Anthony Ruggiero is an art director at Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment - the company that owns the Toronto Maple Leafs and Raptors. Ten years ago he was selling Leafs and Raptors jerseys in the team store at the Air Canada Center . He worked his ass off, moved up and now designs the uniforms that Toronto Maple Leafs and Toronto Raptors sell in that same store.  We dive into that and nerd out on some uniform design storytelling for sports teams across the NHL, NFL and NBA. Listen in to hear the story behind this year's Toronto Raptors City Edition Jersey. And of course we go into th ..read more

Alexis Demmery is a former partnerships manager with the Vancouver Canucks. She worked her way up from a tour guide to lead partnership clients with the team. She hunted new partners, built partnership marketing programs and (more importantly) said no to the opportunities that wouldn't lead her down the path she wanted.  We talk about her strategies for landing an internship, the characteristics needed to be promoted from within,  her personal philosophy on experimentation and how she deals with the fear of failure.  Find Alexis on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexis-de ..read more

Sasky Stewart has been the online voice and communications chief for brands including the Toronto Maple Leafs, the NHL and the Canadian Women’s Hockey League. Now she balances her legal and marketing education with a decade of communications, PR and digital experience to guide brands, athletes and their campaigns from strategy to execution (all while increasing the percentage of leopard print and neon in any given meeting).  On this one, we get raw and honest about how she fell out of love with hockey, wrangled her internship by directly emailing an NHL team owner, and we dig into how th ..read more

Zach Feldman is the SVP of Partnerships & Revenue at the Premier Lacrosse League (PLL) - a three year old pro sports startup league.  We talk about the evolution of his career, from a young kid who watched Jerry McGuire a couple too many times and wanted to be a sports agent ... to working in Montreal, Toronto and New York. And he provides some great insight on selling, his philosophy on negotiation and what he looks for when building a team.  Find Zach on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zach-feldman-b3822117/ Full show notes and transcripts can be found here: https://www.m ..read more

Lindsay Barenz is the President of the Washington Spirit - a pro women's soccer club in the NWSL. She was formerly of the NWSL and Real Salt Lake after building her career in the White House, as a lawyer and as an entrepreneur starting her own media company.  We talk about her balancing her calling and getting her foot in the door in pro sports. We also talk through the importance of young girls playing sports, why female atheles are innately political and what she looks for as the number one skill when hiring people. Follow Lindsay on Twitter: https://twitter.com/lindsaybarenz Full show ..read more

Justin Kingsley is the co-creative director of CF Montreal in the MLS. He is an author and filmmaker, as well as a creative director and strategist who helps global brands and world champions tell stories. He has written two Bestselling books: The Way of the Fight with Georges St Pierre and Weology: How Everybody Wins When We Comes Before Me. Justin was also the Press Secretary in the Prime Minister’s Office for the Right Honourable Paul Martin. He's someone who has pulled in a million different experiences to create his point of view. And now is applying that to pro sports in Montreal ..read more

Jason Takefman is the former GM of Canada's Only Minor League Baseball Team, the Vancouver Canadians. He also worked as Content Marketing Manager with the UFC and as a Director of Corporate Partnership with the Vancouver Canucks. He is now working as Sports consultant working with VC's looking to invest in private companies, contract negotiation for sponsorships, teams. He is also the Co-Chair of the RBC JCC Sports Dinner and the host of the IBWAA podcast, a weekly Baseball Podcast. We talked about the right way to gain experience, dealing with nerves in the interview prep, advocating for dive ..read more

Teeka is Manager of Commercial Strategy for MLSE, sitting within MLSE Digital Labs - their  digital and innovation group. She leads the development of Digital Labs' B2B strategy, creating new business models for the innovative digital products, analytics services, and other forms of IP developed by MLSE Digital Labs. Prior to assuming this role, Teeka lead the ticketing and retail analytics practices for MLSE, working closely with these teams on areas such as pricing, retention modeling, and demand forecasting. We talked about the right way to gain experience, dealing with nerves in the i ..read more

Jennifer Reynolds is a Manager,  Equity, Diversity & Inclusion at the Toronto Maple Leafs and Toronto Raptors. Jennifer stepped into a newly-created role to develop an integrated approach to promote inclusion and engagement for the company and its sports teams. With diverse professional experience prior to MLSE, Jennifer’s passion for sport inclusion has remained a consistent thread; she has been a dedicated volunteer and Regional Board Member with You Can Play, a non-profit that promotes inclusion in sport for LGBTQ+ athletes, for the past five years. We talked about self-advocacy, t ..read more

Anthony Ruggiero is an art director at Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment - the company that owns the Toronto Maple Leafs and Raptors. Ten years ago he was selling Leafs and Raptors jerseys in the team store at the Air Canada Center . He worked his ass off, moved up and now designs the uniforms that Toronto Maple Leafs and Toronto Raptors sell in that same store.  We dive into that and nerd out on some uniform design storytelling for sports teams across the NHL, NFL and NBA. Listen in to hear the story behind this year's Toronto Raptors City Edition Jersey. And of course we go into th ..read more