SBJ Unpacks: Champions 2026 -- Steve Greenberg

Tonight in Unpacks: Allen & Co. adviser Steve Greenberg’s career is a walk through the history of sports business, having touched the industry on the league and media sides, and becoming the go-to adviser on media strategy and team sales, as SBJ’s Chris Smith notes in his profile of Greenberg as part of the 2026 class of Champions.

Also tonight:

• Brewers adding premium space, plaza at American Family Field
• EuroLeague has early partnership talks with Project B
• Sportradar to provide Kalshi with official data, integrity services
• Op-ed: How venues are monetizing first-party data

Listen to SBJ’s most popular podcast, Morning Buzzcast, where Austin Karp kicks off the week with the start of World Cup drawing nearer, President Trump attending NBA Finals Game 3 at MSG, potential complications for the UFC Freedom 250 card and more.

Stepping into Steve Greenberg’s office, nine floors above the luxury retail shops of midtown Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue, is to step through history.

The wood-paneled room is full of photographs featuring former presidents and Hall of Fame ballplayers. It houses a pair of seats from Comiskey Park and several baseball bats, including one of Greenberg’s from when he played in the minor leagues. His father, MLB Hall of Famer Hank Greenberg, stars throughout in photos from his playing days and promotional images from his service in World War II. Greenberg’s mother, Caral Gimbel, was an accomplished equestrian and is featured competing in Paris.

Steve Greenberg’s career is its own walk through the history of sports business. He represented ballplayers at the outset of free agency. He helped secure a key labor agreement as MLB’s deputy commissioner. He launched the sports network that eventually became ESPN Classic. And for more than 20 years at boutique investment bank Allen & Company, Greenberg has served as the sports industry’s go-to adviser on media strategy and team sales, consulting on the rise of regional sports networks and numerous record-setting transactions.

Herbert Allen Jr., the former president and CEO of Allen & Co., hired Greenberg in 2002 with nothing more than an expectation that he’d formalize a sports practice.

“He was just such a good, top-quality guy that having him in the room was worth it, even if he never did anything,” Allen said. “But of course he did an awful lot. I guess he’s done more in sports than anybody in the history of Wall Street.”

Still influential as ever, the 77-year-old Greenberg is currently advising on the sale of the Seattle Seahawks and recently managed ownership transactions for the Portland Trail Blazers and Minnesota Twins. He’s a trusted confidant for league commissioners and team owners alike. Few have played such a critical role in so many industry-defining trends.

And Greenberg says he has no plans to slow down.

“Every time I’ve ever grumbled about going to work, I’ve left. That’s why I left baseball. It wasn’t fun anymore,” Greenberg said. “Every other thing I’ve done … it’s just been about joining the people and everything else falls into place. Money falls into place. Lifestyle falls into place. That’s something that I can’t replicate if I retired, whatever that means.”

FROM PLAYER TO AGENT

Steve Greenberg was born in New York City, but he grew up in Cleveland going to Indians games at Municipal Stadium and possibly not fully appreciating that most kids didn’t have Joe DiMaggio and Ted Williams as houseguests.

Born in 1948, the year after Hank hung up his jersey, Greenberg saw his father play in only the occasional old-timers game. Perhaps fittingly, Greenberg’s early memories of his father are as a team executive, serving as part-owner and general manager of the Cleveland Indians and later the Chicago White Sox.

Greenberg also was exposed to business through his mother’s family, which owned department chain Gimbels and subsidiary Saks. He admits he was relieved when the company was sold.

“I would say the fact that Gimbels was sold when I was in college was probably one of the luckiest breaks I ever had,” Greenberg said. “Because I was beginning to feel some pressure, I’ll call it, to go into the business. And that [sale] took that off the table. I am much happier for having chosen the path I chose on the sports side.”

Greenberg was an accomplished athlete at Yale, where he captained the baseball team and earned All-American honors as a soccer goalie. In 1970, he graduated, was married and then drafted by the Washington Senators within two weeks.

But by 1974, after a few years playing minor league ball and with his wife, Myrna, expecting their first child, Greenberg saw the writing on the wall. He applied to law and business schools, at both Yale and in his then-resident Los Angeles. Greenberg graduated from UCLA’s law school in 1977.

