Scott Stanchak is Vice President, Digital Products at the National Basketball Association (NBA), where he leads product and platform strategy across NBA.com and more than 100 affiliated-league and program websites and digital experiences reaching more than 10 million monthly active users.
His work focuses on helping the NBA navigate major technology shifts through AI, platform modernization, and direct-to-consumer innovation. Scott leads initiatives spanning product strategy, reusable platform development, streaming technologies, and AI-powered experiences that enable leagues, teams, and partners to launch digital products faster and at greater scale. His team developed conversational product creation tools capable of reducing development time and cost by more than 90% for many digital experiences, while also pioneering agentic content-discovery experiences and configurable streaming solutions now powering more than 10 league- and team-owned products.
Previously, Scott served as Vice President, Affiliates & League Products, where he led digital business operations and product strategy across the NBA’s affiliated leagues and more than 100 league and team websites and applications. Working directly with the commissioners of the WNBA, G League, Basketball Africa League, and NBA 2K League, he helped define product strategy and digital business priorities supporting audience and revenue growth. During that time, he led the continued growth of WNBA League Pass, expanded live affiliated-league and international basketball content across NBA products, introduced a paid FIBA Basketball World Cup package spanning 92 games across 20 markets, and built a shared headless web platform serving multiple NBA-affiliated leagues.
Scott was also a founding member of NBA Next Gen, helping shape the product roadmap, platform strategy, operating model, and staffing plan behind the league’s reimagined direct-to-consumer experience launched in 2022.
Earlier, as Vice President, Emerging Technology Products, Scott built and led the team responsible for many of the NBA’s industry-first digital experiences. His organization launched more than 25 fan experiences across conversational AI, augmented reality, mixed reality, voice, and streaming, while introducing innovations to NBA League Pass including alternative viewing experiences, interactive statistics, co-viewing, polling, and quizzes. The team also managed NBA and WNBA All-Star Voting and a portfolio of free-to-play games used by more than three million fans.
Among those innovations was the NBA’s virtual cheering platform, created during the 2020 NBA and WNBA seasons, which generated more than 300 million fan interactions and earned a Sports Emmy Award. Scott was also recognized as a Leaders in Sport 40 Under 40 honoree, and his teams’ work has been featured by Fast Company, ESPN, Forbes, Sports Business Journal, and The Wall Street Journal.
Before joining the NBA’s executive team, Scott served as Managing Director of Digital Platform Operations at The New York Times, where he led platform strategy, product initiatives, and strategic partnerships with companies including Apple, Google, Amazon, Meta, and Snap. Earlier, he built the Times’ first mobile acquisition and product marketing organization, helping generate more than 300,000 mobile subscriptions in two years, launching products including NYT Cooking, and contributing to the growth of the NYT Crossword business beyond $10 million in annual revenue.
Since 2016, Scott has served as an Adjunct Professor at New York University, teaching graduate-level courses in Digital Marketing and E-Commerce Marketing. He is also a frequent speaker on product leadership, artificial intelligence, digital transformation, and innovation, presenting at organizations and events including CES, SXSW, Google, Walmart, Columbia University, Cornell University, New York University, and the Wharton School.
Earlier in his career, Scott led mobile strategy at Avis Budget Group, helping grow the company’s mobile business into a $100 million revenue channel. He also founded BakBurner Digital, where he created and commercialized consumer mobile applications that generated more than half a million downloads. Winery Passport was recognized by Food & Wine magazine as the best wine-travel app, and three of his applications were featured editorially by Apple.
Scott began his career as a sports journalist and producer, interviewing athletes including Tom Brady, Kobe Bryant, LeBron James, Tiger Woods, Derek Jeter, Stephen Curry, and many others. In 2009, he conducted the first one-on-one interview with Rickey Henderson following his election to the Baseball Hall of Fame for a feature published by Yahoo! Sports.
Scott earned his degree in Communication Arts from Ramapo College of New Jersey and lives in New Jersey with his wife, two children, and dog, Kobe. Outside of work, he enjoys golf, collecting trading cards, coaching youth basketball, pursuing the perfect lawn, and finding a little quiet time to exercise or read early each morning.
Here are some experiences, personally built by Scott, that you may enjoy:
- AvaStudy – Turn any study guide into flashcards, quizzes, and games — instantly
- ChalPals – Social accountability where penalties are paid if you miss a check-in
- LetterLimit – Twelve new letters daily to build words and hit the day’s point targets
- LetterSlider – The original word search slider puzzle game