Jonathan ZuckerbrodEmail
Strategic Partnerships & Business Strategy Executive

Jonathan Zuckerbrod

Fifteen years building revenue and running partnerships across the NBA, NHL, PGA TOUR, media and sports betting. Early adopter of agentic AI: I design and ship working tools in Claude Code.

Email meLinkedIn

Career map

2011 to 2026. Solid bands are where I worked; outlined tags are who I worked with.

  1. Early careerNew York2011–2013
    1. Aug 2011 – Sep 2012

      Thrillist Media GroupNational Partnerships Coordinator

      • E-commerce partners
      • Revenue

        New revenue line from e-commerce partnerships I sourced, negotiated and closed

    2. Oct 2012 – Jul 2013

      GroupMe (Microsoft)Business Development

      • Aviary
      • Village Voice
      • Spend$75K

        digital-marketing budget to launch the Experiences product

  2. Milwaukee BucksTeam & arena · selling sponsorship2014–2020
    1. Sep 2014 – Jun 2016

      Manager, Business Strategy & Platform Development

      • NBA Global GamesLondon
      • Spend$250K

        event budget as project lead; reported directly to the Team President

    2. Jul 2016 – Dec 2020

      Director, Business Strategy & Platform Development

      • FiservNaming rights
      • Red Bull
      • Northwestern Mutual
      • Johnson Controls
      • BMO Harris Bank
      • Froedtert & MCW
      • Revenue secured$175M+

        contracted sponsorship income for Fiserv Forum and Deer District, as a core member of the team

      • Revenue+138%

        sponsorship revenue over six-plus years

      • Revenue$950K+

        year-two event sales, a business I built from zero

      • Savings$20M+

        in commissions saved by keeping sales in-house

  3. DraftKingsSportsbook & media · buying rights, building businesses2020–2026
    1. Dec 2020 – Dec 2021

      Director, M&A Integrations

      • VSiNAcquired
      • Blue Ribbon SoftwareAcquired
      • Scarcity LabsAcquired
      • Deal value9-figure

        combined value; three acquisitions integrated

    2. Jan 2022 – Jan 2025

      Director, Business Strategy & Ops, DraftKings Network

      • Samsung TV Plus
      • Vizio
      • Audience500K+

        monthly viewers for a 24/7 FAST channel I launched

      • Deal value8-figure

        multi-year content-licensing agreement

    3. Jan 2025 – Sep 2026

      Director, Strategic Partnerships & Activation

      • NBA
      • NHL
      • PGA TOUR
      • Spend8-figure

        annual partnership portfolio; built and led a team of four

      • NBA results

        Led the partnership to significant year-over-year market-share gains and record marketing and revenue results for the 2025–26 season

      • NBA scheduling

        Partnered with the NBA on data-driven schedule optimization, resulting in league-approved scheduling changes implemented for the 2026–27 season

      • Time saved20 hrs/wk

        automated by a Claude Code agent I built

        See how it works
      • Recognition

        Recognized as a top-five AI user across the DraftKings Marketing organization

Emory University — B.A. Economics, Minor in Philosophy, 2011

Built with AI

I build the tools myself.

One was deployed in production at DraftKings. Two are personal projects.

Deployed · DraftKings · 2025–26

Partnership Compliance Agent

The problem

Every day, a partner's broadcast had to be checked against an eight-figure annual media deal. It was about 20 hours a week of manual work.

What I built

An end-to-end agent, built in Claude Code, that does the checking, logging and reporting on its own.

What it does

Grades each episode against contractual, commercial and compliance requirements, and captures on-screen brand exposure.

What leaders get

A two-page daily brief focused on actionable activation insights.

  1. Downloaddaily broadcast episodes
  2. Gradevs. contractual, commercial & compliance terms
  3. Logstructured results to Airtable
  4. Capturebrand exposure, frame-by-frame screenshots
  5. Brieftwo-page daily activation report

~20 hrs/wk of compliance and content-analysis work automated

Top 5 AI user across DraftKings Marketing

Claude Code · Airtable · agentic workflow design
Personal · 3D, built with AI-assisted code

Wall of Sound

A fully interactive 3D model of the Grateful Dead's 1974 concert sound system.

