SBJ Unpacks: The Giants’ minister of merlot

Tonight in Unpacks: Evan Goldstein is a master sommelier in San Francisco, the home of the Giants. He’s also the first person to hold that title for an MLB team, as SBJ’s David Broughton writes how the city’s wine culture and baseball intertwined in this week’s magazine.

Also tonight:

• Sports Media Pod: The ‘halo effect’ of Olympic hockey
• Apple unveils wide-ranging F1 coverage plan
• P&G vaults back into sponsorship with USA Gymnastics
• Op-ed: Don’t dismiss AI as the next hype cycle

Listen to SBJ’s most popular podcast, Morning Buzzcast, where Joe Lemire discusses TKO’s strong quarterly earnings fueled by site fees and sponsorships, a potential title-sponsor shift for NASCAR’s trucks series, AMB Sports and Entertainment’s upcoming NWSL expansion team already making a sponsorship splash and more.

This week on the SBJ Sports Media Podcast, host and SBJ media reporter Austin Karp delivers his takeaways from the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics, including a look at NBC’s cross‑platform strategy that helped drive record viewership for the USA–Canada women’s hockey gold‑medal showdown. Later in the episode, the president of NHL Business Keith Wachtel joins the show to share on‑the‑ground insights from his Olympic experience and to lay out why the league views major global events as a cornerstone of its long‑term plan to expand hockey’s international reach.

Like a fine wine, Evan Goldstein’s San Francisco Giants partnership was planted and matured in California’s wine country for decades.

The San Francisco native grew up going to Giants games at Candlestick Park, “back when they gave out a real bat on bat day,” he said.

On Opening Day 1977, Candlestick became the first MLB stadium to offer fans in-stadium wine service. Although that might be more coincidence than influence, Goldstein’s immersion into the world of wine began before he was old enough to buy it legally in the United States. Goldstein worked at high-end restaurants in Paris and Napa Valley, before returning to San Francisco in 1984 to open a restaurant with his mother, two-time James Beard Foundation Award winner Joyce Goldstein.

He passed the prestigious master sommelier examination in 1987 at age 26, just the eighth American to do so and the youngest at the time (there are currently 279 active master sommeliers in the world).

In 1997, as vice president of public relations for Seagram Chateau & Estate Wines, he partnered with Mario Alioto, a longtime friend and Giants vice president of marketing, to stage a pregame Wine Tasting by the Bay at the ballpark, in which 900 fans paid $15 each to sample regional wines. When the Giants moved to Pacific Bell Park (now Oracle Park) in 2000, so did their wine culture.

Goldstein continued to work with Alioto, who stepped down last year after 50 years with the club, on various events, such as tastings at the ballpark, and sponsors’ dinners, but was not involved with the ballpark’s wine menu selections.

But in the spring of 2022, the self-described workaholic, who lives 30 minutes from the ballpark, had a conversation with Jason Pearl, the team’s chief revenue officer, that Goldstein said was about “adding more layers to the relationship.” That discussion fermented over the summer and, in September 2022, the Giants became the only sports team in the world to have a formal partnership with a master sommelier.

Goldstein brings to the table — often literally — his extensive wine network, opening the doors for the Giants to partner with new brands and develop new ways to engage with fans.

Goldstein also works with the team and its food and beverage operator, Aramark, to strategize the wines and food pairings featured at Oracle Park; events in Scottsdale, Ariz., during Giants’ spring training; and numerous other team initiatives.

After a successful trial run late last summer, for example, the Giants have rolled out a unique wine club, curated by Goldstein in a partnership with the Sonoma County Winegrowers.

For $555 to $1,530 per year, depending on the tier, California residents can receive up to 18 Sonoma County wines, over three shipments each year, along with Goldstein’s food pairing suggestions.

“There are not many wine clubs in the country, or any that I know of, where members can go on a baseball field to shag balls,” said Goldstein gleefully, noting that membership includes multiple baseball-related benefits. “Typically, when you sign up for a wine club, you get a couple bottles from the same winery a couple times a year, and then its rinse and repeat.”

Sonoma County Winegrowers has sponsored the Giants’ annual FanFest, a four-city preseason tour, since Goldstein joined the club.

Today, Oracle Park has an abundance of wine options.

Napa Valley’s Caymus Vineyards put its name on a wine bar in the Blue Shield Field Club prior to last season and has added a second named bar on the Alaska Airlines Club level for 2026. Beyond the bars, Caymus was the only winemaker to sponsor an MLB game-day giveaway event, teaming with the Giants to hand out 40,000 Rafael Devers T-shirts. Another Napa Valley brand — House of Far Niente — last year became title sponsor of the Vintage ’58 Wine Bar on the Promenade level behind home plate.

