Menu
Forty Under 40

Forty Under 40: Sara Slane

raphael talisman

Senior Vice President, Public Affairs, American Gaming Association

Age: 39

Born: Toledo, Ohio

Education: Ohio University, B.A., political science

Family: Children, Preston (9), Jackson (7)

What gets you fired up? I love a good challenge. I like being the underdog. I definitely have always been very headstrong, so I like people underestimating my ability.

You wish you knew 10 years ago: That you don’t have to make decisions about everything right away. Sometimes if you let things percolate it becomes clear what direction you have to head in.

Profession you’d most like to attempt: Anything that would be a life of service would be admirable. 

Guilty pleasure: I love, love, love traveling. I can do a beach very well.

Something your friends would consider “so you”: My leather pants.

Could not go a day without: My hair dryer.

Person in the industry you’d most like to meet: Roger Goodell. He’s the one [commissioner] that we haven’t had the ability to face-to-face interact with and talk about how we operate. It would be interesting to get his perspective.

Ideal day off: Spending time at the beach with my kids.


As she stumped for the legalization of sports betting, Sara Slane often argued that doing so would both capture money bet illegally so it could be taxed by the states, and create and expand revenue streams for leagues, teams and even networks.

 

Now that sports betting has been blessed by legislatures in eight states and is under consideration in 21 more, Slane often finds herself trying to dampen the expectations that a gold rush has begun.

“My word of caution now is patience,” said Slane, senior vice president of public affairs for the American Gaming Association, the leading casino industry trade group. “Everyone has got to be patient. There’s this irrational over-exuberance around some of these big handle numbers, but this is still a low-margin business.”

Slane points to the numbers produced in New Jersey, where sportsbooks handled $385 million in wagers in January alone. That generated $18.7 million in revenue for the sportsbooks. “And you keep boiling that down to get to profit,” Slane said.

“We’re still early in the process of working with the sports industry to understand how the gaming industry works,” she said. “The good news is that so many leagues and teams and team owners want to be a part of this. So now we’re putting together the pieces of how reliant we are on each other. Having a successful sport betting model that works for everyone is becoming more present in the conversations we’re all having now.”

First Look podcast from April 1. Our conversation with Sara Slane starts at the 11:48 mark:

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/Journal/Issues/2019/03/25/Forty-Under-40/Slane.aspx

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

https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/Journal/Issues/2019/03/25/Forty-Under-40/Slane.aspx

CLOSE