DAZN Group said it named Kevin Mayer, the former top streaming executive at Disney, as chairman of the board.

Mayer replaces John Skipper, the former head of Disney’s ESPN business, who joined DAZN, the global sports streaming service,  in 2018. 

Also Read: John Skipper is Back in the Zone

Skipper will focus on his new company Meadowlark Media. DAZN will be making an investment in Meadowlark. Skipper will remain on the DAZN board of directors and serve as a strategic advisor to DAZN.

At Disney, Mayer spearheaded the launch of Disney Plus as CEO of Disney’s direct-to-consumer and international unit. He left as Disney restructured its senior management, naming Bob Chapek as its new CEO.

Mayer later also headed TikTok, but left after the Trump Administration pushed its breakup because of objections to its Chinese ownership.

“As Chairman, I’m looking forward to partnering with the management team and my fellow directors to help DAZN build on its impressive track record of success in developing a truly global sports platform,” said Mayer. “Since I began working with Access Industries last year, I’ve been impressed with DAZN’s ambitions and ability to quickly grow from a new entrant to an important player in key markets throughout the world. I look forward to guiding DAZN’s strategic development into its next chapter.”

DAZN is headquartered in the U.K. and operates a global sports streaming system. 

“I’m incredibly proud of what the team has accomplished over the past several years. We’ve secured rights to the world’s premier sports leagues, dramatically increased subscriptions and revenues, and launched our platform in more than 200 countries and territories,” said Skipper. “It’s the ideal moment to transition the company into its next phase of growth. Having worked closely with Kevin at The Walt Disney Company for more than two decades, I can’t think of a better person to lead the DAZN Group board of directors.”

Sports streaming service DAZN, under the watchful eye of executive chairman John Skipper, is now one of the top combat-sports content distributors after just 11 months in business.

Skipper spent two decades at ESPN, including the last six years as president, before abruptly leaving in December 2017 after disclosing “substance addiction” issues related to reported cocaine use. He was on the sidelines for just five months before joining London-based sports media company The Perform Group (now the DAZN Group) to launch DAZN (pronounced “Da Zone”) — which was already available in countries such as Japan, Germany and Austria— in the United States, the heavyweight sports-media market.

DAZN’s U.S. launch came last September to much fanfare, as it quickly landed several body blows to the established players in pay-per-view boxing — and a virtual knockout punch to 45-year stalwart HBO Sports — when it signed middleweight champion Canelo Alvarez, possibly the fight game’s biggest PPV draw, to a reported $365 million, 11-bout deal in October.

The Alvarez deal added to a lineup of combat-sports events that included at least 70 exclusive boxing and mixed martial arts events over the past year, including past PPV staple Bellator MMA, as well as cards involving such marquee fighters as former middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin and former heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua. The high-profile offerings helped to support the service’s initial $9.99 monthly fee, and a subsequent price increase to $19.99 in March, although DAZN has yet to disclose specific subscription numbers.

“John is one of the most significant leaders in the history of our industry,” DAZN CEO Simon Denyer said. “His stewardship of the U.S. business and contributions to DAZN ambitious growth plans so far have been invaluable.”

DAZN’s goals go well beyond the squared ring. It has teamed with Major League Baseball on a daily highlight series, ChangeUp, that puts it head to head with the legacy cable and broadcast outlets that cover major professional sports. When the rights for the National Basketball Association, National Football League and others come up in the early 2020s, DAZN expects to negotiate on the same playing field as ESPN, Fox, CBS and NBC.

It’s a solid start for DAZN and Skipper, who has quickly returned to the higher echelon of sports TV executives.

“John Skipper has had a rollercoaster ride,” sports analyst Lee Berke said. “He was at the absolute pinnacle of sports television and then had his challenges, but has had the skill, ability and relationships to come in at the ground floor of another terrific sports outlet. This time around he gets to build a sports service from scratch, and he’s generated a lot of momentum.”

Skipper, selected as Multichannel News Sports Executive of the Year for 2019 for his savvy guidance of the genre-busting streamer, recently spoke about his personal renaissance at DAZN as well as the future of sports television distribution and DAZN’s role in future negotiations for marquee TV sports rights. Here’s an edited transcript of the conversation.

MCN: Given everything that had transpired surrounding your departure at ESPN, did you ever think you’d be in this position at a growing TV sports service?

John Skipper: I’ve been here since May of last year, so we’ve just hit about 14 months. Clearly, I’m not clairvoyant, so could I have seen myself here? I don’t know, but I do see that the experience at ESPN uniquely prepared me to be here, given my relationships with league commissioners, producers and personalities in sports. That experience with how pay television, broadcast television and sports business works put me in a unique position to understand that business’s strengths, and where [DAZN’s] nimbleness might give us an advantage.

Prior to leaving ESPN, I was the principal architect of the strategy to launch ESPN+, so I’d had a chance to think about how we were going to build an over-the-top subscription business. The biggest difference being here [at DAZN] is that we’re a pure play, so I don’t have to think about building it within the context of a larger organization with lots and lots of legacy benefits and complications. We are going to buy our rights and put them on a streaming platform. We do believe that’s the future. So, I’m quite happy to be here, whether or not I was clairvoyant. I’m prepared, I’m experienced and I understand what to do.

