Marc Roberts (born September 20, 1959) is an American entrepreneur, real estate developer and businessman. He is the first person to take a

sports management Sport management is the field of business dealing with sports and recreation. Sports management involves any combination of skills that correspond with planning, organizing, directing, controlling, budgeting, leading, or evaluating of any organiz ...

company public in the United States.

Biography

Roberts was born in Newark, New Jersey, and raised in nearby West Orange. Roberts "got into the agent business" at the age of 19 while attending

American University The American University (AU or American) is a private federally chartered research university in Washington, D.C. Its main campus spans 90 acres (36 ha) on Ward Circle, mostly in the Spring Valley neighborhood of Northwest D.C. AU was charte ...

in Washington, D.C., where he played on the university's basketball team. Roberts's teammate, Russell Bowers, was the nation's leading scorer, and Roberts became his agent against his coach's orders. Roberts dropped out of American University after three semesters to focus on being a sports agent full time. Roberts began promoting amateur boxing bouts at Plainfield High School in 1980. At the age of 19, Roberts became the youngest person to promote a

professional boxing Professional boxing, or prizefighting, is regulated, sanctioned boxing. Professional boxing bouts are fought for a purse bid, purse that is divided between the boxers as determined by contract. Most professional bouts are supervised by a regula ...

match. When Roberts was 21 years old, his client Donald Curry won a world championship, his first client to do so. In 1988, Roberts, then aged 28, signed three new boxers, including Ray Mercer and Shannon Briggs. In 1990, Roberts took his sports management company, Triple Threat Enterprises, public on

NASDAQ The Nasdaq Stock Market () (National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations Stock Market) is an American stock exchange based in New York City. It is the most active stock trading venue in the US by volume, and ranked second ...

. Roberts later founded Worldwide Entertainment & Sports Corporation, which became the first "full–service sports management company" to go public on NASDAQ. Roberts developed an interest in real estate and started investing in small projects. In 2000, he moved to Florida where he concentrated on residential real estate. A short few years later, Roberts had completed over $1 billion in condominium conversion projects around the country and was a partner in Sunvest, a condominium conversion company. Roberts'other investments include oceanfront properties in Florida (

Singer Island Singer Island is a peninsula on the Atlantic coast of Palm Beach County, Florida, in the South Florida metropolitan area. Most of it is in the city of Riviera Beach, but the town of Palm Beach Shores occupies its southern tip. Its latitude of ...

, Fort Lauderdale,

South Beach South Beach, also nicknamed colloquially as SoBe, is a neighborhood in Miami Beach, Florida. It is located east of Miami between Biscayne Bay and the Atlantic Ocean. The area encompasses Miami Beach south of Dade Boulevard. This area was the fi ...

, several intracoastal properties in Palm Beach County) and a 32‐story residential building, called the Metropolitan, on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. Roberts then shifted to commercial properties in Miami by co‐founding Miami Worldcenter, the second largest mixed use development planned in the United States. Marc Roberts Companies became a real estate investment and development firm with upward of $1 billion in investments. Roberts' portfolio includes over 10 acres of property in Miami contiguous to the

Miami Worldcenter Miami Worldcenter is a large mixed-use development under construction led by principals Arthur Falcone and Nitin Motwani, spanning several blocks in the Park West neighborhood of Miami, Florida, just north of downtown. It may include over 25 a ...

Roberts is also a co‐owner of Club E11even, a nightclub and cabaret in Miami. In 2005, Roberts was honored as Man of the Year by the

Crohn's and Colitis Foundation of America The Crohn's & Colitis Foundation (CCF) is a volunteer-driven non-profit organization dedicated to finding cures for Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis and improving the quality of life of children and adults affected by these digestive disease ...

Personal life

As of 2018, Roberts lives in

Miami Beach, Florida Miami Beach is a coastal resort city in Miami-Dade County, Florida. It was incorporated on March 26, 1915. The municipality is located on natural and artificial island, man-made barrier islands between the Atlantic Ocean and Biscayne Bay, the ...

with his wife Marci Lynn and two sons, Ryan and Justin Roberts.

Books

Footnotes

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Roberts, Marc 1959 births Living people Businesspeople from Newark, New Jersey People from South Orange, New Jersey People from West Orange, New Jersey People from Miami Beach, Florida American business writers 20th-century American Jews American University alumni 21st-century American Jews