W
hen Lucia McKelvey was lining up endorsements for golfers as a vice president at IMG, a headhunter connected her with Top Rank Boxing President Todd DuBoef, who wanted a forward-thinking sales executive to corral opportunities for headliner Manny Pacquiao and build out a digital platform for the company. Each would require sweeping change.
“At an IMG, you didn’t really have an opportunity to make changes,” said McKelvey, who made the jump to boxing early in 2011. “Coming to Top Rank, I was able to do that. I could learn and then implement my own ideas. We all change at this company all the time. That was attractive to me.”
McKelvey made hay for Pacquiao in short order, placing him in national campaigns for Hewlett-Packard, Hennessy and Wonderful Pistachios. The digital remake has taken longer, but it has been extensive. Working with MLBAM, Top Rank now streams weigh-ins, press conferences and undercard fights from many of its events, and it plans to roll out a subscription-based product in the coming months.
“The digital opportunity in this sport is phenomenal,” McKelvey said. “Even though we’ve come a long way, we’ve really only begun to tap into that.”
— Bill King
