186 Scaling a Global Licensing Marketplace: Ari Zabersky on 800+ Brands & 1,000+ Licensees

Ari Zabersky grew up in the licensing industry, watching his family build a toy business and experience firsthand how difficult it was to secure valuable IP. Years later, he turned that problem into Negosh, a global licensing marketplace built to make it easier for brands and manufacturers to find each other and get deals done. Negosh now connects 800+ IPs with 1,000+ licensees and uses technology and AI to streamline a licensing process that traditionally relied heavily on relationships, manual outreach and lengthy negotiations. Ari says the platform has helped reduce deal timelines from six or seven months to as little as one or two months, and sometimes weeks. Ari joins the Sports Business Leaders Podcast to discuss building a two-sided marketplace, how AI is changing licensing, the opportunity for sports properties to generate incremental revenue through new categories and territories, and why international expansion could create significant opportunities for leagues, brands and manufacturers.