SVG All-Stars: Ethan Folz, Senior Director, Digital Operations and Quality of Experience, DTC Products, Tech, and Operations, NBA

The Rutgers alum is at the forefront of the innovative league’s digital revolution

As the pace of change in sports production shows no signs of slowing, a new class of innovators and decision-makers is shaping the industry’s future. Now in its second season, our SVG All-Stars series spotlights the rising leaders driving that transformation, offering a look at their career paths, leadership philosophies, creative and technological contributions, and vision for what comes next. Each conversation introduces you to the people redefining the workflows, culture, and possibilities of live sports production.

As the new NBA season tips off today, the league enters a transformative era in the way fans experience live basketball. With operations for the NBA App and NBA League Pass now fully in-house — following the end of the league’s partnership with TNT Sports — few people are more deeply involved in this next chapter than Ethan Folz, senior director of digital operations and quality of experience, DTC Products, Tech, and Operations.

Since joining the NBA in 2017, Folz has been a key architect of the systems that ensure league content streams seamlessly across every screen. He and his teammates oversee the live and on-demand delivery of games from the NBA, WNBA, G League, and Basketball Africa League — managing everything from stream setup and signal acquisition to real-time monitoring and incident response. Their work supports more than 10,000 live streams annually on the NBA App and NBA.com. As direct-to-consumer streaming becomes the new frontier for professional sports, Folz and his team are leading the charge in building scalable, cloud-driven infrastructure and end-to-end visibility tools to power the future of live video.

In this edition of SVG All-Stars, Folz explains how the NBA is reimagining livestreaming operations for the next era of sports viewing, the technologies that make it possible, and the mindset that keeps his team at the top of their game.

What are the key responsibilities of your current role?
In my role, I lead the Digital Operations team responsible for ensuring the reliability, performance, and quality of the live and on-demand streaming experiences for the NBA and its affiliate leagues: the WNBA, NBA G League, and Basketball Africa League. We manage live-stream setup and delivery, real-time monitoring systems, incident-response protocols, and change-control processes across our digital direct-to-consumer infrastructure. Our focus is on delivering a seamless digital experience (including video playback) and ensuring that it’s optimized for fans across all platforms and devices.

In addition, I work closely with groups responsible for acquiring video signals from our arenas, as well as those who produce, condition, and distribute the video feeds. Together, we enable systems that efficiently deliver our content to our own digital platforms while also making it accessible to partners. This collaboration ensures that our downstream streaming initiatives are aligned with upstream capabilities within the signal flow, allowing us to maintain a consistent and high-quality experience from glass to glass.

Ethan Folz with the NBA Cup Trophy in 2024

What is one key industry trend that you believe is having a major impact on your organization right now?
Direct-to-consumer streaming is creating new opportunities around game delivery. As fans increasingly expect high-quality, low-latency video across a wide range of devices, we’re investing in scalable cloud infrastructure, real-time telemetry, and automated incident detection. This evolution is pushing us to rethink traditional broadcast paradigms and adopt more-agile, data-driven approaches to video delivery and operations.

To support this shift, we’ve developed systems that allow us to track the full lifecycle of a video signal from origination at the arena to its final delivery on digital platforms. This end-to-end visibility helps us proactively identify and resolve potential issues before they happen. Much of this enablement is powered by our well-integrated scheduling database and orchestration tools, which drive both broadcast distribution and direct-to-consumer streaming workflows. These systems are critical to managing the 10,000+ streams we support on the NBA App and NBA.com each year.

This is particularly timely going into the 2025-26 NBA season, when we will distribute all national NBA games to streaming platforms. This will be a new frontier for the league, and we’ll get to demonstrate our ability to blend proven broadcast workflows into a new age when viewing habits are changing. We’re looking forward to working with our new national media partners to identify ways to enhance and elevate the viewing experience for fans across platforms while ensuring they can seamlessly access and watch NBA games.

What is one core philosophy you try to live by when managing your team/operation?
I believe in operational excellence through proactive collaboration, preparation, and transparency. In livestreaming, every second matters, so being prepared to react in any scenario is critical. I emphasize building consistent processes and systems that empower the team to act quickly, communicate clearly, and continuously improve. We treat every assignment as a learning opportunity and live by the mindset of continuous growth. We have an incredibly talented group, which makes my job easier. My team’s dedication to our fans is inspiring, and it makes coming to work even more exciting when we’re all striving for the same results: fan satisfaction.

Folz (right) at this year’s NBA All-Star Weekend in San Francisco with 2024 HBCU event intern Martin Solomon

What is your favorite event(s) you’ve ever worked?
Every year, NBA All-Star is a highlight of mine. NBA All-Star is one of our marquee events of the season, and it’s incredibly rewarding to help deliver a high-quality experience for our fans around the world who want to see the best players in our league share the court.

All-Star is also a great opportunity to work side-by-side with my incredible colleagues in our broadcast operations and engineering department who produce and distribute a world feed to all our international broadcast partners. Many of our international broadcasters bring their announcers onsite to call the game from the arena and provide in-language commentary on partner platforms and NBA League Pass. I always look forward to seeing it all come together; it requires an all-hands-on-deck approach and a ton of planning to execute.

Each of the past four All-Star weekends, I’ve had the opportunity to host talented interns as part of the NBA HBCU Event Internship Program. This initiative has allowed me to work alongside dedicated students who are pursuing careers in sports technology. Each year, it is inspiring to collaborate with driven individuals who bring fresh perspectives and enthusiasm as they assist with our digital executions and everything that goes into supporting a live event. Their efforts help contribute to the success of the weekend, and it’s incredibly rewarding to support the next generation of talent in the space.

How did you get started in sports production? What was your first real job in the business?
My first true role in sports was with Rutgers Athletics as an intern during my time as an undergrad. I spent my Saturdays at the football stadium and was introduced to my first 6 a.m. “call time” for noon kickoffs. In this role, I listened to technical-director and camera-operator communication to assist in coordinating with the in-venue entertainment for fans in attendance. I also learned how to operate a T-shirt cannon, which was a ton of fun and is now my go-to fun fact (serving up free tees instantly made me the most popular person in the stadium). My first hands-on experience in sports production began in 2017 when I joined the NBA as a member of the Digital Operations Center team. This position gave me a glimpse into livestreaming technology and how organizations can distribute live video at scale, which placed me on a path for a career in this space.

What’s one piece of advice you have for someone just starting their career in this industry?
Be curious and try to step outside your comfort zone. Sports broadcasting and technology wasn’t exactly a career path I had on my radar as an undergrad, but I was always eager to learn and kept my mind open to new experiences. Early on, I was fortunate enough to work with great leaders in the space who empowered me to take on various tasks, which put me in the position to grow and gain valuable skills. The sports-broadcasting and -technology space is incredibly vast, with opportunities ranging from live-video engineering and streaming infrastructure to data analytics and fan-experience platforms. Explore different areas, learn how different systems interact with each other, and find the niche that excites you and plays to your strengths.

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