Podcast
How Ben Tenzer ascended from chauffeuring star athletes to the top of Nuggets' front office
Ben Tenzer spent enough hours at his friend’s house for it to qualify as a second residence by high school. When he would eventually return to his actual home, his parents would ask how his day was. The replies always kept them on their toes. “Oh, it was fun,” Tenzer would say, as his dad, […]
Ben Tenzer spent enough hours at his friend’s house for it to qualify as a second residence by high school. When he would eventually return to his actual home, his parents would ask how his day was. The replies always kept them on their toes.
“Oh, it was fun,” Tenzer would say, as his dad, David, remembers the exchanges usually going. “I hung out with Jason Giambi.”
Tenzer’s classmate and close friend was Michael Tellem, the oldest son of NBA and MLB super-agent Arn Tellem. To the clientele regularly hanging around Tellem’s Los Angeles home, Tenzer was practically indistinguishable from the agent’s own children. “Ben grew up in our house,” Tellem said this week. “He’s like a fourth son to me.”
From running in the same circles as his favorite athletes as an awestruck teenager, to running errands as a student intern for the Nuggets, Tenzer’s rise to the top of Denver’s front office required years of observation, osmosis and eagerness to tackle any task. His promotion this week was a culmination, as he was named executive vice president of basketball operations by the Kroenke family. He and Jon Wallace have been handed the keys to Nikola Jokic’s 30s, which could be the most pivotal stretch in franchise history.
“He worked extremely hard to get where he is,” former Nuggets general manager and current Bulls executive Arturas Karnisovas said. “There’s never a job too small. I think it’s important to go through most of those (front office) positions and know exactly what each position requires, as you’re climbing up the ladder. Ben knows exactly what those positions demand.”
Tenzer’s unique surroundings in Los Angeles proved formative to his principles, even if he didn’t recognize it in real time. The middle child in his family, he was often upbeat but inherently quieter than his older brother. Puzzles and math came naturally to him, maybe more so than leading a conversation at first. “He kept his mouth shut and his eyes and ears open,” his mom, Debbie, said. “That has been a good thing for him his entire life.”
Tenzer’s dad worked adjacent to the entertainment business, representing writers, directors, producers and actors for CAA with an ethos he tried to pass along to his children: “Let other people have the spotlight. It’s about your client.” Needless to say, Ben already had a rudimentary grasp of the agent business when he started spending time with the Tellems.
The entire sports world seemed to function out of their house. It was an energizing space for an adolescent boy to float through. MVPs and top prospects wandered in and out. Hall of Fame guard and Lakers executive Jerry West often brought his children over while he talked business with Arn. Basketball players lived in the house for weeks at a time while preparing for the draft. Tenzer and the Tellem sons ate dinner with them. Kobe Bryant attended Michael’s bar mitzvah.
“He was there for all the discussions,” Arn said. “The tough ones. He was listening in on free-agent discussions, draft pick discussions, hearing me talk to teams. They would all sit there as I would work the phones. … They were there for every blow-by-blow.”
Tenzer’s favorite encounter was always Giambi. Too height-challenged to excel at basketball, he dedicated most of his youth sports career to baseball. The Oakland Athletics were Tenzer’s favorite team, and Giambi was their star slugger while he was in high school — a left-handed batting first baseman, just like Tenzer. Tellem was Giambi’s agent. “I actually got to hang out with him several times,” Tenzer reminisced. “That was probably the coolest. He was my favorite baseball player.”
It wasn’t all fun and games. Tenzer’s interest in Arn’s profession morphed into a recurring summer internship. Statistical research was part of the job, but it also involved a fair share of seemingly menial chores. Tenzer drove Derrick Rose to a commercial shoot. He dropped off a product box at Russell Westbrook’s apartment.
“(Tellem) put Ben and Michael and all those kids to work every summer,” Debbie Tenzer said. “No laziness. They would do anything just to be around the athletes.”
“They would help out at the gym,” Tellem said. “They would do errands for the players. … Sometimes they would have to pick up food late at night for them. All kinds of personal things. Anything the player needed, they were there for.”
