2025 Impact NextGen Honoree: Erin Prober

ERIN PROBER
VP, National Partnerships
Oak View Group

FIRST & 10
“High school and college football inspired me to work in live – the culture, comradery, and feeling of being a part of something bigger.”

FireAid — the massive, two-venue, six-hour concert that raised more than $100 million in the wake of the January wildfires that raged through Southern California — had a lot of moving parts and required a lot of work from a lot of people on an almost-impossibly tight timeline.

The partnerships team at Oak View Group (Pollstar’s parent company) was charged with securing brand sponsorships and their efforts raised tens of millions even before the first act took the stage and Erin Prober, OVG’s vice president of national partnerships, was in the thick of it.

“OVG Global Partnerships raised $50 million to support wildfire relief. The number of artists, high quality production value, number of brands that stepped up and honoring heroes and victims that endured so much was special and reinforced the power of music,” she says of the event, which featured stars like Billie Eilish, Green Day, Rod Stewart, a female-fronted Nirvana reunion and many others performing at both Intuit Dome and the Kia Forum in Inglewood, California, with the show livestreamed worldwide on scores of platforms. 

Before joining OVG in 2021, Prober had gigs with the Detroit Pistons and Palace Sports & Entertainment, the University of Michigan (her alma mater), the Los Angeles Clippers, Turner Sports and Premier Partnerships. She considers Randy Bernstein, the founder of Premier, as her mentor.

“He instilled the importance of preparation. He gave me exposure to big deals and provided a platform for me to lead in front of distinguished executives and brand decision makers,” she says.

Those lessons inform her work today, crafting multi-venue brand partnerships across 130 OVG professional sports and entertainment venues and “securing brand partnerships across OVG venues nationally that elevate the fan experience, allow brands to connect with consumers through their passion points, and drive meaningful revenue for our venues.” 

She adds that her generation’s “entrepreneurial spirit and collaborative environments that yield diverse perspectives” are an advantage that can be leveraged by the industry.

But, though the numbers and revenue projections are, of course, important, Prober also keeps perspective on what the live business is really all about: “Live unites and brings people together. It bonds strangers and gives people a respite from everything in their lives to have fun.”