JAY KAUFMAN joined National Research Group (NRG) in September 2021 as Executive Vice President & Head of Sports where he leads and formally launched the company’s growing sports research and consulting division. In his role, Kaufman oversees the direction and strategy of NRG’s sports business, providing thought-leadership and custom research to leading sports properties, rights holders and brands on a wide range of strategic initiatives that span fan engagement and segmentation, media and content strategy, brand and partner tracking, product innovation and critical issue management.
His current client list includes Apple, Amazon, Netflix, ESPN, FOX Sports, WBD, Paramount, NBCU, NBA, NFL, PGA TOUR, MLS, FanDuel and EA Sports. A respected sports executive, Kaufman came to NRG after a 22-year career working at the NBA, where he most recently served as Senior Vice President, Global Research & Insights. During his time with the NBA, Kaufman was responsible for providing Commissioner Adam Silver and former Commissioner David Stern, as well as the full NBA senior leadership team, with data-driven, contextual insights to help influence the strategic direction of the league and drive critical business decisions including brand positioning, global fan growth, media and content strategies and viewership optimization. In 2014, Kaufman played an integral role in the NBA’s nine-year, $24-billion media rights deals with Disney and Turner, helping provide the league with data and analysis which ultimately served as the foundation of the agreement.
Along with influencing business strategies, Kaufman’s team provided important analysis which affected on-court basketball items such as game flow, officiating, rules changes and regular- season and postseason structure. While with the NBA, Kaufman won the ARF David Ogilvy Award for Research Innovation and was recognized as a Talent Champion by the ANA Educational Foundation. He also serves on the advisory board for Sponsorship Exchange – a tech platform that is redefining how brands and athletes identify, evaluate and execute sponsorship opportunities in real time and Front Office AI – a collaboration tool that streamlines communications, events, documents, and transaction operations for sports organizations. Kaufman, who earned a Bachelor of Science degree from the Boston College Carroll School of Management, is based out of NRG’s New York City office, and resides just outside of the city with his wife and daughter.