Tonight in Unpacks: Shinnecock Hills’ location on Long Island can create traffic snarls. The USGA took steps to mitigate that for this year’s U.S. Open, but SBJ’s Josh Carpenter learned Tuesday these so far aren’t quite sufficient ... two days before the tournament tees off.
Also tonight:
- Brands joining LA28 rush will face competition, complex ecosystem
- Home Depot using novel World Cup sponsorship to reach soccer fans
- Fox keeps building streaming future with Roku deal
- Op-ed: Facility security, from crisis to continuity
Listen to SBJ’s most popular podcast, Morning Buzzcast, where Abe Madkour notes that the Knicks are the biggest feel-good story in some time in sports, premium hospitality being en vogue at this week’s U.S. Open, Michigan State’s Tom Izzo taking the school’s board members to task and more.
U.S. Open 2026 notebook: Shinnecock Hills traffic, Rory McIlroy’s remarks and more

SOUTHAMPTON, N.Y. — The U.S. Open is less than two days away at Shinnecock Hills on Long Island. These are a handful of storylines heading into Wednesday.
Traffic concerns
Any U.S. Open at Shinnecock Hills is going to raise travel concerns due to the club’s remote location on Long Island, and this week is no different. Shuttle buses from the two media hotels in Riverhead -- 12 miles from Shinnecock -- took over 100 minutes early Tuesday morning, even with a dedicated shuttle lane.
The USGA is intentionally capping attendance this week at a lower number than in recent years, with around 155,000 people expected on site through Sunday.
Whan’s agenda
USGA CEO Mike Whan will make his annual address to the media Wednesday morning. Possible topics for Whan? Expect plenty of comments and questions about the golf ball rollback, as well as the PGA Tour’s changes and how they will impact the USGA.
Kevin Hammer, the new president of the USGA, also should be on hand for the first time after being elected in February.
McIlroy’s tour take
Rory McIlroy created a stir Tuesday when he called out the PGA Tour’s plan for its 2028 remake, saying the proposed Track 2 tournaments would be “glorified Korn Ferry” tournaments. McIlroy, a former member of the PGA Tour Policy Board, said he felt change was needed initially to stave off the LIV Golf threat, but he also believed the tour’s pre-LIV product was in a good position.
“As they’ve done all this work, you start to realize that the way the tour was before LIV came along was actually pretty good,” he said. “It was a pretty good structure, and everything sort of worked pretty well.”
Lerner’s new book
Longtime Golf Channel anchor Rich Lerner has released his new book, “Aren’t You That Golf Guy? Doglegs and Detours from a Life in the Game.” The book has an array of Lerner’s experiences over his nearly 30 years at the network, from Tiger Woods to Phil Mickelson to Shaun Micheel.
“My friends got tired of hearing me tell these stories -- it was like, ‘Let’s get ’em in a book,’” Lerner said Tuesday. “This is not Rich on the desk. This is Rich in the compound, Rich bullshitting with his buddies, Rich cutting it loose.”
Buying the Games: Brands joining the LA28 rush will face competition, complex ecosystem

Sensing the opportunity ahead in LA28 is the easy part. The first domestic Olympic and Paralympics in a generation offer a chance for brands looking to gain from the halo effect of the largest sporting event in history.
Figuring out where to get in, though, can seem about as clear as the alphabet soup of acronyms that represent the organizations making up the movement. From TOP to OCOG to IFs to NGBs and beyond, those sponsorship opportunities can generate significant rewards for brands that can ably and nimbly navigate one of the most complicated sports events on the planet.
For those not already invested, the next two years before the Olympics open in July 2028 will trigger decision points on how to have an association with the Games.
“Everyone knows it’s a hard area to break into, but I think there’s almost confusion between hard and impossible, or that nuance around that there are so many layers to this ecosystem,” said Cosette Chaput, co-founder of talent agency Always Alpha. “The acronyms, the layers, fear of [intellectual property] infringement create a perception of, ‘Is this even possible?’ And what we’re trying to educate is, ‘Yes, it is. You need to be strategic and you need to be nuanced, but also that’s in the lane of why you should start early.’”
