Lawrence Epstein serves as Senior Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of UFC, the world’s leading mixed martial arts (MMA) organization and one of the fastest growing sports brands in the world.

Epstein is responsible for all global business operations and for managing the company’s overall performance and growth. Over the years, he has spearheaded the regulatory efforts for UFC, gaining approval in countries around the world, including most recently France.

Epstein has also played a leadership role in negotiating UFC’s most significant business deals, including the company’s landmark media rights agreements with ESPN and FOX Sports and the sale of UFC to Endeavor, recognized as the largest sale of a sports property in history.

A life-long resident of Nevada, Epstein has been involved in numerous civic and charitable organizations. In 2016, he was named to the board of directors of the National Fitness Foundation, the official charity of the President’s Council on Sports, Fitness & Nutrition, which develops corporate partnerships to expand youth sport participation in America. In January 2017, he was named a charter member and Vice Chair of the Las Vegas Stadium Authority board of directors, which owns and oversees the city’s new 65,000-seat, $1.9 billion dollar-stadium, home to the NFL’s Las Vegas Raiders.

Epstein holds a Juris Doctorate and a Bachelor of Arts from Vanderbilt University and serves on the Vanderbilt University Board of Trust and the Vanderbilt Law School Board of Advisors.

Chris leads Strategy, Technology, and Operations for Major League Baseball. In that role, he is responsible for managing MLB’s technology organization including all on-field baseball systems such as Statcast and Instant Replay and digital consumer products including MLB.tv and At Bat. Chris also leads departments focused on digital content and fan engagement including Marketing and Social Media, Web Content, Special Events, and Design Services.

He is also responsible for MLB’s Strategy and Analytics functions working across all MLB business operations and growing the game on the field with MLB’s Competition Committee.

The former pitcher and team captain at the University of Virginia attended Harvard Business School. Chris is a member of the SportsBusiness Journal Forty Under 40 Hall of Fame as a three-time award recipient.

Eric Conrad serves as the Executive Vice President of Sports Programming and Acquisitions at Univision Communications Inc., the leading Hispanic media company in the U.S. In this capacity, Conrad oversees the content development, planning and acquisition strategy for sports across all Univision platforms, including TUDN, the 24/7 sports network launched in 2012 (as Univision Deportes Network). Conrad also served as GM, FIFA World Cup and FIFA Properties, and was responsible for the planning, operation and execution of Univision’s coverage of the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil. He reports directly to the President of Sports.

Conrad joined Univision in 2011 and played a key role developing the long term, multi-platform content strategy for Univision Deportes, and was instrumental to the successful launch of UDN. In his time at Univision, sports programming hours increased from 1,700 to over 10,000 hours yearly, and TUDN has become the most watched Spanish language sports network in the country. He has negotiated long term agreements with the premier soccer properties in the world, as well as other sports, including Major League Soccer and US Soccer, Concacaf, the Mexican National Team, LMX Clubs, UEFA Champions League, Bundesliga and the NFL. Prior to joining Univision, Conrad served as Senior Director, Programming for ESPN and ESPN Deportes. Earlier in his career, he served in multiple sales roles for both Major League Baseball and the National Basketball Association.

Conrad was named to Sports Business Journal’s 2014 Class of “Forty under 40” and was similarly recognized by MultiChannel News as a “Top 40 under 40” in 2013.  A native of Maryland, but of German and Peruvian descent, Conrad received his Bachelor of Arts degree from Colgate University, where he graduated with high honors.  He currently resides in Fairfield, Connecticut with his wife Katherine and three children.

Grant Best is a BAFTA and Sports EMMY winning TV producer and director. At DAZN, he is responsible for driving the global sport destination’s original content strategy which includes; ‘The Making Of’ featuring Cristiano Ronaldo, Jose Mourinho, Neymar Jr, Marc Marquez and Anthony Joshua, ‘One Night: Joshua vs. Ruiz’, ‘Parallel Worlds’ and most recently ‘Club Ibiza: The Sessions’. Specialising in premium sport content, Grant produced the critically acclaimed documentary ‘Rio Ferdinand: Being Mum and Dad’ which was awarded the BAFTA for Best Single Documentary in 2018. He joined DAZN following hugely successful stints at BT Sport, ESPN and Sky Sports.

