SI Doubles Down On Live Events With DraftKings At The Masters

Forbes

10-04-2025

Dave Matthews, frontman of America's bestselling jam band, holds court in the backyard of a house in Augusta's tony West Lake neighborhood that's been transformed into a high-end pop-up concert venue. 'This is the second golf course I've ever played,' the songwriter quips before breaking into the bluesy 'Save Me,' a track that gets golf fans' heads bobbing.
The Masters may be played from sunup to sundown, but the excitement generated by players wending their way around Amen Corner and jockeying for position atop the leaderboard at Augusta National or palling around with family during the Par 3 Contest doesn't end when the final putt drops.
Brands like Sports Illustrated — who partnered with DraftKings for Augusta After Dark presented by Homes.com on Wednesday night — are leaning into after-hours experiences to keep the buzz of major sporting events going well into the night.
SI's Masters Week after-party blended live music, hospitality, and celebrity appearances from NFL players and reality dating show stars, giving fans another reason to stay plugged into the tournament vibe after hours. The event marked the second time SI and DraftKings have teamed up, following a collaboration around the NBA All-Star Game in San Francisco back in February.
The goal of the event, according to Matt Goldstein, executive vice president of entertainment and special projects at Authentic, the parent company of Sports Illustrated, was to 'showcase the heritage of the SI brand through the lens of the Masters and golf and do it in an invite-only situation to create this aura of, 'if you're not there, you're really missing out.''
'We're not reinventing the wheel, but what we've proven through our global experiences is that we can throw the best event wherever we go—and now, that includes Augusta.'
For DraftKings, the event offered a strategic business opportunity: reward their loyalty program members while building broader brand awareness in the ultra-competitive sports betting space.
'Could they stand up an event on their own? Absolutely,' Goldstein said. 'But why not partner with a trusted brand that's best-in-class when it comes to creating experiences? For us, it's also about shouting from the rooftops what Sports Illustrated is doing around the world.'
Goldstein has been with Authentic for three years and prior to that spent a decade overseeing live entertainment partnerships at Madison Square Garden. The impetus for the après-sporting-event shindigs was his team spotting a big daypart gap: an opportunity to keep the excitement of major athletic spectacles going into the evening.
'Between the Super Bowl and F1 in Austin, we started building these off track and off field experiences that consumers would have the ability to enjoy. The rights-holders that were involved in the events themselves started leaning on these opportunities to further amplify and build awareness around their sports,' Goldstein said. The events are structured as revenue-generating ventures within a for-profit division of Authentic that works closely with partners willing to invest in creating high-profile experiences around the world, making them accretive to SI's bottom line.
'If someone is going to attend an F1 event at night that may not have attended the race itself—we are attracting a new fan. It's taken off like wildfire and has been an incredible growth story over the last three and half years around the world,' he added.
SI put on 10 such events in 2023, expanded to 15 in 2024 and has 35 scheduled for the 2025 calendar—including evening experiences built around LIV Golf's tour stops in Miami (already completed), Mexico City, and Chicago.
For many fans, Sports Illustrated — a seven-decade-old legacy media player— still conjures memories of flipping through glossy magazine pages and diving into longform stories of athletic greatness, long before mobile devices rewired how people consume content.
'As the world evolves around digital content, branded experiences and social media it was really important for us to evolve the brand and the ability we've had to do that around these global experiences has made tremendous headway in and around the industry,' Goldstein said, reflecting on SI's evolution beyond the page and screen.
"We've become synonymous with best-in-class experiences at the biggest moments in global sports," Goldstein said. "People expect us to show up at the big moments, which is why we're investing so heavily in golf right now."
In past few years the sport has become a renewed priority for SI as golf's pop culture cred shot up the leaderboard with hit shows like Netflix's Full Swing, a bevy of new clothing brands that have crossed over into the mainstream vanguard and the debut of the prime time sim league that is the TGL.
'There was also a gap. What are you going to do at Augusta at night when you're there for The Masters. And LIV Golf is popping up in all these cities domestically and around the world and the Ryder Cup will be back at Beth Page in New York and when you can tap into all those diffrent markets—if we didn't show up there it would almost be like we were not doing our job,' Goldstein explained.
Outside of the after-party business, Club SI premium hospitality areas inside sporting venues, is another expansion area for the brand. Currently there is one at Churchill Downs that was built during the $200 million paddock renovation last year and similar temporary structures were purpose-built in Austin and Vegas for Formula 1 events.
Another permanent Club SI lounge is coming to Sports Illustrated Stadium in Harrison NJ. At the end of last year, Sports Illustrated Tickets, a separate entity from the media business, struck a 13-year naming rights deal with the MLS's New York Red Bulls' 25,000 seat soccer-specific facility. SI Tickets is coming aboard as the venue's official ticketing partner beginning in 2026.
Goldstein notes, 'Club SI is a really important business opportunity for us to continue to expand, and we are in conversations with a number of different properties around the world to open more.'