Penn State almunus Chris Bevilacqua virtually returned to campus Tuesday night to share his perspectives on the dynamic sports media market. The event was co-hosted by the Sports Business Program at Smeal and the Center for Sports.
Bevilacqua is the co-founder of Bevilacqua Helfant Ventures and is a sports, media and tech investor. He currently serves as the Co-Founder and CEO at Simplebet. Previously, he founded College Sports TV (CSTV), the first 24-hour cable network dedicated to college sports, eventually acquired by CBS Sports in 2006. Bevilacqua has been on the forefront of negotiations between TV networks and colleges for television rights for more than two decades and discussed what’s next in the market.
“This next cycle is going to determine where a lot of the industry goes,” Bevilacqua said. “Live sports will end up being the driver of whatever new business model is for consumption of valuable IP, whether that’s direct to consumer or in a bundle or your regular cable TV,” Bevilacqua said. “It will be some combination of all this stuff.”
Bevilacqua was also an All-American wrestler at Penn State and graduated with a degree in marketing. Bevilacqua was elected to the National Wrestling Hall of Fame.
On Tuesday night, Bevilacqua spoke to about 75 Penn State students and professors about his work in sports business.
While he now admits the market is changing more than ever, he knows live sports will continue to dictate the market just like in the past.
“There is probably a little bit of hysteria around how the commercial value is going to potentially be affected for big commercial deals like TV rights and big sponsorship deals, if athletes can go out and monetize on NIL,” Bevilacqua said. “I think it’s too early to tell that.”
WIth SimpleBet, Bevilacqua realized the potential of the rapidly growing sports betting marketing and how it creates a positive situation for both television networks and professional sports leagues.
“I was convinced just like I was 20 years ago with CSTV, I knew there was something big so that’s what led to doing the investment and starting the business in April 2018,” Bevilacqua said. “What we’ve seen was these are unbelievable fan engagement products because anybody that has an economic interest in the game is more inclined to watch the game.”