Melissa Lawton is responsible for Live Sports Production Strategy at Facebook. She’s charged with helping Facebook’s partners redefine the live sports viewing experience to foster deeper and more meaningful connections between fans and the broadcasters, teams, leagues and athletes they follow. In this role, Melissa will design production strategies that inspire partners to fully leverage the interactive and social potential of video on Facebook. She’ll also work closely with the Facebook product team to develop the tools partners need to deliver sports broadcasts for the next generation of fans.

Melissa joined Facebook after five years as the Head of Live Content at Red Bull Media House, working specifically on the creation and expansion of Red Bull’s media network, Red Bull TV. In this capacity, she oversaw a global production team that produced premium, live third-party sports, music and culture events and many ‘beyond the ordinary’ Red Bull competitions across the globe.

Jessica C. Berman is Deputy Commissioner and Executive Vice President of Business Affairs at the National Lacrosse League where she provides strategic direction on all growth initiatives and legal matters facing the NLL. Among her areas of responsibility, Berman oversees human resources, team services, marketing and communications, lacrosse operations, community engagement and the governance of the League. When hired in 2019, she became and continues to be the first female Deputy Commissioner of a men’s professional sports league.

She previously served as VP, Community Development, Culture & Growth at the NHL, and was Executive Director of the NHL Foundation.

As Chief Revenue Officer, Wachtel leads the NHL’s global corporate sponsorship as well as digital and NHL Network advertising sales efforts. Since 2007, Wachtel has consistently delivered tangible results that not only have had a direct positive effect on the League’s fiscal health, but also have elevated the NHL brand to business partners and fans alike.

With the development of new and exciting League assets such as the NHL Winter Classic, NHL Stadium Series, NHL Heritage Classic, NHL All-Star, NHL Awards and NHL Face-Off, Wachtel and his team are challenged with a significantly increased amount of inventory to sell. Wachtel not only rose to this challenge by supporting these newly created assets, but has developed a more creative approach to sales by aggregating inventory across businesses units such as licensing, sponsorship, events, wireless, new media and NHL Clubs.

Since arriving at the NHL, Wachtel has driven more than $500 million to the League and an additional $800 million to NHL Clubs and broadcast rightsholders through new NHL partnerships, including MillerCoors, Molson, Scotiabank, Honda, Bridgestone, Visa, Discover, Canadian Tire, Tim Hortons and Enterprise, while successfully completing renewals with long-term partners. The tremendous success of the U.S. partnership business helped in securing broadcast agreements with NBC/Comcast in the U.S. and Rogers in Canada. As part of these agreements, Wachtel spearheaded North American digital sales partnerships with NBC Sports and Rogers for all NHL.com, NHL Network and NHL Mobile ad sales to non-League partners.

David Gandler is co-founder and CEO of fuboTV, the live TV streaming platform that is transforming how people watch sports, news and entertainment. Under David’s leadership, fuboTV has quickly evolved into a leading virtual MVPD with a focus on innovation.

fuboTV launched in 2015 as a streaming soccer service and today is a sports-first cable TV replacement for the entire family. The company listed on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) under the ticker symbol “FUBO” in October 2020.

Popular with cord-cutters, fuboTV is consistently first to market across a number of areas including product and technology (“firsts” include 4K streams, Multiview on Apple TV and live TV recommendations), advertising (launched dynamic ad insertion in January 2018 ahead of most competitors) and content (distribution agreements with 100+ channels and 770+ local network stations in 99% of the U.S.; its own fubo Sports Network with original programming). Forbes named fuboTV to its Next Billion-Dollar Startups list in 2019.

Prior to founding fuboTV, David had a prolific advertising career with more than 15 years of video sales in local broadcast and cable TV within both the general and Hispanic market, including at Scripps Networks Interactive, Time Warner Cable Media Sales and NBCUniversal’s Telemundo Media.

David has been named among Goldman Sachs’ 100 Most Intriguing Entrepreneurs (2019), Variety’s Dealmakers (2020, 2019) and Broadcasting & Cable’s Power 100 (2017).  He is frequently quoted in major publications and has been a featured speaker at leading industry and banking conferences.