Hartford Business Journal

18 HARTFORDBUSINESS.COM | APRIL 15, 2024 AT A GLANCE Collegiate Sports Management Group Inc. (CSMG) Industry: Sports and entertainment media Top Executive: Michael Schreck, CEO HQ: 2 Landmark Square, Stamford Employees: 25 Website: collegiatesmg.com Contact: csmginfo@collegiatesmg.com Collegiate Sports Management Group runs the 'May Madness' college esports tournament, which will take place next month in Texas. PHOTO | CONTRIBUTED 'Open Field' Stamford's Collegiate Sports Management Group finds growth at intersection of media, sports and technology While sports marketing and media companies IMG and Learfield domi- nate the media rights playing field for major college sports programs and the so-called Power 5 conferences (the Atlantic Coast, Big 10, Big 12, Pac-12 and Southeastern conferences), the mid-major and lower-division schools were in need of help, Schreck said. "I saw a void in the marketplace," he said. "The mid-major Division I, Division II, Division III and junior college schools needed help with commercialization. They don't have the staff or the band- width to understand how to generate sponsorship revenue, or media revenue, or ticketing and licensing." So, Schreck and Katz set out to fill the void. 'A unique situation' While CSMG was a new and unknown player, Schreck could rely on the experience he gained with Westwood One in negotiating "a lot of NCAA rights agreements," he said. "I was fortunate to meet several conference commissioners, school athletic directors and executives in the business along the way," he said. Some of those commissioners, he said, were "innovative and forward- thinking enough to say, 'Hey, we can use your help, so we'll sign agree- ments with you.'" The first to sign was the East Coast Conference, followed by the Division I Colonial Athletic Conference, led by Commissioner Joe D'Antonio, a longtime Schreck acquaintance. "Mike and I had a previous relation- ship," D'Antonio said. "Not a business relationship, but we had a relation- ship just knowing each other through some mutual friends." That created enough trust for him to steer his conference into a deal with CSMG. "When I first started as commis- sioner, we had inherited an entity that we worked with, and that relationship came to an end, and we began By David Krechevsky davidk@hartfordbusiness.com S o, have you filled out your May Madness bracket yet? That's not a typo. While March Madness, also known as the NCAA men's and women's basketball tournaments, wrapped up recently, it captivated even some non-sports fans' attention nationwide for three weeks in March and early April. May Madness, on the other hand, kicks off next month and will mostly captivate gamers and fans of elec- tronic sports, or esports. Unlike the basketball tournaments, which now feature 68 teams, May Madness will have 84 Division I, II, III and junior college teams competing for the Collegiate Esports Commissioner's Cup at Esports Stadium Arlington in Texas on May 3-5. And for the second year in a row, the event is sponsored by McDonald's. That's music to the ears of Michael Schreck, co-founder and CEO of Stamford-based Collegiate Sports Management Group (CSMG), which owns the tournament. While CSMG is a relatively small company, with just 25 employees and a half-dozen contractors, it has grown rapidly since its 2015 inception. In addition to its esports vertical, formed nearly five years ago and now the largest scholastic esports platform in the nation, CSMG also represents 11 NCAA sports conferences and more than 100 universities and colleges for their regional, national and international media rights. Schreck said the NCAA does not yet sanction esports, so his organiza- tion serves as the governing structure for the largest scholastic event of its kind in the nation. "We basically created May Madness," he said, which began in 2021 with a 32-team bracket, expanded to 64 the following year, and will have 84 teams competing this year. The first event was held virtually due to the pandemic, then was held in Atlanta before finding a home in Texas. "One of the coolest parts about it is that we decided to go back there even though 17 different cities bid for us to bring this event there," Schreck said. Given how well the University of Connecticut men's and women's basketball teams performed during March Madness, you might wonder if UConn has an esports team. "Of course," Schreck said. "Not as good as the basketball teams, though." An 'open field' Schreck, a Long Island native, began his career as a New York Mets executive, selling sponsorships and hospitality suites. He then spent nine years with CBS-owned Westwood One sports radio network, running its digital and audio divisions. He left in 2015 to found CSMG with Ray Katz, a Brooklyn native and longtime sports marketing executive who spent time with the NFL and Disney, as well as running an agency called Optimum Sports. "The reason we started the company was that there were a lot of what I call open field and white-space opportuni- ties," Schreck said during a recent inter- view with Hartford Business Journal. Michael Schreck Ray Katz

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