Reflecting on his career, Greenberg often returns to the idea of serendipity. Take, for instance, that Greenberg happened to leave baseball for law school right before the start of free agency, first codified in 1976.

“All of a sudden, all my former teammates who were making the minimum salary in the big leagues had the ability to be free agents,” Greenberg said. “So I started getting phone calls. No one had an agent.”

One of his early clients was former roommate and National League batting title winner Bill Madlock; Greenberg negotiated his contract while a second-year law student. Greenberg started building a client base through word of mouth. After getting his law degree, Greenberg landed at Los Angeles law firm now known as Manatt, Phelps & Phillips under sports lawyer Alan Rothenberg, a member of the SBJ Champions class of 2011.

“He had some maturity. More than the typical new lawyer does, because he spent those years at the minors before,” Rothenberg recalled. “He was smart, he knew the industry. He was a very honorable, ethical person.”

“And he was a great mentor,” Rothenberg added.

Greenberg was tasked with overseeing the development of Arn Tellem. The young lawyer had applied for a role at the firm specifically for the chance to work with Greenberg, whose father was Tellem’s childhood idol. Tellem, who refers to Greenberg as “Mr. Perfect,” said he learned from his mentor the value of preparation, and to seek empathy at the negotiating table.

“An important thing was to be able to put myself in the shoes of the other side, and to be able to see the negotiation not just from our perspective, but from the other side’s perspective,” said Tellem, now the vice chairman of the Detroit Pistons and a fellow member of this year’s class of Champions. “That was something that [Greenberg] was really good at.”

In his first week after buying the Chicago White Sox in early 1981, Jerry Reinsdorf met Greenberg at an arbitration hearing for Greenberg’s client, White Sox pitcher Ed Farmer. Reinsdorf’s first impressions of Greenberg: “Very smart, very personable and very tall.”

Reinsdorf also found Greenberg to be exceedingly fair. They never saw the inside of an arbitration hearing again.

“It was very collegial because he was never looking to get the highest number possible. He was always looking to get to the fairest number possible,” Reinsdorf said. “Steve was a delight to deal with because I didn’t have to fight. I’d make my case, he’d make his case and we’d figure it out. If we didn’t agree, we’d end up splitting the difference.”

The two have been friends for years, and Reinsdorf said he even became friendly with Greenberg’s in-laws. The relationship building and negotiating style Greenberg developed as an agent helped carry him throughout the rest of his career. But, by the late 1980s, he’d ultimately grown tired of the repetitious work of representing players.

In another act of serendipity, Greenberg was offered the chance to work at the MLB league office. Per Rothenberg, it was a “fait accompli” that Greenberg would take the job.

“It was not like it was us or them. Steve had grown up, literally, with baseball. To be the right-hand man of the commissioner of Major League Baseball was just a great opportunity for him,” Rothenberg said. “And obviously he flourished.”

LABOR AND LEAGUE GOVERNANCE

Greenberg had graduated from Yale with a degree in English and studied under popular professor Bart Giamatti. The two also had grown close because Giamatti was a baseball diehard and attended every Yale home game.

In the years following Greenberg’s graduation, Giamatti went on to serve as president of Yale and then the National League. He succeeded Peter Ueberroth as commissioner of MLB in 1989. Best known for suspending Pete Rose, Giamatti held baseball’s top job for only five months before he died of a heart attack.

A few days later, Greenberg eerily received a letter from Giamatti. It hinted at a job offer.

“He had written it the day before he died,” Greenberg said. “And the letter said, ‘It was great seeing you in California on my recent trip. I was just talking to [MLB Deputy Commissioner Fay Vincent]. Would you consider moving to New York? I joke not.’”

Greenberg already knew Vincent from the board of trustees of their alma mater Hotchkiss School, the preparatory academy in Connecticut. When Vincent was named as Giamatti’s replacement, he offered Greenberg the role of deputy commissioner. Greenberg began in the job at the start of 1990, with MLB in the middle of intense labor negotiations. A monthlong lockout soon followed.

