Stephen Master

Biography

Professor Stephen Master has spent the last 25 years in a variety of leadership roles across the sports marketing and media industry. Stephen has been an adjunct Professor at NYU since 2004 where he teaches courses on Sports Sponsorship & Media and The Business of Sports Betting.

Outside of Stern, he co-founded Amaze Media Labs in 2020, a media company focused on the rapidly emerging podcast space and has built a sports podcast network of 100+ leading podcasts and creates branded podcasts for clients such as Draftkings, BetMGM, Ford and Facebook.

As the head of Master Media Advisors, he also works closely with start-ups across sports, entertainment and gaming on business plans & fundraising and advises financial and VC firms on evaluating media and sports betting investments.

Prior to forming Master Media Advisors, Stephen spent ten years as the Global Head of the Sports Group at the Nielsen Company and was the co-founder of the Nielsen eSports practice. At Nielsen, Stephen grew the revenue of the sports data & insights division 10 X through the development of the "FANALYTICS" platform, providing sports properties and brands intelligence into how fans are consuming and engaging with sports content. His insights & analysis from the "FANANLYTICS" platform were regularly quoted and featured in the NY Times, Wall Street Journal, CNN, ESPN, Bloomberg and the SBJ.

Before joining Nielsen, Stephen was the VP of Business Development at the National Football League where he worked on activating corporate sponsorships for the league. Stephen also spent 8 years in the agency space working at Octagon Worldwide as the VP of Business Development and at TSE Sports & Entertainment where he worked with leading brands to incorporate sports, music & entertainment into their marketing portfolios.

Stephen launched his career in sports at the National Basketball Association, where he served as the Director of Business Development in the International Group and helped build the NBA’s global presence and brand. Stephen graduated from the University of Michigan and received an MBA from Northwestern.

Courses Taught

• Introduction to Sports Betting
• Sports Marketing

Academic Background

BBA, Business
University of Michigan

MBA, Marketing, Finance
Northwestern University