MCN: Even with your background and experience, was that transition from an established, linear sports leader like ESPN to a startup streaming service in DAZN daunting for you at the beginning? 

JS: I think it’s actually been an easier transition because new things are stimulating, right? Perhaps the biggest transition, the biggest change, is just the global nature of our business. We’re based in London. Our largest businesses are in Germany and Japan. We’ve got a big business in Italy, and we’ve got a growing business in Spain. We launched in Brazil, so that’s really fun.

I’ve transitioned from going back and forth to Los Angeles regularly to going back and forth to London regularly, and then down to São Paulo and Rio [de Janeiro]. We recently launched in Brazil, so there’s a little more worldwide travel and that’s been fun. I don’t think the transition has been hard at all. It’s allowed me to do some new things, be stimulated and have some fun.

MCN: Define the DAZN brand for me.

JS: DAZN is a pure-play global streaming platform. We have unique propositions in each market we’re in. Our mission is to become the global leader in sports streaming services — to have the most subscribers, to have the best platform, to have the most rights. That’s our goal.

MCN: DAZN had established itself globally before coming to the U.S. last year. What was the strategy behind launching in the U.S. at this point in time?

JS: If you’re going to build a global brand, you’re going to need to have an established brand and figure out a strategy to compete and thrive in the United States. We are in nine countries on four continents. Six of those nine countries are six of the 12 largest sports-consuming countries in the world: Germany, Japan, Italy, Spain, the United States and Brazil.

We want to be in big markets. We are not looking to experiment in a laboratory in small markets. We’re looking to establish a lead by being in the biggest markets, so we need to be in the United States. It’s also the case that, as we think about building into global leadership and being positioned to potentially talk to investors and to have an IPO, you need to have a brand in the United States because that’s where the capital is and it’s where the largest companies are, and so we wanted to get started here. But it’ll take a while to get established.

You also have the factor in that with rights mostly being tied up in the U.S. for several years, we don’t want to come in just as those rights are becoming available. We want to show some success, build the brand and be viable.

MCN: You mentioned there are very few pro sports leagues with TV rights up for grabs, so DAZN decided to step into the boxing ring. Why was boxing was the best choice for building a new sports service?

JS: We believed boxing was an opportunity. It’s not that we looked at the landscape and everything was available to acquire and we could go, “What do we want to do to launch?” We had to look at an existing landscape and go, “What’s available? What makes sense?” This was done before I got here.

Simon Denyer, who is the founder and CEO, really deserves the credit with his team. Some other guys, [chief revenue officer] James Rushton and [executive vice president of finance] Paul Morton, identified boxing as the one sport that was available for which the major U.S. sports media companies didn’t have the rights tied up for a long time. It provided an opportunity, because the most popular events were in a format where consumers were already paying for them via pay-per-view. So you had a customer who’s used to pulling out their credit cards and paying for them. That’s what we want them to do here. It’s a little bit more of a natural transition.

We also think there are ways to improve the presentation of boxing that will allow us to present a superior proposition to the boxing fan. Also, [boxing has] enough fans to build a big business so that we’ll have the base when other rights come up — we’ll have established our brand and how our platform works. They’ll see we’ve had success, and then we can have a better atmosphere in which to negotiate those rights.

MCN: The reason why a lot of these networks haven’t secured boxing rights in the past is because it’s been a risky proposition with promoters who don’t always necessarily want to see the best and biggest fights made. How were you able to coalesce all of that and create a platform where boxing actually works for the streaming service?

JS: We realized that we needed to do some dramatic things to get going faster, so we did a deal to get [middleweight champion] Canelo Alvarez — the world’s most important fighter and the most attractive pay-per-view boxer — to move him over to a subscription service rather than pay-per-view. That really made a statement and it has brought us hundreds of thousands of subscribers, and gave us credibility in other places.

That allowed us to go do a deal with Triple G [former middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin], who we’re thrilled to have with us. It’s allowed us to talk and sign other fighters like World Boxing Organization middleweight champion] Demetrius Andrade and [middleweight contender] Danny Jacobs. We recently signed [lightweight contender] Devin Haney, and we got [featherweight boxer] Ryan Garcia signed to Golden Boy. So, we’ve got some young exciting fighters as well as some champions and former champions like heavyweight Anthony Joshua.

MCN: Joshua’s fight on DAZN this past June was a major upset to Andy Ruiz. Was that a major setback for DAZN?

JS: You’ll never hear me say there’s anything good about his losing, but you have no choice when something happens but to make the best of it. The best of it is there’s a lot of interest in the rematch. The good thing for us would be for him to come back and win.

When we made that fight, we knew that Andy Ruiz was a very good boxer. He’s a guy that fought 40 times, had never been knocked down and lost one controversial match. Anthony Joshua is a very skilled fighter and we knew it would be a test for him. I’ve talked to AJ and it will be a learning experience. We still believe in his skill and talent, and we expect him to get a rematch in an effort to reclaim his championship.