“Steve was a delight to deal with because I didn’t have to fight. I’d make my case, he’d make his and we’d figure it out. If we didn’t agree, we’d end up splitting the difference.”

—  Jerry Reinsdorf, owner, Chicago White Sox

Greenberg wound up playing a key role in resolving the dispute thanks to his long relationship with MLBPA head Don Fehr, whom Greenberg knew from his years representing players. The two holed up to work through the final hangup in negotiations: eligibility for salary arbitration. League owners wanted players to have three years of service to be eligible for arbitration, while the players’ union was fighting for two. Greenberg, as is often the case, found common ground: The most senior 17% of second-year players would be eligible.

“When you have a relationship with someone, you can cut through a lot of crap,” Greenberg said. “Don realized that, first of all, I was authorized to make a deal. … And he realized I knew what I was talking about, and I knew that his two-year proposal was never going to fly with our guys. There had to be some place in the middle.”

Greenberg also emerged as an efficient problem-solver on issues across finance, legal, licensing and other areas. Vincent tasked Greenberg with managing controversial Cincinnati Reds owner Marge Schott, and with telling George Steinbrenner he’d be placed on the permanently ineligible list for paying gambler Howard Spira to dig up dirt on star Dave Winfield.

But the labor dispute Greenberg helped resolve was only a temporary solution, with a far larger battle brewing ahead. Knowing that Vincent wouldn’t endure a lengthy work stoppage, the owners pushed him out in 1992. Greenberg soon followed.

“I had no real authority anymore, I was sort of a well-paid traffic cop,” Greenberg recalled. “I just made the decision that that’s not what I came to New York to do.”

Greenberg departed the league office in the spring of 1993, just a year before the strike that cost MLB that year’s World Series and, ultimately, became the longest work stoppage to that point in sports history. Greenberg had another job in baseball waiting for him, at least until his next stroke of serendipity.

MEDIA MAVEN

Greenberg had barely left MLB when New York Mets owner Fred Wilpon called with a job offer.

“He did a great job with baseball. Frankly, at that time, I wanted him to come in and … run the business aspect of the Mets,” Wilpon said. “Maybe if I caught him a couple of years before that, I might have got him. He would’ve been a great addition.”

Greenberg was interested; the Mets were his favorite team as a teenager, and Wilpon was a friend. But while considering the offer, Greenberg was also invited to lunch by Brian Bedol, a television executive with plans to launch a network full of historical sports broadcasts.

The idea had been sparked by Bedol’s work on the business plan for Nickelodeon’s “Nick at Nite” programming, initially comprising syndicated shows that first aired years prior. Bedol knew he was on to something when he witnessed a group of entertainment executives crying at a replay of gymnast Mary Lou Retton’s gold medal win at the 1984 Olympics. He just needed a lawyer.

“I had a friend who told me he had a friend who had a cousin who was a sports rights attorney,” Bedol said. “I had no idea Steve was deputy commissioner of baseball.”

The lunch lasted several hours. Bedol hadn’t planned on having a business partner, but he went home that night knowing he’d found one. He and Greenberg acknowledge today that they had no idea what they were getting themselves into by launching Classic Sports Network.

The partners’ first challenge was to raise seed capital. They struck out time and again until Vincent introduced Greenberg to Herbert Allen. Allen had coincidentally played tennis with Greenberg’s father over the years, and he took a keen interest in the 46-year-old entrepreneur.

“Steve impressed me, and that was about it,” Allen said. “I didn’t know much about classic sports. He was more than willing to tell me, but that wasn’t my interest. My interest was in him.”

Allen wouldn’t even look at a business plan, merely asking that the partners spend his money only on the acquisition of content. He agreed for Allen & Co. to make a $2 million investment.

“And he then said, ‘Call my CFO and tell him where to wire the funds,’” Greenberg remembered. “I said, ‘We don’t have a bank account. I’ll get back to you on that.’”

Bedol also laughs when he remembers that CFO seeking one other piece of information: What percentage of the company would Allen & Co. get for its investment?

“We had a bunch of investors who kept saying, ‘If you have a lead investor, then we will come along.’ When we called these investors back and said Allen & Co. is going to become our lead investor, they of course assumed that Allen & Co. would’ve done due diligence,” Bedol said. “Little did they know that, at the time, Allen & Co.’s CFO is calling to ask, ‘How much did we get for our money?’”