Tenzer happily welcomed the assignments. It was later in his career that he understood how educational those were. Choosing to major in business at CU Boulder, he added more internships to his resume before and during college — first at MTV, where he assisted a TV show producer, then in Denver, where Tellem helped connect him with the Nuggets’ front office.
A business school administrator at CU told Tenzer that he needed to intern in a real industry, such as real estate or insurance, Tenzer’s mom remembers. Sports didn’t qualify, apparently. But Tenzer was hooked. He made the 40-minute drive from Boulder to Denver twice a week and paid his dues, often dropping off or picking up players from the airport (another exhausting drive away from downtown).
“I felt comfortable coming in here as an intern, just knowing how to feel out situations. Staying out of the way, or interacting with the players in little quiet ways,” Tenzer said. “I feel like I got experience from Arn’s house, being around all the clients, getting to just be comfortable with them. We’d go pick up the players after a workout (in Los Angeles). Did he have a bad workout? Do you not speak (on the drive), then? I think you learn how to really deal with the players. That was more valuable than I ever realized, actually. Because then you’re here, and you’re like, I get it. You’ve got to feel out how to not stand out, I think.”
Tenzer also sought ways to apply his knack for numbers. He’d always been a fan of Michael Lewis’s book “Moneyball,” a baseball analytics sensation that chronicled the Oakland A’s and was published the year Tenzer graduated high school (2003). In the world of NBA team-building, he decided it was essential to learn and master the salary cap. He attended Southwestern Law School in Los Angeles after graduating from Colorado, honing his skills in sports law while continuing to work jobs in the basketball community, including one for the NBA Summer League.
“When he explained to me the intricacies of the salary cap, I thought, ‘My god, this is like being a sophisticated tax attorney or something,’” David Tenzer said. “It’s that complicated.”
Then Ben returned to Stan and Josh Kroenke’s front office in 2013. (“He’s madly in love with Denver,” his mom said.) Tim Connelly was the general manager. Karnisovas was the assistant GM. Tenzer was regarded as a steady hand behind the scenes, providing his new financial expertise with a friendly demeanor. Karnisovas recalls being holed up in Connelly’s Las Vegas hotel room during Summer League once, laptops splayed out on the floor, while the three of them went through trade scenarios.
Those memories of grueling work nights have aged well for him. It helped that Tenzer was enjoyable to be around.
“I still think that Ben’s wedding was the best wedding that I’ve ever been part of, in Aspen,” Karnisovas said. “His interactions and relationships are probably a very valuable trait.”
“He doesn’t hold onto anything negative. He just likes people,” Tenzer’s mom said. “He’s very open that way. He doesn’t have any kind of grudges.”
Questions of inexperience loom over the beginning of Tenzer’s tenure alongside Wallace. No public evidence has accrued yet as to his capability as an NBA general manager. His negotiating tact. His breadth of relationships. His tactical basketball acumen.
The reason his past colleagues and mentors believe in him, despite his reputation as a numbers guy, is ultimately the relationship-building factor.
He swiftly left his mark in Grand Rapids, Mich., where he was general manager of the Nuggets’ G League affiliate for the last two years (in addition to his front office duties in Denver). Grand Rapids Gold president and founder Steve Jbara watched Tenzer adopt a hands-on approach, addressing players collectively at pregame shootarounds to emphasize the traits he wanted to see from Denver’s pipeline.
“With how good the Nuggets are, Ben’s message to the team was about, ‘Do we need scoring right now? No. Do we need bigs to score right now? No.’ We need freaking culture guys, and we need defense, and we need you to be a piece,” Jbara said. “A lot of guys come down to the G League and they think they need to score 45 points a game to get noticed. … When he’s there, he’s in the locker room. He’s really, really strong at communicating.”
Back in Denver, Tenzer was determined to make sure every person in the Nuggets organization owned a piece of Grand Rapids merch. He beamed the day he learned two-way player Trey Alexander had won G League Rookie of the Year in April. As Jbara saw it, the Gold was more than an irksome side gig to Tenzer; it was a passion project.
But then again, so was chauffeuring draft prospects around Los Angeles as a teenager.
“When I think of him, I think of him sitting at our kitchen table with his big smile,” Tellem said. “Asking questions, loving to hear the stories and listening with his eyes wide open. … It’s really so profoundly emotional to see him succeeding.”
