Stephen Starks

Stephen Starks is a live events and media executive and advisor who currently serves as Vice President, Legal Affairs - Concerts at Live Nation Entertainment where he focuses on drafting and negotiating artist agreements concerning tours headlined by the biggest acts in the music business and negotiating arena and stadium venue license agreements for tours promoted by Live Nation.

Immediately prior to joining Live Nation, Stephen spent just under a year as Counsel of the global law firm Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner LLP. Stephen’s practice focused on guiding sports and entertainment properties through complex transactions and dispute resolution involving licensing, media rights, sponsorships and promotions, and compliance and safety, as well as generally advising clients regarding commercial contracts, intellectual property, policy drafting, and enterprise risk management.   His experience also includes representing athletes and entertainers in the negotiation of industry related contracts.

Prior to joining Bryan Cave, Stephen spent four years as Vice President, Promoter and Media Partner Relations for INDYCAR.  In his role, Stephen managed the development of the IndyCar Series race schedule and was the lead negotiator of INDYCAR’s agreements with race event operators. Stephen also managed the global distribution of INDYCAR’s media rights, including negotiating the company’s domestic and international media agreements and overseeing event telecast scheduling.

Prior to being promoted to VP at INDYCAR, Stephen spent two years as Deputy General Counsel for Hulman & Company (now Penske Entertainment), the parent company to INDYCAR, Indianapolis Motor Speedway (IMS), and IMS Productions. As Deputy GC, Stephen negotiated sponsorship and motorsports event agreements for INDYCAR and IMS, agreements for concerts held at IMS, and television production agreements for IMS Productions.

Before working in motorsports, Stephen spent over two years as an associate at the Indianapolis law firm, Kroger, Gardis and Regas, LLP, where he represented professional sports leagues, teams, and athletes. Before that, he spent almost four years as the Legal Affairs Director for the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA), where he participated in the resolution of more than 100 sports doping cases and was an advocate in at least 20 contested arbitration hearings before the American Arbitration Association and Court of Arbitration for Sport. Immediately following law school, Stephen clerked for Indiana Supreme Court Justice Theodore Boehm (retired).

Stephen received his law degree from Valparaiso University in 2006 and his undergraduate degree from Drexel University in 2001. While at Drexel, he was a four-year member of the school's NCAA Division I basketball team. He was the America East Conference scoring leader and a unanimous first-team all-conference selection in 2001.

Stephen and his wife, Naima, have two children and reside in Frisco, Texas.