Renowned Sports Journalist
Jon Wertheim: Biography at a Glance
- A correspondent for 60 Minutes, longtime writer at Sports Illustrated and analyst for the Tennis Channel, Jon Wertheim shares insights and stories from the sports industry, offering business leaders a unique window into broader economic behavior.
- Drawing from a 20-plus-year career—and insights from his New York Times bestseller Scorecasting—Mr. Wertheim explains how the decisions made in the high stakes world of sports, whether on the field or off, can be applied in the business world for a winning outcome.
- Using colorful anecdotes and storytelling, he highlights biases and processes that impact vital business decisions in any field.
- Jon Wertheim provides real world applications for a new spin on business success.
Biography
L. Jon Wertheim is one of America’s most accomplished sports journalists and a correspondent for 60 MINUTES. He is also Executive Editor of Sports Illustrated, a commentator for the Tennis Channel, and New York Times bestselling author.
In 2017, Wertheim joined CBS News as a correspondent for the network’s flagship program 60 MINUTES. Wertheim’s first piece for the show was a profile of the Japanese baseball phenom Shohei Otani, foretelling the pitching/hitting superstar’s entry into Major League baseball. Since then, Wertheim’s work has included stories on the lost music of the Holocaust, interviews with Senator Ted Cruz and Congressman Beto O’Rourke ahead of the 2018 Midterms, profiles of author John Green and Rafael Nadal, and an investigation into San Francisco’s Millennium Tower, among others.
Wertheim joined Sports Illustrated in 1996, became a senior writer in 1999, and has served as magazine’s executive editor since 2012. He is one of the magazine’s most authoritative voices on tennis, the NBA, sports business and law and social issues. One of the chief investigative writers and reporters for Sports Illustrated, Wertheim has explored wide-ranging subject matters, from high school hazing to performance-enhancing drugs and steroids in sports. His weekly Tennis Mailbag on SI.com is considered must reading among tennis aficionados.
Wertheim’s work has been anthologized in the Best American Sports Writing series six times, as well as the Best American Crime Writing series, and he is the author of ten books including The New York Times bestsellers Scorecasting: The Hidden Influences Behind How Sports Are Played and Games Are Won (co-written with University of Chicago finance professor Tobias Moskowitz) and You Can’t Make This Up (with sportscaster Al Michaels). His book, Strokes of Genius, recounting one of the greatest tennis matches ever played—the Federer-Nadal final at Wimbledon in 2008—was made into a documentary in 2018. Wertheim also serves as commentator for the Tennis Channel during its coverage of the four annual Grand Slam tournaments.
A native of Bloomington, Ind., Wertheim is 1993 graduate of Yale University and received a law degree from the University of Pennsylvania in 1997. He was a visiting Ferris Professor at Princeton University. He resides in New York City with his wife and two children.
Topics
Business Lessons from the Multi-Billion Dollar Sports World
Jon Wertheim shares insights from the multi-billion dollar sports industry that offer business leaders a unique window into broader economic behavior. Addressing insights from his New York Times Bestseller Scorecasting, Mr. Wertheim explains how the decisions made in the high stakes world of sports, whether on the field or off, can be applied in the business world for a winning outcome. Using brilliant anecdotes and colorful storytelling from the sports world, he highlights biases and processes that impact vital business decisions in any field. Jon Wertheim provides real world applications for a new spin on business success. Here are a couple of interesting examples:
- How do ‘risky,’ and ‘conservative’ calls in sports relate to the same behavior behind business decisions?
- Why are NFL coaches would be the last people you would want selling your securities and real estate?
- How are draft decisions in sports similar to the risks and mistakes corporations face in their personnel decisions?
- What do Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal—and sports rivalries in general—tell us about competition in the marketplace?
- What can we learn from referees? Why do people avoid making the tough call?
- How tennis explains the world.
- Based on his book, Glory Days, Wertheim explains why the summer of 1984 was the most pivotal 90 days in the history of sports.
