Founder and President

Rob DiGisi
Founder and President

Rob is a veteran sports, leisure and lifestyle sales and marketing executive who has created new profit centers, distribution channels and brand development platforms for organizations including start-ups, pro-sports leagues and multi-billion dollar corporations.

His pedigree includes entrepreneurship and senior positions at the National Basketball Association, IMG, Bank One and at Diamond Resorts International where he launched and built The Diamond Resorts Invitational, a nationally televised, official PGA TOUR Champions golf tournament. Traditionally the event comes first and then the title sponsor, but Rob flipped the model resulting in breakthrough brand development at a fraction of the cost of traditional entitlements. Over four years, the golf tournament and associated events raised over $2.3 million for Florida Hospital for Children.

Prior to Diamond Resorts, Rob was VP, Strategic Brand Development for upstart Dale and Thomas Popcorn, where he created partnerships and promotions with Universal Pictures, Anschutz Entertainment, Miller Beer, Netflix and several others. At Bank One, he oversaw business development for co-branded and affinity credit card programs and created General Mills’ Box Tops for Education Visa program.

As an entrepreneur, Rob ran Iron Horse Marketing from 2002-2008 and again from 2009-2012. Highlights included:

Led Copart.com’s expansion into the consumer sector through partnerships with NASCAR, the NHRA and associated media outlets.
Partnering with an NFL All-Pro to launch Famous 58, a line of BBQ/Tailgate party foods.
Transforming holiday décor provider, Becker Group, into an experiential marketing agency.
Leveraging Autotote’s technology infrastructure at horse racing tracks to create a multi-media advertising solution.

At the NBA, Rob led business operations for the $150MM licensed products division and at the dawn of the digital age, he championed the vision and launched the NBA.com Store and the league’s CRM program. Early in his career, he held accounting positions for sports marketing giant IMG in their golf and television production and distribution divisions. From 2003-05, Rob taught the MBA-level course “Entertainment and Sports Marketing” at The Wharton School and co-founded the Wharton Sports Business Initiative in 2004.

Rob is a summa cum laude graduate from Boston College and earned an MBA from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. He lives in Northern New Jersey with his wife and two sons

Market Research

Jon Last
Founder and President
Sports & Leisure Research Group

For more than 20 years, the principals of Sports and Leisure Research Group have coupled an acute understanding of the sports, travel and leisure markets with a classical marketing research approach to combine market insights with actionable strategies. In an age where marketers need to understand the mindset of the consumer, Sports and Leisure Research Group plays the pivotal role of providing marketing professionals with the most extensive customized research and consulting services available. We have the skill, knowledge, and access to the latest data and information available to guide your thinking. Our expertise allows you to take a more creative and strategic approach to advertising research, product development testing, target market analysis and sales support research.

Working together, we will determine your objectives, select the best methods for gaining information, execute the research, analyze and interpret the results and recommend specific action. We offer full service market research capabilities including focus groups, surveys, fusion of behavioral and attitudinal data, customer satisfaction dashboards and one-on-one interviews. Now more than ever, marketers need to understand the mindset of the consumer to build effective marketing strategies. Sports and Leisure Research Group delivers the insights to help you to connect with a select group of distinctive individuals in this affluent, influential and informed target market.

Media and Sponsorship

Harry Spero
Partner

For nearly 40 years, Harry Spero has created, developed and nurtured advertising and marketing campaigns for some of the biggest brand names in New York City, the United States and the world. As a songwriter in the early 70’s and then as a VP of Midland International Records, Harry developed the music careers of John Travolta, Silver Convention, Carol Douglas, Melanie and many others while garnering a slew of number one and top ten gold records.

During the 80’s, Harry was VP of Advertising for Crazy Eddie, the largest home electronics retail chain on the east coast. Harry wrote and produced thousands of radio and TV commercials that drove consumers “INSANE”. By planning and placing $20MM of media annually, Crazy Eddie soared to sales heights of nearly $1B a year. From Crazy Eddie, Harry joined WFAN Radio, the nation’s first all sports station. His “We’ve Got New York Sports by the……” campaign erupted, and almost overnight, WFAN became the top billing station in the country.

In the mid 90’s Harry opened his own advertising agency, Spero Media. For clients like the NBA All Star Game, the Capital One Orange Bowl and the NBA Store Harry applied his vast knowledge of the media landscape and most importantly, his understanding ofhis client’s needs to cut through the clutter of very noisy media marketplaces.

David Sass
Partner

David is an experienced business executive with a proven track record for successful development and implementation of unique, effective and profitable revenue building programs. By leveraging his experience as a brand marketer he has successfully packaged and sold sponsorships that account for hundreds of millions of dollars in cash (and many times that in marketing support) to companies like: American Express, J P Morgan Chase, Coca Cola, XM Satellite Radio, Sprint, MasterCard, Citi, Visa, Gillette, Discover Card, Unilever, American Airlines, Colgate Palmolive, Valspar, Ariel Mutual Funds, Intercontinental Hotels, Levi’s and General Motors.