There are also two wine carts on the Promenade and one on the View level, and multiple wine-on-tap locations.

Goldstein said he especially enjoys collaborating with players and executives interested in wine or the wine business.

“My man-crush was Tom Seaver,” he said of the late Hall of Famer. “When he opened his vineyard on Diamond Mountain [two hours north of Oracle Park in 1997], he was really MLB’s first wine guy.”

Goldstein has worked with Red Stitch Wine Group, whose ownership includes former Giants Rich Aurilia and Dave Roberts, now manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers, and Baker Family Wines, founded by former Giants manager Dusty Baker.

Goldstein acknowledged that even in the country’s wine capital, the industry is facing competition from other alcohol categories that “are beating each other up for share of mouth.”

Plus, he said, there’s the history of perception driven by the industry itself.

“The wine industry has really hurt itself for years by viewing itself as so hoity-toity, and has neglected the fact that there are loads of fans out there that love wine,” he said. “If I can get someone to consider a pinot noir to go with their hot dog or sausage, instead of an IPA, then I’ve done my job.”

EVAN’S PAIRINGS

How master sommelier Evan Goldstein would match wine with San Francisco Giants ballpark fare:

Cracker Jack: “Bubbly and sweet [if the wine is not at least as sweet as the Cracker Jack, it will taste sour]. Or to flavor-layer and pick up on the caramel/nutty elements, go with a sweet, fortified wine, such as a brown or cream sherry, a tawny port style or a sweeter-style Madeira.”

Peanuts: If boiled is the choice of the day (I am more about the roasted and salted), you’ll want a bright white wine that can cut richness and echo the soft salinity that comes from the brine, so a fino sherry, a young pinot grigio or a youthful and completely unoaked chardonnay.

Louisiana Hot Link at Oracle Park: “A Beaujolais or off-dry Riesling are the ticket for this spicy, smoky sausage with a juicy snap.”

7^th inning stretch: “Something that makes you want to get off your feet and sing, of course. For me, that’s an easy, quaffable red: a juicy merlot, snappy pinot noir or creamy grenache.”

To celebrate winning a no-hitter: The best bottle of bubbly your wallet can afford!

To bemoan being no-hit: Something strong, like an old vine zinfandel, an Italian Barolo, or Aussie shiraz, to fortify you from the pain.

Apple previewed its F1 viewing experience on Thursday, promising 4K video, new multi-view features and integrations across all its apps. The F1 season -- and Apple’s tenure as its U.S. broadcast partner -- begins on March 7 in Australia. Races will be streamed to all Apple TV subscribers, with additional activations in Apple Fitness, Maps, Music, News and Podcasts.

“This really goes beyond just a rights deal,” Apple SVP/Services Eddy Cue said. “We look at F1 and Apple TV as a true partnership where we’re going to amplify this sport across all of our Apple services.”

While the biggest news from the Thursday media session is a collaboration with Netflix to stream Drive to Survive Season 8 through Apple TV, Cue and F1 executive Ian Holmes shared their vision for how they can grow the sport in the U.S. Cue noted that, while F1 has dramatically risen in popularity domestically, it’s still “relatively small to the size of the fan base.” He believes Apple has a chance to help boost those numbers significantly over the next five years.

“We’re really looking at how we can grow the sport in the US, how we can be relevant, how we can have as much compelling content available for existing fans, older fans, newer fans,” said Holmes, F1’s Chief Media Rights & Broadcasting Officer. “We are probably the only sport in the world whose audience is getting younger and more female-skewed.”

The highlighted features include:

• Races will be shown in 4K with Dolby Vision and Audio capabilities, with Cue noting that Apple is able compress the video less than most broadcasters for the sharpest possible image.
• All live content will be easily accessible through the F1 landing page, including practices, qualifiers and the races. It will all be available in English and Spanish, and fans can choose either the primary F1 broadcast team or the SkySports feed.
• Up to four feeds can be chosen for multi-view -- race leaders, driver telemetry data, a tracker of the whole circuit and first-person views from all 22 cars. Apple Vision Pro users can select five feeds.
• The Grand Prix tracks are being rendered in 3D within Apple Maps, providing details for general fan interest and practical attendee tips.
• Apple News will have live video look-ins.
• Apple Music will offer free live audio broadcasts, as well as dedicated playlists including driver-submitted warmup tracks.

