About

Jeff Gewirtz is the Executive Vice President, Business Affairs and Chief Legal Officer of BSE (BSE), a role he also held from 2010 through 2020. In 2021 he served as BSE’s Chief Operating Officer, where he led the efforts around re-opening Barclays Center in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and had general oversight for arena operations and its health and safety protocols.

Gewirtz joined BSE in May 2007 as Senior Vice President and General Counsel. Gewirtz advises BSE’s ownership and his executive management colleagues on key business and legal matters for BSE’s holdings, including the Brooklyn Nets, Barclays Center, the New York Liberty, BSE Enterprises, the NBA G League’s Long Island Nets, the NBA 2K League’s NetsGC, and, through 2019, Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum and Webster Hall. Gewirtz also works closely with Barclays Center management on live event concert, family entertainment, and sports programming alliances, and he previously had oversight of BSE’s government relations function. Gewirtz was a key member of the negotiating team for BSE’s most significant commercial initiatives over the past several years, such as: the 2012 relocation of the New Jersey Nets to Brooklyn; development of the $1bn Barclays Center; the 2015 relocation of the New York Islanders to Barclays Center and oversight of all legal affairs for the Islanders’ business operations through 2019; Nets and Barclays Center ownership transfer transactions in 2010, 2016, 2018, and 2019; the lease acquisition for and re-development of Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum; development of the Brooklyn Nets’ state-of-the-art practice facility, the HSS Training Center; acquisition of the Webster Hall business; and the Brooklyn Nets’ media rights alliance with YES Network.

Gewirtz was named to the 2019 United States GC Powerlist by The Legal 500 and in 2015 his legal department was named one of the top 50 in-house legal departments in the United States by The Legal 500. In addition, Gewirtz was named 2014 Sports Counsel of the Year by the Association of Media & Entertainment Counsel, and in 2009 Gewirtz was selected to the prestigious “Forty Under 40” by Sports Business Journal as one of the 40 top sports executives under the age of 40 in the United States. Gewirtz is a Board of Directors emeritus member of the Sports Lawyers Association, and he is a past Sports Committee Chair of the American Bar Association’s Forum on the Entertainment and Sports Industries. In 2017 he was appointed to the Board of Directors of Access Justice Brooklyn. Gewirtz sits on the Governance Committee and Nominating Committee of USA Climbing, and he previously served as pro bono General Counsel to the Eastern Section of the United States Tennis Association (USTA).

He began his legal career as a corporate associate at the New York City law firm of Dunnington, Bartholow & Miller LLP, where he worked on matters for the firm’s global advertising industry clients, along with sports industry clients such as the USTA and the USOC.

A native of Baldwin Harbour, New York, Gewirtz is a graduate of Tufts University, where he was a four-year member and Captain of the Tufts Varsity Tennis Team his senior year, as well as a member of its New England Championship team. In 2016 he was appointed to the Tufts Athletics Board of Advisors. Gewirtz received his law degree from Brooklyn Law School, where he was the recipient of a three-year merit scholarship, from which he is a two-time recipient of its Alumni Achievement Award in Sports Law, and at which he previously served as an Adjunct Professor of Sports Law. Gewirtz has qualified for the 2025 World Maccabiah Games, where he will be a member of TEAM USA and competing in the Master’s Division Tennis Competition. Gewirtz is married to Brooke Raphael, who Chief Operating Officer at Avicella Capital. They have two children.