Gary Stevenson

Gary R. Stevenson (born 1957 or 1958) is an American sports marketing executive. A graduate of Duke University and George Washington University, he helped start The Golf Channel, developed the business plan for the Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA), and launched Pac-12 Networks. He built a consulting firm, OnSport, that crafted the Wachovia Championship and put together the NASCAR Nationwide Series. After 10 years, he sold OnSport to Wasserman Media Group for a reported $25 million. Since 2013, he has been president and managing director of MLS Business Ventures, a division of Major League Soccer. Stevenson has also served as an independent director for Kilroy Realty Corporation, a publicly traded real estate investment trust, since 2014.

Gary Stevenson, the youngest of Robert and Eleanor Stevenson's four children, grew up in Elyria, Ohio, a bedroom community of Cleveland. He graduated from Elyria High School, where he was a two-sport athlete in football and basketball, in 1974. He earned his BA from Duke University and completed an MBA from George Washington University in 1982.

Stevenson started his sports marketing career in Houston in 1980 at ProServ, one of the earliest sports management firms. When two partners in the company, Frank Craighill and Lee Fentress, left in 1983 to form competitor Advantage International, taking about 50 clients with them, Stevenson followed. As vice president in charge of marketing at Advantage International, he developed business opportunities for clients John Elway, John McEnroe, Moses Malone, Hana Mandlíková, and Dan Marino, among others.

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