“I’ve been very clear from the beginning that, if we’re going to get into sports or anything that we do, we’re trying to be the best at it,” Cue said. “It’s not just viewing the race live. It’s everything that goes around it. When I look at sports, we want to provide -- I’m a huge F1 fan myself -- all of the capabilities and all of the places that Apple has, whether it’s the sports app, whether it’s podcasting, whether it’s music.”

Nine years after dropping its sponsorship with USA Gymnastics in the wake of the NGB’s horrendous sexual abuse scandal, Procter & Gamble has returned as a top-level sponsor of the NGB, with a deal taking it through the 2028 Summer Olympics in L.A. P&G has been a worldwide (TOP) Olympic sponsor since 2012, and its agreement runs through 2028.

It’s the first USA Gymnastics sponsor to have re-signed with the NGB since the scandal. Having P&G on board highlights its story of rehabilitation and redemption after the scandal surrounding longtime team doctor Larry Nassar, which resulted in a defection of every nonendemic sponsor, including P&G, hundreds of lawsuits, a $380M settlement and Chapter 11 bankruptcy. By January 2018, USA Gymnastics lost brands such as P&G, AT&T, Under Armour, Hershey and Kellogg’s and for around four years, it had no new nonendemic sponsors.

More recently, USA Gymnastics has regained its commercial footing, having signed a number of nonendemics, including recovery footwear brand Oofos, OTC supplement Prevagen, water brand Core Hydration, Nike, Xfinity, Samsonite and Hormel Foods’ Skippy brand as “Official Peanut Butter.”

P&G is the first USA Gymnastics sponsor to come full circle.

“From a standpoint of the portfolio of brands we’re now with, it showcases who we are, the confidence these brands have in us, and the story we have to tell about our trajectory,” said newly minted USA Gymnastics President & CEO Kyle Albrecht. “All those are certainly reasons why I joined.”

Having been in office just since the beginning of this year, Albrecht was quick to credit the deal to former USAG President Li Li Leung, who left in December after six years, along with VP/Partnerships Kelly Feilke, who also left late last year. The deal was done directly, with no agencies.

“We have a powerful story to tell,” Albrecht said. “We know the millions of households that P&G interacts with. Our ability to introduce gymnastics to those consumers is something we’re very focused on. And a hometown Olympics is a once-in-a generation commercial opportunity for us.”

Much of P&G’s activation is TBD, including which of its innumerable household, health and beauty brands will be used in conjunction with the sponsorship. In its prior term as a USA Gymnastics sponsor (2013-17), brands activating included Cover Girl, Gillette Venus and Secret deodorant. So far, P&G’s only designation under the new deal is “Official Partner.”

P&G brands will also have “significant presence” within USA Gymnastics televised events, including presenting sponsorship of the women’s team selection show this fall.

“Over the last few years, Li Li Leung did a tremendous job there in what was obviously a very difficult environment,” said Dave Mingey, the former SVP/Head of Commercial Partnerships for U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Properties, who left in January after seven years to launch Onboard Sports Advisory. “They won back the trust and support of the athletes and then have clearly been able to go back into the commercial marketplace with some success, returning them to being one of the country’s top NGBs.”

Discerning SBJ readers will have caught my dispatch in Monday’s magazine about the Big 12’s decision to use ASB GlassFloor as the playing surface for its upcoming conference basketball tournaments. These glass-paneled, LED courts broke into the mainstream four years ago, followed by several notable deployments in Europe and for a couple exhibitions stateside. But their first use in live games in the U.S. is a big first move for the Big 12 and a big milestone for ASB GlassFloor (who even more discerning readers will remember was one of SBJ’s 10 Most Innovative Sports Tech Companies last year).

It was a great excuse to finally make a trip to the center of ASB GlassFloor’s U.S. operations: its “Athletes Lab” in Orlando. This facility is where ASB GlassFloor has been bringing players, coaches and executives from NBA teams and college programs to play on — and with — its futuristic floors. And it is impressive.

I learned and saw a lot over the course of an hour-long, in-depth tour with ASB GlassFloor’s Chris Thornton, CEO of The Americas.