There are also a lot of other heavyweights, as you know, that we believe are great for the sport, so the heavyweight division getting better will be great for us. Ruiz made it more competitive, so Joshua has to win his next fight and reclaim his belt, then we’re back in the race.

MCN: Do you know when and where the rematch will take place?

JS: The rematch has not been made yet and we don’t know whether it’s going to be here or in the U.K.

MCN: With nearly a year under your belt on the strength of boxing, has DAZN met your performance expectations in terms of subscriptions and financially?

JS: We’re very pleased with where we are. This turned out, in a lot of ways, different than what we thought. We didn’t plan to have Canelo, Triple G, and we didn’t know that we’d have Joshua make his U.S. debut. I think we’re ahead of where we expected to be in terms of the quality of the fighters.

We still have some things to learn about with boxing. For example, we have to get a consistent schedule. Boxing’s problem is, it’s hard to announce for the year. We now think we have 10 to 12 fighters that we can identify dates and build a consistent schedule. We’ve had lots and lots of trial subscribers come in and many have stayed. We’ve been able to build up a subscription base. And we’ve learned that we don’t need a free trial because you got Joshua or you got Canelo and people will pay.

MCN: What is DAZN’s subscriber count? ESPN+ claims they have over 2 million subscribers at this point.

JS: We have not disclosed where we are and I’m not going to disclose it and I appreciate the effort. We think [we have] a pretty clear No. 2 position to ESPN, and may announce something at the end of the year.

MCN: Is there a timetable for reaching 1 million subscribers?

JS: Look, we’d like to be able to announce something before the end of this year.

MCN: DAZN has increased its subscription price to $19.99. Can you be successful at that high price when competitors such as ESPN+ are under $10?

JS: We’ve had great acceptance in the $19.99 price; we don’t find that anybody has any problems with that. We think there may be some upward elasticity on that price, though right now, we’d rather drive volume than maximize revenue, because we need to build a schedule to get the retention first. That’s the first thing for us to do. People like the [$99-peryear] price — it’s a good price.

MCN: Was DAZN’s deal with Major League Baseball to secure a primetime, highlights-driven daily show an effort to not only provide a consistent show that subscribers can watch, but also to extend DAZN’s content reach beyond combat sports?

JS: We did the baseball deal as a clear public declaration that we’re not looking to have a singular sport proposition, but instead looking to be a multisport proposition. We’re looking to be in business with the major leagues in the U.S. I have a long relationship with [MLB commissioner] Rob Manfred and [MLB chief operating officer] Tony Petitti. I went to see them and said, “What can we do?” Because we wanted to have something that says, “We’re in business, and not just for boxing.”

To your question, the answer is we’re a multi-sport proposition and we’ve got a long horizon. We expect to be in the discussion for all major rights that come up. We’ve been public that we have had discussions with the NFL about NFL Sunday Ticket. They are assessing their options on what to do with Sunday Ticket and we’ve had conversations with them. We know that NFL content is a game-changer for people and it helps to build emerging platforms. It helped to build ESPN, Fox Broadcasting and DirecTV. We’d love for it to help build DAZN.

MCN: When those rights come up, are you confident that DAZN will be in a position to compete financially?

JS: Let me be clear: Sports rights in the U.S. will remain quite expensive. I think we will be smart and look for [content properties] like Sunday Ticket [the out-of-market package currently exclusive to DirecTV], where there are maybe over-the-top rights available, and we’ll look for alternative packages. We may talk to some of the big broadcast and cable networks about partnering on buying some rights. I don’t want to come off as though I don’t understand the rights landscape when the NFL is selling billion-dollar-plus Sunday-afternoon packages and Monday-evening packages. I’m not sure that that’s going to be the best bang for our buck right away.

I think that the rights around the rest of the world are being rationalized in a way that the rights in the U.S. are not right now. If you look at the U.K. and the Premier League, the [TV] rights went down for the first time ever in a cycle. There are headwinds because of the stagnation of pay TV around the rest of the world that are causing rights to go up slightly, stay the same or go down slightly.

That’s the trend around the world, partly because there are no other countries that have the number of well-capitalized media companies that the U.S. has. You have Turner, you have ESPN, you have CBS, NBC, Fox, as well as potentially the big tech companies. In most of the world, you have a broadcaster and one or maybe two pay TV platforms. So in those markets, you’ll see us competing for the highest level of rights as we’ve done in Italy and Japan and Spain. Here, you’ll see us be a little more opportunistic as we grow our business smartly.

We have a bigger world to look at than just the United States, so it’s going to have to make sense for us to buy [marquee TV sports rights]. All that matters is what does it cost and what is the return on subs — what is the ARPU [average revenue per user] in that country and how does that get value at some point relative to investment, IPO or some other financial event?

MCN: How much will streaming dominate the TV sports playing field over the next five to 10 years?