Some brands already have. The Olympic Partner Program, or TOP, counts 12 global sponsors, including JPMorgan Chase after it signed on in May. U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Properties, the joint venture between the LA28 organizing committee (OCOG) and the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee, has crossed more than $2 billion in sponsorship sales.
The addition of blue-chip brands, including Google, Starbucks, Honda and Intuit, continues a run of adding 18 sponsors since the beginning of 2025.
At much more accessible price points than the eight- and nine-figure barriers at those levels, thousands of opportunities exist with international federations (IFs — 36 for the Summer Games); national Olympic committees (NOCs — 206 total); national Paralympic committees (NPCs — 185 total); and national governing bodies (NGBs — 39 in the United States for the Summer Games) that make up the rest of the ecosystem.
“As a marketer, it’s one of the grandest stages you could ever hope for in your career in which to do business,” said Dave Mingey, who spent seven years as head of commercial partnerships for USOPP before leaving this spring to launch Onboard Sports Advisory. “However, it’s one of the most pressure-filled and scrutinized environments, particularly from your own company. And no place is that more true than when the Games happen in the U.S. for an American company.”
Sports Business Journal set out to demystify the process and break down where opportunities lie to get in on LA28, regardless of the budget and priorities.

LA28 DEMAND
LA28’s demand will come in part due to the market and in part due to its pure mass.
With organizers adding five sports to the Games, the program has grown to 36 sports and more than 11,000 athletes, both records. The Paralympics will have nearly 4,500 athletes, also a record. Collectively, LA28 organizers will put on more than 800 events across a month of competition in 49 venues, where they expect to sell around 15 million tickets.
“Notwithstanding the odd headline here and there, there’s a pretty high degree of confidence that it’s going to be an absolutely magical, incredible event and experience in the way that LA ’84 was,” said Michael Payne, a former longtime marketing director for the IOC.
Put that in a U.S. commercial market, and the appeal is clear.
For those around the Games, LA28 has represented a mobilization unprecedented in recent memory. SBJ spoke to more than a dozen stakeholders selling or buying in the movement — from global rights down to agents brokering athlete deals — and found planning has been both earlier and more widespread than in previous Games.
“There isn’t a CMO in America that hasn’t thought about it, and that’s unique,” said Peter Carlisle, managing director of Olympics at Octagon.
USA Swimming COO Jake Grosser said the organization has added around eight figures of revenue for the quadrennium in the past six months, with the potential around Los Angeles driving some of that. USA Fencing CEO Phil Andrews said the NGB has seen increased interest from brands already sponsoring in the movement and those realizing they want to do more around the Games.
“Overall, it’s been a boon to our ability to open doors,” Andrews said.
“It takes a bit of aggression to go out there and do it as well. Because most brands think, ‘I would like to partner with the Olympics,’ and they think that’s one organization.”

WHERE AND HOW TO BUY
Indeed, it’s far from it. Instead, the Olympic and Paralympic movement includes organizations ranging from those with global reach to those managing down to the grassroots level in their respective countries.
Where a brand fits in is primarily determined by its objectives, reach and, to a very large degree, budget.
At the highest level, TOP sponsors are long-term investors in the Games, signing deals that average around $200 million per quadrennium and usually span eight to 10 years. The program has existed for four decades and features powerhouse global brands, including five American ones: Airbnb, Coca-Cola, JPMorgan Chase, P&G and Visa.
“If you are a global brand that has global ambitions, certainly joining the TOP program is the most efficient way for you to be able to benefit from an association with the Olympic movement as a whole,” said Anne-Sophie Voumard, managing director of IOC Television & Marketing Services. “It’s wide and it’s deep and it’s not very difficult because there’s a one-stop shop with the IOC that actually unlocks all those opportunities at the domestic level.”
