Event Details

The keynote speaker for the 2014 Michigan Sport Business Conference will be John Collins, Chief Operating Officer of the National Hockey League.

Prior to joining the NHL, Collins worked with the National Football League for 15 years. He was the President and Chief Executive Officer of the Cleveland Browns before serving as the Senior Vice President of Marketing and Sales for the NFL. Collins played a significant role in increasing NFL sponsorships and helped launch the NFL Network. During his tenure with the NFL, Collins was able to double annual corporate sponsorship revenues and presided over the Super Bowl XXXVI halftime show featuring U2.

Collins joined the NHL in 2006 and in less than a year was named the Senior Executive Vice President of Business and Media. He was then promoted to Chief Operating Officer of the NHL in 2008. Collins has been responsible for major deals such as the television contract with NBC Sports Group and making Coors the official beer of the NHL. He conducted the largest media rights contract in NHL history by negotiating the NHL’s partnership with Rogers Communications to hold exclusive rights to telecast games in Canada. Collins played a key hand in the development of the NHL Stadium Series and the Winter Classic, which was named the “Event of the Year” in 2009 and 2014. ESPN Announcer Mike Tirico will moderate Collins’ keynote. This will be Tirico’s third year participating in MSBC. At the previous conference, Tirico moderated ESPN President John Skipper’s keynote.