Forbes.com
April 28, 2011
By Mike Ozanian
Lou Imbriano is the CEO of TrinityOne Sports, a sports and entertainment marketing company he founded in 2006 that specializes in maximizing revenue generation and brand awareness for sports teams like the National Basketball Association’s Boston Celtics and NASCAR’s Richard Childress Racing.
Imbriano, 45, built his stellar reputation as the marketing honcho for the National Football League’s New England Patriots and Gillette Stadium for nine seasons and also served as COO of the New England Revolution of Major League Soccer for a few years. During this time Imbriano worked for team owners Robert Kraft and his son Jonathan, among the smartest and most highly respected owners in sports.
While working for the Kraft family, Imbriano increased sponsorship and advertising revenue from $16 million to over $90 million by creating and developed such profitable and brand-building events like Patriots Experience, New England Patriots Charitable Foundation Annual Golf Tournament, Super Bowl Revenue Capitalization Plan, New England Revolution’s Soccer Celebration, New England Revolution Center Circle season ticket program, New England Revolution Presidents Club and Netside Terrace hospitality programs, Revolutionsoccer.net radio and Patriots.com radio programming. Imbriano also designed the blue print to achieve the largest single game attendance in MLS history (2002 MLS Cup) and created and produced Sports Jam, a sports interactive fan festival that incorporated aspects of all of the major professional sports teams in New England.
With TrinityOne Sports, Imbriano is using his event, television and online experiences to help teams use social media to increase brand strength and revenue (see his guidelines for sports and social media below). He is also going to be working with athletes. “The big mistake many teams and athletes make is not integrated social media with the overall strategy of the team” says Imbriano. “We do not believe they should be kept separate. We believe they are one in the same.”
