Menu
People and Pop Culture

Immortals Hire Former Coyotes COO Ari Segal As First President & COO

Esports organization Immortals has hired former Coyotes COO ARI SEGAL to become its first President & COO, putting him in charge of all business operations as the group enters the new Overwatch League and vies for a spot in Riot Games’ reconstituted League Championship Series. He will report to CEO NOAH WHINSTON, and will make up Whinston’s top exec tier alongside GM NICK PHAN, who oversees all competitive issues. Segal will run marketing, sales, media, finance and other matters at both the enterprise level and for the five individual teams Immortals currently operates. Whinston said Segal, who left the Coyotes in May, won the team over with his commitment to “innovation, access, transparency and accountability."  “Ari brings a wealth of knowledge and passion from the traditional sports industry and has a proven track record of building or reposting brands to connect deeply with fans, particularly in their local markets,” Whinston said. After first meeting with Whinston in June, Segal said he quickly became enamored with Immortals’ BOD and investor roster, which includes AEG, Grizzlies co-Owner STEPHEN KAPLAN and Lionsgate Interactive President PETER LEVIN. "It would be hard to hand-pick a better more diverse, more well-connected and better suited investor group than this opportunity,” Segal said. Immortals Chair CLINTON FOY praised Segal's experience working with AEG and other major players in sports and entertainment.

OUTLET FOR CREATIVITY: Segal said esports offers an opportunity for creativity that is unusual in established sports with well-defined revenue streams and business practices. “When you’re in a decline situation, you're just managing cash, surviving and trying to figure out how to get to tomorrow,” said Segal, who prior to his one season with the Coyotes worked with the Ducks. “Growth creates opportunity, opportunity for risk, speculation, creativity. It creates momentum. All of those things crate a dynamic, opportunistic work environment that can be hard to find in traditional sports." He also predicted that traditional sports will embrace esports’ approach to distributing its product in on-demand, socially connected video. Segal joins at a pivotal time. Already one of the most prominent American esports groups, Immortals has secured one of the two L.A. franchises in Activision Blizzard’s new Overwatch League. One immediate task for Immortals is to develop a new brand for its team that will compete in the league when it launches exhibition play in December. Also, Immortals has an application pending for a permanent spot in Riot’s League of Legends top North American tier. It also fields teams in Counter-strike: Global Offensive, DOTA 2 and Super Smash Bros. 

SBJ Morning Buzzcast: March 25, 2024

NFL meeting preview; MLB's opening week ad effort and remembering Peter Angelos.

Big Get Jay Wright, March Madness is upon us and ESPN locks up CFP

On this week’s pod, our Big Get is CBS Sports college basketball analyst Jay Wright. The NCAA Championship-winning coach shares his insight with SBJ’s Austin Karp on key hoops issues and why being well dressed is an important part of his success. Also on the show, Poynter Institute senior writer Tom Jones shares who he has up and who is down in sports media. Later, SBJ’s Ben Portnoy talks the latest on ESPN’s CFP extension and who CBS, TNT Sports and ESPN need to make deep runs in the men’s and women's NCAA basketball tournaments.

SBJ I Factor: Nana-Yaw Asamoah

SBJ I Factor features an interview with AMB Sports and Entertainment Chief Commercial Office Nana-Yaw Asamoah. Asamoah, who moved over to AMBSE last year after 14 years at the NFL, talks with SBJ’s Ben Fischer about how his role model parents and older sisters pushed him to shrive, how the power of lifelong learning fuels successful people, and why AMBSE was an opportunity he could not pass up. Asamoah is 2021 SBJ Forty Under 40 honoree. SBJ I Factor is a monthly podcast offering interviews with sports executives who have been recipients of one of the magazine’s awards.

Shareable URL copied to clipboard!

https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/Daily/Issues/2017/10/04/People-and-Pop-Culture/Ari-Segal-Immortals.aspx

Sorry, something went wrong with the copy but here is the link for you.

https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/Daily/Issues/2017/10/04/People-and-Pop-Culture/Ari-Segal-Immortals.aspx

CLOSE