Overview
Bobby Sharma is a special adviser to the Sports & Entertainment Group at Foley & Lardner LLP. With nearly 20 years of sports, media, and entertainment industry experience, Bobby provides services to organizations, teams, leagues, and other stakeholders across all professional and amateur sports on a range of subjects, such as league development and governance, team sales and acquisitions, media, sponsorship, licensing, data use and privacy, and technology. His work includes a focus on the rapidly evolving business and legal issues in esports and its broad and complex range of stakeholders, including leagues and teams, game publishers, technology and software developers, investors, media distributors, sponsors, and merchandisers.
Bobby is founding partner of Electronic Sports Group (ESG), a market-leading esports advisory firm which helps investment and business leaders navigate and operate in the burgeoning billion-dollar esports industry. He is also a partner at GACP Sports, a sports-related private equity firm, and the chairman of Blue Devil Holdings, LLC, an international sports, media, and entertainment investment company.
Previously, Bobby served as a senior vice president of the Global Head of Basketball & Strategic Initiatives at IMG and as a vice president and general counsel at the NBA Development League at the National Basketball Association for almost a decade.
Recognition
In 2014, Bobby was named one of the “Outstanding 50 Asian Americans in Business” by the Asian American Business Development Center. He received the Basketball Federation of India Legacy Award in 2012 and the Rising Star Executive Award from Media Partners Global in 2011. In 2010, he was given the Corporate Counsel Award by the South Asian Bar Association of New York and the Sports Counsel of the Year Award by the Association of Media & Entertainment Counsel later that year. He was also recognized as one of the “25 Most Influential South Asian Executives in the Media and Entertainment Industry” by Korn/Ferry International in 2009.
Education
Bobby is a graduate of Duke University and the Duke University School of Law. He also attended the Harvard Business School executive program on the business of entertainment, media, and sports.