Dave Coskey

A multi-award-winning marketer and brander, Broadcast Pioneers member Dave Coskey has been a key player in promoting top pro teams and hospitality destinations since the early 1980s. From the locker room of the 76ers to ringside at a Mike Tyson fight, Dave earned a front row seat on sports and entertainment history while tirelessly working to deliver a top-flight fan experience to pro sports lovers, casino gamblers and conventioneers.

A graduate of Haddon Township High School in Westmont, NJ, Dave earned his degree in Communications from Villanova in 1981. Immediately after graduation, he launched a career in sports and media relations that would define his professional life for decades.

While working in the Villanova sports information department right out of school, he gained early experience promoting elite college athletics, included the NCAA Final Four, NCAA track and field championships and The Penn Relays. By 1984, he served as an assistant venue press chief during the Los Angeles Summer Olympic games.

The mid 1980’s found Dave at Elkman Advertising, managing key retail accounts like regional McDonalds and banking. Elkman gave him his first professional contact with the Philadelphia 76ers pro basketball team. That would prove to be the big game-changer in his early career.

Dave would have two stints with 76ers. Just six years out of college, Dave was named director of Public Relations for the team. During the 87-88 season, his work earned him a prestigious ADDY award from the Philadelphia Advertising Club for outdoor advertising.

His first experience as a broadcaster in his own right came in 1989, when Dave produced “Let’s Talk Sports” with Howard Eskin and Jeff Asch, which was syndicated to over 90 stations.

The casino industry drew him to the Jersey shore, where Dave became VP of Marketing for the Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino in Atlantic City. While promoting their gaming attractions and restaurants and filling the hotel beds, there were multiple opportunities to tap his expertise in sports promotion, with key boxing cards like the Tyson-Spinks and Holyfield-Foreman match-ups.

Less then ten years out of college, Dave became a business owner in Atlantic County, co-founding Media Works Communications. This award-winning firm specialized in the promotion and marketing of pay-per-view TV events and creating video news releases. With clients like HBO Sports, NBC Sports and even the US Postal Service, his company delivered timely video highlights nationwide.

By the 1996 basketball season, Dave was back in Philadelphia as the top man promoting the 76ers, eventually earning the title of team Executive Vice President.

During those years from ’96 to 2004, he redefined the 76ers fan experience, both in the arena and beyond. He grew game attendance, managed local and national media relations and served as executive producer of 76ers radio and television broadcasts.

Dave was also the key man behind the scenes locally, as fans around the world tuned in to the 2001 NBA All-Star Game events, hosted by the city of Philadelphia. Making an impact at the highest level of pro sports management, Dave represented Comcast-Spectacor and the Philadelphia 76ers on the NBA Board of Governors. Dave’s awards shelf kept filling up during his years with the 76ers, with honors like four Telly Awards, more recognition by the Philadelphia Ad Club and the prestigious Pepper Pot Award from the Philadelphia Public Relations Society.

In 2003, Dave was named President of Teams Marketing and Communication Group for Spectacor, where he added The Philadelphia Flyers pro hockey team to his super-star sports promotion resume.

By late 2005, Dave resumed business ownership back at the shore. With clients like Foxwoods Casinos, Dave Coskey Associates provided consulting to leading hotel and entertainment companies, drawing on his now twenty-five years of expertise in the stratosphere of sports and hospitality.

In 2007, he was drawn back to the executive suite. As Vice President of Marketing for the Borgata Hotel Casino and Spa, he promoted the first Atlantic City casino that built a brand specifically around up-market sophistication. While with Borgata, Dave opened The Water Club, Atlantic City’s first cosmopolitan lifestyle hotel.

In 2011, Dave became an independent broadcaster, as President of Longport Media. Longport purchased 5 radio stations in the Atlantic City area (WOND, WBSS, WTKU-FM, WWAC-FM and WMGM-FM). With radio broadcasting, Dave found one more way to pair his love of pro sports with communications. His company established a partnership with Sportsradio 94, WIP in Philadelphia to carry their signal on WBSS, 1490, where it’s known as "WIP at the Beach."

Along the way, this Jersey shore resident received a governor’s appointment to sit on the Board of the Atlantic City Convention and Visitors Authority. With his wife Monica, he publishes two popular and widely-circulated community newspapers in Cape May County, The Seven Mile Times and the Sea Isle Times. He serves on numerous community boards and has been recognized by his alma mater, Villanova University.

He resides with his family in Cape May County.

From the official archives of the Broadcast Pioneers of Philadelphia
Photo originally donated by Broadcast Pioneers member Dave Coskey
Bio written by Broadcast Pioneers member Liz Matt
© 2011, Broadcast Pioneers of Philadelphia
All Rights Reserved

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