Those opportunities are with 206 NOCs around the world and future organizing committees, offering a reach beyond almost any other sponsorship.
Unlike many, however, it does not come with the traditional assets many marketers are accustomed to. The IOC has for years had a clean venue policy, meaning signage or branding options are not on the table despite the steep price tag.
“A lot of what you get when you partner with the Olympics, much of that is intellectual property,” said Michael Lynch, the former head of global sponsorship at Visa and now a consultant. “You’re getting the power of those five rings. You’re getting all these wonderful attributes that the rings stand for to build your business.”
In recent years, the IOC has acceded to more sponsor integration and maintained a clean field of play. For LA28, it’s piloting a program to allow organizers to sell naming rights to some venues, one which helped bring in Honda and Intuit as sponsors.
“When a brand is seriously considering the Olympics, they probably have an idea of what is available, and there is no branding or limited branding,” said Ricardo Fort, founder of Sport by Fort Consulting and a former longtime Visa and Coca-Cola executive. “What they usually struggle with is just understanding how they can differentiate themselves without the tools of a traditional sponsorship.
“The brands that do best, they have something which is very unique to them.”
For brands with a more domestic focus or looking to reach a U.S. market, a USOPP might be the best way to leverage that. LA28 sponsors have use of the organizing committee IP — including the Olympic and Paralympic logos, the rings and agitos — as well as a range of assets, depending on which of the three tiers of sponsorship.
LA28’s commercial rights are also packaged with Team USA rights, meaning domestic sponsors can leverage those assets. Delta, for example, signed as one of LA28’s earliest sponsors and has utilized Team USA assets in recent Games.
“You have this incredibly large consumer base and the most important commercial market in the world that presents a lot of opportunity for brands that want to talk more stars and stripes than palm trees and beaches,” said Mingey.
As LA28’s commercial momentum picked up after the Paris Games two years ago, categories have been filled. USOPP has categories available or is in talks in many, including consumer packaged goods, retail, quick service restaurants, energy, logistics and aerospace and defense.
Danny Koblin, COO at USOPP, said several more announcements are expected this year and it will continue selling through the Games.
“We’re going to talk to every single brand within every single category,” Koblin said. “And if you’re a brand that’s in a highly competitive category — which every single category is — and you aren’t in, we can guarantee you that your competitor is going to be in. So yes, there is a big amount of FOMO here, and I think it’s really important for brands to understand that time is of the essence.”

FINDING THE BEST INROADS
If time is, so is scale. While official sponsors at the highest levels offer access and activation during the Games that is limited elsewhere, they are far from the only entry points.
How much mileage brands can get at the lower levels usually depends on some creativity and a deep understanding of where those organizations fit in the ecosystem.
“L.A. is really designed more for big players with bigger budgets,” said Jan Katzoff, longtime sports marketing executive and former head of global sports and entertainment consulting at GMR.
For those without that, NGB and athlete deals offer a more affordable way to gain proximity to the Games.
With their own events and assets to leverage on a yearly basis, NGBs can give an alternative way in with time for consumers to build an affiliation between a brand and sport before the LA28. While NGBs commonly sign official sponsors, they can add brand competitors in categories they have open.
Terms to know
TOP: The Olympic Partner program, which the International Olympic Committee has run since 1985 to sell global rights to brands.
USOPP: U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Properties, a joint venture between the LA28 organizing committee and the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee. The organization has sold sponsorship and commercial rights for the LA28 Games and Team USA since 2019.
OCOG: Organizing Committee of the Olympic Games
NOC: National Olympic Committee
IF: International federation
NGB: National governing body
“A smart Olympic marketer can take the NGB marks without the rings and run a campaign that would be just as relevant to the average consumer who didn’t know that they couldn’t really use the L.A. marks or the rings as sponsor of USA Basketball, for example,” said longtime Olympics marketer Terrence Burns.
