Peter Farnsworth

Senior Vice President, Business Development
National Basketball Association
As Senior Vice President of Business Development for the NBA, Peter Farnsworth leads the acquisition of new corporate alliances on both a domestic and international basis. This includes overseeing a team based in the U.S. as well as in the NBA's 14 international offices.

Since joining the NBA in 2001, Farnsworth’s team has secured dozens of marketing partnerships with some of the most recognizable brands in sports across the NBA, WNBA, NBA Development League and USA Basketball. As a result of their ongoing efforts, this significant revenue source has seen 25-percent growth in the last year alone, with the signing of such high-profile agreements as HP’s first-ever partnership with a professional sports league, Kia’s presentation of the league MVP and other key awards, and partnerships with Cisco, Wrigley’s and Right Guard.

In addition to these full marketing partnerships within and outside of the U.S., Farnsworth and team are responsible for new partner development with high-profile international initiatives – including NBA Europe Live presented by EA SPORTS and NBA China Games – which have combined for 93 games outside the United States and Canada since 1988 in an effort to help grow basketball as a global game.

The international array of properties that Farnsworth supervises also includes community-based initiatives, such as Basketball without Borders and dozens of participatory events and mobile marketing tours across multiple countries.

As head of business development, Farnsworth has played a key role in developing the commercial strategy and modeling for the NBA and AEG’s new arena partnership in Greater China. The NBA and AEG already worked together to create the Beijing Olympic Basketball Arena, which played a starring role in the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Now 10 to 12 new 17,000-seat, multipurpose venues will be built to anchor entertainment districts and set the stage for an NBA-style league in the league’s largest international market. Recently announced venues in Shanghai and Guangzhou will be the first arenas built under the new partnership.

Farnsworth began his career with ProServ sports marketing and eventually spent close to ten years there and with SFX, leading the acquisition and representation of a diverse array of properties as well as handling the development of corporate partnerships for high-profile events and endorsement deals for world-class team sport and Olympic athletes. During his tenure there, he also was heavily involved in representing several professional sports franchises in their efforts to secure entitlement partners for new stadiums and arenas.

A 1992 graduate of Colgate University, Farnsworth graduated magna cum laude with a bachelor of arts in political science and religion. An academic and athletic standout at Colgate, he was president of his senior class and received the Patriot League Student Athlete Award in 1992 as a four-year member of the lacrosse team.

Farnsworth, 39, resides in Manhattan with his wife Randi, their two children Jacqueline and Jonathan and their dog Becket.