JS: Here’s what I know. There is secular change happening around the world, including in the U.S., in which there is a transition from appointment viewing on linear networks to on-demand viewing on streaming networks. It happened in entertainment with Netflix and it happened in music. I think the same thing is going to happen in the U.S. sports arena. You’re looking at a decades-long event and we’re already a year or two into it. I personally believe you’re going to get another round of rights agreements where broadcast networks, news, and regional sports networks are still going to be must-have content for distributors.

If you don’t have that must-have content, then your next negotiations with distributors will be hard. Their margins are being squeezed and they can’t keep raising their prices. It’s also generational. There are more and more people who will never get a cable television subscription, and that’s just going to accelerate. I think we’re in the best pure-play position to take advantage of that.

MCN: How do you think the industry views your accomplishments, leaving the top sports network the way you did and going to basically a startup?

JS: I came here because of the opportunity. I knew from my experience before that streaming is the wave of the future. [DAZN] is privately-owned, so I was able to move quickly — I like that, because I was restless. I feel like my experience before has allowed me to move DAZN a little faster. I think people think of me as an experienced executive who understands the business, but I do understand that a lot of the point of this award is that I happened to come into the position — which is clearly in the forefront of where the future is going to be — but I want people to understand that DAZN had success around the world before I got here. I’ve been a slight booster rocket to get them going to where they were going anyway, and I’m flattered by it all. It’s given me a chance to rebuild relationships and reconnect with old friends and re-establish myself, so I’m gratified and humble.

MCN: No regrets from your past?

JS: I’m quite happy with where I am right now. If you want to try to go back and reconstruct the past it never works. It’s the butterfly effect which says if you change one little thing you never know where you’re going to go. So if I went back and changed what was done in the past, I wouldn’t have all the good things I have now. I have a great job and a wonderful relationship, so I wouldn’t change anything. DAZN has given me a great opportunity and I want to reward them for that opportunity.

Sports streaming service DAZN, under the watchful eye of executive chairman John Skipper, is now one of the top combat-sports content distributors after just 11 months in business.

Skipper spent two decades at ESPN, including the last six years as president, before abruptly leaving in December 2017 after disclosing “substance addiction” issues related to reported cocaine use. He was on the sidelines for just five months before joining London-based sports media company The Perform Group (now the DAZN Group) to launch DAZN (pronounced “Da Zone”) — which was already available in countries such as Japan, Germany and Austria— in the United States, the heavyweight sports-media market.

DAZN’s U.S. launch came last September to much fanfare, as it quickly landed several body blows to the established players in pay-per-view boxing — and a virtual knockout punch to 45-year stalwart HBO Sports — when it signed middleweight champion Canelo Alvarez, possibly the fight game’s biggest PPV draw, to a reported $365 million, 11-bout deal in October.

The Alvarez deal added to a lineup of combat-sports events that included at least 70 exclusive boxing and mixed martial arts events over the past year, including past PPV staple Bellator MMA, as well as cards involving such marquee fighters as former middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin and former heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua. The high-profile offerings helped to support the service’s initial $9.99 monthly fee, and a subsequent price increase to $19.99 in March, although DAZN has yet to disclose specific subscription numbers.

“John is one of the most significant leaders in the history of our industry,” DAZN CEO Simon Denyer said. “His stewardship of the U.S. business and contributions to DAZN ambitious growth plans so far have been invaluable.”

DAZN’s goals go well beyond the squared ring. It has teamed with Major League Baseball on a daily highlight series, ChangeUp, that puts it head to head with the legacy cable and broadcast outlets that cover major professional sports. When the rights for the National Basketball Association, National Football League and others come up in the early 2020s, DAZN expects to negotiate on the same playing field as ESPN, Fox, CBS and NBC.

It’s a solid start for DAZN and Skipper, who has quickly returned to the higher echelon of sports TV executives.

“John Skipper has had a rollercoaster ride,” sports analyst Lee Berke said. “He was at the absolute pinnacle of sports television and then had his challenges, but has had the skill, ability and relationships to come in at the ground floor of another terrific sports outlet. This time around he gets to build a sports service from scratch, and he’s generated a lot of momentum.”

Skipper, selected as Multichannel News Sports Executive of the Year for 2019 for his savvy guidance of the genre-busting streamer, recently spoke about his personal renaissance at DAZN as well as the future of sports television distribution and DAZN’s role in future negotiations for marquee TV sports rights. Here’s an edited transcript of the conversation.

MCN: Given everything that had transpired surrounding your departure at ESPN, did you ever think you’d be in this position at a growing TV sports service?
John Skipper: I’ve been here since May of last year, so we’ve just hit about 14 months. Clearly, I’m not clairvoyant, so could I have seen myself here? I don’t know, but I do see that the experience at ESPN uniquely prepared me to be here, given my relationships with league commissioners, producers and personalities in sports. That experience with how pay television, broadcast television and sports business works put me in a unique position to understand that business’s strengths, and where [DAZN’s] nimbleness might give us an advantage.

Prior to leaving ESPN, I was the principal architect of the strategy to launch ESPN+, so I’d had a chance to think about how we were going to build an over-the-top subscription business. The biggest difference being here [at DAZN] is that we’re a pure play, so I don’t have to think about building it within the context of a larger organization with lots and lots of legacy benefits and complications. We are going to buy our rights and put them on a streaming platform. We do believe that’s the future. So, I’m quite happy to be here, whether or not I was clairvoyant. I’m prepared, I’m experienced and I understand what to do.

