Speaker Profile

Kevin LaForce is the Senior Vice President, Media Strategy and Business Development for the National Football League. In this role since 2017, he leads the League’s overall media strategy and business development efforts focusing primarily on U.S. licensing partnerships. Prior to the 2018 season, LaForce helped lead the NFL’s license of Thursday Night Football (TNF) resulting in the first ever exclusive multi-year telecast agreement for the TNF franchise via a new partnership with FOX and related multi-year digital streaming partnership with Amazon. In addition, LaForce played a key role in the recent renewal of the NFL’s mobile partnership with Verizon. Beginning the 2018 season, this resulted in a substantial expansion of digital access to all in-market NFL games via a free, ad supported model accessible to subscribers of any mobile carrier network across phones and tablets. In addition to live game rights, LaForce focuses on growing the NFL’s strategic partnerships with scaled digital platforms including key social media properties (e.g. Facebook, Twitter, SNAP), digital aggregators (Google/YouTube, Amazon) and other emerging digital partnership opportunities. LaForce also focuses on the League’s direct-to-consumer strategy, including the strategic direction of the NFL’s owned and operated media assets (NFL Network, NFL.com, NFL Fantasy) and subscription products (NFL Game Pass).

LaForce also leads, 32 Equity, the entity that manages the strategic investment activities across the League, including the NFL’s Strategic Investment Fund as well as other structured partnership opportunities that are supported by direct investment from the NFL’s 32 Member Clubs. To date, LaForce has led investments across a range of opportunities that represent areas of strategic interest for the NFL, including Learfield Communications (college & university multi-media rights management), On Location Experiences (premium hospitality), Fanatics (eCommerce), Appetize (point-of-sale software) and Stack Sports (payment technology software).