Heather Houston

Executive Director, Meineke Car Care Bowl of Texas

Heather Houston joined Lone Star Sports & Entertainment in August 2006 to help launch the first-ever Texas Bowl, an ESPN Regional Television (ERT) owned and operated event since 2010. The annual game is played at Reliant Stadium in Houston.

Houston and her team built the Texas Bowl into one of the fastest growing bowl games in the country, and under her watch, the bowl’s local fan base grew to an average of 60,000 fans and sponsor revenue increased an average of 25 percent year-over-year. 

In 2010, with new business partner ERT, Houston helped negotiate deals with the Big 12 and the Big Ten Conferences to bring a recurring BCS conference match-up to Houston.  The following April, Meineke Car Care Centers came on board as the title sponsor of the bowl game and the Dec. 31, 2011 match-up between Texas A&M vs. Northwestern drew the sixth highest attendance amongst all the bowl games in the country.

In her current role as Director of Lone Star Sports & Entertainment, Houston oversees the sales, marketing and operations of some of Houston’s biggest sporting and entertainment events including prestigious international soccer matches such as the MLS All-Star Game and the semifinals of CONCACAF’s Gold Cup Soccer Tournament, concerts and national and regional college football games such as the Bayou Bucket. 

In 2004, Houston became a partner and launched the Events Division at Squires Sports Group, a Dallas-based marketing agency that catered to consumers seeking a healthy active lifestyle.  Houston created compelling consumer programs for her clients including the “50 in 50” marathon challenge with Ultramarathoner Dean Karnazes that launched the first-ever endurance running shoe for The North Face, and multiple running, biking and triathlon-based programs for Runner’s World Magazine, Bicycling Magazine, Lipton Iced Tea and Michelob Ultra.

Houston started her 15-year marketing and events career in New York at Classic Sports Network, where she was a member of the original twelve-person start-up team.  During her tenure at Classic Sports, Houston developed and managed the network’s affiliate marketing efforts and helped grow the network’s subscriber base to over 30 million.  In 1997, Classic Sports was acquired by ESPN and The Walt Disney Company, where Houston was hired as Affiliate Marketing Manager across all ESPN networks. 

Houston left ESPN in 1999 when she joined Track Entertainment, a New York-based music marketing agency, to oversee Compaq’s global sponsorship of the music artist’s, Sting’s, tour.  This was the first-ever global tour sponsorship spanning over 40 countries and resulting in Sting’s first official presence on the internet.  Houston directed 200 concert activations over a 15-month period and acted as the primary liaison on all of Compaq’s advertising and promotion featuring the artist.  During her tenure at Track Entertainment, Houston also managed successful music-based marketing programs for a number of Fortune 500 companies including Pepsi, Anheuser-Busch and The Jones Group. 

Houston received her undergraduate degree at Southern Methodist University where she majored in Finance and Marketing and was a four-year letterman on the women’s track team.