MCN: Even with your background and experience, was that transition from an established, linear sports leader like ESPN to a startup streaming service in DAZN daunting for you at the beginning?
JS: I think it’s actually been an easier transition because new things are stimulating, right? Perhaps the biggest transition, the biggest change, is just the global nature of our business. We’re based in London. Our largest businesses are in Germany and Japan. We’ve got a big business in Italy, and we’ve got a growing business in Spain. We launched in Brazil, so that’s really fun.

I’ve transitioned from going back and forth to Los Angeles regularly to going back and forth to London regularly, and then down to São Paulo and Rio [de Janeiro]. We recently launched in Brazil, so there’s a little more worldwide travel and that’s been fun. I don’t think the transition has been hard at all. It’s allowed me to do some new things, be stimulated and have some fun.

MCN: Define the DAZN brand for me.
JS: DAZN is a pure-play global streaming platform. We have unique propositions in each market we’re in. Our mission is to become the global leader in sports streaming services — to have the most subscribers, to have the best platform, to have the most rights. That’s our goal.

MCN: DAZN had established itself globally before coming to the U.S. last year. What was the strategy behind launching in the U.S. at this point in time?
JS: If you’re going to build a global brand, you’re going to need to have an established brand and figure out a strategy to compete and thrive in the United States. We are in nine countries on four continents. Six of those nine countries are six of the 12 largest sports-consuming countries in the world: Germany, Japan, Italy, Spain, the United States and Brazil.

We want to be in big markets. We are not looking to experiment in a laboratory in small markets. We’re looking to establish a lead by being in the biggest markets, so we need to be in the United States. It’s also the case that, as we think about building into global leadership and being positioned to potentially talk to investors and to have an IPO, you need to have a brand in the United States because that’s where the capital is and it’s where the largest companies are, and so we wanted to get started here. But it’ll take a while to get established.

You also have the factor in that with rights mostly being tied up in the U.S. for several years, we don’t want to come in just as those rights are becoming available. We want to show some success, build the brand and be viable.

MCN: You mentioned there are very few pro sports leagues with TV rights up for grabs, so DAZN decided to step into the boxing ring. Why was boxing was the best choice for building a new sports service?
JS: We believed boxing was an opportunity. It’s not that we looked at the landscape and everything was available to acquire and we could go, “What do we want to do to launch?” We had to look at an existing landscape and go, “What’s available? What makes sense?” This was done before I got here.

Simon Denyer, who is the founder and CEO, really deserves the credit with his team. Some other guys, [chief revenue officer] James Rushton and [executive vice president of finance] Paul Morton, identified boxing as the one sport that was available for which the major U.S. sports media companies didn’t have the rights tied up for a long time. It provided an opportunity, because the most popular events were in a format where consumers were already paying for them via pay-per-view. So you had a customer who’s used to pulling out their credit cards and paying for them. That’s what we want them to do here. It’s a little bit more of a natural transition.

We also think there are ways to improve the presentation of boxing that will allow us to present a superior proposition to the boxing fan. Also, [boxing has] enough fans to build a big business so that we’ll have the base when other rights come up — we’ll have established our brand and how our platform works. They’ll see we’ve had success, and then we can have a better atmosphere in which to negotiate those rights.

MCN: The reason why a lot of these networks haven’t secured boxing rights in the past is because it’s been a risky proposition with promoters who don’t always necessarily want to see the best and biggest fights made. How were you able to coalesce all of that and create a platform where boxing actually works for the streaming service?
JS: We realized that we needed to do some dramatic things to get going faster, so we did a deal to get [middleweight champion] Canelo Alvarez — the world’s most important fighter and the most attractive pay-per-view boxer — to move him over to a subscription service rather than pay-per-view. That really made a statement and it has brought us hundreds of thousands of subscribers, and gave us credibility in other places.

That allowed us to go do a deal with Triple G [former middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin], who we’re thrilled to have with us. It’s allowed us to talk and sign other fighters like World Boxing Organization middleweight champion] Demetrius Andrade and [middleweight contender] Danny Jacobs. We recently signed [lightweight contender] Devin Haney, and we got [featherweight boxer] Ryan Garcia signed to Golden Boy. So, we’ve got some young exciting fighters as well as some champions and former champions like heavyweight Anthony Joshua.

MCN: Joshua’s fight on DAZN this past June was a major upset to Andy Ruiz. Was that a major setback for DAZN?
JS: You’ll never hear me say there’s anything good about his losing, but you have no choice when something happens but to make the best of it. The best of it is there’s a lot of interest in the rematch. The good thing for us would be for him to come back and win.

When we made that fight, we knew that Andy Ruiz was a very good boxer. He’s a guy that fought 40 times, had never been knocked down and lost one controversial match. Anthony Joshua is a very skilled fighter and we knew it would be a test for him. I’ve talked to AJ and it will be a learning experience. We still believe in his skill and talent, and we expect him to get a rematch in an effort to reclaim his championship.