Critically to some brands, most NGBs bring members. Led by USA Softball with 1 million, six NGBs have more than 300,000 members to whom brands can market directly. While others might have smaller databases, they offer an engaged and often affluent consumer base.
“That’s a unique aspect that’s so different than other sports,” said Ramsey Baker, senior vice president at Aggregate Sports, which represents four summer NGBs. “They have fans, but every sport has fans. They actually have the doers.”
That includes Olympians and Paralympians. While they sign their own deals for marketing rights, agreements with NGBs also can help unlock storytelling assets needed for a campaign.
And while signage isn’t an option during the Games, having brand visuals in coverage of previous competitions, nationals and trials leading up to the Games can be a side door into visibility on NBC during the Games.
“There’s more of that traditional sort of sponsorship with signage and entertainment and social media and all that kind of stuff that goes along with the NGBs to bring it to life,” Lynch said. “To go out and truly support an NGB and make a difference with an NGB, I’m all in on that. And it’s a great way to get your message out that you’re supporting the movement as well as supporting individual athletes.”
Ultimately, it points to a combination approach that has long been popular around the Games. Domestic sponsors often add deals with NGBs, as LA28 sponsor Saatva did with USA Track & Field earlier this month. TOP, domestic and NGB sponsors sign deals with athletes going into the Games.
“It is an ‘and’ scenario,” said Jessie Giordano, chief partnerships officer at GMR, which works with several TOP and LA28 sponsors. “We have our primary partnership and the supporting partnerships, whether that be NGBs, whether that be athletes.”
To be sure, those deals do come with restrictions.
The IOC’s Rule 40 limits athletes’ ability to use their image for advertising with non-official sponsors during the Games. Those brands can submit campaigns for approval prior to the Games or otherwise face a blackout that extends from about a week before them until just after.
“If you can do good enough storytelling in the lead-in and out of the blackout, then you actually do get a real benefit from that. And that is worth an investment,” said Circe Wallace, executive vice president of action and adventure sports, women’s sports and Olympic sports at The Team.
“If you’re a savvy brand and you’re looking for unique opportunities to market your brand outside of the Olympic complex, but draft off all of that energy, there are a lot of opportunities. It just requires some creative thinking and some dollars.”
That creative thinking extends further. As an eligibility restriction, Rule 40 applies only to competing athletes. Brands, official or otherwise, are free to use retired Olympians and Paralympians in their campaigns, and commonly do.
Brands also can find another way in — on athletes’ bodies. IOC rules allow logos of apparel and equipment manufacturers, albeit with size and style restrictions.
By the time the Games open, the smartest brands will have leveraged their association with an athlete or sport in the lead-up.
“When you roll into LA28, even though you’re not holding the rights to that, if you do this right, you can be integrated into that sport, and that entire sport and the market around that sport will equate you with it,” said Carlisle. “So you not only get the run-up, but you’re going to get this halo effect afterward.”
TIME IS NOW
For any brand that wants the shine of the Games, the clock is ticking.
Insiders expect an increased focus after the World Cup. For bigger deals at the TOP or LA28 level, the window is closing to leverage something of that size for a Games that opens in around 750 days.
“If you’re an existing partner, the focus right now is activation engagement and value extraction,” said Giordano. “If you are not yet in the ecosystem, then it becomes, ‘How are we going to take advantage of the cultural conversation we know is coming and identify entry points that allow us to accelerate quickly?’
“With every passing month, it lends itself towards athletes, it lends itself towards NGBs, it lends itself towards hospitality-only partnerships or whatever those more nimble entry points look like.”
Those nimble points can include a B2B play for hospitality. On Location, which has an exclusive agreement with the IOC and LA28 for hospitality within the Games footprint, has already begun selling packages for the Games.
“All some of these companies want do is just bring customers or partners to the Games,” said Katzoff. “That part is the easy answer. There’s plenty of that out there still. You can do that inside two years and build a really good program if that’s all you’re doing. I think for the other part of it, for an official partnership, it’s much more complicated.”
