Investor and innovator driving growth in sports, retail, and payment tech. Focused on fan engagement, retail innovation, seamless checkout, and event logistics.
Las Vegas, NV
Joined March 2008
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The memorabilia market has an authentication problem, but the bigger problem starts after the first sale.
The shirt is real. Great.
Who released it? Who bought it? Can the next buyer verify the history?
That’s the gap we’re working on with Provenance.
Authentication creates confidence in the item. Provenance creates confidence in the transaction. – at Philadelphia, PA
Check out the latest article in my newslette about in venue technology: Frictionless Has a Friction Problem
linkedin.com/pulse/frictionl… via @LinkedIn
Good morning from Medinah.
There are some places in sports where you can feel the history before anything even starts.
The Presidents Cup is here.
Looking forward to seeing how this place comes alive today. – at Glen Ellyn, IL
AI gets interesting when it stops waiting for a question.
The real value isn’t answering questions about your data.
It’s knowing the business well enough to spot what doesn’t look right — and asking why.
With Konsa on the verge of an exit, who should Villa be lining up as his replacement?
Matsima, Tiago Gabriel or Scalvini? – at Winchester, NV
As a Villa fan, I obviously don’t want Morgan Rogers going anywhere.
But this World Cup has to make you think. Bellingham is one of one, so it is not a straight club comparison. But Rogers is good enough to play for England and still has to wait for the right game state.
That is how quickly elite players become situational pieces in stacked squads.
At Villa, he is trusted, central and developing under Emery.
UTV – at Santa Barbara, CA
Escaped the Vegas heat and ended up in Santa Barbara.
The tartare was fantastic, the bavette steak au poivre was perfectly cooked, and the best dish may have been a scallop crudo we never ordered but would absolutely order next time.
Merci Montecito was worth the drive. – at Santa Barbara, CA
Got in the car with no real plan other than escaping 108° in Las Vegas.
Santa Barbara is gray, cool, and 35 degrees better.
The plan became wine.
If you live in Las Vegas, where do you go when you need to get out of the heat for a few days? – at Santa Barbara, CA
Managed to miss @SEICon_org this week despite it being about 10 minutes from home.
Instead, I spent most of the week discussing sponsorship, fan identity and commerce — and why sponsors still know so little about what fans actually do.
We still treat those as three separate things.
I’m increasingly convinced they aren’t. – at Paradise, NV
A few games later and my U21 list has moved. (My cutoff date is the start of the tournament)
1 - Manzambi 🇨🇭
2 - Yamal 🇪🇸
3 - Bouaddi 🇲🇦
4 - Cubarsí 🇪🇸 ⬆️
5- Diomande 🇨🇮
6- Maza 🇩🇿
7- Rayan 🇧🇷 🆕
8 - Alajbegović 🇧🇦
9- Mbaye 🇸🇳
10 - Mora 🇲🇽 ⬇️
Cubarsí is the big mover, Rayan has played his way in and Mora drops after struggling to influence the bigger games.
That pushes de Fougerolles out of the 10. Harsh, because I still think he had a very good World Cup, but I’m judging the whole body of work and had to draw the line somewhere.
Still plenty of football left. – at Winchester, NV
Take the players from the 10 mega-budget clubs out of the World Cup and this is my World Cup best XI
No Madrid, Barça, PSG, Bayern, City, United, Liverpool, Arsenal, Chelsea or Spurs. I thought the drop-off would be bigger.
Who did I get wrong?
#WorldCup
🤖 Made with AI
The World Cup always introduces us to young players you'd barely heard of a month earlier, so forget transfer values and club hype because strictly based on what they’ve actually done on the pitch this month, here are my top 10 U21 players right now. 👇
1. Johan Manzambi (20) | Switzerland 🇨🇭 | CM
My U21 player of WcC2026 so far: 3 goals and 2 assists from midfield is an incredible return and nobody under 21 has had more impact. Stats aside, his ability to read the field defensively and then transition into attack is Rice-like