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Podcast
Taylor Swift announces new album on Travis Kelce's 'New Heights' podcast, her first …
Getty Images … Ready for it? Taylor Swift fans certainly are. The pop superstar is the guest on this week’s “New Heights” podcast, hosted by her boyfriend, Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce, and his older brother, former Philadelphia Eagles star center Jason Kelce. After plenty of speculation, it was finally confirmed Monday night […]
… Ready for it? Taylor Swift fans certainly are. The pop superstar is the guest on this week’s “New Heights” podcast, hosted by her boyfriend, Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce, and his older brother, former Philadelphia Eagles star center Jason Kelce. After plenty of speculation, it was finally confirmed Monday night on social media that Swift is guest on Wednesday’s episode, sending the Internet into an uproar in anticipation for her first ever podcast appearance:
Swift’s appearance on the podcast — one of the most popular in the world — is especially significant considering she has not done an interview of any sort since she won Time Person of the Year in 2023. That will change when her “New Heights” episode premieres on Wednesday night and provides a window into their relationship.
And to make it even more significant, Swift used the “New Heights” platform to announce the title of her new album, “The Life of a Showgirl.”
Rumors of Swift and Kelce dating started swirling in the summer and fall of 2023, and Swift attended the Chiefs’ 41-10 romp over the Bears on Sept. 24, 2023, taking in the game alongside Travis’ mother, Donna, and going viral for her NSFW celebration of a Kelce touchdown. While that was the first game she attended since their courtship, she has appeared at several games since, including each of the past two Super Bowls.
Swift and Kelce’s relationship has helped attract a new audience to the NFL, and for the Swifties still getting to know the sport, CBS Sports provided a basic explainer of how the game works and the key rules to know. Swift hasn’t just been a casual observer, either, with Kelce even saying she’s drawn up plays designed for him.
Perhaps we’ll hear the latest developments in this Love Story, one that continues to take the NFL by storm.
NIL
The NFL Returns
Football is back. After a long offseason of trades, draft picks, and endless speculation, the NFL is officially returning — and with it, all the drama, rivalries, and highlight-reel moments fans have been waiting for. From rookies ready to make their mark, to seasoned veterans chasing a ring, the road to the Super Bowl begins […]
Podcast
Fox Sports vs ESPN
FOX Sports is looking to fight ESPN head for sports TV star power After Pat McAfee helped to transform College GameDay and Stephen A. Smith inked a massive contract with ESPN, Fox Sports needed an answer. 4 Fox Sports has partnered with Barstool Sports to combat ESPN’s successCredit: Getty 4 Fox Sports will now have […]
FOX Sports is looking to fight ESPN head for sports TV star power
After Pat McAfee helped to transform College GameDay and Stephen A. Smith inked a massive contract with ESPN, Fox Sports needed an answer.
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The network has since found their counter to ESPN’s stars.
Fox Sports is banking on the popularity of social media company Bartstool Sports to help them fight back against ESPN.
Dave Portnoy, the founder of Fox Sports, will now be a regular face on Fox’s premier college football program, Big Noon Kickoff.
On top of that, he will air a weekly Barstool-produced show with personalities like Dan “Big Cat” Katz.
Read more on Fox
That show is intended to directly compete with ESPN’s Get Up and First Take.
Portnoy’s introduction to the Big Noon Kickoff cast is almost certainly a direct response to the success of McAfee joining College GameDay.
Barstool previously broke into live TV with ESPN, airing a show called Barstool Van Talk in 2017.
It was a spinoff of the podcast Pardon My Take and appeared on ESPN2 for just one episode.
It was immediately canceled after backlash from employees.
“While we had approval of the content of the show, I erred in assuming we could distance our efforts from the Barstool site and its content,” then ESPN president John Skipper said at the time.
It appears that Fox and Barstool won’t have the same issues as ESPN based on a post from Portnoy.
“This is the 1st time in our illustrious and notorious history that we’ve got a (TV) partner we believe in and believes in us,” Portnoy wrote on X.
Fox desperately needs a win in the form of a sports studio show.
Despite restructuring its content months ago, Fox Sports just cancelled multiple shows again.
