Olympic and NFL global brand activation, at scale.

The challenge

Sponsorship rights are easy to buy and hard to monetize. The big properties — Olympics, NFL, FIFA — generate brand impressions, but the harder problem is turning those rights into measurable commercial outcomes for the issuing banks, merchants, and product partners that actually fund the activation.

I worked both sides of this problem across two roles. From 2015 at Visa as Sr. Director of Global Client & Brand Innovation, I led activation strategy across Visa's premium sponsorship pass-through rights — NFL, Olympics, Disney, MLS, film studios, airlines, hotels. From 2017 to 2019 at WME|IMG / 160over90, I was recruited to lead the Visa client relationship as Sr. Group Account Director — managing $25M in agency revenue, $90M+ in client budgets, and 300+ activations per year across sports, entertainment, talent, media, and IP/rights.

The work

RioPOOL — Rio 2016 Olympic launch. A 6-city global launch in SF, NYC, Mexico City, Santiago, Rio, and Dubai, integrating Team Visa Olympic athletes with Uber and the broader Visa partner network. I led complex contract negotiation with Uber alongside senior legal counsel and provided the creative and technical oversight for an immersive multi-media experience. The campaign delivered 500MM impressions across all channels — including 2MM Uber-channel impressions and 11MM PR impressions inside the broader total.

Super Bowl × Uber × NFL × Visa. Integrated Visa's NFL sponsorship assets into the Visa Commerce Network publishing platform during Super Bowl week. The activation reached 2.5MM Uber riders with a Visa / NFL message and delivered 310K offer enrollees plus new Visa cards on file at Uber. A parallel Whole Foods / Visa Super Bowl program drove 45% new, lapsed, or infrequent customer acquisition.

The agency-side scale at WME|IMG. Managing $90M+ in client budgets and 300+ activations per year meant operating across the full sponsorship craft — rights management, talent integration, co-marketing, hospitality, and digital extensions. I activated named NFL talent (Saquon Barkley, Rob Gronkowski, Peyton Manning, Joe Staley, Ronnie Lott), global soccer talent (Zlatan Ibrahimović for Visa's 2018 World Cup campaign), and Team Visa Olympic athletes including Michael Phelps. I built a bespoke Masters hospitality program at Berckmans (Augusta National's private clubhouse) featuring Jim Nantz, Mark O'Meara, and Jim "Bones" Mackay.

The Cirque du Soleil deal. I closed a national Cirque du Soleil sponsorship for a client at WME|IMG — flipping the activation cost to revenue-generating through a partnership structure that paid for itself.

The outcome

The activation craft taught me something that translates directly into AI partnerships, technology alliances, and B2B co-marketing work today: rights are inputs; activation is the product. The mechanism that takes a single sponsorship right and turns it into a reusable commercial template — issuer banks, merchant partners, data integrations, talent moments, all stitched together under a shared metric — is the same mechanism that scales any brand partnership.

The hard numbers — 500MM impressions, 2.5MM engaged Uber riders, 310K offer enrollees, $90M+ in budgets — are the receipts. The craft is what travels.