With Allen on board, the partners were able to raise another $4 million within a week. They’d later raise a further $30 million across two rounds from investors including Wayne Huizenga and Warburg Pincus.

“He’s so natural in what he does. It’s almost as if it’s effortless for him to execute. And he has so many friends in business that trust him so thoroughly.”

—  Herbert Allen Jr., former president and CEO, Allen & Co., on hiring Greenberg

Thanks to his time in baseball, Greenberg had a keen understanding of the landscape and was able to license around 200 hours of MLB footage for $500,000. He and Bedol later secured similar deals for the NBA, NHL and NFL, as well as the rights to boxing manager Bill Cayton’s famed library of historical boxing footage.

Still, Greenberg likens running the upstart Classic Sports Network to “being in the middle of a hurricane in the ocean in a rowboat.” The partners had to crisscross the nation selling to small, regional cable operators, to say nothing of fending off Time Warner’s Fred Dressler, who sought to launch a competitor.

But they found success by employing superstar athletes in exchange for equity, and ultimately in finding a buyer in ESPN. The sports media giant had twice declined opportunities to invest in or acquire Classic Sports Network. That changed when The Wall Street Journal reported that ESPN rival Fox was close to buying the business.

ESPN jumped into the fray and ultimately acquired the company in 1997 for $175 million. It had around 6 million subscribers and was generating less than $15 million in revenue between advertising and affiliate fees. Within a year, the newly rebranded ESPN Classic had grown to around 50 million subscribers. Though few at the time had believed in Bedol and Greenberg’s vision for a network of what some derisively called “used sports,” their network became an ESPN mainstay for years and was on the air until 2021.

“[Greenberg] is visionary. He’s good at seeing around corners to what’s next,” said NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman. “Classic was a great example of that.”

Bedol and Greenberg initially stayed on to guide the newly formed ESPN Classic, but Greenberg chafed at the bureaucracy at ESPN. He never visited the network’s headquarters in Bristol, Conn., and skipped a training day at Disney World, despite both being required by the company. Bedol recalls Greenberg planning to quit just weeks before they got their final payout.

“Steve is the most patient person in the world, until he isn’t,” Bedol said. “Fortunately, I think I talked him out of [quitting]. We had so much fun together, and I just can’t tell you how much I learned from him.”

A MATTER OF TRUST

Bedol and Greenberg later launched College Sports Television alongside media executive Chris Bevilacqua, but Greenberg, harrowed by his first experience as a cable entrepreneur, took the relatively hands-off role of chairman.

Allen & Co. backed that new initiative, which was eventually acquired by CBS. And when Herbert Allen learned Greenberg wasn’t going to be involved on a day-to-day basis, he offered him a job. As Greenberg recalls it, the proposed role was simple enough: “We’ll give you a desk and a phone, and you’ll figure it out.”

Today, Allen says he knew hiring Greenberg was the right decision almost immediately.

“Just having somebody like that around is a great value. You don’t measure it in dollars and cents; it may come out that way, but it’s not how it begins,” Allen said. “He’s so natural in what he does. It’s almost as if it’s effortless for him to execute. And he has so many friends in business that trust him so thoroughly.”

Greenberg’s first act of business was to mail letters to several dozen contacts to let them know about his new job as an investment banker. His first reply was from Wilpon. Then a 50% owner of the Mets, Wilpon was buying out partner Nelson Doubleday and wanted Greenberg to lead the effort. Wilpon ultimately secured control of the team for $195 million.

Greenberg later consulted with Wilpon on the launch of SNY, the naming-rights deal for Citi Field, a minority capital raise and the sale of the team to Steve Cohen in 2020 for $2.4 billion, then a record value for an MLB team. Late last year, Greenberg helped sell the Wilpon family’s last 5% stake in the Mets. Wilpon said he’s never turned to anyone else on sports deal work.

“Steve was not just a broker. He was a confidant. He still is, to this day, a confidant of mine. If I had anything to do with sports, we would always discuss it,” Wilpon said. “I don’t know anybody who doesn’t trust him. The commissioners all trust him. He’s that kind of guy. If Steve is working for you on a deal, you’re sure there are no loose lips.”