Speak, The Facility, and Breakfast Ball were all cancelled due to poor ratings.
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If Barstool’s new show can get anywhere close to the ratings of First Take or The Pat McAfee Show, it will be a huge success for Fox.
They have a good base to work off to for viewership.
Barstool’s biggest podcast, Pardon My Take, is consistently one of the most popular sports podcasts.
Read More on The US Sun
It is currently ranked No. 1 on both Spotify and Apple, with the Pat McAfee show far behind.
If that viewership translates to live TV, Fox could have a big winner on its hands.
NIL
Paul Finebaum
SEC television-radio voice Paul Finebaum made it clear that he’s “sick and tired” of Big Ten football fans during a recent appearance on the Netflix Sports Club Podcast. Finebaum, the ESPN personality and host of SEC Network’s The Paul Finebaum Show, told Netflix Sports Club host Dani Klupenger that he’s “so sick and tired of […]
SEC television-radio voice Paul Finebaum made it clear that he’s “sick and tired” of Big Ten football fans during a recent appearance on the Netflix Sports Club Podcast.
Finebaum, the ESPN personality and host of SEC Network’s The Paul Finebaum Show, told Netflix Sports Club host Dani Klupenger that he’s “so sick and tired of being harassed by Big Ten fans” and added that Big Ten fans “act like they invented football.”
“If it’s not I’m leaving the country. I am so sick and tired of being harassed by Big Ten fans on our show. … They act like they invented football.” @finebaum has had enough of Big Ten fans, and predicts that an SEC team will win the National Championship 😂 @daniklup pic.twitter.com/LNXFwU7IL3
— Netflix Sports (@netflixsports) August 9, 2025
Klupenger asked Finebaum, “Who’s going to win the national championship, and is it going to be an SEC team?”
“It is,” Finebaum began. “And by the way, if it’s not, I’m leaving the country because I am so sick and tired of being harassed by Big Ten fans on our show.”
“The Big Ten has literally done nothing,” Finebaum continued. “They’ve won two national championships. Michigan won one two years ago. They’ve won one and a half national championships, I think, and before that, in 70 years. And they act like they invented football.
“Alabama has won about 15 national championships in my lifetime. Now, I realize that’s not a good comparison to a realistic lifespan. But, I believe Texas is going to win; I didn’t mean to avoid your question. It’s going to end all this. And on January 20, I’ll be the happiest man in America because I won’t have to listen to the Big Tenners, or as my callers call them, the Little Tenners.”
You can watch Finebaum’s full appearance on the Netflix Sports Club Podcast here:
Podcast
Overtime's 'Athlete Talk Show' Expansion Stumbles, Facing Delays and Cancellations
The sports media company Overtime has seen three of its four athlete talk shows end since January, when the publisher first announced its intention to grow its roster of shows to as many as 10 series and invest millions into the program. The network originally launched last August. “By September, we will most likely double […]
The sports media company Overtime has seen three of its four athlete talk shows end since January, when the publisher first announced its intention to grow its roster of shows to as many as 10 series and invest millions into the program. The network originally launched last August.
“By September, we will most likely double the size of the network and invest millions of dollars in this,” Overtime chief executive Dan Porter told ADWEEK in January. “It’s been really successful, and we think it’s the future. The biggest challenge is that brands don’t understand that this is the new television talk-show format.”
Since then, series following the popular college athletes Shaddeur Sanders, Travis Hunter, and Flau’jae Johnson have ended. The remaining show, which follows college basketball player Ian Jackson, is still producing new episodes.
A spokesperson for Overtime confirmed the conclusion of the three shows and the lack of new launches.
“We’re continuing to lean into what makes Overtime unique-developing talent, expanding original IP, and deepening our connection to the communities that fuel the future of sports and culture,” the representative shared in a statement. “We’re still in talks with pro athletes, expanding on the work we’ve already done, so it’s not a step back-it’s a strategic evolution toward long-term growth.”
Its first round of deals were structured as a combination of minimum guarantees with additional splits on top, according to Porter. The contracts began as one-year minimums.
As part of the model, Overtime managed most of the workload for the athletes. It launched the channels, brought in the sponsors, booked the guests, helped craft the editorial, and supplied the studio equipment.
