Account Executive

Merrimack athletic department announces partnership with Playfly Sports. * 12 hours ago New York, NY/NORTH ANDOVER, MASS (June 17, 2026) The Merrimack College athletic department on June 17 announced a three-year partnership with Playfly Sports, the sports industry's leading revenue maximization company for ticket sales. Playfly Sports will manage the outbound ticket sales for the college's athletic department. Playfly will oversee the ticket sales for Merrimack men's and women's hockey and men's and women's basketball games at Lawler Arena as well as football games at Duane Stadium. "In the changing college sports landscape, it is imperative that we are able to remain competitive and generate revenue for our athletic department," Merrimack College athletic director Joe Foley said. "Playfly has proven their ability to support ticketing sales time and time again, and we have full confidence they will help us achieve our financial goals." The company operates ticket sales and other revenue generation efforts for over 65 college athletic departments and 100 professional teams with a portfolio of over 2,200 advertisers. With a main corporate office in Pennsylvania, Playfly will have two employees located at the Merrimack ticket office. "With our schools, we are immensely focused on building partnerships that will be mutually successful," said Joe Kronander, the vice president of client development at Playfly Sports. "Playfly's resources across business units have led to a proven track record of revenue generation that will take Merrimack Athletics to the next level." Playfly has been named a "Best Place to Work in Sports" by Sports Business Journal, Front Office Sports, and Newsweek. Ashley Marshall EDP, Business Operations, Transformation & Marketing, Playfly Sports Sean McGuire Assistant Athletic Director of Strategic Communications ABOUT MERRIMACK Merrimack College sponsors 28 Division I varsity sports and competes primarily in the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference while the men's and women's hockey teams compete in Hockey East and field hockey team competes in the Northeast Conference. The Warriors are committed to excellence in competition, academics and community engagement while providing a transformative student-athlete experience. ABOUT PLAYFLY SPORTS Playfly Sports, the sports industry's leading revenue maximization company drives growth for its partners across the sports ecosystem - including 2,000+ brands, 100+ professional teams, 65+ college athletic departments, all U.S. local sports networks and associated streaming platforms, and other marquee properties. Its fan engagement platform allows its partners to reach and engage over 85% of all U.S sports fans. Playfly builds and implements custom strategies across media, sponsorship, premium experiences, ticketing and fan engagement offerings through proprietary data, innovative technology and compelling storytelling. Playfly operates an expansive portfolio of services with a data-driven and fan-focused approach to maximize revenue yield in key growth areas, such as media, sponsorship, ticketing, premium experiences and fan engagement offerings. Founded in September of 2020, Playfly Sports is now home to approximately 1,000 team members located across 43 U.S. states and internationally dedicated to maximizing the impact of highly passionate local sports fans. The company has been named Best Place to Work in Sports by Sports Business Journal, Front Office Sports, and Newsweek. To learn more, follow Playfly Sports on social media platforms or visit www.Playfly.com.

Playfly Sports names John Dooley General Counsel. Veteran Sports, Media and Entertainment Leader Joins Playfly's Executive Team Following Over Ten Years In Roles at Diamond Baseball Holdings and Endeavor/IMG NEW YORK, NY, May 28, 2026 - Playfly Sports, the sports industry's leading revenue maximization company, today announced the appointment of John Dooley as General Counsel, effective immediately. Dooley joins Playfly's executive team, supporting daily governance of the organization alongside CEO Craig Sloan, President Chris Marinak and Chief Operating Officer/Chief Financial Officer Nicolina O'Rorke. He will be based in Playfly's Atlanta office. "Throughout his career, John's leadership has been instrumental in enabling responsible growth, while protecting brand and stakeholder value, and delivering clear, actionable guidance to support fast-moving organizations," said Craig Sloan, CEO of Playfly Sports. "The goal throughout this process was to take the necessary time to find the right partner for this role, and we've found that in John. His experience will have a substantial impact on Playfly's continued growth trajectory." Dooley brings nearly two decades of experience advising growth-oriented businesses across sports, media, entertainment, hospitality and operations. Most recently, as General Counsel of Diamond Baseball Holdings, Dooley led the legal function for an organization operating 49 minor league baseball teams and a portfolio of ancillary events. Previously, Dooley spent nearly a decade at Endeavor/IMG, most recently serving as Senior Vice President and Associate General Counsel, supporting the company's premier events, sponsorship and marketing platforms, along with large-scale real estate and facilities operations. His work spanned IMG College, IMG Academy, Professional Bull Riders, the Miami Open, the US Open of Surfing and PGA and LPGA events. Among Dooley's key accomplishments were the launch of the PBR Team Series league, multi-school concert tours across IMG College properties, the relocation of the Miami Open to Dolphins Stadium,hosting the WNBA "bubble" at IMG Academy in 2020, and numerous acquisitions and divestitures, including the sale of IMG Academy in 2023. Dooley began his legal career at Troutman Sanders (now Troutman Pepper Locke), where he focused on private company mergers and acquisitions and served several sports and entertainment clients. "Since its founding nearly six years ago, Playfly has evolved substantially to touch nearly every area of the rapidly evolving sports landscape," added Dooley. "This is a rare opportunity to join Playfly as it continues to experience rapid growth. I look forward to joining a dynamic leadership team and immediately contributing to the company's long-term success." Dooley's appointment is Playfly's second senior leadership hire with deep sports properties experience, following the January 2026 appointment of Chris Marinak as President. Previously, Marinak served as Chief Operations & Strategy Officer at Major League Baseball.