It can be. But with an opportunity as big as LA28 will present to an American market, CMOs can expect to hear from senior leadership on what they’re doing around an event as culturally relevant as the Games.
As they take time to assess and decide, categories will continue to fill up and assets will come off the board.
For brands looking for a way into LA28, one acronym might be more important than the myriad ones of the organizations in the movement — ASAP.
“There’s a million ways to get in the mix, and just because you’re not an official sponsor doesn’t mean you have to watch on the sidelines. Just do it now,” said Chaput. “The brands who move now are the ones who are going to see the ROI and are going to win.”
Click on bottom of graphic for additional viewing options.
Home Depot seeking to reach sponsor-receptive soccer fans through novel World Cup partnership

ATLANTA — “Skelly,” the 12-foot-tall skeleton Halloween decoration that Home Depot sells, is keeping goal in front of Home Depot’s “Beckham’s Backyard” activation at the FIFA Men’s World Cup Fan Festival in Centennial Park.
The lifeless, glowing eyes aside, Skelly represents the outsized effort Home Depot is putting behind its World Cup sponsorship, especially in its hometown of Atlanta. Home Depot is the World Cup’s Official Home Improvement Retail Supporter, which is the first time FIFA has sold that category, said Home Depot VP/Integrated Marketing Allison Kolber.
The sponsorship makes sense in one regard; Arthur Blank co-founded Home Depot and has become one of America’s biggest financial backers of soccer, whether it’s MLS, NWSL or the U.S. Soccer Federation.
And in another: A recent Nielsen report pegged soccer fans as the most receptive in sports; 73% find sponsors appealing, and 61% choose sponsor brands over rivals. Kolber expects at least several hundred thousand soccer fans to pass through the Atlanta Fan Festival activation.
“We’re trying to connect with the millennial homeowner that is less familiar with our brand. When someone really comes to Home Depot, for the most part, is when you buy your first home,” said Kolber, several hours after the Spain-Cabo Verde match at nearby Mercedes-Benz Stadium. “And also, our pro customer is 50% of our sales and they are soccer fans, through and through.”
The deal also appears novel in that FIFA allowed third-party brand pass-through, meaning, in this case, that Home Depot could highlight some of its brand partners, including Behr (paint) and Makita (tools), whose customer bases lined up with soccer’s fan base but aren’t official FIFA sponsors.
Home Depot is one of at least six brands that David Beckham is working with during the World Cup (you may have noticed his ubiquitous presence on World Cup match broadcasts), alongside FIFA sponsors Lenovo, adidas, Bank of America, Verizon and Pepsi. Beckham remains one of the most widely known soccer players in the U.S., recognizable by even non-soccer fans.
Beckham’s Backyard is a house -- built in a week by Octagon and its third-party vendors -- encompassing several activation stations, as well as a screen and patio where live World Cup matches can be viewed.
The Beckham’s Backyard houses are present at all the official FIFA Fan Festivals, as well as at the stadium fan experience in markets without an official fan festival. The house in each market reflects its city; the Philadelphia one, for example, is a brownstone.
The activations include:
- City Goals -- Fans assemble hexagonal tiles to collectively build city-specific murals that will be permanently installed at Home Depot stores after the World Cup.
- Build It Like Beckham -- A floral and plant build featuring locally sourced Home Depot flowers.
- Paint It Like A Pro, presented by Behr -- A competitive digital target practice game where fans kick soccer balls at certain wall targets and can walk away with a shareable piece of digital art.
- Fan Workshop, presented by Makita -- A hands-on station where fans decorate their own paper fans made from paint stirrers and other Home Depot materials.
“There was a lot of emphasis on shade,” Kolber said, noting the double entendre of “fan” on a muggy day in downtown Atlanta.
0 of 9
Fox steps up streaming game again with Roku deal

When it comes to streaming plans, Fox Corp. has long been the tortoise to the hare that was the rest of the media business. Legacy media players like Disney, Paramount, Warner Bros. Discovery and Comcast all raced to build out OTT platforms, while Fox sat on the sideline. Its strategy ended up being praised by Wall Street, as those other companies spent billions on customer acquisition with varying results.
