Episode 46: Daniel Sillman - Relevant Sports Group

Kickin' it with Krish

Daniel Sillman is the CEO at Relevent Sports Group (RSG). Sillman leads the largest privately-owned football company in North America which owns and operates international football properties and negotiates international broadcast rights for top leagues and governing bodies.

Sillman’s initial foray into football was leading the strategy to bring El Clásico to the U.S. for the first time in 2017 creating a week of events and entertainment, resulting in the highest grossing football match in history.

Sillman has led RSG to exponential growth, driving the company’s holistic approach to growing football’s popularity in America. He created new properties including the the Women’s ICC Tournament and the ICC Futures’ Tournament. He also negotiated and completed the landmark deal, a first-of-its-kind 20-year deal with LaLiga, a 50/50 joint venture to promote LaLiga in North America.

In 2018, Sillman shifted RSG’s business strategy from solely an events company to a global media rights operator, selling premium football rights. This delivered record setting results. Sillman negotiated more than $2 billion in international media rights for LaLiga in North America, inking partnerships with Disney/ESPN in the US & Canada and Televisa in Mexico & Central America. The ESPN deal was the largest football media rights deals ever in the US & Canada at the time.

The success of the media rights deals has led to further unprecedented opportunities for RSG. This year RSG secured the rights to sell UEFA’s club competitions media rights in the US. This is the first time UEFA has used a new media rights sales partner since the formation of the champions league over 30 years ago.

The LaLiga media deals and securing the media rights sales mandate from UEFA has positioned RSG as one of the most influential and important football companies in the world.

Prior to joining RSG, Sillman served as the Director of Business Development at RSE Ventures, responsible for new investments. Sillman started his career founding and operating a multi-family office for professional athletes, Compass Management, which he later sold to FFO in 2015. Sillman was awarded the 2019 Sports Business Journal’s forty under 40 and Forbes’ Sports 30 under 30 for 2018.

Sillman lives in New York City, holds a B.B.A. from the University of Michigan, Ross School of Business. He serves as Chairman of the NextGen Council at the University of Michigan.