Playfly is the neutral in local TV talks between NBA teams and media platforms. 05.06.2026 With 13 NBA teams in local TV limbo - and decisions expected as soon as this month - the marketing-media-tech conglomerate Playfly Sports has become a crucial intermediary for teams, rightsholders, brands and the league as the uncertain 2026-27 broadcast landscape drags on. The demise of Main Street Sports Group has left the Hawks, Hornets, Cavaliers, Pistons, Pacers, Clippers, Grizzlies, Heat, Bucks, T'Wolves, Thunder, Magic and Spurs in an undesirable spot - trying to recoup past $20M-plus annual rights fees at a time no one is offering anything similar. Multiple sources said DAZN and Fubo are dangling minimum guarantees that range from roughly $8M-$15M, that Victory+'s undisclosed minimum guarantees are dependent on financing and that OTA rights fees from Gray, Scripps, Sinclair or Nexstar are all generally below $10M. That leaves many of those NBA teams - and the media companies in pursuit of them - leaning on Playfly to help bridge the difference through its ad sales monetization engine. "Declining revenues out of a paid TV ecosystem has been going on now for years," Playfly CEO Craig Sloan said. "And the variable components that have now been spun up are, one, advertising sales and the importance of it. How much can [teams] maximize every single ad unit and every single broadcast they have across the season? And what is their ad-supported content they can create outside the games that we take to market? Or their new direct-to- consumer products? "Those are the upsides as we try to offset the deficiencies on that distributor side. And so all those things put us in a pretty centralized position. But one that has to be truly agnostic." Playfly has become a neutral source that is talking to all the media outlets (DAZN, Fubo, Victory+, Gray, etc), to brands, to the NBA and to NBA teams about how to support all of them. Already, Playfly has partnered with the streaming platform Victory+ (currently home to the NHL's Stars and Ducks, the WNBA's Lynx and still hoping to land three to five NBA teams), in a collaboration that Victory+ CEO Neil Gruninger calls "an additional outside resource to sell locally." Considering Victory+ is free and reliant on ad sales to recover its minimum guarantees, that ad revenue - outside of financing - is what can keep it solvent. There are similar active discussions with Fubo and DAZN - Victory+ competitors that are also in serious talks with NBA teams and looking to maximize ad sales. The Fubo dynamic is instructive. Because the company is 70%-owned by Disney, it has the Disney/ESPN ad tech behind it. Though Sloan would not comment, the two companies could still sign a contract to mesh together and maximize Fubo ad revenue. Meanwhile, because the NBA will launch an aggregated streaming hub for local broadcasts - presumably for the 2027-28 season - Playfly has had exploratory conversations with the league related to how the streaming platform would implement its ad tech and track revenue. "Playfly Sports has been a supportive partner to our teams and many of their local telecasters," NBA Senior Vice President, Head of National & Local Network Partnerships David Denenberg said. It is Playfly's relationship with those NBA teams, or in this case the ex-Main Street teams, that is most timely. Those franchises have to decide now where to broadcast their 2026-27 games. And not only is Playfly providing its data and insights to help guide teams to the broadest and most lucrative distribution model, it can deploy its proprietary "Synthetic Network" to bring high-end national brands (such as Amazon and Apple) to monetize local telecasts. "A lot of times teams, especially teams in market sizes such as ours, can struggle getting large advertisers to invest at scale," said Will Syring, the Thunder's VP/Corporate Partnerships. "You can call on Amazon and Apple all day, but it's unlikely that they'll listen to a single rep... They don't want the Will Syring in Oklahoma City calling on them. They want to just buy the eyeball. "... So Playfly has provided a solution that aggregates those opportunities for these decision makers that have big ad budgets and says, 'I can get an engaged audience, I can get the Thunder or Cleveland or the Bulls or New York, or I can get LA or I can get Sacramento or New Orleans. And I'm a single contact for you.' And they get the buys that way." In fact, the Thunder - which had a $16M rights fee from Main Street last season and never received a dime of it after December 2025 - is one of the teams in need of a new local TV partner, whether it goes with Fubo or the OTA channel it used for five games in greater Oklahoma City last season, Griffin Media. But, either way, it will try to recover lost rights fee money through Playfly's ad sales, or through Playfly finding brands to sponsor game graphics or shoulder programming. All the Thunder has to do is ask the Suns. The Suns were the first team, in 2023, to ditch the RSN model for an OTA/direct-to-consumer model. It meant the Suns had 100% regional reach throughout Arizona. And the ideal way to make up for its lower rights fee from Gray was to pound the pavement for local advertising - and go to Playfly for the national buys. According to Suns EVP & Chief Business Officer Dan Costello, the process would work this way: the Suns and Playfly would sell packages together at upfronts prior to the season and then do scatter buys from the middle toward the end of the year. Typically Playfly accounts for 55% to 60% of most teams' ad revenue. Which is why the Suns model could be the blueprint for those 13 Main Street teams. "Beyond any of our wildest dreams," Costello said when asked how the Suns have fared outside the RSN ecosystem. "... In all facets of our business, we are doing better now than we were before... And so I think teams that are considering making a move, that move gets a little bit easier with Playfly."