Ben Mathan: Chief Strategy Officer, Learfield

Sports Business Conversations

I’ve always loved the expression “Man plans, god laughs”. It’s actually an old Yiddish proverb that speaks to how hard it is to execute a plan when so many unforeseen variables can come into play. Vaunted 21st century philosopher Mike Tyson has a more contemporary version : “everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face.”

I suspect no one knows more about carefully laid plans going awry than this episode’s guest, Learfield Chief Strategy Officer, Ben Mathan.

After carefully plotting out a career in financial services, Mathan took on a role with college sports juggernaut Learfield. After carefully plotting out his role at the company, COVID exploded and emptied out stadiums, choking off Learfield’s main source of revenue.

You get the picture. Ben planned. God laughed.

But through all that change and tumult, Mathan kept his eyes fixed on what he knew: college sports would always be popular to millions of people, and that Learfield was in the perfect position to benefit from all that passion.

In our conversation, we talk about Mathan’s somewhat indirect path to working in college sports, what he believes are the key attributes for someone charged with developing corporate strategy, and how he keeps his focus in an industry where things seem to change hour by hour.

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The Sports Business Conversations podcast is a production of ADC Partners, a sports marketing agency that specializes in creating, managing, and evaluating effective partnerships between brands and sports. All rights reserved.

YOUR HOST

Dave Almy brings over 30 years of sports marketing and sports business experience to his role as host of the "1-on-1: Sports Business Conversations" podcast. Dave is the co-Founder of ADC Partners.

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