Year 5

This month marks the fifth year of blogging on this site. I started in January ’07 — right after attending the premiere of “Nanking,” a great film documentary produced by my mentor, Ted Leonsis, at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City. I was quite inconsistent at the beginning but have been blogging on a more regular basis recently. According to the blog stats, I posted 44 blogs in ’10.

Starting this week, I”m going to start blogging on a weekly basis. And, this will be part of a larger network of blogging sites that are part of the iStrategy Network. My focus will continue to be on Sports (with an emphasis on Digital), Education and Philanthropy (with personal messages around the holiday periods).

As background, after spending the first six years of my Sports and Entertainment career in PR, radio and tv, in 1995, I went to work for one of the original online services, AOL, to help them start their Sports channel (it was called channes back then). The other two services were CompuServe and Prodigy. 1995 was the beginning of internet sports sites (many of the large sports media sites and league sites started at that time). Both AOL and AOL Sports went through a mercurial rise through the rest of the ’90’s. AOL Sports and ESPN.com were two of the top-ranked sites and AOL grew from 2 million users when I started to over 30 million members around the world. After the merger with Time Warner in ’00 much of the rest of the decade was a roller coaster ride.

I left in March ’09 to start a sports strategic advisory business, JLynn Associates. I’m working with 10 clients now, including a number of early stage sports technology companies. I’m also heavily involved at Georgetown University. I’m serving as the “Visiting Professional in the Practice of Sports Industry Management” for Georgetown’s graduate sports management program. It’s a hybrid role of teaching (Sports Leadership and Management, Sports Digital Media, Capstone), advising students and business development for the program. In addition, I’ve just started year 6 of teaching Sports Marketing Strategy to undergraduate seniors in Georgetown’s McDonough School of Business.

I will post blogs on Sunday evenings / Monday mornings — which works great since many of the big sports events are played over the weekends. Also, the two classes I teach are on Monday night (Sports Marketing Strategy) and Tuesday evening (Sports Digital Media). This is such an exciting and ever-changing space. Sports has always been and will be a key content area for the adoption of new technologies (think back to radio, tv, color tv, VCR’s, cable, satellite, internet, etc).

We will take a look at and discuss a number of interesting areas in Sports, including the impact of Social Media, the proliferation of mobile and tablet apps, multi-platform strategies to reach “next generation” fans, the increased importance of the global markets (with an emphasis on the emerging Sports markets in China and Brazil), the need to better understand multicultural markets for Sports marketers (this will be critical in the coming years with the growth of the Women’s, Hispanic, African-American and Asian segments), etc.

I look forward to blogging each week. I will weigh in with insights gained from client interaction, conferences, international travel (upcoming trips to Brazil, London and Asia), guest speakers for our two classes, mentors, etc. And, just as important, I look forward to interacting and engaging with others — from students to thought leaders in the Sports and Digital sectors. Cheers.

Jimmy Lynn

Jimmy Lynn, a veteran of more than 25 years in the Sports and Entertainment sectors, is one of the pioneers of the Digital Sports space and is regarded as one of the leading relationship brokers and connectors in the sports industry. He is a co-founder and Vice-President of Kiswe Mobile, a interactive mobile video start-up focused on bringing a rich viewing experience for live media content such as sports and entertainment events to mobile devices. Previously, Lynn was the managing partner of JLynn Associates, a global strategic advisory firm focused on sports-related digital media, marketing, and retail for a diverse set of clients including teams, athletes, leagues and associations, media outlets and other businesses. Prior to founding JLynn Associates in 2009, Lynn served as Vice-President, Strategic Development and Partnerships at AOL, where he and his team were responsible for the strategic development and account management of AOL Sports’ strategic partnerships and organizations including the NFL, NBA, NASCAR, MLB, WNBA, NHL, PGA Tour, ABC Sports, CBS Sports, HBO Sports, Sports Illustrated, Turner Sports, NFL Players Association, WWF, The Sporting News, STATS, SportsTicker, etc. During his 14-year career at AOL, he was instrumental in developing AOL Sports into one of the leading global sports destination internet sites. Lynn also served as a Vice-President, Diversity Partnerships and Strategic Relationships for AOL's Office of Diversity and Inclusion. In this role, he managed AOL's employee affinity networks and partnerships with community service organizations. Lynn also was a member of the Time Warner Sports Forum, which included executives from Sports Illustrated, HBO Sports, Turner Sports, AOL Sports, Time Warner Cable, Time 4 Media and Warner Brothers Licensing. The group focused on cross-company sports initiatives for Time Warner. Previously, Lynn was the Advertising Manager for Home Team Sports, the CBS-owned regional sports network serving the Mid-Atlantic Region (TV partner of the Baltimore Orioles, Washington Wizards and Washington Capitals) and the Promotion Manager for WLTT-FM, the CBS-owned and operated station in Washington, D.C. Lynn has been actively involved in philanthropy and community service over the past 15 years. Lynn was one of the 2006 recipients of Time Warner’s most prestigious public-service prize, the “Andrew Heiskell Community Service” award. This award is given to employees who exhibit outstanding leadership and accomplishment in voluntary public service, human rights and/or equal opportunity efforts. Lynn also was recognized in 2008 by Greater DC Cares as one of Washington DC's top 10 rising leaders in philanthropy; as one of City Year's "Idealists of the Year"; and by Year Up as an "Urban Empowerment" award winner. In 2010, he received an award from Washington, DC Mayor Fenty for outstanding community service. Lynn is a board member of the Washington Nationals Youth Baseball Academy Lynn is a full-time faculty member of Georgetown University's Sports Industry Management graduate program, where he also serves as the "Special Advisor." Lynn received the "Dean's Outstanding Service" award in 2010 and the “Faculty Service” award in 2014. He is also a member of the Adjunct Faculty in Georgetown University's McDonough School of Business. He has a B.A. in Public Communication and an M.B.A. in Marketing from American University.

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