Playmaker Capital, a digital sports media company that delivers authentic content experiences through its portfolio of sports media and technology brands, on Monday said it has hired Felipe Cortelezzi as its new Head of Monetization.
According to a statement from the company, Cortelezzi will maximize revenue generating capabilities across Playmaker’s portfolio of digital sports media assets, and his efforts will bring value to corporate advertisers and sports betting operators looking to access Playmaker’s ecosystem of highly engaged sports fans.
Cortelezzi brings to this role a deep understanding of multiplatform advertising sales, publisher ad operations and performance, affiliate partnership generation, and video-based media distribution, Playmaker said.
Most recently, Cortelezzi served as Director, AVOD Monetization & Operations at ViacomCBS, where he led the process for the sale and placement of a variety of advertising campaigns on ViacomCBS video-based content, including some of the most-watched video and television content throughout the Americas.
Prior to his role at ViacomCBS, Cortelezzi held various leadership positions in sales and advertising throughout Argentina, South Africa and the US.
In his new role as Head of Monetization at Playmaker, Cortelezzi will have direct oversight for monetization efforts across Playmaker’s portfolio of sports media brands throughout North America and Latin America. Playmaker’s brands in the aggregate generated more than 210m web sessions from 85m unique users in December 2021, and its owned and operated social media presence is in excess of 100m followers across Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, Twitch and TikTok.
Playmaker noted its monetization capabilities are powered by Bench, an in-house tech stack that includes technology tools integrated into a software platform that is designed to enhance user engagement and supercharge monetization. Bench currently is operational for Playmaker brands, Futbol Sites (Latin America) and Yardbarker (US) and the migration of monetization of The Nation Network (Canada) is in process.
As regulated sports betting continues to become more widely adopted throughout the Americas, Playmaker expects it will monetize its web-based and social media platforms through more affiliate revenue partnerships, for which Cortelezzi will be instrumental in executing.
Cortelezzi will be based in Miami, Florida, and will report to Federico Grinberg, EVP of Playmaker and CEO of Futbol Sites.
“We are very happy to add Felipe to the Playmaker team,” Grinberg said in a statement. “I have known Felipe for more than 15 years and I deeply believe in his professional and personal skills and everything he can contribute to Playmaker. In his role, Felipe will help to quickly unify and scale the monetization capabilities of Playmaker Bench across all of Playmaker’s assets.”
Jordan Gnat, CEO of Playmaker, added: “To succeed we need to have the best team and we are fortunate to have the opportunity to add someone with Felipe’s capability and experience. We will continue to add the best and brightest to the Playmaker family.”