Those sorts of close relationships proved vital as Greenberg formalized Allen & Co.’s sports practice, among the first to specialize in the industry.

Career investment banker Terry Morris had already been at Allen & Co. for around seven years when Greenberg arrived. He remembers the moment as a signal that the sports industry was turning from mom-and-pop to big business. Morris, who played hockey at Princeton, was excited by the prospect. He and Greenberg immediately clicked, plus his analytical chops were a perfect fit for Greenberg’s sports background and network.

“He had so much experience as an entrepreneur that he really hit the ground running,” Morris said. “There were opportunities for him to help teams and add value immediately.”

In the early going, those opportunities were often focused on local media. Allen & Co. had represented the Nets in the creation of YES Network in 2002, and in 2004 Greenberg helped structure Comcast SportsNet Chicago, a landmark RSN deal for the quartet of Bulls, Blackhawks, Cubs and White Sox. Morris says the creation of SNY, the joint venture between the Mets, Comcast and Time Warner that went live two years later in 2006, was a clear turning point for the young sports practice.

“It became obvious that more than just the Mets could do that. Steve had created a unique way of thinking about starting your own network, not in opposition to but in partnership with the media companies,” said Morris, reflecting on the opportunity to develop local media rights for teams across MLB, the NBA and NHL. “There are 90-plus teams that should be, or could be, thinking about the world in the same way that the Mets were thinking about the world, and there was a lot of value to be created.”

Greenberg and Allen & Co. became a go-to resource for teams launching or partnering on regional sports networks. Just within baseball, Greenberg advised on local media deals for the Angels, Brewers, Cardinals, Rays, Tigers and Twins.

“I just know that it seemed like every time a media deal got made, Steve Greenberg was involved,” said Reinsdorf. Former MLB Commissioner Bud Selig noted that Greenberg has long been his first call on anything related to media: “I thought he knew more about the television sports business than any other human being I’d known. That’s true to this day.”

No wonder, then, that former Big Ten Commissioner Jim Delany turned to Greenberg when he began pursuing the launch of a conference-specific network.

“If I remember right, I think it was a Comcast guy who said, ‘Whenever you see Steve coming, you need to hold on to your wallet,’” Delany remembered. “Because he’d led a number of important breakthroughs in this area.”

Greenberg worked with the Big Ten to structure its new network, and he led efforts to find a strategic partner that would share both risk and upside with the conference. He struck out with Comcast and Time Warner. After they passed, Greenberg found a willing partner in Fox. Delany said Fox’s commitment was vital to the Big Ten Network’s success.

“I thought if somebody could do this, we could. But I didn’t have the experience to connect all the dots on the distribution side,” Delany said.

But while Greenberg says those media deals “kept the doors open” in his division’s early years, he’s probably best known today as the consigliere tasked with selling the industry’s most valuable teams.

“Steve and Allen & Co. played a really important role in the development of the RSN model. That RSN model fueled a lot of growth in the industry,” MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred said. “They also did great service to the industry in terms of franchise sales and valuations that were significant in terms of asset appreciation.”

Baseball was an early focus, with Greenberg overseeing ownership transactions for the Astros, Braves, Brewers and Reds. He advised on the acquisitions of the Buffalo Bills and Milwaukee Bucks in 2014, and the sale of the Carolina Hurricanes in 2018. Now with nearly 25 years of investment banking experience under his belt, Greenberg and his team at Allen & Co., comprising Morris and Michael Melnitzky, are almost the de facto sell-side advisers for the nation’s most valuable sports teams.

In the last eight years, Greenberg managed the sales of the Mets to Cohen; the Pittsburgh Penguins to the Hoffman family for $1.7 billion; the Carolina Panthers to David Tepper for nearly $2.3 billion; the Brooklyn Nets and Barclays Center to Joe Tsai for $3.3 billion; and the Denver Broncos to a group led by Rob Walton for $4.65 billion. Each of those deals set a transaction value record in its respective league, if not across all sports. The Seahawks are likely next to claim that title.