My takeaways:

• The NBA’s interest in this technology is deep: At a certain level, this interest was already known — the NBA invested in ASB GlassFloor and used its court for its All-Star Saturday events in 2024. But you really feel it at the Athletes Lab. The entrance to the 35,000-square-foot warehouse is co-branded with ASB GlassFloor and NBA logos. Banners for all 30 teams hang from the rafters. And the space is well-furnished with gym equipment supplied by Nike, a fridge full of Gatorade products (both prominent NBA sponsors) and an adjacent wood court with the league’s logo in the center.
• The court feels, well, like a basketball court: In reporting the magazine story, I confirmed through the NBA that ASB GlassFloor’s court performed “at or near” the level of hardwood floors in testing by the engineering firm Rimkus. Anecdotally, it tracks. Running and dribbling on the surface yielded the sneaker squeaks and ball-bounce you’d expect from a wood floor. Thornton explained to me that this has to do with ceramic dots burnt into the glass surface, which give the court grip and reduce friction/floor burn on falls. “It’s actually softer when I land,” he claimed. “It’s lighter on my knees, it’s lighter on my ankles — paired with the better and more consistent grip.”
• This not just for fan engagement: Most of our coverage of ASB GlassFloor has centered on its potential as a sponsorable asset — we’re a business trade, after all. But during my visit, Thornton and I also spent time demoing ASB GlassFloor’s coaching capabilities, which are pretty dynamic. Thornton first showed how the floor can display play diagrams drawn on the iPad app that controls the court’s display in real time. We then put ShotTracker tracking sensors in our pockets to go through drills, including one that challenges you to dribble around a virtual obstacle that shadows your every move.
• The facility is stuffed to the gills with tech: ShotTracker sensors in the balls and hanging from the ceiling triangulate ball/player movements for the gamified and performance features I highlighted above. ASB GlassFloor has also installed a handful of AI-powered Spiideo cameras around the court that provide a bird’s eye view of what’s happening on the floor, whether the basketball itself or animations displayed underneath.

What I’ll be watching for at the Big 12 tournaments:

How will sponsors take advantage of GlassFloor’s capabilities? The big selling point of these courts is their fan engagement and advertising potential. Will existing sponsors — e.g., the tournaments’ title sponsor, Phillips 66 — step up their activations? Will the flexible nature of the court’s display system add inventory for new sponsors? How will it look on broadcasts?

How do the athletes respond to the new surface? Big 12 Commissioner Brett Yormark did his due diligence with conference stakeholders, and the surface has been vetted both through objective testing and in competition. But the optics of players or coaches lodging complaints about, say, the visual elements, or the playing surface — or, worse yet, blaming the court for an injury — would be damaging, regardless of whether those sentiments are grounded in reality.

It may be tempting to think of the emerging AI sector as just another brand category enjoying a short-lived boom before the winners emerge and spending tails off — think blockchain and NFTs in 2020, or the flurry of major deals signed by used car retailers in 2021–22. Recent reports of an “AI bubble” would add fuel to that fire, and no doubt some deals will end prematurely when peripheral operators can’t sustain the fees that were promised.

But as major AI brands start to take top-tier positions, don’t dismiss this as the next hype cycle. The technology already offers more value-in-kind than any category in the history of the industry — spanning real-time performance insights, personalised content, and smarter infrastructure. We can speculate about what comes beyond that, but it will certainly be more than a temporary boom; it will be a structural transformation, one that redefines what sporting experiences can become.

The present and short term: From back of house to front of mind

Over the next 12 months, expect AI brands to continue moving from powering data feeds and editing suites to becoming more fan-centric, largely because they can help rights holders personalise inventory and make sense of vast datasets. This shift directly affects one of the biggest arms races of modern times: AI user bases.

Some examples are well established — think AWS powering match predictors in Bundesliga broadcasts, or IBM evolving its Wimbledon association from cloud computing to generative AI with personalized “Catch Me Up” highlights. Elsewhere, major new deals reflect this trend. Two of the most notable include Microsoft Copilot partnering with the Premier League to revitalise its companion app and enable user personalization, and Google teaming up with LA28 and Team USA to embed its AI Search mode directly into NBCUniversal’s coverage.

This has huge value for rights holders seeking digital transformation, while for brands the benefit lies in becoming an authentic part of the user experience. For this reason, AI brands like Copilot or Gemini — whose technology powers fan interaction — may have little need for front-of-shirt positions. Their North Star is becoming an ever-present companion, where utility replaces visibility. And that brings us to the medium term.

Enter the agentic era

Over the medium term, impact will move from disruptive to transformational. The most advanced AI brands will extend beyond team benches, pit walls, and fan apps to permeate every level of the sporting environment. The catalyst? Agentic AI — systems that can autonomously plan and reason without human intervention.

We’re already seeing the earliest signs of this in tech‑forward sports. Oracle’s partnership with Red Bull Racing enables the team to run thousands of simulations in real time, helping engineers and strategists evaluate tyre choices, fuel windows, weather shifts, and competitor behaviour during the race. In the NFL, Microsoft Copilot integrates directly with the Sideline Viewing System (SVS), giving coaches AI‑enabled tools on their tablets to filter plays, analyze formations, and surface relevant insights instantly during a game. This marks a shift from AI as a back‑office assistant to AI as an active participant in live strategy.

