Jeffrey Pollack

Sports Industry Visionary, Serial Entrepreneur, Vice Chairman & President of Ones Basketball League

Jeffrey Pollack

Sports Industry Visionary, Serial Entrepreneur, Vice Chairman & President of Ones Basketball League

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Biography

When it comes to being a successful sports business executive, serial entrepreneur and leader, Jeffrey Pollack is in a league of his own. A true visionary, he has been lauded numerous times for helping businesses and brands rethink, recalibrate and evolve. An Emmy Award winner, he has 25 years of experience driving catalytic change, growth and innovation for family owned, private equity-backed and corporate-based ventures.

Jeffrey is a Senior Advisor at McKinsey & Company and the first-ever Professor of Practice in Sport Management at the University of Massachusetts Amherst Isenberg School of Management. He serves confidentially and selectively as a professional development coach to executives, students and ventures in the sports, entertainment and media industries, including multiple NBA and NFL teams and iHeart Media.

Jeffrey is also Vice Chairman and President of the Ones Basketball League (OBL)—a new global sports and entertainment venture co-founded by NBA All-Star and Basketball Hall of Famer Tracy McGrady. OBL is an elite competition designed to celebrate the world’s most skilled one-on-one players and the true essence of basketball.

Jeffrey is the first-ever Executive-in-Residence at the Rutgers Global Sports Business Program and is an adjunct faculty member at the University of Miami School of Law, where he co-teaches “A Playbook for Leadership and the Law.” He trained as a leadership and organizational performance coach at Rutgers University and is certified by the International Coaching Federation.

Before joining OBL, Jeffrey served as President and CEO of the XFL. He joined the league in 2019 as President and COO, where he led all strategic planning and business operations—reporting directly to Chairman and Founder Vince McMahon. Under his leadership, the XFL launched in 2020 to critical acclaim and proved that spring football in the United States can work. Following the XFL’s shutdown resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic, he led the organization through an orderly bankruptcy process and successful sale and transition to a new ownership group featuring Redbird Capital, Dwayne Johnson and Dany Garcia.

Before his leadership role at the XFL, Jeffrey was Special Advisor and Chief Marketing and Strategy Officer for the NFL Los Angeles Chargers. He has advised successful buyers on the acquisition of teams in the NBA and NHL and served as Executive Chairman of the Professional Bull Riders. Jeffrey also served as President and Commissioner of the World Series of Poker, which, during his tenure, shattered all previous attendance records, became a worldwide sports and entertainment phenomenon and crossed the $1 billion mark in total prize money awarded.

Earlier in his career, he was the Managing Director of Broadcasting and New Media for NASCAR—just as the sport consolidated its media rights for the first time and broke through the national consciousness. Jeffrey served as Vice President of Marketing and Corporate Communications for the National Basketball Association and as a Strategic Advisor to Commissioner David Stern during collective bargaining negotiations with the NBPA.

In 1994, Jeffrey launched The Sports Business Daily, the original and leading daily trade publication for the sports industry. Through his vision and direction as Founder, President and Publisher, “The Daily” pioneered a new genre of sports journalism, became an industry standard and must-read for sports executives, and gave rise to a proliferation of sports business news and information services around the world.

Jeffrey began his career as a human rights advocate and legislative assistant in Washington, D.C., and then served as a political campaign manager and crisis communications consultant for Winner + Associates and the affiliated firm of Winner + Mandabach Campaigns.

In addition to receiving one of the first Primetime Emmy Awards presented for Outstanding Achievement in Interactive Television Programming and a Sports Emmy for Outstanding Innovative Technical Achievement, Jeffrey received the first-ever Billboard Digital Entertainment Award for Best Interactive Television Programming. He has appeared on The Sporting News’ List of The Top 100 Most Powerful People in Sports and was named by Sports Business Journal to its inaugural list of 40 Under 40.

During his tenure at the World Series of Poker, Jeffrey received the Chairman’s Excellence in Leadership Award—presented to a select group of Harrah’s Entertainment executives who achieved outstanding business results through innovation. He has also received The Graduate School of Political Management’s Alumni Achievement Award and, most recently in 2022, the Harold J. VanderZwaag Distinguished Alumnus Award from the University of Massachusetts Isenberg School of Business—which recognizes alumni who display professional excellence and outstanding achievement in the sports industry and dedication to the McCormack Department of Sport Management.

Jeffrey is Chairman of the Community Advisory Board of 90.7 WFUV Radio in New York; a member of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences and an Accredited Member of the Public Relations Society of America; and serves on the Board of Advisors of the Los Angeles Sports and Entertainment Commission.

Jeffrey has a bachelor’s degree from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University, a master’s degree from The Graduate School of Political Management and a master’s degree in sports management from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. He also completed Harvard Business School’s Advanced Management Program.

Speaker Videos

NBA Legend Tracy McGrady and OBL strategic advisor Jeffrey Pollack

CSQ | Inside the C-Suite with Tracy McGrady and Jeffrey Pollack, Ones Basketball League

Speech Topics

Rethink, Recalibrate & Evolve: Your Path to Authentic Leadership

From the founding of The Sports Business Daily and across the National Basketball Association, NASCAR, the World Series of Poker, the Professional Bull Riders, the Los Angeles Chargers, the XFL and Ones Basketball League, Jeffrey Pollack has been a trusted and successful leader in unique, sometimes historic, moments. In this talk, Jeffrey delves into the skills needed to awaken the leader within you. It’s a story that inspires and demonstrates how your authentic self and personal leadership style flow from your complete personal story and what he calls, “the net effect.” Let him share with you the power of leading through love and a coaching mindset.

The Secrets to Serial Entrepreneurship

Over a career spanning more than 25 years, Jeffrey Pollack has helped leading brands in the sports industry drive catalytic change, growth and innovation, from the founding and eventual sale of The Sports Business Daily to the National Basketball Association, NASCAR, the World Series of Poker, the Professional Bull Riders, the Los Angeles Chargers and the XFL. Along the way, his entrepreneurial spirit and political campaign mentality have helped unlock both extraordinary enterprise value and personal change. Relive this visionary entrepreneur’s journey and grab the insights that can unleash the same within you.

Master of Disaster: A Personal Story of Leadership During Crisis

In business, a crisis can hit from any angle: societal, institutional or individual. And when it does, you want to be ready as a leader. Because if it’s done well, great leadership can turn the ship around and eventually steer you back to success. Jeffrey Pollack knows it well. His early career found him in the eye of the storm with companies and institutions in severe distress and reaching across the financial services, energy, real estate and sports industries. In this keynote, he shares his journey and how he became a “master of disaster” in his own right. You’ll learn important lessons for navigating and leading yourself and your colleagues through the most difficult waters—no matter the source of trouble.