“There’s a truly, truly amazing thing where he’s an adviser that people view as a principal,” Melnitzky said of his mentor. “Literally, there was a deal where we were selling a team for a record price, and the other side started calling him Uncle Stevie. He was viewed above the fray; he’s viewed as the arbiter, the final voice in the room, even if he’s not representing the other side.”

A little over a decade ago, Greenberg was once again presented with a new job opportunity that would allow him to redirect the course of sports business history. Selig was preparing to step down as MLB’s commissioner, and Greenberg’s reputation, relationships and track record in baseball made him a natural fit for the league’s top job.

But when Selig suggested as much to Greenberg, he didn’t consider it for a second.

“At that point, I’d been at Allen & Co. for a number of years, and I knew this is where I wanted to be and had no interest in doing anything else, whether it was in baseball or otherwise,” Greenberg said. Nearly everyone interviewed for this story, from baseball team owners Reinsdorf and Wilpon to MLB commissioners Selig and Manfred, said Greenberg would have been great at the job. But his disinterest didn’t come as a surprise to those closest to him.

“From lawyer to entrepreneur to investment banker to selling teams and doing media deals, he was never one striving to be in the limelight. He was never driven by the pursuit of money,” Tellem reflected.

Indeed, Greenberg dismisses the notion of his legacy. He remembers listening to Ted Williams recount a “majestic” Hank Greenberg home run, but noted his father wouldn’t reminisce.

“I’ve heard enough about my dad, but my dad was a humble guy. It was not false modesty, because he knew how great he was as a player, but he never talked about it or talked about his legacy,” said Greenberg. “Maybe I learned it from him, but I don’t take myself too seriously. I can put on the senior adviser face when I have to, when it’s helpful to pretend like I’m a serious person, but I don’t think about legacy. Except with my family: Hopefully my kids and grandkids will learn something from me.”

The Brewers are bringing a premium membership experience to American Family Field.

The team is currently building a two-story, indoor-outdoor, all-inclusive space adjacent to the ballpark called The Truss Club. It will be available to fans on Opening Day 2027.

The Truss Club will be available for the 380 ticketholders in the first six rows of seats behind homeplate. It is available for both full-season and half-season ticket packages. Tickets range from $245-$450 per seat per game.

The club features upscale food options and traditional ballpark fare, specialty cocktails, personalized retail, storage lockers, valet parking, a private entrance and both open and enclosed patio spaces. Fans will also be able to utilize in-seat service, as the space is not directly behind homeplate.

The Brewers will be the second-to-last team to open this type of space. The A’s will be the final team, having announced their Dugout Clubs premium experience on Friday ahead of their 2028 move to their Las Vegas ballpark.

Brewers COO Marti Wronski said the project was the result of fan surveys and looking at premium spaces at other ballparks and arenas.

The Truss Club is named for the steel green trusses that support the retractable roof at AmFam Field. Wronski said it may remain that way without a sponsor.

The space can be rented by the public for events on non-gamedays.

The final cost of the project was TBD, Wronski said. It was done in concert with the team’s stadium district landlord. Hunzinger Construction is the general contractor, with Ramlow/Stein the main architect. Strategy and design firm Canopy also worked on the project.

The team is also doing a two-phase UW Credit Union Plaza project on the eastern side of the stadium, which will be completely open to the public.

Phase I, which is slated to open for the Cubs series later this month, will feature a beer garden, stage for live music, a massive cow play structure for kids and a six-hole mini-golf course.

Phase II, which will open for the 2027 season, is the building of a permanent, two-story F&B structure with a bar area and bar food such as pretzels and brats.

EuroLeague has held exploratory talks with startup Project B about a potential collaboration, both sides confirmed this week, although the details remain preliminary and vague.

In an interview with EuroHoops published Friday, EuroLeague CEO Chus Bueno said he once considered investing in Project B — the touring unisex international league slated to launch in January of 2027 — and that the women’s portion of the venture holds particular intrigue.