There are also a lot of other heavyweights, as you know, that we believe are great for the sport, so the heavyweight division getting better will be great for us. Ruiz made it more competitive, so Joshua has to win his next fight and reclaim his belt, then we’re back in the race.

MCN: Do you know when and where the rematch will take place?
JS: The rematch has not been made yet and we don’t know whether it’s going to be here or in the U.K.

MCN: With nearly a year under your belt on the strength of boxing, has DAZN met your performance expectations in terms of subscriptions and financially?
JS: We’re very pleased with where we are. This turned out, in a lot of ways, different than what we thought. We didn’t plan to have Canelo, Triple G, and we didn’t know that we’d have Joshua make his U.S. debut. I think we’re ahead of where we expected to be in terms of the quality of the fighters.

We still have some things to learn about with boxing. For example, we have to get a consistent schedule. Boxing’s problem is, it’s hard to announce for the year. We now think we have 10 to 12 fighters that we can identify dates and build a consistent schedule. We’ve had lots and lots of trial subscribers come in and many have stayed. We’ve been able to build up a subscription base. And we’ve learned that we don’t need a free trial because you got Joshua or you got Canelo and people will pay.

MCN: What is DAZN’s subscriber count? ESPN+ claims they have over 2 million subscribers at this point.
JS: We have not disclosed where we are and I’m not going to disclose it and I appreciate the effort. We think [we have] a pretty clear No. 2 position to ESPN, and may announce something at the end of the year.

MCN: Is there a timetable for reaching 1 million subscribers?
JS: Look, we’d like to be able to announce something before the end of this year.

MCN: DAZN has increased its subscription price to $19.99. Can you be successful at that high price when competitors such as ESPN+ are under $10?
JS: We’ve had great acceptance in the $19.99 price; we don’t find that anybody has any problems with that. We think there may be some upward elasticity on that price, though right now, we’d rather drive volume than maximize revenue, because we need to build a schedule to get the retention first. That’s the first thing for us to do. People like the [$99-peryear] price — it’s a good price.

MCN: Was DAZN’s deal with Major League Baseball to secure a primetime, highlights-driven daily show an effort to not only provide a consistent show that subscribers can watch, but also to extend DAZN’s content reach beyond combat sports?
JS: We did the baseball deal as a clear public declaration that we’re not looking to have a singular sport proposition, but instead looking to be a multisport proposition. We’re looking to be in business with the major leagues in the U.S. I have a long relationship with [MLB commissioner] Rob Manfred and [MLB chief operating officer] Tony Petitti. I went to see them and said, “What can we do?” Because we wanted to have something that says, “We’re in business, and not just for boxing.”

To your question, the answer is we’re a multi-sport proposition and we’ve got a long horizon. We expect to be in the discussion for all major rights that come up. We’ve been public that we have had discussions with the NFL about NFL Sunday Ticket. They are assessing their options on what to do with Sunday Ticket and we’ve had conversations with them. We know that NFL content is a game-changer for people and it helps to build emerging platforms. It helped to build ESPN, Fox Broadcasting and DirecTV. We’d love for it to help build DAZN.

MCN: When those rights come up, are you confident that DAZN will be in a position to compete financially?
JS: Let me be clear: Sports rights in the U.S. will remain quite expensive. I think we will be smart and look for [content properties] like Sunday Ticket [the out-of-market package currently exclusive to DirecTV], where there are maybe over-the-top rights available, and we’ll look for alternative packages. We may talk to some of the big broadcast and cable networks about partnering on buying some rights. I don’t want to come off as though I don’t understand the rights landscape when the NFL is selling billion-dollar-plus Sunday-afternoon packages and Monday-evening packages. I’m not sure that that’s going to be the best bang for our buck right away.

I think that the rights around the rest of the world are being rationalized in a way that the rights in the U.S. are not right now. If you look at the U.K. and the Premier League, the [TV] rights went down for the first time ever in a cycle. There are headwinds because of the stagnation of pay TV around the rest of the world that are causing rights to go up slightly, stay the same or go down slightly.

That’s the trend around the world, partly because there are no other countries that have the number of well-capitalized media companies that the U.S. has. You have Turner, you have ESPN, you have CBS, NBC, Fox, as well as potentially the big tech companies. In most of the world, you have a broadcaster and one or maybe two pay TV platforms. So in those markets, you’ll see us competing for the highest level of rights as we’ve done in Italy and Japan and Spain. Here, you’ll see us be a little more opportunistic as we grow our business smartly.

We have a bigger world to look at than just the United States, so it’s going to have to make sense for us to buy [marquee TV sports rights]. All that matters is what does it cost and what is the return on subs — what is the ARPU [average revenue per user] in that country and how does that get value at some point relative to investment, IPO or some other financial event?

