Leadership
James “Jamie” Bosworth, Founder and Chief Executive Officer
James L. “Jamie” Bosworth is considered one of the most dynamic, visionary and effective golf industry leaders of the last two decades. As Chief Executive Officer of the Back9Network, he brings a truly unique insight into golf industry media execution and its impact on its most highly coveted demographic, the golf lifestyle consumer.
Realizing that both advertisers and the golfing public were being underserved by current broadcast alternatives, Mr. Bosworth envisioned a global, multi-platform network that would transcend the professional tours and focus on the golf lifestyle, appealing to passionate player and casual fan alike. In 2010, he assembled an elite team of broadcast, web and golf industry experts to launch the Back9Network.
Prior to starting Back9, Mr. Bosworth served as Executive Vice President of Sales, Marketing, and Product Development for Callaway Golf, following the company’s largest-ever acquisition of the Ben Hogan and Top-Flite brands. Under his leadership, the company introduced a global series of highly successful new products, created innovative umbrella advertising strategies for both brands (across multiple media platforms, TV, print, and web), and instituted a complete restructuring of the marketing and sales departments. As a result, Ben Hogan sales increased from $12M to $60M globally, while reducing overall brand losses to a near breakeven point in the first full fiscal year.
Mr. Bosworth began his golf career as the youngest assistant professional ever at the famed Pebble Beach Golf Links, where he was also a founding staff member of the Pebble Beach Golf Academy. A short time later, he joined Odyssey Golf as a Sales Representative where he was promoted to the position of National Sales Manager just two years later. Mr. Bosworth delivered record sales and market share, leading to the brand’s acquisition by Callaway Golf. During his tenure at Odyssey, he was instrumental in the massively successful roll out of White Hot Putters and the 2-Ball Putter franchise (the most successful putter launch in the history of the golf equipment industry).
Mr. Bosworth was recruited away from Callaway Golf/Odyssey by Cleveland Golf to help manage their expansion into the wood and putter markets. While there, he worked to help launch several highly successful wood product lines that contributed to Cleveland Golf doubling its sales within 18 months.
Most recently, Mr. Bosworth founded the Bosworth Sports Group (formerly Blake and Bosworth) where as CEO, he capitalized on his expertise in sales, marketing, branding, product development, club design, distribution, and manufacturing to provide highly sought after consultative services. The player/agent representative services division was sold after becoming the fastest growing player representative group in the industry (representing PGA Tour professionals including Steve Marino, Ricky Barnes and Jeff Quinney). Additionally, he spearheaded the business development division of the company and initiated highly lucrative deals with companies as diverse as Waste Management, Ginn Resorts, Marsh & McLennan and Fred Couples. Outside of the golf space, Mr. Bosworth represented professional athletes such as Liz Hatch (Cyclist) and Javier Colon (Recording Artist), where he provided career advisory services and developed unique marketing partnerships (Hatch – Maxim Magazine; Colon – IMI Luxury Real Estate). Javier Colon was featured in April 2011 on the new and highly promoted NBC reality TV program, “The Voice.”
Mr. Bosworth is a proud graduate of Seton Hall University where he was awarded the first ever, full golf scholarship in program history, was named Big East Freshman of the year, and led the Pirates to a Big East Golf Championship. Jamie currently serves on a board of the PGA Merchandise Show, is interviewed frequently by Golfweek magazine, Golf Digest, Golf World and The Hollywood Reporter. He has also repeatedly appeared on the Golf Channel, NBC and Fox Television as an industry expert.
Clint Eastwood, Creative Board Chairman
An international icon in cinema, Clint Eastwood’s career began in the mid 1950′s, working as an actor in the TV series “Rawhide.”
1971 proved to be a turning point in Eastwood’s career and one of his best years in film, if not the best. He starred in three high-caliber films, starting with “The Beguiled.” Mr. Eastwood then directed his first movie, “Play Misty for Me.” That same year, he played the hard edge police inspector in “Dirty Harry,” which invented the loose-cannon cop genre that has been imitated even to this day, and made him a superstar.
Mr. Eastwood continued his film career with a constant stream of successful movies. His western, “Unforgiven,” garnered Mr. Eastwood his first Oscar nomination as Best Actor, and wins for Best Director and producer of the Best Picture. “In the Line of Fire,” and “The Bridges of Madison County” were both hits at the box office and hailed as some of his best performances.
