She left Microsoft in 1993 to join Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen’s Starwave Corporation as Executive Producer, then as Director of Product Development for multimedia products. This company was subsequently acquired by Disney and became part of Infoseek Corp (SEEK).

Ms. Bell has an undergraduate degree in Math and a Masters degree in Computing from the University of Toronto.

Sean Hallinan - Event Operations Advisor
From 1983 to 1990, Mr. Hallinan was National Account Manager and Vice President of Spencer Marketing Services in New York. He was responsible for all sports marketing business with respect to the collegiate marketing division for this prominent sports publishing company. Duties included the management of all corporate advertising, sports licensing, publishing, sponsorship sales, events, and corporate promotions.

Mr. Hallinan is currently retained by both Madison Square Garden and the New York Yankees to manage event operations. He has a B.S. Education from Manhattan College and an M.A. Education from Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan.

Kevin Layman - Technical Advisor
In his role as a Director in the Data Warehouse Program Office at Oracle Corporation, Dr. Layman was responsible for the testing and release of all of Oracle’s Data Warehousing products. Notable accomplishments include the release of Oracle Warehouse Builder, widely considered to be one of the highest quality products ever released by Oracle, and founding and serving as CEO of IPA.net, a large regional Internet Service Provider which was acquired by OneMain.com in 1999.

Michael Ritz - Marketing Advisor
Mr. Ritz is currently Director of Business Development at Turner Learning, a unit of Turner Broadcasting. Prior to joining Turner in the summer of 1999, he was Executive Publisher of Coach & Athletic Director, the leading magazine for the coaching and athletic management industries published by Scholastic Inc., the world’s leading publisher of educational materials. In addition, he was Managing Director of CoachPlus, the sports marketing and promotions division of Scholastic, with clients such as Gatorade, Reebok, PowerBar and Nike.

Prior to joining Scholastic in May, 1995, Mr. Ritz was the Vice President of Marketing at Professional Sports Publications (PSP), the number one publisher of game day programs and souvenir sports magazines in the U.S.. There he developed promotions and custom-publishing projects for AT&T, Kraft, Colgate-Palmolive and Searle Pharmaceuticals, among others.

Mr. Ritz also worked as Account Supervisor with HMG Sports (now Lifestyle Marketing Group), a division of Saatchi & Saatchi. At HMG he developed and managed sponsorship programs for USA Today, Jeep-Eagle and MasterCard. His career in sports began as an agent for Athletes & Artists, where he handled recruiting, contract negotiation, marketing and endorsements for a variety of baseball and hockey clients.

Mr. Ritz graduated summa cum laude from Boston University with degrees in public relations (School of Communications) and marketing (School of Business). He is on the adjunct faculty of New York University where he teaches Sports Marketing. He speaks regularly on the business of sports and has appeared in numerous television and radio interviews.

Hans Thell - Sweden - European Advisor
Mr. Thell had a long career with the large Swedish conglomerate Stiga AB, primarily in its sports products division. From 1970 through 1990 he held various positions including Marketing Manager at the head office in Tranas, Sweden. From 1990 - 1994, he was President of Stiga Inc. in the United States.

From 1995, Mr. Thell has been President of Toylink, a firm he founded. Toylink’s main business has been to introduce sports and toy related products developed in the U.S. to the European market. He is a graduate of Tranas Tekniska Skola (School of Engineering in Tranas, Sweden).