Howard Schultz Joins Ryan Clark’s Pivot25 as Investor and Strategic Partner

The partnership lands as sports media continues to shift from traditional television toward creator-led platforms, streaming and direct-to-audience businesses. Pivot25 positions The Pivot’s longform conversations — leadership, family, failure, ambition, adversity and purpose — as the trust layer that Schultz says will matter even more as technology and AI reshape media. “Pivot25 is already much more than a successful sports media platform. It is playing at the level of culture,” Schultz said in the release.

Readers following deal flow on Podcast News will see the Schultz investment as another signal that audio-first brands are building larger production companies around trusted hosts. Related desk coverage of podcast commerce includes the Audacy-Smosh sales and distribution pact, part of the same season of platform and monetization moves.

For Clark, Zubikowski and Schultz, the near-term story is less about a single episode drop and more about whether Pivot25 can turn Netflix video, NFL Films studio hours and a 480-million-view YouTube base into an enduring sports-and-culture company. The investor announcement puts that ambition on the record with one of consumer branding’s best-known names sitting at the table.