Greg Bibb ’96 always knew he wanted to be involved in sports. His love of athletics would take him from calling basketball games for Marist’s TV station all the way to serving as president and CEO of the WNBA’s Dallas Wings.
“I had that sports aim and I felt that a communications degree with a concentration in radio, television, and film was the track to get there,” said Bibb, who, as an undergraduate, was the sports director for Marist’s TV station and covered sports for Marist’s newspaper.
In fact, knowing someone from Marist at ABC Sports, Bibb’s hope was he would earn a coveted internship there if he worked hard enough. “I had that opportunity my junior year and had a chance to work on the Monday Night Football set and College Football Saturday,” he said. “It taught me so much about keeping up with a fast pace, working hard, and gave me that much more of a feel for the sports world.” He would one day be connected to an ABC Sports broadcast in a way he could never have imagined.
“After Marist, I was able to take my sports background into a public relations opportunity with a soccer team and that actually forged a whole other path to grow in the industry,” he said. Eventually getting a chance to switch to the operational side, his roles have include dexecutive VP of business operations of the NBA’s Washington Wizards and chief operating officer of the WNBA’s Washington Mystics. The latter he began in 2007 and then was in both roles starting in 2010.“ I was in charge of so many people,” he said,“ and you just get a chance to try many things and learn from smart people.”
After later founding a sports-focused investment fund in 2013, he left basketball for a couple of years. The owner of the majority share of the company, Bill Cameron, had an idea: comeback and help him with his own WNBA team.
“Getting back to being involved with the WNBA was a thrill,” Bibb said. “He was looking to move the Tulsa Shock to Dallas, the team today known as the Dallas Wings, and he asked if I would help, and my role eventually grew.”
Bibb is president and CEO of the Wings.
“With the Wings, I’m in charge of personnel and being a part of growing our presence. It used to be [that] the team had a half dozen games on TV. ”Referring to the 2022 season, he went on, “This year we played 36 games—and all 36 were broadcast. The telecast reaches all of Texas and Oklahoma, three-quarters of Arkansas, and half of Louisiana. That’s 11 million households who can see a broadcast!”
But one for ABC Sports, a playoff game against the Connecticut Sun on Aug. 21, was particularly momentous.
“If you would have told me five years ago that we would be playing a playoff game on ABC before almost 800,000 viewers, I wouldn’t have believed you,” he said. “Last Sunday, we did."
But it’s more than the numbers for Bibb; it’s the hope. “I got involved with the WNBA to begin with partly because we had a little girl,” he said. “This year is the 50th anniversary of Title IX and it’s important to be a part of making more opportunities for girls and women. My daughter has grown up around the WNBA and sees she can do anything she wants. And it’s been just as important for our son...More opportunities need to exist for female athletes to be able to make a living professionally, and the success of the WNBA has a chance to help in that area.”
Bibb, ever the competitor, doesn’t just have basketball nets on his mind, but lacrosse ones, too. He is also CEO and president of the professional lacrosse team Panther City Lacrosse Club, in Fort Worth, Texas. They concluded their first season with high hopes in what he says is the fastest-growing city in the country, not to mention the 13th largest.
“It combines the game of hockey that I played growing up and the game of basketball I’ve spent so much of my career in,” he said. “The participation rate in the sport keeps growing, there are cross-promotional opportunities with the Wings, and there’s the excitement of 20 to 30 goals a game much of the time. It’s an other role for me that’s a great deal of fun...And, hey, isn’t that what sports are all about?”