But brands must be thoughtful in how they position themselves. To earn credibility with both teams and fans, AI needs to be framed as a tool that empowers coaches rather than replaces them. The moment an algorithm is seen as responsible for a poor substitution or tactical mistake, trust erodes. Introducing agentic AI into the pressure cooker of elite sport will require smart, empathetic brand communication that builds confidence and counters early‑stage scepticism.

For fans, the developments are just as exciting. Imagine arriving through the Wimbledon gates in record time, thanks to automated crowd control. A digital concierge suggesting the best game to watch and how to avoid congestion around Centre Court. On your AR glasses, you select service speed overlays as you watch the action. At 4-5 in the first set, a player takes their designated AI timeout (brought to you by ...) to review tactics and check whether biometric data suggests a problematic hamstring is about to tear. A close line call, flagged by Hawk-Eye (no change here) is instantly available on your glasses — showing the perfect angle that proves just how close it came to brushing the line. It’s worth noting, however, that these AI advances must be balanced with maintaining the up-close and personal feel of a live sports event. Brands must position themselves as facilitators, rather than invaders, of fans’ experiences to avoid fans feeling overloaded by tech.

At this point, designations like “Digital Transformation Partner” or “Technology Partner” become obsolete. Certain brands will not just sponsor the likes of Wimbledon — they’ll run alongside it, optimizing the spectacle from every angle. A new term will no doubt emerge, but the potential of an AI brand becoming a primary experience facilitator feels a strong bet. It would make sport smarter, more interactive, and more personal for all stakeholders, and one that will give new meaning to the term partnership.

Sport as a living system in the long term

Predicting the long-term impact of AI partnerships is difficult — technology rarely evolves in straight lines. However, we’d expect the tactical advance to continue improving the on-field spectacle. Imagine a world where sport becomes a living system where fans, teams, and broadcasters interact with an intelligent infrastructure that learns and evolves year after year, with brands positioned as co-creators of that evolution.

Away from the pitch, we could see the current sponsorship model being completely reshaped. Sponsorship fees could become fluid, calculated in real time based on performative metrics — such as engagement uplift, operational efficiency gains, or fan adoption of AI-driven features. This would mark a radical shift from fixed-fee deals to outcome-based agreements.

If the first era of partnerships was about branding the spectacle and the second has been dominated by creating content from it, the next may well be about fundamentally reshaping it. The major AI brands are uniquely positioned to do this, and those that embrace the sector as a platform for continuous innovation won’t just ride out structural transformation — they’ll help define the future of the sports we love. The challenge for brands and rights holders is to ensure the jeopardy, drama and sheer exhilaration of big-ticket sport isn’t diluted or diminished under a layer of additional tech-driven information.

James Tollington is managing partner at global sport and entertainment agency Fuse.

• Turning the clock back 30 years, NBC will re-create a 1995-96 NBA broadcast for the Spurs-76ers game March 3, straight down to the announcers, graphics, replays, pregame show, score bug and grainy flashbacks, writes SBJ’s Tom Friend.
• The Milan Cortina Games were the most-watched Winter Olympics since Sochi in 2014, with an average of 23.5 million viewers this year across NBC, USA Network, CNBC and Peacock, almost double the audience from Beijing four years ago, reports SBJ’s Austin Karp.
• Megan Keller’s golden goal has become a golden business boon for Bartlett Hockey, the agency that represents the Team USA women’s hockey star, writes SBJ’s Irving Mejia-Hilario.
• The women’s snowboard slopestyle medal outcome that awarded Japan’s Mari Fukada the gold prompted immediate criticism for the judges, and Owl AI founder Jeremy Bloom claims his officiating and scoring startup’s tech can prove it’s wrong, notes SBJ’s Ethan Joyce.
• MLS clubs will have the opportunity to raise additional sponsorship revenue by offering logo placement on the back of their kits for the first time, reports SBJ’s Alex Silverman.
• The Big Ten and SEC commissioned a report that pushes back on the idea to reopen the Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961 for consolidated media rights for college sports, writes SBJ’s Ben Portnoy.
• In its second season of broadcasting IndyCar, Fox Sports is investing in an upgraded viewer experience that began with a significant infrastructure upgrade, reports SBJ’s Joe Lemire.
• Tampa-based private investment firm Weatherford Capital is joining BellTower Partners in becoming an investor and partner for the USL as it nears the launch of its new top division, USL Premier, in 2028, writes Mejia-Hilario.