Before Apel, David was founding President of SFX Live, where he responsible for leading a team which created, packaged and sold national/regional live entertainment marketing partnerships, and servicing them. SFX offered the first nationwide, year-round “network” of live entertainment producers promoters and venues. Prior to joining SFX, David had 10 years of entertainment marketing experience with Radio City Music Hall and Mandalay Live! He worked on a diverse array of blue chip properties and events, including: The Radio City Christmas Spectacular, Super Bowl Halftime Shows, Moscow Circus, and countless concerts by top musical artists.

David began his career in packaged goods marketing, with 10 years of experience at Unilever and J. Walter Thompson. David has an MBA in marketing and finance from Syracuse University.

Jim Schwebel
Principal

Jim is an experienced, successful senior sponsorship sales executive with a proven track record in sales and sports/entertainment marketing. Before joining Apel, Inc., Jim spent 20 years at the National Football League, most recently as SVP, Corporate Sales and Sponsorship. He built and led a team of top sales and service professionals who developed and sold all corporate sponsorships for the League including the Super Bowl, the NFL Experience, and the annual Kick Off celebration.

He was directly involved in generating over $1 Billion from top corporate partners including: Coca Cola, Motorola, Sprint, Procter and Gamble, Kraft, General Mills, Pepsi, Visa, Fed Ex, General Motors, IBM, Anheuser-Busch, Coors, and Staples

He also worked very closely with NFL team marketing personnel and NFL Media Partners to ensure that sponsors received maximum value from their NFL relationships, and achieved their specific goals. A tireless builder of relationships, Jim has direct access to the top decision makers at virtually every potential sponsor company. Prior to joining the National Football League in 1983, Jim has a classical packaged goods marketing foundation through positions at Lever Brothers and Young & Rubicam.

Public Relations

Steve Griffith
Founder and President
Vision Group PR

At Vizion Group Public Relations in suburban Philadelphia, Steve Griffith works with some of the biggest names in sports and entertainment on a year-round basis as the lead PR executive for the American Century Championship celebrity golf tournament in Lake Tahoe (televised by NBC Sports each July) and for the Diamond Resorts Invitational PGA TOUR Champions pro/LPGA/celebrity competition (televised by Golf Channel each January).

The list of major personalities he works with each year includes Charles Barkley, Justin Verlander, Emmitt Smith, Ray Allen, Aaron Rodgers, Josh Donaldson, Jason Kidd, John Smoltz, Mark Rypien, Joe Theismann, John Daly, Brittany Lincicome, Pat Day and Steve Cauthen.

He is the public relations force behind The National Dog Show Presented by Purina, the NBC Thanksgiving Day special that produced the highest Nielsen TV rating in its 15-year in 2016, bucking a decades-long, industry-wide trend of diminished viewership levels. The two-hour broadcast has become institutionalized as part of the Thanksgiving Day holiday in part because of hundreds of millions of media impressions delivered each year by the national and regional PR campaigns.

Visual Brand Development

Tom O’Grady
Founder and Chief Creative Officer
GamePlan Creative

GamePlan Creative provides clients innovative, memorable and measurable creative solutions to generate revenue growth and stimulate business opportunities while building brand awareness at every audience touchpoint. With over 50 plus years of agency management experience, they offer clients a competitive edge with the comfort of knowing they are collaborating with recognized industry experts. They are multi-talented experts with extensive creative and technical skills in advertising, animation, branding, graphic design, marketing, sports design and film/video production.

Tom’s passion for branding, marketing and graphic design started when he served as a VP of Creative Services for the National Basketball Association. Over time, this passion drew him to create his own company to actualize his creative vision back to his hometown of Chicago. Tom founded Gameplan Creative in 2005 and now serves as a partner and Chief Creative Officer. Tom’s unique approach to viewing sports as a branded entertainment has helped change the face of the visual landscape in the category of sports. O’Grady’s application of sports as a “living brand” has been emulated by numerous team brands and has become a best practice in the sports and entertainment industry.

Integrated Marketing Programs

Nina Roth
Integrated Marketing Programs

Nina is a veteran business executive with a proven track record in sports and entertainment marketing, working with some of the most recognizable brands in the world. Her experience spans multiple disciplines including: integrated marketing program development, strategic partnership development, brand management, event production, advertising campaign development, promotions, sponsorship management and licensing. Nina’s a team builder, collaborator, problem solver, project manager and integrated thinker with experience working on projects of all shapes and sizes

Over the course of her career, Nina has launched brands and products, produced large and small scale events, managed promotional campaigns, increased ticket sales, driven digital engagement, increased lunch revenue and beat television ratings estimates. She has done so at The United States Tennis Association, Major League Baseball, The National Basketball Association, ABC Sports, Disney, ESPN and The Madison Square Garden Company. Nina has a passion for tackling big brand and marketing challenges and is a force behind finding creative marketing solutions to help the companies she works for and their clients break through the clutter and achieve their business goals