In what is arguably the finest film of his career, Mr. Eastwood directed and starred opposite Hilary Swank in “Million Dollar Baby.” A critical and commercial triumph, the movie won the Academy Award for Best Picture, as well as his second nomination for Best Actor and win for Best Director.
After starring in iconic movies for four decades, Clint Eastwood has proved himself to be not only the longest running movie star, but a consummate Hollywood legend. His career as a director continues to thrive.
Mr. Eastwood’s life and career as well as his love of golf inspired his world-class golf resort in Carmel, California called Tehama.
In 1999 he led the investor group that purchased the Pebble Beach Company. He also serves as chairman of the Monterey Peninsula Foundation, which hosts the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am, one of the most internationally recognized stops on the PGA tour.
Eastwood has brought his television and film industry experience as well as his love of the golf game to Back9Network, where he currently serves as creative director, driving Back9′s mission through casting, content and programming.
Carlos Silva, President
Having managed the meteoric growth of some of the world’s largest multimedia empires and niche sports cable networks, Carlos Silva brings his expertise to the Back9Network as the company’s President.
In early 2006, Mr. Silva was appointed President and COO of Universal Sports (then called the World Champion Sports Network), the leading content aggregator and distributor of world championship, Olympic-style sports in the U.S. After executing syndication agreements with Fox Sports, Yahoo Sports, and AOL Sports to grow awareness of the company’s content, he helped to raise $35 million and create a partnership with NBC to launch the sports cable TV network in 10 million homes. The network’s audience had increased to 65 million homes by 2011.
Prior to Universal Sports, Mr. Silva ran some of the largest web destinations in the world: AOL News, AOL Sports and AOL Money. He also serves as a Partner and Entrepreneur In Residence at Park Lane, a sports-advisory investment bank. As an accomplished strategist, Mr. Silva is highly skilled in business development, general management, operations, content licensing, product design and recruiting. He is an accomplished tri-athlete and Ironman competitor and also won 4 BIG EAST Team Championships in Tennis.
Carlos holds a Bachelor of Science degree from Boston College, earning his Masters degree from George Washington University.
Reid Gorman, Chief Operating Officer
Reid is a 20-year veteran of the golf industry specializing in sales and operations for leading consumer brands. Mr. Gorman was President of the MacGregor Golf Company from 2005-2008. He honed his leadership skills in sales and business development as National Sales Manager for the Callaway Golf Ball Company, Sales Operations Manager and Strategic Sales Manager for the Callaway Golf Company and Senior Director of Sales, Top-Flite & Ben Hogan brands. At Callaway Golf and at the age of 29, Reid was hand picked by company founder, Ely Callaway, to launch the Callaway Golf Ball brand into the highly competitive golf ball category as National Sales Manager. Shortly thereafter, he pioneered the development and management of the Strategic Sales function at Callaway Golf, well in advance of retail consolidation trends.
A certified Birkman Method® Consultant, Mr. Gorman founded 2James Consulting, a full-service business management-consulting firm, where he leveraged his diverse experiences in all aspects of commerce and business operations, ranging from retail sales, retail management, customer service, field sales, sales operations, sales management and other senior management experiences to deliver growth and increased profitability to his clients.
He is a graduate of Central Connecticut State University.
Charles Cox, Chief Financial Officer
Prior to joining Back9Network, Mr. Cox was the Director, International Finance – Business Development at ESPN, Inc. in its Bristol, Connecticut headquarters, working on mergers & acquisitions, joint ventures, channel/product launches, and other corporate projects for ESPN’s international businesses. In conjunction with upper management at ESPN and its parent company, The Walt Disney Company, he helped sell Asia’s top sports pay television asset, ESPN Star Sports, to News Corp. In addition, he led ESPN’s acquisition of Footytips, Australia’s top sports fantasy-tipping website, as well as helped launch ESPN’s third Spanish-speaking pay television network, ESPN 3 (Tres), in Latin America.
