The San Francisco 49ers announced on Friday Paraag Marathe has been named President of 49ers Enterprises and will oversee outside business ventures, advisory efforts, and major investment opportunities for the club. Marathe will also continue in his role with the 49ers as Executive Vice President of Football Operations, serving as the team’s chief contract negotiator and salary cap architect, among other football duties.
“I am extremely proud of the significant growth our organization has experienced in recent years and the direction we are headed,” said 49ers CEO Jed York. “Paraag has been vital to our success in all facets of our organization for the last 17 years, and it is no surprise that his work towards growing our business and broadening the scope of our brand has been tremendous. I have great confidence in Paraag’s ability to continue to discover and develop valuable new opportunities for the 49ers organization outside of our football interests.”
“The last three years have been very exciting as we have seen significant business development in addition to that of our football team,” said Marathe. “In that time, our outside business interests have branched into a number of areas including consulting, technology development and venture investing. We will continue to seek new opportunities that are strategically aligned and expand the brand of an iconic organization such as the 49ers.”
Over the last two years, Marathe has guided the team in major business decisions in and out of sports. In addition to investing in a number of outside businesses, the organization has consulted on major sports projects such as the effort to bring Major League Soccer to Sacramento. While serving as team President for two years (2014-15) and chief operating officer for four years (2010-13), Marathe oversaw the development of Levi’s® Stadium. Marathe played a critical role on the small team that founded and developed VenueNext, a company whose vision is to use technology to set a new standard for the live event experience. In 2015, he was selected as a member of the Sports Business Journal’s Forty Under 40 class.