Rendered preview of Wall of Sound
Open full screen
Personal · AI-animated film

Five Years: the making of

I wrote, produced and scored a five-minute animated film using generative video and audio tools. Claude wrote the custom tools that built it: a frame-by-frame renderer, the sound mix and a photo editor.

  • 3d 19hfirst idea to final cut
  • 12 hrsof hands-on work, over four days
  • 91cuts, each on a beat
  • 28AI clips made; 7 used

The film is a personal project, so it isn't shared here. This is how it was made.

See how it was made Kling · Blender · Claude
Selected work

Five results, and how they happened.

  1. 01DraftKings · 2025–2026

    Leading the NBA partnership

    2025–26 seasonRecord
    How it happened
    Context
    The NBA is DraftKings' most competitively significant relationship, and a top company priority.
    What I did
    Led the partnership, and worked with the league on data-driven schedule optimization using sports-betting demand data.
    Result
    Significant year-over-year market-share gains and record marketing and revenue results for the 2025–26 season, plus league-approved scheduling changes implemented for the 2026–27 season.
  2. 02Milwaukee Bucks · 2016–2020

    Selling Fiserv Forum

    Revenue secured$175M+
    How it happened
    Context
    The Bucks were opening Fiserv Forum and the Deer District around it. Every sponsorship asset had to be created, priced and sold.
    What I did
    Core member of the team that created, priced and packaged all of it. Helped close the naming rights and every Founding Partner deal, and designed the strategy to keep sales in-house.
    Result
    $175M+ in contractually obligated income, and $20M+ saved in agency commissions.
  3. 03DraftKings · 2022–2025

    Launching DraftKings Network

    Audience500K+
    How it happened
    Context
    A new 24/7 FAST streaming channel: a media business with its own distribution, content and P&L.
    What I did
    Launched it on Samsung TV Plus, Vizio and other platforms. Helped build and run the P&L, including an eight-figure multi-year content-licensing deal, and built the goals and measurement model used to report to leadership.
    Result
    500K+ monthly viewers.
  4. 04DraftKings · 2020–2021

    Integrating three acquisitions

    Deal value9-figure
    How it happened
    Context
    DraftKings acquired VSiN, Blue Ribbon Software and Scarcity Labs: nine figures in combined transaction value.
    What I did
    Led the cross-functional integration. Set goals and KPIs across every workstream and reported weekly to the Executive Leadership Team.
    Result
    Delivered the priority synergies, including new owned-media capabilities and iGaming product features, and set up P&L management for the acquired units.
  5. 05Milwaukee Bucks · 2014–2020

    Growing sponsorship revenue

    Revenue growth138%
    How it happened
    Context
    Six-plus years at the Bucks, through the new-arena development cycle.
    What I did
    Created the package and pricing for the team's first-ever jersey patch, closed Red Bull as a new partner, and built the special-event sales business from zero.
    Result
    138% sponsorship revenue growth (19% CAGR vs. a single-digit NBA team average). The jersey patch became the team's second-largest sponsorship at the time; Red Bull, its largest beverage deal.
Based in
New York, NY Metro · open to relocation
Education
Emory University — B.A. Economics, Minor in Philosophy
Community
Milwaukee Bucks Foundation Grant Committee · Led a successful campaign to co-name a New York City street in honor of my grandfather
About

Both sides of the partnership table.

I've spent fifteen years in sports, media, and gaming, on both sides of the deal. At the Milwaukee Bucks, I sold: I helped create, price and close the sponsorship program for a brand-new arena. At DraftKings, I bought and built: I ran the company's partnerships with the NBA, NHL, and PGA TOUR, launched a streaming network, and integrated three acquisitions.

The common thread is turning rights and relationships into results that show up in the numbers, and building the systems that prove it: the valuation model that tracked sponsor signage during the 2020 NBA bubble, the goals framework DraftKings Network ran on, and the sports-betting demand model behind league-approved NBA scheduling changes implemented for the 2026–27 season.

I also build with AI, hands-on. At DraftKings I designed and shipped an agent that took over about 20 hours a week of compliance work, and I was recognized as one of the top five AI users in the Marketing organization. I build on my own time too, including this site.

Next, I'm looking for a senior leadership role where I own the outcome: a P&L, a partnership portfolio, or a business that's still being built.

Contact

Let's talk.

I'm exploring senior leadership roles in sports, media, gaming, and consumer tech, and I'm always glad to talk with founders building something new.

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