The sports market is going to be a $73.5 billion industry by 2019, according to Forbes.
Here are some experts and organizations on Twitter you should follow if sports business is your beat.
1) Austin Karp
About the expert: Austin Karp (@AustinKarp) is the assistant managing editor of SportsBusiness Daily, a site focusing on several key sports business areas such as media, labor and finance.
What he tweets: Karp tweets about a number of sports business-related issues. He also crunches stats and interprets findings. He curates most of his own tweets and frequently shares information on attendance at games, team expansion and TV viewer ratings.
2) Christina Settimi
About the expert: Christina Settimi (@csettimi) covers the business of sports for Forbes. Her work has showcased a number of topics, including the pay of athletes in soccer and team valuations. Her sports business analysis has been cited frequently in periodicals and books, including The National Basketball Association: Business, Organization and Strategy.
What she tweets: Settimi usually partakes in social media to share her own opinion on controversial sports business issues, like the WNBA warmup T-shirt fines. She rarely shares any of her own articles, but frequently delivers other sports business-related content from Forbes and CBS.
3) Maury Brown
About the expert: Maury Brown (@BizBallMaury) is a must-follow in the sports business world. He contributes regularly to publications like Forbes and USA Today’s The Fields of Green site. Most of his work concentrates on the business of baseball, since he was a part of the initial effort to bring Major League Baseball to Portland, Oregon, in the early 2000s and is a member of the Baseball Writers Association of America.
What he tweets: Brown typically tweets out business stories that he has written, but he also like to share a number of pieces from others that may be interesting to look into further. Lately notable topics included how cocaine dealers in Brazil are using the Rio Olympics logo to increase business and also how the NBA Players Union is working to improve retirement benefits.
4) Liz Mullen
About the expert: Liz Mullen (@SBJLizMullen) writes for the Sports Business Journal, where she reports mostly on sports labor and the free-agent, union market of athletes.
What she tweets: Mullen frequently tweets when an athlete has signed a business deal. But she also shares information on things like the recent withdrawal of WNBA fines and networking naming rights, such as the recent buyout of Yahoo from Verizon and how it will affect Yahoo Sports coverage.
5) Rodney Fort
About the expert: Rodney Fort (@RodneyFort) is an expert in sports economics and professor of sports management at the University of Michigan. He’s a collector of loads of sports data and publicly shares this information on a number of websites, including his own.
What he tweets: Fort doesn’t share too much of his own work on Twitter, but he’s super into sharing money stories on things such as which college conferences are the most valuable and information about stadium renovations and relocations. He’s also not afraid to drop an entertaining meme every once in awhile.
6) Ken Rosenthal
About the expert: Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) is kind of a big deal in the world of baseball, not to mention he’s verified on Twitter. Rosenthal specializes in baseball coverage for FOX Sports and he’s an MLB Network insider analyst.
What he tweets: Rosenthal is a numbers guy. The majority of his content is related to general baseball coverage, breaking news business transactions, like acquiring a player through waivers, and the impact of trades during free agency. Rosenthal has no problem crediting other reporters for a news scoop, that is, if he doesn’t get to it first.
7) Kristi Dosh
About the expert: Kristi Dosh (@SportsBizMiss) reports on the sports business industry for Forbes, Campus Insiders and was formerly with ESPN. She’s also published two books of her own, including the college football book, Saturday Millionaires. Perhaps Dosh’s greatest strength is her stellar reporting on college football.
What she tweets: Dosh tweets about money, legal and business issues in the sports industry. She frequently shares stories she’s written focusing on intercollegiate athletics and expansions deals, such as this recent deal between the ACC and Big-12.
8) David Carter, USC’s Sports Business Institute
About the expert: USC’s Sports Business Institute Executive Director David Carter may not have a Twitter account, but that doesn’t mean that the prestigious institute doesn’t. The institute (@USC_SBI) delivers important research that is key to sports business issues affecting athletes, sports organizations and the media.
What they tweet: The institute shares data and findings related to sports issues impacting businesses and on subjects like how consumers are utilizing technology for large-scale events like the Super Bowl. The institute also frequently posts about some of the events they organize, such as The Business of Hockey and The Business of College Football, featuring prominent sports figures who share broad perspectives about the sports industry.
9) Scott Soshnick
About the expert: Scott Soshnick (@soshnick) reports on sports business for Bloomberg News. He’s also been a frequent contributor to ESPN’s SportsCenter and Outside the Lines broadcast programs.
What he tweets: Soshnick really does tweet on nearly everything related to the sports business industry. Subject areas he recently wrote about include the NBA and retired players association agreement, Citi Field’s credit rating increase and global betting on the Olympics.
10) Kurt Badenhausen
About the expert: Kurt Badenhausen (@kbadenhausen) is a senior reporter at Forbes with a concentration on sports business. Before arriving at Forbes in 1998, he worked for Financial World Magazine.
What he tweets: For tweets on the financial side of sports and its impact on business, Badenhausen is a good resource to follow. He curates tweets about revenue in soccer, attendance at sporting events and athlete tax planning. Badenhausen has also profiled a number of athletes including LeBron James and Shaquille O’Neal.
