Few respondents said they trusted their numbers, and with only 14% describing themselves as “very confident” in their carbon inventories, it’s clear that data gaps remain a fundamental barrier. Without a solid baseline, clubs and federations struggle to set credible targets, persuade boards to invest or prove progress to sponsors and fans.
Reasons for optimism
And yet, despite the gaps, there are reasons for optimism. A quarter of organisations believe sport can achieve net zero by 2040, in line with the UN Sports for Climate Action framework. While confidence in hitting the nearer 2030 milestone is far lower, the willingness to commit to longer-term goals is growing.
Fans and athletes are also increasingly vocal in demanding climate action. Younger audiences, in particular, expect their clubs and events to demonstrate values that align with their own. That creates both a reputational risk for laggards and a competitive advantage for leaders.
From our perspective, this is a pivotal moment. Sport is uniquely exposed to climate risk, from disrupted fixtures and unsafe playing conditions to shifting fan expectations. Awareness is there, but delivery is falling short. Given the footprint of sport extends far beyond its own direct emissions — it shapes culture, influences behaviour and inspires millions worldwide — the industry has a unique opportunity to act as a catalyst for broader societal change. The next step must be embedding sustainability across all facets. Sport has progressed from awareness to ambition. Now it needs to prove delivery.
What next?
The path forward is clear, if not simple. Sport must move beyond statements of intent and integrate climate considerations into the fabric of decision-making: board agendas, sponsorship contracts, infrastructure investment and fan engagement strategies. That means treating carbon data with the same rigour as financial data, building resilience into event planning and holding partners accountable for their impact.
It also means recognising sustainability not as a cost, but as a competitive advantage. Sponsors are increasingly under pressure from their own regulators, shareholders and consumers. Rights holders who can demonstrate credible climate action will find themselves better placed to secure long-term deals.
The survey shows that sport is at a crossroads. The risks are well understood, the opportunities are clear, and the tools exist. What is needed now is the leadership and investment to bridge the gap between ambition and action.
The question is not whether sport can afford to act on climate — but whether it can afford not to.
Richard Davis is CEO and co-founder of 51toCarbonZero, a climate technology platform helping organisations move from carbon ambition into action.
Speed reads
- Ahead of their 30th season, the Mercury unveiled a rebrand with a new primary “M” logo that is positioned at a 19.97 degree angle in honor of their inaugural 1997 campaign, reports SBJ’s Tom Friend.
- The Capitals are releasing an Alex Ovechkin-themed game, called “Great Sk8,” with gamefied fan experience platform WIT and Venture Global as the activation sponsors, reports SBJ’s Ethan Joyce.
- AEG and Marriott Bonvoy agreed to a multiyear renewal of their global sponsorship deal, an expanded relationship that now includes festivals, sports properties and AXS’s global ticketing footprint across the U.S., Europe and Asia, reports SBJ’s Bret McCormick.
- CollectibleXchange on Tuesday will kick off sales of seats, signs, furniture and other remnants and fixtures of the Bills’ Highmark Stadium, reports SBJ’s Terry Lefton.