Front Office Sports founder on the business of sport

·23 min·2 clips

Adam White reveals why fans now care more about athlete contracts and team valuations than game scores.

The episode begins by framing sports as a lucrative post-industrial business, focusing on off-field elements like agents and franchises. Host Cody introduces Adam White, founder and CEO of Front Office Sports, which is owned by Redbird Capital Partners and IMI. White defines Front Office Sports as a multimedia platform covering the business of sports, aiming to be the 'Wall Street Journal of Sports' with a financial ticker featuring companies like Nike and Adidas. He shares the origin story: it started in 2014 as a University of Miami class project involving 110 informational interviews. The platform has since grown to over a million cross-platform followers and a quarter-billion monthly social impressions, becoming the top sports publisher on LinkedIn. White discusses niche focus areas like finance, real estate, and emerging sports such as cricket and PFL. He highlights the learning arm, with Pepsi-underwritten courses that have attracted 40,000-50,000 participants. Events are expanding, with plans in Cannes, the Hamptons, and New York. The conversation shifts to media rights, particularly the NBA's deals with ESPN, Amazon, and NBC, and how they drive player contracts and team valuations. White identifies challenges in covering established leagues like the NFL but sees opportunities in women's sports and global markets. He analyzes the Middle East's potential, comparing it to Las Vegas's sports capital rise, and notes interest in where Middle Eastern capital invests. The business model is currently advertising-based, with goals to diversify into events and subscriptions. White emphasizes being commercially focused without advertiser influence. He shares personal sports preferences, including college football and Formula One, and notes influential readers like Mark Cuban. The episode concludes with thanks and production credits.

As heard by us

A focused look at how sports media turns fan interest into a wider business model.

Business Extra looks beyond scores and standings to the business engine behind professional sports. Adam White, founder and CEO of Front Office Sports, explains the demand for sharper information about athletes, agents, franchises, and owners, then moves into how a sports media…

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Why you'd press play

You get a close, business-side seat with Adam White on how Front Office Sports thinks about sports media, LinkedIn, and turning audience trust into events and education.

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