Next League, the AI Operating Partner for Sports, today announced a strategic partnership with Marvik, an AI engineering firm whose client roster includes multiple Fortune 500 companies including Procter & Gamble, Stanford University and UNICEF. This new strategic relationship will bolster Next League’s existing AI development team, bringing Marvik’s enterprise-grade AI capabilities to its growing client portfolio.
The pairing of Next League’s proven sports operator playbook, applied across the leading leagues, federations and teams that define the industry, with Marvik’s enterprise AI engineering experience having over 300 production AI projects shipped and its strategic partnerships with the world’s leading AI platforms including NVIDIA, Anthropic Oracle, Google, Microsoft and AWS, is a combination the global sports industry has not previously had access to.
The two firms have already collaborated on several client engagements leveraging Next League’s sports operator playbook and utilizing integrated delivery teams.The relationship is now expanding into new engagements across Next League’s global sports portfolio.
“We have spent the past eighteen months scaling Next League for this moment with senior AI leadership hires, an actively expanding onshore engineering bench and successful AI Strategy and Training engagements,” said Next League Chief AI & Innovation Officer Shripal Shah. Pairing our AI engineers and proven sports operating experience with Marvik gives our clients access to a combination of top-tier talent, AI platform certifications, and delivery economics that the legacy consulting landscape in sports cannot match. We are excited to have their support in complementing the AI-assisted development we already apply across the digital platforms we operate.”
“Next League brings the tech advisory, engineering and sports operating relationships, as well as a deep understanding of the industry ecosystem, and we add enterprise-grade execution depth in production AI systems in complex enterprise environments,” said Marvik CEO Paula Martinez. “Together, this partnership allows us to bring real AI capability to the global sports industry that requires both operator credibility and world-class engineering.”
Through its existing AI Strategy and Training practice, Next League has led enterprise AI enablement engagements with some of the industry’s fastest adopters to AI in the workplace including Gotham FC and the Breeders’ Cup, working alongside their executive teams to embed AI within their front office operations. Next League currently applies AI-assisted development across most of its engagements, accelerating delivery and reducing operational overhead for the global sports organizations it supports.
Today’s announcement comes during a period of rapid expansion for Next League’s AI and emerging technologies capabilities. Over the last 18 months, Next League has added Shripal Shah as Chief AI & Innovation Officer and Scott Gutterman as Chief Digital Officer. Vishal Vasan, formerly of Fox Sports, joins next week as its AI Product Manager with additional onshore job positions, including a VP of Engineering as well as roles in Data Science, being actively recruited.