Prior to ESPN, Mr. Cox worked as an investment banker at Fidus Partners in Charlotte, North Carolina, providing merger & acquisition advisory and related services to middle-market private equity firms, corporations, and private business owners. He also worked in the media and communications investment banking group of Wachovia Securities, advising corporate clients on mergers & acquisitions and debt offerings.
Before entering investment banking, Mr. Cox was a corporate attorney in New York City at Proskauer, the country’s top sports and entertainment law firm, serving clients like the National Basketball Association. He started his career in Washington, D.C. at the prominent law firm, Williams & Connolly, primarily supporting the firm’s sports law practice with the recruiting, marketing, and free agent analysis of its professional athlete clients.
Mr. Cox earned MBA and JD degrees from the University of Virginia, and received a BA in economics and political science from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Paul Pendergast, Chief Development Officer
Known as one of the most savvy and successful development executives in the country, Paul Pendergast currently serves as Chief Development Officer for the Back9Network. Prior to joining Back9, Paul was the Director of Institutional Advancement at the University of Connecticut. He also served as Interim Athletic Director at UConn, President of the Saint Francis Foundation and the Senior Vice President of Development for Saint Francis Hospital in Hartford, CT. Before joining St. Francis, Mr. Pendergast served as the Senior Associate Athletic Director for Development at the UCONN Division of Athletics from 1998 to 2006. Paul was responsible for growing the division’s donor base during the university’s meteoric rise to national prominence. From 1968 until his retirement in 1998, Paul held various managerial and executive level sales and marketing positions with the IBM Corporation and its affiliates, both domestically and abroad. A 1968 graduate of Grove City (PA) College, Mr. Pendergast is active with many community non-profit boards and committees in the Greater Hartford area including the Hartford Symphony Orchestra, Middlesex County Chamber of Commerce, Ray of Hope Foundation (founded by the Boston Celtics’ Ray Allen) and the Urban League.
Mike Feld, Chief Technology Officer
Mike is a recognized innovator in the field of telecommunications and IT services. Mike founded fc.com, Inc., a company specializing in the then-emerging field of remote network management for carriers and enterprises. Fc.com also designed and implemented network, operations centers (NOCs) and local network infrastructures for exchange carriers such as CTC, Nynex/BA, and VTel (Vermont Telephone).
Fc.com was sold to CTC, one of the largest Northeast CLECs, in 2000. At CTC, Mike created the first fully remote (Voice/Data over Frame) NOC. This NOC handled all aspects of customer support and provided integration with carrier OSS platforms. Required applications (ACD, Ticketing, EDI w/ OSS and others) were developed and resulted in an efficient, low-overhead operation that allowed CTC to quickly become an operational CLEC.
Mike also served as the Chief Technology Officer of Connecticut Broadband, where he designed a statewide VOIP network. Mike also served as a Senior Consultant for Connecticut Broadband’s consulting division, Partner Consulting, focusing on complex voice, data and Internet applications. Mike has also worked with numerous Municipal Utilities across the country assisting with the technical assessment, vendor selection and rollout of Broadband Data Services.
As the founder and President of VertitechIT, Inc. Mike has provided telecommunications and IT consulting and engineering support for telecommunications carriers, large business and industry manufacturers.
Robert Abbott, Executive Vice President of Production and Content Development
Mr. Abbott joins Back9Network after an award-winning career with leading media companies, including ESPN, Inc. and CNN. In his most recent ESPN role as Senior Coordinating Producer of Content Development, Mr. Abbott, who joined ESPN in 2001, oversaw the development of new shows, special projects and provided editorial direction for ESPN Films. Mr. Abbott was co-creator of E:60, the network’s first multi-themed prime-time newsmagazine series. He oversaw overall production, including staffing, editorial content, budgeting and story ideas for the Emmy Award-winning show.
Mr. Abbott previously served as a coordinating producer for ESPN Classic from 2004 to 2007, where he created, launched and was responsible for the production of 59 episodes of one of the network’s signature series – Top 5 Reasons You Can’t Blame. From February 2003 to September 2004, he was the coordinating producer and launched “Who’s #1?”, “The Headlines” and ESPN’s Silver Anniversary special programming.
From 2001 to 2003, he produced ESPN Classic’s critically-acclaimed SportsCentury series, profiling sports personalities such as Baltimore Raven Ray Lewis, legendary NFL coach Bill Parcells, professional women’s tennis players, The Williams Sisters, and Jerry Jones’ Cowboys.
