Everything you need to write about SuperDebate.

Fact sheet

Founder & CEO

John Connor

Headquarters

Chicago, IL (remote-first)

Incorporation

Delaware C-Corp

Round

$500K pre-seed open on standard SAFE

Live events

Active league, including an international championship

Cities

Three cities operating, eight in active outreach

Community

200-person Chicago community, 250-person Meetup base

Topic of the year

AI — nine questions, every town, all year

Flagship event

Chicago Debates Showcase at mHUB (2026)

Format

1v1 to 5v5, structured rounds, judged + audience vote

Founder bio

John Connor is the founder of SuperDebate. He grew up in Chicago, worked in the Chicago Urban Debate League, and is rebuilding live competitive debate as a recurring club model — the way Toastmasters did for public speaking and Tough Mudder did for endurance racing.

Email: john@superdebate.org

Advisors

• Brian Esposito
  Fractional Chief Strategy Officer · 2.5%
  Founder, Esposito Intellectual Enterprises (100+ companies). Strategic capital, partnership, and media path.
• Matthew Rolnick
  Sponsorships and Live Events · 0.5%
  SVP Partnerships and Events, Real American Beer. Fortune 500 partnerships operator. Real American Freestyle parallel.
• Iain Lampert
  Competitive Credibility · 0.5%
  Founder, Authentalk. COO, ModernBrain. All-time IPDA professional record holder for both speech wins and debate wins.
• John Hines
  Education and AI · 0.5%
  CEO and Co-Founder, DebaterHub. NSF SBIR Principal Investigator. Scaling debate to 10,000+ Title 1 students.
• Stephen Nilsen
  Brand and Cultural Positioning · 0.5%
  Former VP of Lifestyle Marketing at Liquid Death. Former Sports Marketing Manager, Red Bull. Cultural-moment activations operator.

Quick links for press

• · Live proof page — events shipped, cities live, founding members
• · Sponsor one-pager — printable, partnership tiers and audience
• · Founding Members wall — public list of early supporters
• · Ambassador program — open cities and warm contacts
• · Founder Arena — podcast / video series
• · The AI debate topic of the year

Logos & assets

Branded assets (logo PNG/SVG, founder headshot, photo selects, sample clips) live in the press-kit bucket on Supabase Storage. For now, email press@superdebate.org with your outlet and we'll send the kit directly.