Ryan Spoon
President at Yahoo Sports. Former Sorare, BetMGM, ESPN.
New York, New York
Invests in
Sectors:
Locations:
Min Investment:
$0.00Max Investment:
$0.00Target Investment:
$0.00
Skills
Education
- Sidwell Friends
Lists including Ryan
Investments
Work Experience
2023
President
2023
2014
Partner
2014
SCN Ventures is a three-person partnership that invests directly in early and mid-stage technology companies and as a limited partner in venture capital firms. SCN focuses on investments in consumer, commerce, sports, and Web3. Examples of investments made either individually or through SCN include: • Companies: Hims & Hers Health ($HIMS), Athletic Brewing, ShopShops, Manscaped, Deblock, Avante Art, MyFitnessPal ($UAA) • Funds: NextPlay Capital, Social Leverage, Patron, Multicoin, Scribble Ventures, Dragonfly
2021 - 2023
Advisor
2022 - 2023
Chief Operating Officer
2021 - 2022
Sorare is the leading NFT-based sports game across global football, NBA and MLB. Joined as employee ~25 and hired to expand the business globally and open the US office (the team was previously all in Paris). The team grew from ~25 employees to ~200, split between Paris and NYC. As COO, was responsible for revenue, product, engineering, design, content, and customer support Launched the new Sorare App (March 2022), Sorare: NBA (July 2022), and Sorare: MLB games (Oct 2022)
2020 - 2021
Chief Operating Officer
2020 - 2021
BetMGM is the leading operator in US igaming and top-three in sportsbook. BetMGM is a private JV between MGM Resorts ($MGM) and Entain ($GMVHY). As COO, was responsible for all areas of operations: product, technology, design, customer support, payments, and fraud management.
2012 - 2020
Senior Vice President, Digital & Social
2018 - 2020
Responsible for ESPN’s extensive digital content and editorial efforts and for driving ESPN’s performance, engagement, and monetization both on and off-platform. Ryan and his team oversee the creation of content for ESPN digital and social channels and manage the execution of ESPN’s social strategy, content, and shows. ESPN'S digital properties are the world's leading and most successful online sports service - boasting the number one sports website and app, as well as the number one sports media publisher in social engagement across Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Snap.
Senior Vice President, Social Content & Digital Video
2017 - 2018
Senior Vice President, Digital Product, Design & Audience Development
2016 - 2017
Responsible for ESPN's digital experiences across web, mobile, OTT, fantasy/games, digital video, and social. In 2012, ESPN trailed Yahoo! in total reach and in fantasy players. ESPN Digital quickly became #1 in sports digital - and by a very wide margin. By October 2021, ESPN's digital audience had grown by over 400%, ESPN was #1 in usage (bigger than #2, #3 and #4 combined), #1 in mobile (2.5x bigger than #2 and accounted for nearly 50% of all mobile sports minutes), #1 in fantasy, and #1 across social (All category records). ESPN was recognized as Best in Digital Sports Media by Sports Business Journal in 2012, 2013, 2015, 2018, and 2019
Senior Vice President, Digital Product & Design
2012 - 2016
2000 - 2012
Founder
2000 - 2012
As a varsity swimmer at Duke, I founded beRecruited as a freemium recruiting platform for high school athletes and collegiate coaches. beRecruited helped 2,000,000+ high school athletes connect with NCAA coaches and teams. beRecruited was acquired in 2012 by Raine Group as part of a high school sports rollup alongside NCSA College Recruiting.
2009 - 2012
Principal
2009 - 2012
Joined Polaris in 2009 to grow our early-stage practice and specialized in early-stage consumer, social media and e-commerce investments. Was involved as a board member or observer in: WordPress, Recurly (acquired by Accel-KKR), ShoeDazzle (JustFab), LOLapps (6waves), ReadyForZero (Avant), Wantful (Nordstrom), Offline Labs (Postmates), and Movity (Trulia) Led Dogpatch Labs, our early-stage incubator on Pier 38 in San Francisco. Dozens of companies made their home and launched in Dogpatch Labs, including: Instagram (acquired by Meta), Remind, TaskRabbit (Ikea), TurnTable.fm, LOLapps (6waves), Formspring, Rapportive (LinkedIn), AdRise (Tubi), Cardpool (BlackHawk), Movity (Trulia), Chartboost (Zynga), etc.
2008 - 2009
Co-Founder
2008 - 2009
InGameNow is a real-time social network aimed at connecting sports-fans around live games, favorite teams, and breaking news. Fans can interact with other users through the InGameNow live platform and receive real-time alerts through chat. messenger, and SMS bots.
2007 - 2009
Vice President, Marketing & Business Development
2007 - 2009
Reaching nearly 100M users and serving 1B impressions each month, Widgetbox was the leading platform for web publishers and marketers to create, share and distribute widgets. Widgetbox ultimately focused on customizable ad-products, rebranded as Flite, and was acquired by SNAP in 2016.
2007 - 2009
Founder
2007 - 2009
sfEntrepreneurs is a young entrepreneurs organization based in the San Francisco / Bay Area. Our members collectively invest in the organization, development, and operation of the businesses we choose to pursue. As an organization, we self-incubate, fund, and grow the team's ideas into businesses. And while the organization is a side project for all of our members, collectively we are able to achieve rapid innovation.