Fast forward to the middle of 2026, and Fox is going full force into streaming. There was a robust effort behind Tubi and then the launch of the Fox One vMVPD service. The latest development came Monday, with Fox agreeing to acquire Roku in a deal valuing the streaming company at approximately $22 billion. Wall Street was less thrilled, as Fox’s stock dropped 15.2%.
Why this works for Fox
Guggenheim analyst Michael Morris in a note wrote that the deal, which is expected to close in the middle of 2027, “aligns complementary businesses” and will allow Fox to be “well positioned to drive future growth in both subscription and advertising businesses.” Morris believes the combined company will become the third-largest player in U.S. television by share of viewing, per the Nielsen Gauge.
Naveen Sarma, S&P Global Ratings’ managing director, feels Fox has long been ahead of the curve on its digital plays. “This is really interesting,” Sarma told SBJ. “[Fox is] getting into distribution and I’ve always thought [Roku is] an under-monetized platform. … They get to combine Roku and Tubi, so they get a much larger inventory and they get more power in terms of chasing advertising dollars.”
Roku Sports could not gain traction
A longtime media industry executive told SBJ that Roku Sports was not armed well enough to make a serious run at becoming a big player in sports. The platform acquired rights to smaller series like Formula E, NBA G League and X Games, and then even got a small package of MLB games. MLB terminated the Roku agreement as part of its three-year rights agreements with NBC, Netflix and ESPN (Peacock now has the Sunday morning package that Roku had).
As the media executive put it, Roku Sports can also be credited with upending the entire MLB media rights landscape. ESPN saw the $10 million that Roku was paying annually for game rights and then made a determination to exercise an out in its own “Sunday Night Baseball” deal, which it deemed too expensive based on numbers being paid out by Roku.
Where will Roku-Fox deal most impact sports?
Don’t expect Fox to immediately start putting Big Ten football and NFL games on Roku Channel once the deal closes. However, Fox has proven it can get creative with simulcasts on Tubi, which was deployed during events like the Super Bowl or the recent Mexico and USMNT World Cup openers. Whatever big event Fox Sports may be carrying, I’d anticipate some integration with the Roku City design to try and drive even more eyeballs to those events.
Where sports may feel the more immediate effects is with the distribution power that Fox gains from Roku devices. Morris noted Roku’s connected TV platform has more than 100 million global streaming households (heck, I have three TVs in my house with Roku as the landing page).
Apps like ESPN, Paramount+, NBA League Pass or MLB Extra Innings have been paying to be on the Roku service, and Fox will now control that distribution.
Facility security: From crisis to continuity
It’s not if, it’s when.
In live sports, leaders spend months planning for moments that fans hope never happen. The reality is that crises, security incidents, infrastructure failures, crowd disruptions or public safety emergencies are not theoretical risks. They are operational realities.
For executives responsible for stadiums, leagues, and global sporting events, the question isn’t whether something will go wrong. The question is whether the organization can maintain continuity when it does.
Continuity planning in sports is about protecting more than people and facilities. It is about safeguarding the game itself: the broadcast schedules, sponsorship commitments, fan experience, and the long-term reputation of a league or venue.
Recent sporting events have reinforced a simple truth: Resilience is built long before the gates open.
The UEFA Champions League Final: Logistics can threaten the game
Not every crisis is driven by violence. Sometimes it’s operational complexity.
At the 2022 UEFA Champions League Final at Stade de France in Paris, crowd congestion and ticket verification issues outside the stadium created dangerous conditions for thousands of fans attempting to enter the venue.
The match ultimately proceeded, but the delays and perimeter management failures led to a formal review by UEFA and prompted significant discussion across the sports industry about crowd management and venue readiness.
For sports leaders, the takeaway was immediate: Perimeter operations are more than logistics — they are continuity infrastructure.