MCN: How much will streaming dominate the TV sports playing field over the next five to 10 years?
JS: Here’s what I know. There is secular change happening around the world, including in the U.S., in which there is a transition from appointment viewing on linear networks to on-demand viewing on streaming networks. It happened in entertainment with Netflix and it happened in music. I think the same thing is going to happen in the U.S. sports arena. You’re looking at a decades-long event and we’re already a year or two into it. I personally believe you’re going to get another round of rights agreements where broadcast networks, news, and regional sports networks are still going to be must-have content for distributors.

If you don’t have that must-have content, then your next negotiations with distributors will be hard. Their margins are being squeezed and they can’t keep raising their prices. It’s also generational. There are more and more people who will never get a cable television subscription, and that’s just going to accelerate. I think we’re in the best pure-play position to take advantage of that.

MCN: How do you think the industry views your accomplishments, leaving the top sports network the way you did and going to basically a startup?
JS: I came here because of the opportunity. I knew from my experience before that streaming is the wave of the future. [DAZN] is privately-owned, so I was able to move quickly — I like that, because I was restless. I feel like my experience before has allowed me to move DAZN a little faster. I think people think of me as an experienced executive who understands the business, but I do understand that a lot of the point of this award is that I happened to come into the position — which is clearly in the forefront of where the future is going to be — but I want people to understand that DAZN had success around the world before I got here. I’ve been a slight booster rocket to get them going to where they were going anyway, and I’m flattered by it all. It’s given me a chance to rebuild relationships and reconnect with old friends and re-establish myself, so I’m gratified and humble.

MCN: No regrets from your past?
JS: I’m quite happy with where I am right now. If you want to try to go back and reconstruct the past it never works. It’s the butterfly effect which says if you change one little thing you never know where you’re going to go. So if I went back and changed what was done in the past, I wouldn’t have all the good things I have now. I have a great job and a wonderful relationship, so I wouldn’t change anything. DAZN has given me a great opportunity and I want to reward them for that opportunity.

Former ESPN president John Skipper said he suddenly left the sports network late last year because he was using cocaine and was being extorted by a drug supplier.

In an interview in The Hollywood Reporter, Skipper said that, facing exposure, he told his family and his boss, The Walt Disney Co. CEO Bob Iger, about his addiction.

That conversation led to his leaving ESPN.

Related: Skipper Resigns as ESPN President

“They threatened me, and I understood immediately that threat put me and my family at risk, and this exposure would put my professional life at risk as well," Skipper said. "I foreclosed that possibility by disclosing the details to my family, and then when I discussed it with Bob, he and I agreed that I had placed the company in an untenable position and as a result, I should resign.”

Skipper’s resignation came as a shock to ESPN staffers. Just days before, he’d addressed employees, outlining his plans for pushing the company into the future.

The finality of the resignation on Dec. 18 hit him hard, he said.

"That’s the day, of course, that there is no turning back; it’s done, it’s gone, it’s public," Skipper said. "It was miserable. I spent it mostly by myself in New York City. I cry sentimentally at movies, but I never cry personally. That’s the only day that I cried. And I cried because I realized the profundity of what I’d done to myself, to my family, and that I’d given up the best job in sports on the planet."

Earlier this month, Disney said that ESPN’s new president would be Disney exec Jimmy Pitaro. Skipper was asked what he thought of the announcement.

“Yeah, of course it has a certain pang to it," he said. "Because it has a sort of definitive finality, that OK, somebody new is going to be in charge. The good news is that Jimmy Pitaro is a good guy; I like Jimmy very much. He’s a good, smart executive. His style will work at ESPN. I wish him well, and (laughs) I hope he does better than the last guy!”

The Walt Disney Co. on Monday (March 5) named James Pitaro as president of ESPN and co-chair Disney Media Networks.

Pitaro has been chair of Disney Consumer Products and Interactive Media since 2016.

Related: CNN’s Zucker a Candidate for ESPN Job: Reports

He replaces John Skipper, who stepped down last year because of personal issues. Since Skipper left, former ESPN chair George Bodenheimer has been running the sports network as acting chairman.

Though a leader in the sports business and a top rated network, ESPN has been hurt by the decline in pay-tv subscribers because it takes in the most revenue per subscriber of any cable network. At the same time as its distribution revenue growth has been throttled by cord-cutting, its costs for sports programming have been rising, putting pressure on profits.

ESPN is getting ready to launch a new app that will include ESPN Plus, a new subscription product that will offer live sporting events, origianl content and a library of on-demand programming.

Related | broadcastingcable.com: ESPN Plus Service Will Cost $4.99 Per Month

“As a passionate and lifelong sports fan, I am honored to be joining the ESPN team during such a pivotal time in its storied history,” Pitaro said. “The appetite for quality sports content across platforms has never been greater, and I am looking forward to working with the talented ESPN team as we continue to redefine the future fan experience.”

Pitaro’s appointment is effective immediately, and new leadership for Disney’s consumer products and interactive businesses will be named at a later date.

Before joining Disney, Pitaro served as head of Yahoo Media, where he helped build Yanoo Sports.

Disney CEO Bob Iger said that Pitaro's experence makes him the right person to head ESPN.

