CHANGE MAKERS KELSEY BOWERS

is the Head of US Sports Partnerships at Twitter and has been with the company for four years. She is responsible for Twitter’s strategic partnerships with sports leagues and media partners to bring the most premium sports content to the platform and drive advertising revenue. The partnerships she's focused on include the NBA, WNBA, NFL, ESPN, NBC Sports & Olympics, and Fox Sports & World Cup.

Prior to Twitter Sports, Kelsey was a Manager in Media Strategy and Business Development at the National Football League (NFL) for three seasons. She helped drive the NFL’s media business through the deployment of key media rights, identification of new business opportunities within the broader media landscape, and the formation of strategic partnerships. Kelsey also spent two years before the NFL as an analyst at Bank of America Merrill Lynch in Technology, Media ,and Telecom Investment Banking, where she focused on financial analyses of media and entertainment companies.

Kelsey is a graduate of the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and is an active member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Incorporated. She is originally from East Orange, NJ and currently resides in Irvine, CA.

Tell us about your work at Twitter. I work at Twitter in our sports partnerships team after spending three years at the NFL. I definitely wasn’t a stranger to the sports industry when I began at Twitter. I was really excited to join this team from a social media distribution platform lens and start working with some of the top sports publisher partners in the world including, the NBA, WNBA, and NBC Sports (believe it or not, we're already talking about the Olympics, Paris 2024). I oversee an incredible team who manages our day to day relationships across every top sports league and media entity from the NFL, MLB, and MLS to Fox Sports, Univision Sports, and Turner Sports.

We work with our partners to create content on Twitter in two ways. First, of course, is revenue driving in order to make money for both Twitter and our partners. In this collective effort, we really work on what ways we can create revenue-generating opportunities through the content that's distributed on Twitter. A lot of the things we also do are related to fan engagement and conversation-driving experiences. We have thoughtful strategic discussions with each partner to determine their content distribution strategy and how they can leverage different content types like a 30-second clip, a short live stream, or other ways that we create fan engagement opportunities through products that we have on Twitter, like Spaces, which is our new live audio product.

And second, we have a lot of fun showing up in real life, connecting fans back to Twitter at a Super Bowl or at an NBA Finals, the NHL playoffs, or an MLB World Series. We create opportunities for fan tweets and the conversation that people are having on Twitter to show up in real life for fans to feel like they're there in person. There are a lot of different hats that we wear on this team, but it's really under the umbrella of content creation and conversation driving fan engagement within sports on Twitter.

When did you first become interested in what you're doing? I knew right after my freshman year in college that I wanted to work in the entertainment industry. I went to Wharton undergrad at the University of Pennsylvania, and after my freshman year, I completed an internship with BET Networks (subsidiary of Viacom) where I filled a business development and digital operations role there and that was where I felt, "Okay, I found what I want to do. I want to be in entertainment. I want to work in partnerships or business development.” I then went the investment banking route and focused on tech, media, and telecom because I knew I wanted to be in the entertainment space. I did go back into banking post-college because that was really how I felt I could best set up my career trajectory, and those two years opened opportunities for me. I was very vocal while I was there about what it was I wanted to do, and my VP at the time knew someone at the NFL who was hiring.

My work was focused on how the NFL's media rights were deployed across the media industry, and the negotiations and value exchange associated with those rights. Some properties I worked on included Thursday Night Football with NBC, Fox, CBS and Amazon, and Sunday Ticket with DirecTV. While I was at the NFL, I found that I really like working in the sports industry more specifically than media and entertainment. My work experience and seeing all those distribution platforms, including the rise of social media, are how I found myself here at Twitter focusing on sports.

Have you seen a change in the way people are engaging with Twitter given recent world events? Yes. It’s changed how we think about working with our partners and how they interact with users on Twitter. Twitter's just not that old. It's very young as a company, maybe older than TikTok or Snapchat, but in the grand scheme of things, Twitter hasn't really been around for that long. This concept of coming to a platform where you can find out what's happening, when it's happening, and have a microphone to talk to the entire world is still a relatively new concept.

The COVID-19 pandemic was a time in the world where everyone was united in wanting to stay up to date and wanting to feel together, and Twitter was really a great platform for that. We saw the daily average users (DAUs) go up significantly over the past few years because people are turning to Twitter to talk to people and hear different perspectives.

What areas of opportunity excite you the most in your industry right now? I'm very proud and excited to be in an industry where the product is something that people enjoy so much, and at the crux of it, unites people. What I'm most excited about is continuing to find ways to bring sports content to fans the way they want it, just how they want it, where they want it. There are newer things to think of like sports betting or the cross sections between sports and entertainment, sports and gaming, sports and crypto, and more.

What is your proudest professional accomplishment? I am always thinking about ways to grow and invest in underserved, undervalued, or underprivileged communities. While I work in sports and the distribution of sports and social media, I get the most pride when I'm able to make an impact and bring light to a community or area that isn't always seen.

The work that I've done with the WNBA in particular is what I am most proud of because that's where I've created opportunities in partnership for the organization, its players, and its community to talk about social justice and to support them in that. Last season we created an orange hoodie, and the front of the hoodie said #W, which was actually a QR code. When you scanned the QR code, it took you directly to a pre-populated tweet that talked about supporting the WNBA and its social justice work. This activation makes me proud because we were able to bring light to an important topic and was highlighted in my Forbes 30 Under 30 honor because it was an impactful experience that people felt moved by.

What way did MKA prepare you for the path your life has taken? I feel that MKA did a really great job of preparing me for college. The challenging curriculum set me up to have a pretty smooth and seamless transition to college; I had a really strong foundation to work from. I think the school has come a very long way when it comes to diversity, equity, and inclusion, and I look forward to seeing MKA continue to make DEI a priority.

MATTHEW BLESSO ’91