When fan entry slows or stalls, the ripple effects extend quickly. Broadcast schedules are affected, sponsors lose visibility, and crowd frustration increases the risk of secondary incidents.
In response, event organizers across major football competitions have expanded outer perimeter screening zones, improved digital credentialing processes, and invested in more sophisticated crowd-flow analytics.
The lesson is clear. A stadium may hold 70,000 people, but the security footprint of a major sporting event begins far beyond the turnstiles.
The Super Bowl: Redundancy at scale
Large-scale events such as the Super Bowl operate under some of the most extensive security and contingency planning in global sports.
Designated as a National Special Security Event, the game involves coordination between federal agencies such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Department of Homeland Security alongside local law enforcement, venue operators, and league leadership.
What defines Super Bowl planning is redundancy.
Security leaders plan for overlapping contingencies across communications networks, power infrastructure, transportation systems, and crowd management operations. Multi-agency command centers allow leaders to make real-time decisions that protect both public safety and the continuity of the event itself.
This model of layered planning has increasingly become the standard for other global sporting events, including the NFL Draft and international series games.
The NFL Draft: Managing a moving city
In recent years, the NFL Draft has evolved into one of the largest fan events in sports.
Cities hosting the draft routinely see attendance exceeding half a million people across multiple days. In Nashville in 2019, the event drew roughly 600,000 attendees. Detroit’s 2024 draft surpassed that figure, transforming downtown infrastructure into a temporary festival environment.
Events at this scale require the same level of planning as a major international sporting event. Temporary venues, multiple stages, broadcast compounds, transportation routes and public gathering areas must all be secured and coordinated simultaneously.
As Cathy Lanier, chief security officer for the NFL, explained in a recent security leadership discussion, the pace and scale of modern events require constant vigilance.
“It’s always on,” she said. “You can’t let your guard down. We can do everything right and bad things can still happen.”
That mindset reflects a shift in how sports organizations approach risk. Security leaders are no longer preparing for a single-venue event. They are protecting complex, multiday operations that function like temporary cities.
Continuity is leadership
Across these examples, one theme emerges: The most resilient sporting events are built on strong leadership and coordination long before game day.
Continuity planning today includes:
- Unified command structures across agencies
- Integrated intelligence and communications systems
- Contingency planning for infrastructure and crowd flow
- Real-time decision authority at operational levels
These systems ensure that when disruptions occur, whether logistical or security-related, leaders can respond quickly while preserving the integrity of the event.
Preparing for the inevitable
Sports have always been defined by uncertainty on the field. Increasingly, leaders must manage uncertainty off it as well.
Crisis planning is about acknowledging reality: Large-scale events bring inherent risk.
The organizations that succeed are the ones that plan for disruption without allowing it to define the experience.
Because when the lights come on, the broadcast begins, and the crowd fills the stands, the expectation remains the same.
The game goes on.
Anna Reahl is managing director and co-founder of Arcus Group, specializing in temporary security perimeters. She has been managing large-scale events for the past 30 years in various roles, including 14 National Special Security Events (NSSEs), and co-hosts the podcast “Managing Your Perimeter.”
Speed reads
- Royal Canin has extended its partnership with Raiders QB Frank Mendoza through August after initially partnering with him from December 2025 through March, reports SBJ’s Mary Gaughan.
- The NBA Finals delivered growth across every key metric on X this year, with Game 4 delivering one of the biggest sports moments of the year to date on the social media platform, writes SBJ’s Austin Karp.
- The Race Team Alliance found its new chairman to try to propel the business of NASCAR’s top competitors, with former RCR president Torrey Galida elected to succeed the outgoing Rob Kauffman, notes SBJ’s Adam Stern.
- Juggernaut Capital Partners and retired soccer superstar Gareth Bale launched a sports-focused fund, reports SBJ’s Joe Lemire, and the goal is to raise more than $500 million but stay under $1 billion to retain maneuverability.









