Tom Friend

The Spurs are beginning to vet potential business partners in France, and potentially throughout Europe, in the wake of the selecting 19-year-old Paris-native Victor Wembanyama No. 1 overall in Thursday’s draft. The NBA’s International Team Marketing Program allows each franchise to acquire up to 10 global partnerships,...

ESPN has obtained the broadcast rights to this summer’s FIBA World Cup 2023, SBJ has learned. Each of the tournament’s 92 games to be played in the Philippines, Japan and Indonesia will be available on the ESPN App or across ESPN+ and ESPN2. According to sources, FIBA made it a...

The original idea behind Bo Han’s mobile streaming app Buzzer was to never miss a seminal moment in sports. He certainly hasn’t missed his. After immigrating at the age of 3 from South Korea to Nashville, Han remembers being “an Asian kid living in the...

In the first 48 hours after selecting Victor Wembanyama No. 1 overall in the NBA Draft on Thursday, the Spurs have already seen a 3,000% increase year-over-year in online traffic and sales, their COO Brandon Gayle told SBJ Saturday. On May 16th, the...

Ticket management firm Project Admission has now added six sports franchises to its burgeoning client base since January and, in the process, has received a $3.2 million seed round led by Flyover Capital. The NFL’s Tennessee Titans and Washington Commanders along with the USL’s New Mexico United, Charleston...

The Oklahoma softball team’s best games are usually in private. In public, with everybody’s eyeballs on them, they’ve just won 53 straight and three consecutive College World Series titles. But inside their sacred batting cages in Norman, optical and radar-based Rapsodo has helped them create a...

Considering the NBA Draft is now part selection show-part fashion show, ESPN will utilize a high-end 360-degree camera during an hour-long red carpet special ahead of Thursday night’s extravaganza. According to the network’s Senior VP of Production Mike Shiffman, the designer camera will capture "unique imagery...

The Atlanta Braves will utilize TicketManager’s proprietary software to help its corporate partners, premium ticket and suite holders and A-List season ticket members better coordinate their ticketing inventory. All of the Braves' corporate partners will benefit from the deal at no cost to them. Those partners will be able...

If the NBA draft has turned into a fashion show -- and look no further than the red carpet outside Barclays Center -- tonight's crop of rookies has got game. Nine of the expected draftees, and possibly as many as two lottery picks, will be wearing made-to-measure...

ESPN is producing two disparate broadcasts for tonight’s NBA Draft -- one on its own network and one on ABC -- that will purposely appeal to opposite audiences. For hard core NBA fans who want "X’s and O’s" or draft pick and team analysis, ESPN execs are suggesting they tune...