1152: Welcome To The Next WAVE of Sports &. Entertainment

Brian Verne is the CEO of WAVE, sports media for the next generation of fans. The company builds communities and enables two-way conversations on the consumer's platform of choice. Verne also previously founded Phenom, an angel-backed sports technology company. Phenom, an angel-backed startup based in San Francisco, CA, and a 500 Startups Batch 16 company, was founded out of a desire to give young athletes a voice. He built the largest community of young athletes, enabling them to talk about the products that they love and share stories about their athletic achievements. Today I want to learn more about how WAVE powers many of the most popular brands at the intersection of sports and entertainment on the social and digital platforms that Gen Z and millennials think of today as television. In just two years, WAVE has become one of the largest digital publishers in the world, generating over 2.5B video views and 90M+ engagements per month. WAVE has over 40M followers/subscribers and reaches over 300M sports fans each month. However, with the Coronavirus pandemic stopping sport across the globe, I also wanted to learn more about how they are overcoming the challenges that COVID-19 is bringing to their business. But also why they are optimistic about the future and how they are creating opportunities.