Board of Advisors
The advice and perspectives of these accomplished experts have helped pave our way to success over the years.
RICK GILES
Rick Giles founded the Gazelle Group in 1994 after spending eight years at International Management Group. Giles is a graduate of Princeton University and the Stern School of Business at New York University. The Gazelle Group creates, represents, and consults across sports and entertainment events. Since its inception, Gazelle has formed relationships with corporate sponsors, teams, venues, and television networks to produce and stage successful events throughout the country in a variety of sports. Gazelle also represents college basketball coaches – facilitating career movement and negotiating their contracts. Gazelle has many areas of expertise and experience. However, Gazelle’s core business has evolved around the sport of college basketball with such events as the Empire Classic, Legends Classic, Gotham Classic, College Basketball Invitational (CBI) post season tournament and ice hockey with the Holiday Faceoff.Rick Giles founded the Gazelle Group in 1994 after spending eight years at International Management Group. Giles is a graduate of Princeton University and the Stern School of Business at New York University.
KEN ELDER
​Ken has an impressive 30 plus year track record in revenue stream management and production. The last three plus years he has served as the President of Elder Sports Marketing. Ken has been responsible for the revenue management and generation for 8 Super Bowl Host Committees and generated over 35 million dollars in sponsorship revenues. Ken also has an extensive background working with rights holders in the College Sports realm. He has served as General Manager of the Hurricane Radio Network as well as an account manager with the Florida Gator Network. Ken also served on the initial College Football Playoff Staff Serving has Senior Director of Marketing and Strategic Partnerships. He continues to be a part of the College Football Playoff Team serving as a Sales Consultant for the past three years. Ken’s core competencies include package design, sponsorship customization, media sales, client prospecting, sponsorship fulfillment, sales campaign management, sales training, market analysis, and event promotion.
RAY KATZ
Ray Katz is a sports business, media, and marketing industry icon with over 25 years of experience, serving in leadership roles across many elite professional teams and leagues. He has negotiated naming rights, sponsorship, and media rights deals for multiple blue-chip clients across the college sports ecosystem, and engaged across all revenue elements of the sports business, including media, sponsorship, ticketing, and licensing throughout his storied career. Before CSMG, Ray held leadership roles working for leagues (NFL), networks (The Football Network), teams (New York Knicks, New York Rangers), and agencies (Young and Rubicam, OMD, Leverage Agency, Source Communications). Ray has also been dedicated to imparting his industry expertise to students by serving as a professor at numerous colleges and universities for the past 25 years, including presently as an adjunct professor at Columbia University. He holds a Masters of Business Administration from The Wharton School of Business after graduating Summa Cum Laude at the University of Pennsylvania.