“Every time I have internal meetings with other people, there’s always someone who is asking me, ‘When are we going to do the women’s league?’ Fair question --women’s sports are growing,’’ Bueno told EuroHoops. ”And at the same time, we had the opportunity to talk with Project B, because they were also doing this with women. And before the Euroleague, I was advising an investment fund, and I was thinking about investing in Project B. And you can see how women’s sport is growing. It’s clearly an opportunity that we should definitely explore.’’

Asked to respond to Bueno’s comments, Project B Co-Founder and COO Grady Burnett told SBJ via email: “Chus is a friend. We have tremendous respect for the EuroLeague and its history and traditions that make European basketball so special.”

With EuroLeague at a crossroads in its men’s negotiations with NBA Europe —as discussions of a merger ramp up this coming week — the Project B sidebar illuminates EuroLeague’s desire to expand its business. Project B is scheduled to be an F1 style league, with seven separate 10-day tournaments across Europe, Asia and North or South America between January and mid-April. It already has several marquee WNBA players (such as WNBPA President Nneka Ogwumike, Alyssa Thomas, Kelsey Mitchell, Jonquel Jones, Jewell Loyd and Sophie Cunningham) and is cognizant that under the W’s new collective bargaining agreement, W players are required to report to their teams by mid-April.

“We’re not worried,’’ Burnett said, when asked about the new WNBA bylaw. “We’ve got a schedule that works and a strong partnership with the players that we feel good about.’’

But if EuroLeague ends up merging with NBA Europe and subsequently partners with Project B, the possibilities grow. Although it is pure speculation now, the NBA has previously mentioned a down-the-road idea of a European women’s league. So the thought of Project B partnering with EuroLeague and ending up – in some form -- as WNBA Europe or WNBA Global is not a preposterous outcome.

As of now, the reality is that FIBA already runs an international league that bears EuroLeague’s name: FIBA EuroLeague Women. It runs from October through mid-April and does not conflict with the WNBA schedule, either. Bueno, for his part, told EuroHoops that while he has had no direct conversations with FIBA about a new league, he will examine the entire European women’s basketball landscape.

“The Euroleague women’s competition is already done by FIBA. But if we can help or we can take a fresh look at this, why not?’’ he said.

Sportradar has a new multiyear deal with Kalshi to provide the prediction market platform with official sports data/live odds; fan engagement and customer acquisition solutions; and integrity services for its markets around several prominent leagues. The deal also extends those services to Kalshi brokers and market makers. Financial terms were not disclosed.

The deal will include content and services encompassing MLB, MLS, UFC and the NHL, each of which have data rights agreements with Sportradar and have recently struck marketing deals with prediction markets (MLB, MLS and UFC with Polymarket; NHL with both Polymarket and Kalshi). One notable omission is the NBA, which, according to Commissioner Adam Silver, is still monitoring the prediction market space. Sportradar declined to comment on talks with its league partners and why some are or are not included in the Kalshi deal.

The outline of the Kalshi deal mirrors Sportradar’s work with online sportsbooks like DraftKings and FanDuel, which relies on the data and oddsmaking/integrity monitoring services of data companies like Sportradar and Genius Sports to operate in jurisdictions they are licensed to do so. This is Sportradar’s first such agreement with a prediction market, but Sportradar CEO Carsten Koerl said in prepared remarks: “We look forward to working with key prediction market participants as the landscape matures, establishing the trusted, compliant framework for sports innovation just as we have successfully delivered in online sports betting.”

As of this writing, Sportradar’s stock had jumped 8.8% on Monday in the wake of the news.

Today’s arenas are no longer simply places to watch games. They are live commercial environments built to connect fans, reduce friction, and convert real-world moments into measurable outcomes. The current business opportunity lies in generating revenue from direct connections with fans and from unique experiences at venues, enhancing those relationships.

First-Party Data Is the Revenue Engine

Venue technology was once framed as infrastructure. Better Wi-Fi, cleaner ticketing, faster points of sale, and more capable screens were operational improvements. They still are, but now they also support something more valuable: a direct, measurable relationship with fans.

That relationship is built across the full venue journey, from ticket purchase and wallet pass to app login, gate entry, concession ordering, merchandise purchases, and post-event follow-up. Together, those touchpoints create a first-party identity layer that can support sponsorship, personalization, loyalty, and measurement.

