State of JohnWallStreet Address

State of JohnWallStreet Address

JohnWallStreet recently celebrated its eight-year anniversary as a publication (August 18) and hit the one-year mark as a broader sports intelligence provider (July 1). It felt like a good time to recap all we’ve accomplished over the last 14 months and provide loyal readers with an outline of our plans for the next 12.

Randall Friedman, Jacie Brandes, and I set out last summer to build a high-powered publishing, events, research, and consulting business on top of the established newsletter platform—and we’ve accomplished much of that vision (or at least laid the groundwork to). 

We hosted a pair of ‘Sports & Media Huddles’ (September ’24, April ’25) that each attracted 100 of the industry’s most influential people. One well-documented pro wrestling partnership originated from a conversation that occurred at the first. It’s the kind of connection we strive to facilitate with our invite-only events.

We are hosting the Fall ‘25 ‘Huddle’ next week. FanDuel Sports Network CEO David Preschlack, Savannah Bananas President Jared Orton, and Teton Ridge CEO Deirdre Lester will be our featured speakers.

We also hosted category defining events focused on sports and entertainment real estate at The Battery Atlanta during MLB’s July All-Star Weekend and on private equity x college sports in Atlanta on the morning of the 2025 CFP Championship Game. And in May, we co-hosted the inaugural Sports Blockchain Summit. All were well-received and will be even better in year two.

We published our first thematic research report on PE x college sports. Mountain West Commissioner Gloria Nevarez called it “an incredible piece of work…exactly what college practitioners need to know.”

And are now putting the finishing touches on our second research piece–a comprehensive look at the mixed-use real estate development opportunity tied to stadiums and arenas. It will be released later this month.

In February, we launched JWS IQ; an exclusive membership community for senior sports and media executives who seek to build meaningful relationships with and learn from peers across the industry. We then subsequently introduced a monthly speaker/cocktail and dinner series for our members at New York’s Flyfish Club. Hymie Elhai will be our featured member/guest in September. Tim Pernetti is locked in for October.

Reach out to Randall at [email protected] for more information about the program (including a formal list of costs/member benefits). 

We introduced our first podcast. JohnWallStreet Presents: Big Business on Campus, a college sports podcast powered by Playfly Sports debuted in late July. The next episode, and my personal debut, drops tomorrow. It features University of Arizona Athletic Director Desiree Reed-Francois. 

And we did it all while continuing to publish sports’ most influential newsletter. The CEO of one pro sports property recently noted at an IQ member dinner that they regularly receive coverage from the ‘traditional’ B2B outlets, but when JohnWallStreet wrote a column TKO president and COO Mark Shapiro reached out.

However, it would be misleading to suggest we accomplished all we set out to do. We didn’t publish the newsletter as often as I would like (2x/week) or get as many thematic reports done as I’d hoped (4). 

And while we talked about launching a formal consulting business, we just couldn’t get around to it. That will change with the rollout of JohnWallStreet Advisory and the introduction of our Ocean’s 11 crew in the weeks ahead.

We’ll address the remainder in the subsequent months.

It’s fair to wonder how a small team, as mighty as it is, can successfully manage so many initiatives (there are actually a few more in the works we can’t mention just yet). Well, the truth is we will need some additional resources to do it all. So, we’re set to embark on the raise of our first priced round. 

We intend to use some of the funding to add a second thought leader capable of publishing a regular column and alleviating the content and research bottleneck. We’ll also enhance our website and technological capabilities, and support JohnWallStreet Advisory’s needs/efforts. 

Those enhancements are among a series of exciting initiatives planned for H2 ’25 and H1 ’26. 

We recently announced we’re hosting a Youth Sports Summit on October 8 and have begun planning for another event on the morning of the CFP Championship Game (it’s Jan 19, 2026 in Miami). The focus there will be college sports’ new P&L.

And we’ve already begun preparing for the Spring ’26 Sports & Media Huddle next April, the ’26 Sports Blockchain Summit next May, and another event on sports and entertainment real estate next July. If you’d like to participate/partner in any/all of them, please reach out to [email protected].

In the meantime, we’ll continue to churn out regular content that strives to make you just a bit smarter than you were before consuming it.

Thank you for all your support along the way. It means everything.

Back to regularly scheduled programming next Tuesday.

-JohnWallStreet