Gil Fried is a Professor at the University of West Florida, College of Business, and the Associate Dean. Professor Gil Fried is a specialist in sport law, finance, and facility management. He received his masters in sport management and his law degree from The Ohio State University. He has written several books on sport risk management, sport facility management, and sport finance. One of the six books he wrote is the Academy for Venue Safety and Security (AVSS) textbook used by the International Association of Assembly Managers (IAAM). His other textbooks are used in over 100 universities in the United States and have been translated into Chinese, Russian, and Korean.
He lectures nationally on financial risk management, facility risk management, crowd management/venue safety, and sports violence. His lecturing and book writing are supplemented with writing numerous industry articles. He has published over 200 articles focused on facility related concerns. He is regularly quoted in industry publications and periodicals. Professor Fried coordinates the Patron Management Institute and developed their Certificate in Patron Management Program (CPM). The CPM program is the only multi-disciplinary training program developed through and with industry leaders and designed to ensure participants learn and internalize the material. The program uses a number of modules that are available for free on his YouTube channel called the Crowd Management Doctor.
He has handled a large number of sport/music industry cases and has worked as an expert witness in various cases from stadium stampedes to foul ball cases. Some of his cases have involved significant national attention such as the Camp Randall stampede (University of Wisconsin), the Aramark Meadowland drunk driving case (Verni), Dodger's Stadium assault case (stow), the Wal-Mart Black Friday crowd case, and the basketball crowd rush case (Kaye) in Phoenix. He also serves on several board of directors of sport related businesses and organizations. He has an active consulting practice called Gil Fried & Associates, LLC and has several major clients from corporations to insurance companies. One of his major clients was OR&L Facility Management where he served as Director of Risk Management for several million square feet of public assembly facility space (government, office, and school facilities) before reducing his involvement to pursue other assignments.