The revenue strategy is simple. Do not sell the data. Monetize the outcomes it makes possible.

That is why venues are increasingly resembling retail media networks, controlling screens, apps, email, digital passes, and much of the point-of-sale environment. Sponsors now want more than logo placement. They want evidence that campaigns lead to sales, engagement, or repeat visits. First-party data enables venues to provide this measurement without relying on fading third-party signals.

Useful Moments Are the New Sponsor Inventory

The most valuable stadium inventory in 2026 is often a useful moment that the fan already appreciates.

A fast lane at entry. A prompt that directs a guest to the shortest concession line. An in-app reminder tied to seat location. A replay moment that appears at exactly the right time. A limited offer is delivered when a fan is most likely to act. A postgame message that helps people leave faster. These experiences feel like service, but they also function as monetizable inventory when they are well designed and tied to outcomes.

This is where sponsorship is heading. Brands want measurable utility, not to be simply present. A “presented by” message attached to a feature that helps the fan is more valuable than cluttered signage that fades into the background. The venue gains a stronger commercial story by tying sponsor activation to behavior, conversion, and repeat engagement.

The key is that the content must remain useful. Fans tolerate advertising. They appreciate convenience. The best activations are embedded inside moments that already matter, not bolted on in a way that interrupts the experience.

Monetization Only Works if Governance Is Built In

As a lawyer specializing in innovative technology, I see the same mistake repeatedly. The business team gets excited about the activation, the sponsor deliverable, or the new feature, and only later asks what data is being collected, where it is going, which permissions are required, whether the use was actually disclosed, and whether the model still works if the fan says no.

Those questions have to come first.

If monetization relies on app behavior, device IDs, ticketing, location, purchase history, analytics, or biometrics, the venue needs a complete map of required, optional, and consent-based data. This analysis must be integrated into product design, permissions, signage, vendor setups, and agreements; not just left in a privacy notice.

Biometrics deserve special care because they sit directly at the intersection of convenience and legal exposure. Biometric entry can be attractive as a premium feature, but it should be treated as a tightly governed, clearly optional experience. Fans need a real alternative. Retention periods should be narrow. Secondary use should be limited. Vendor controls should be strict.

AI Governance Is Now Part of the Venue Business Model

The most useful AI in a venue is not the novelty chatbot. It is the system that helps route offers, supports operations, adapts creative, predicts congestion, or determines which message appears on which screen at which moment. In other words, AI is becoming part of the monetization engine.

That creates real governance questions. What data is the model allowed to use? Are outputs logged? Who reviews sponsor-facing or fan-facing content? Could the system produce biased results in pricing, promotion sequencing, fraud screening, ID checks, or access decisions?

The best legal advice is to keep the model narrow. Use approved data sources. Log outputs. Test workflows. Require human review when pricing, brand safety, security, or other high-consequence issues are involved.

Contracts Decide Whether the Model Holds

Most venue technology failures are not caused by the hardware. They are caused by weak governance in the contract.

If first-party data and in-venue moments are part of the revenue model, the agreements with app vendors, analytics providers, ad tech partners, point-of-sale companies, biometric vendors, and AI providers need to answer the hard questions directly. Who owns the data? What uses are permitted? Can the vendor train on it? How long can it be retained? What deletion support is required? What happens after an incident? What cooperation is required if a regulator, plaintiff, or sponsor starts asking questions?

The future stadium revenue model goes beyond sponsorship and signage. It relies on consented first-party data and meaningful, measurable sponsored moments that fans value.

The operators that will win are not the ones that collect the most data or deploy the flashiest tools. Winning operators focus on useful moments, clear data use, disciplined vendors, and governance built in from the start.

A smart venue in 2026 is defined by four key elements: generating measurable value from first-party data, embedding monetized sponsor utility amid moments fans already value, ensuring robust governance for privacy and AI, and using clear contracts to protect the business model. Monetizable, measurable, and well-governed venues keep the upside without creating unnecessary liabilities.

Aaron K. Tantleff is a partner in Foley and Lardner’s Technology Transactions, Cybersecurity, and Privacy; and the Environmental, Social, and Corporate Governance (ESG) practice groups.

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