Gondola's Fast Ride in Denver Fuels Upcoming Sports Summit

In 2025, sports fans are more connected to their favorite teams and athletes than ever before, with social media providing unprecedented behind-the-scenes access and intimate fan engagement.

Those responsible for tightening the bond between the athlete and fan met at the inaugural Gondola Sports Summit at Glendale's Infinity Park last May to discuss the latest trends in sports media and marketing, network with industry professionals, and participate in workshops that featured speeches from representatives of Meta, TikTok and Snapchat.

The summit was the brainchild of Jared Kleinstein, who was motivated by the cancellation of Twitter's annual Sports Summit after its acquisition by Elon Musk.

“Everyone in the community looked forward to it each year — I spoke at it over the years, I believe at the first one in 2015 and even in 2022,” Kleinstein recalls. “Post-Elon acquisition, it was clear it wasn't coming back, and there's been a void in the market, and in many people's hearts, ever since. So I tweeted on a whim that we needed to make a replacement event....and enough people engaged with it that I decided to run with the idea.”

Kleinstein was the head of Sports + International Content Strategy at Vine, a Twitter-owned company, when he experienced that first Sports Summit; his job was helping sports leagues, teams and broadcast partners grow their international presence on Twitter. When Vine shut down in 2017, he carefully considered his next move. In 2017, he introduced a full-service, creative agency, Fresh Tape Media, that worked with NBA, NFL, Microsoft and Chime on various campaigns — and he founded it in Denver.

Kleinstein had moved to the Mile High City from Toronto with his family when he was five; he was ready to start his own family and appreciated all the ties he had here. Kleinstein thought Denver's position in the center of the country would be ideal for Fresh Tape, too.

“I also knew that travel would be a big part of our company's work, and Denver's central location made it easy to get anywhere in the country/world,” Kleinstein says. “It's a great place to start and run a business, and moving here to do it was the best decision I've ever made.”

As he began tackling the challenges of collecting and presenting social media analytics to clients, including tagging the internal creators, he saw another business possibility in the demand for a tool to be “an IMDB” for social media. That realization led to the development of Gondola; he launched the beta in February 2022 and the app itself in November.

Before Gondola, social media creators faced challenges when showcasing their work to potential employers without violating usage rights, as companies and brands commissioned most content and left creators uncredited.

With Gondola now providing an opportunity for social media creators to be credited for their work, Kleinstein estimates that about 18,000 creators from Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, France, Spain, and most professional sports leagues use the platform. This shift allows creators to build comprehensive portfolios while respecting intellectual property rights.

The interest in the app led to the Gondola Sports Summit, which attracted approximately 300 participants its inaugural year, including photographers, videographers and graphic designers. Kleinstein expects the 2025 edition, set for Infinity Park May 20-21, to be even larger.

“It was important for it to be in Denver because our companies are based here, there's a great sports creative crew here, and I wanted to make sure that people come to our city as an annual tradition," he says. "The event will change/grow over time, and we get to have the constant that Denver is what people think of when they think of a home base for this industry and community.”