“If we pay someone hundreds of thousands upfront and we don’t sell, that’s on us,” Porter said in January. “You treat your video podcasters as if they were entrepreneurs.”
Both Sanders and Hunter, whose series ended, left the University of Colorado and were drafted into the NFL. Johnson and Jackson are still in college.
The conclusion of the three series partially reflects the challenges of working with college athletes, according to podcast analyst Nicholas Quah.
“[Overtime]’s struggles are a little strange because the podcast business is moving in this direction. Athlete talk shows are very popular right now,” he said. “But the creator economy is very bifurcated: the only ones that hit are the biggest names, and Overtime doesn’t focus on the biggest names. They focus on college athletes, which are definitionally people on the rise.”
Overtime is in active talks with professional athletes to build new series around them, according to the company. It was engaged in similar discussions in January, Porter said at the time.
The podcast landscape has also been transformed over the last year by the rapid growth of video podcasts, or video versions of podcasts, into the medium.
The emergence of video in podcasting has opened the channel up to larger ad budgets-in 2024, video advertising was a $62 billion market, while podcasting brought in $2.4 billion, per the IAB. But the frenzy to transform podcasts into videos and videos into podcasts has also led to disruption.
On Monday, Amazon broke up operations of its Wondery podcast network as part of a broader reorganization, eliminating 110 jobs and redistributing staff under Amazon’s Audible banner or into its newly created “creator services” team, according to Bloomberg. The reorg was the latest in a series of cuts and pivots from major technology platforms, including Spotify and Audacy, as they try to navigate a rapidly shifting landscape, including video.
“Two things can be true at once,” Quah, the podcast analyst, said. “If you’re rushing to get into the video podcast space, you’re a little too late. But the equally true lesson is that if you want to get into the podcast space right now, you should be considering video.”
NIL
SIP Ep. 198
With the high school football season drawing nearer, the Sooners Illustrated Podcast is back with a brand new episode to catch up on the latest with Oklahoma recruiting. Sooners Illustrated’s Josh Callaway and Collin Kennedy open things up by breaking down the big news of the week for the Sooners as they picked up a […]
With the high school football season drawing nearer, the Sooners Illustrated Podcast is back with a brand new episode to catch up on the latest with Oklahoma recruiting.
Sooners Illustrated’s Josh Callaway and Collin Kennedy open things up by breaking down the big news of the week for the Sooners as they picked up a commitment from 2027 offensive tackle Luke Wilson on Thursday out of Southlake, TX.
“This guy popped up on the radar pretty early in the process, as you do whenever you’re roughly 6-6 to 6-7 and play at Southlake Carroll,” Kennedy said. “Luke Wilson is on his way, and Oklahoma realized ‘Hey, this is probably a player we need to make sure is on his way to Oklahoma.'”
The staff then dive into the latest with OU 2026 Elijah Golden and Jake Kreul ahead of their impending commitment announcements on Saturday and Tuesday, respectively, before shifting attention to another 2026 target Davian Groce and the latest with Sooners’ fall camp with some freshmen looking to make an immediate impact for Oklahoma.
“The most obvious one is Elijah Thomas…that guy looks like he is going to play,” Callaway said. “Certainly Courtland Guillory I think is having a great camp as well and is probably a guy who has a very good chance to get on the field if you want to get one on the defensive side.”
Listen to the podcast on Apple, Spotify and the player above or watch the show in its entirety on our YouTube channel below. Be sure to like, comment, subscribe and leave a review wherever and however you take in the Sooners Illustrated Podcast.
Keep an eye out for new episodes every Monday and Thursday at 3 p.m. CT all year long as well as a special game preview show on Friday mornings and the instant reaction episode recorded at the stadium on Saturday’s immediately following the games during the season.
Also be sure to subscribe to the Sooners Illustrated: Oklahoma on 247Sports YouTube channel for all the latest press conferences, player interviews, recruiting news, practice footage and podcasts throughout the year.
Become a VIP subscriber to Sooners Illustrated to keep up with all the latest team and recruiting intel for Oklahoma football, basketball, softball and baseball year-round as well as 247Sports’ elite national team and the entire 247Sports network.
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