BILL MADIGAN / NFL
Sports is the ultimate who-you-know business; sports licensing is even more so. So when the NFL moved in Christopher Halpin, an executive with a private equity background, to head its consumer products business, eyebrows were raised.
Halpin, who’d worked for both Goldman Sachs and Providence Equity Partners when he joined the league in 2013, was originally hired to help engineer the media rights deals that are the NFL’s crown jewels. One year later, in August 2014, he moved into his current position, with licensing and consumer products. Now, Halpin jokes that he’s a “recovering private equity guy,” and people both inside and outside the NFL are saying he’s helped bring a new way of thinking to a mature licensing business.
“In order to grow, we’ve had to reimagine the business with someone from a different background, and that’s really what Chris has done,” said Brian Rolapp, the NFL’s executive vice president of media.
Said John Slusher, Nike executive vice president of global sports marketing: “He picked up the business quickly and brought with him new ways of thinking about the business.”
Halpin helped coordinate a record year for NFL licensing, fueled by the 50th Super Bowl. Moving forward, he’s helping to write a new playbook for NFL e-commerce, combining his digital media expertise with his newfound licensing chops.
“We’re trying to look around the corner in every [consumer products] deal to find new ways,” Halpin said. “We’re looking at so many new things.”
— Terry Lefton
Christopher Halpin
National Football League | SVP, Licensing and Consumer Products
Age: 39
Where born: Worcester, Mass.
Education: Princeton University (A.B., economics)
Family: Wife, Rebecca; children, Charlotte (11), Teddy (8), Emily (1)
Advice I’d give to my younger self: Take risks; don’t fear failure so much. You learn more from your mistakes than your successes. … Whatever you do, make sure you believe in the strategy of the organization you are a part of and that it will be a winner. … Keep up interests outside of work to decompress and stay fresh.
2016 will be a good year if: The U.S. avoids a recession; fans love our new products; “Madden Mobile” keeps growing; we have another great postseason.
I’d like to change jobs for a day with: Mark Zuckerberg.
Groups supported: Children’s Scholarship Fund; Good Sports, New York
Most thrilling/adventurous thing I’ve done: Moving to Hong Kong to live and work for three years.
You'd be surprised to know:I started my sports business career by running a miniature golf course in Framingham, Mass., for a summer.