Prior to joining ESPN, Mr. Abbott was a producer for CNN (1987-2001). At CNN, he served as the network’s Olympic producer for 10 years, spanning five Olympic games. He also worked as a producer for CNN Sports, news shows, and as an investigative producer. Mr. Abbott’s investigative work on Bob Knight’s controversial coaching tactics eventually led to the firing of the legendary coach by Indiana University after 29 years at the school.
Mr. Abbott has been honored for his work, receiving five Sports Emmy Awards in four different categories including Journalism, Long Feature, Best New Approaches and Anthology Series. He also won a News and Documentary Emmy Award for CNN’s Breaking News Coverage of The Olympic Park Bombing in 1996. His 1999 Bob Knight investigation garnered a National Headliner Award for Sports Reporting.
A native of Miami, Fla., Mr. Abbott is a 1986 graduate of Florida State University with a Bachelor of Science degree in communications.
David B. Clevinger, Senior Vice President of Digital Products and Programming
Mr. Clevinger is responsible for the strategic direction, product planning and day-to-day operations of the Back9Network digital team. He will also lead efforts to drive audience growth across current and emerging TV and digital platforms of the world’s first multiplatform lifestyle and entertainment golf destination.
Mr. Clevinger's wide-ranging experience includes online product, programming and digital oversight, including providing leadership for large-brand digital business, product portfolios and top-rated online destinations. Among the brands he has worked with directly or as a strategic partner are AOL, NBC Universal, NFL, NBA, UFC and NHL.
Mr. Clevinger previously was vice president of product management for NeuLion, overseeing product management for the digital media services provider’s live events, robust video-on-demand and authenticated TV Everywhere experiences for prominent sports and entertainment brands. In addition, he oversaw digital products and programming for Universal Sports Network, helping launch the new media brand online and building it as a top-ranked sports Web site.
Dennis Allen, Senior Vice President of Global Business Development
Fluent in Japanese, Mr. Allen has lived and worked in Asia for 18 years bringing with him a unique understanding of the Asian markets. From July 2005 until May 2009, he served as Vice-President and Managing Director of the Asia Pacific Region for TaylorMade-adidas Golf, based in Hong-Kong. In this capacity, he managed TMaG’s golf business in 13 countries, and led his team to revenue and profit growth exceeding 120% in less than four years. His efforts included signing a three-year agreement with the China Golf Association, the exclusive development arm for golf in China.
From January 1999 until January 2005 he was President of Acushnet Company (owner of Titleist and FootJoy golf brands) in Japan where he oversaw all business areas, with five direct reports. He grew revenue to $60MM in 2004, up from $40MM in 1999, growing distribution from 69 outlets to 1,100 accounts, while maximizing employee productivity in 15 key markets.
Mr. Allen is a graduate of the University of Washington.
Steve Shaw, Vice President of Production
After helping to shape the on-line personas and video communications strategies of more than a dozen golf companies, Steve Shaw serves as Vice President of Production for the Back9 Network. Mr. Shaw is a producer, communications consultant, writer, and founder of Visual Concepts, one of New England’s premiere multimedia production companies. He started the company in 1986, producing documentaries, web sites, internal and external video programs, as well as sales meetings and special events for corporations around the world, specializing in work for the golf industry. With 638% growth in four years, the company was named to the prestigious INC 500 list of the fastest growing, privately held businesses in America. Mr. Shaw was an award winning television journalist for WTNH-TV in New Haven, CT from 1980 to 1986.
Mr. Shaw has worked with some of golf’s most iconic brands including Top-Flite, Ben Hogan, and Spalding Sports. Over the last two decades, he has helped launch new products for Callaway Golf, Odyssey, MacGregor, Etonic, and many more. He has produced dozens of programs that have received national honors from the International Television Association [ITVA], The National Telly Awards, The International Association of Business Communicators [IABC], CINE, and the New York Festivals. Recent documentary work was honored with an Emmy Award from the New England chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.
A Magna Cum Laude graduate of Emerson College and a former member of its Board of Overseers, Mr. Shaw lectures at colleges and universities across the country.