mike golub’s bio

Mike is a nationally recognized and respected leader in the sports industry who, over the course of his career, has stewarded highly successful sports entities across the spectrum of properties and markets. Mike is currently President of Business for SlamBall.

A passionate and innovative senior executive, Mike has built and elevated organizations to the top of their industries. Mike has broad functional expertise and a long track record of growing revenue.

Mike has worked in all five major sports either at the team or league level. He has operated highly successful teams and venues in the country’s largest market and in smaller markets, in established professional sports markets and in emerging ones. He has built and launched three now top-performing sports teams from the ground up and has helped grow the business of some of the most established and venerable teams and brands in sports.

Mike is a builder. In his role as President of Business for the Portland Timbers and Portland Thorns, Mike created the blueprint for the launch of both teams (2011 and 2013 respectively), executed the launch and helped make them among the most successful in sports. The Timbers have one of the most passionate fan bases in all of sports, one of the most electric fan experiences anywhere and consistently rank in the top five in the league in all business metrics, despite being in one of the smaller markets. During Mike’s 13-year tenure, the Timbers were twice twice nominated for Sports Team of the Year by the Sports Business Journal and earned many other awards and recognition.

Mike was a key figure in the conception and launch of the NWSL as a founding league board member and chair of various board committees. As a charter team, the Portland Thorns, in its decade of existence under Mike’s leadership, has been the most successful, highest grossing and most well attended professional women’s sports team in the world. The Thorns averaged 20,000 fans a game (pre-COVID), setting the bar for how a women’s sports team should be operated. The Thorns, among many awards and accolades, became the first women’s team to ever be nominated for Sports Team of the Year. 

Mike’s entrepreneurial and business-building accomplishments include the construction of a major NBA arena (Fed Ex Forum), MLS/NWSL stadium (Providence Park) and multiple team training centers. Mike helped lead the first NBA team relocation in 18 years and helped start a sports entertainment division with Nike, working with some its highest profile athletes and teams including Tiger Woods and Michael Jordan. 

As head of the NBA’s Events Division Mike managed a group of 30 in New York and Tokyo. He helped grow the NBA All-Star game to new heights, introducing NBA Fan Fest and the Skills Challenge, helped launch and operate the NBA Opening Games in Japan, ran the first ever Dream Team events, took the NBA Draft on the road for the first time and was part of the startup team of the WNBA that created and enacted the league’s inaugural business plan.

Revenue growth has been a central pillar in Mike’s body of work. During his career Mike has helped generate many hundreds of millions of dollars of sponsorship deals, including $90M and $50M naming rights partnerships.

Ticket sales have always flourished under Mike’s leadership. The Timbers sold out every match since entering MLS pre-COVID, one of the longest sellout streaks in league history, hold the MLS record renewal rate and continue to maintain a waiting list for season tickets, capping their season ticket base at 20,500.

The Timbers and Thorns have been among the most profitable teams in their respective leagues. The Timbers, as reported by Forbes in 2021, are valued at $650M, having joined the league in 2011 for an expansion fee of $35M. The Grizzlies during Mike’s tenure as EVP sold out all 65 suites and all premium seats on a multi-year basis. And during his tenure at the New York Rangers the team set a then record for gross revenue as Mike helped lead the Rangers from an NHL lockout to a high-water mark across all revenue centers.

Central to Mike’s personal and business ethos is harnessing the power of sports for good and making the community in which you work and live a better place. Throughout his career, best-in-class community programs and philanthropy have been the hallmarks of the organizations Mike has run. The Timbers and Thorns have been nationally recognized for groundbreaking community work, being nominated as the first ever ESPN Sports Humanitarian Award and being named MLS Community Team of the Year three consecutive years. During his tenure with the Memphis Grizzlies he helped create the Grizzlies House at St. Jude Children’s Hospital and forged an innovative and enduring partnership with the National Civil Rights Museum.

Perhaps Mike’s proudest legacies are the relationships he has cultivated and maintained around the industry—and the world. Mike is deeply fortunate to have lifelong friends across the sports sphere. As he has learned from the incredible mentors he has been fortunate to work for during his career, Mike has proven that you can lead with compassion and dignity and still succeed in a highly competitive environment. The organizations he has led consistently produce people who are all-in, work hard but have fun and achieve personal growth along their professional journeys.

Mike has received numerous awards and accolades over the years, including being a two-time winner of Major League Soccer’s Executive of the Year award, being named among Portland’s 50 most influential people and being named one of the State of Oregon’s 25 most influential people in sports 12 times.

Mike has been a guest lecturer at many universities including Stanford Business School, Harvard Business School, Columbia, Dartmouth and University of Oregon, and teaches a bi-annual class on women’s soccer at the Football Business Academy in Geneva.

Mike has served on many private and nonprofit boards of directors, including the Board of Regents of the University of Portland and the Boards of Directors of Oregon Public Broadcasting and the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, and is the immediate Past President of the Portland Business Alliance. Currently he is a board director for Recycleballs.

Mike has a BA from Dartmouth College and an MBA from Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business, where he served on the Alumni Advisory Board. Mike, his wife, Sam, and their dog, Clarence, live in Henderson, Nevada. Their interests include hiking, food, yoga, pickleball, theater and travel.