"Jimmy is a talented and dedicated leader with the right strategic vision, relentless drive and passion for sports required to lead the stellar ESPN team at this incredibly dynamic time," Iger said. "Jimmy forged his career at the intersection of technology, sports and media, and his vast experience and keen perspective will be invaluable in taking ESPN into the future. I also want to extend my utmost thanks to George Bodenheimer for serving as Acting Chair of ESPN these past few months; he is a true industry pioneer and helped make ESPN the undisputed leader in sports."

Reports across the media landscape still expressed shock and dismay over ESPN president John Skipper’s surprise resignation Monday (Dec. 18), with some outlets adding that up until almost the last minute, it appeared the sports channel was gearing up to give the former chief an even more public role.

According to Sports Illustrated, Skipper had been taking a more front-and-center role with the company – he led a company-wide rally in Bristol, Conn., a few weeks ago aimed at inspiring the troops. And despite a series of layoffs this year – the network shed 100 on-air employees in April and another 150 workers globally in November -- his job seemed secure. While the company has endured its share of controversy – a Dec. 14 article in the Boston Globe  depicted several instances of sexual harassment and accusations of an "entrenched locker room culture" at the network – SI said it was clear that Disney had picked Skipper as the “point person to change the narrative.”

Skipper had done a lot to promote diversity both in the workplace and throughout ESPN’s content. A former magazine executive – he worked at Rolling Stone and Spin before joining the Worldwide Leader in Sports in 1997 – Skipper launched ESPN The Magazine and has been instrumental in boosting the network’s budget for investigative journalism. Skipper also launched website The Undefeated, created to explore the intersections of race, sports and pop culture.

He also brought new faces and voices to the channel, promoting women like Doris Burke, Jessica Mendoza, Beth Mowins, Sam Ponder and Jemele Hill to positions that had normally been dominated by men. Even Hill, who Skipper suspended as Sports Center anchor for two weeks in October for a series of tweets that were critical of President Donald Trump, still considered her boss a mentor and champion of her career.  

John Skipper is one of the finest people I’ve ever worked for. He’s been incredibly supportive throughout my career at ESPN. This isn’t company-speak. I seriously cannot express how much respect I have for him.

— Jemele Hill (@jemelehill) December 18, 2017

ESPN and ESPN News anchor Stan Verrett offered an anecdote to show Skipper’s compassion for employees.

2 years ago my dad died right before the NBA finals. He was my hero. My mom insisted he would want me to do my job. So I did. At game 1, John Skipper asked me "are we doing all we can for you?" That's the kind of man he is. I wish him the best as he conquers this challenge.

— stan verrett (@stanverrett) December 18, 2017

But there were missteps too. Skipper abruptly ended ESPN’s relationship with Barstool Sports after just 10 days when its late-night interview/comedy show “Barstool Van Talk” struck some at the network as inappropriate. And though Skipper was said to be a champion of diversity and inclusion, ESPN was grappling with harassment scandals for years before he came on board. Whether there is more to come in this story remains to be seen.   

And then there is the controversy over ESPN’s rapid loss of subscribers – 13 million in the past six years – as viewers cut the cord or modified their programming packages to not include sports.

ESPN has tried to rectify the situation by preparing its own direct-to-consumer offering – ESPN Plus, which will include games and programming not aired on its linear channels – and by modifying its existing carriage deals. It’s Altice USA renewal agreement reached in October is often cited as an example – Altice USA agreed to increase the mandatory carriage minimums for the networks after it was allowed to drop some channels (ESPN Classic) and received some rate relief.

The Los Angeles Times mentioned that there were rumors for months that Skipper was on the hot seat and could be let go, but they cooled off after the ESPN chief signed a contract extension. According to the paper, there was talk that ESPN was going to extend that deal even further. And then came Monday’s announcement.

Already several names have been cast about as possible replacements for Skipper – EVP of sales & marketing Justin Connolly and EVP of Content Connor Schell are reportedly the front-runners. But the list is varied – in addition to the usual suspects of Disney and ESPN execs are some top women – including ESPN CFO Christine Driessen and Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg. Some have even said George Bodenheimer, the former ESPN president who retired in 2011 and was brought back to serve as Acting Chairman for 90 days, could be convinced to take the helm again. While Bodenheimer was well liked and had an enviable run at the sports network, the climate is extremely different today and only will get harsher as time goes on. It is probably a long shot to speculate that he would want to take that bull by the horns again at this stage. Over the next three months -- sources at the company say the timing has nothing to do with the launch of ESPN Plus -- Bodenheimer will have both hands full enough looking over resumes. Hopefully, he'll pick the one that has both the old school negotiating skills and the technical savvy to lead ESPN through the right chute. 

ESPN and The Walt Disney Co. will be busy over the next few months sifting through candidates to replace former ESPN president John Skipper, who abruptly resigned Monday due to what he said in a statement was a “substance addiction.”

While former ESPN chief George Bodenheimer will step into an interim role to help run the network, assist in the search for a replacement and help in the transition, Skipper’s decision comes days after Disney announced a $66.1 billion purchase of assets from 21st Century Fox – including regional sports networks – and roughly three months before the planned launch of its direct-to-consumer offering ESPN Plus.

With those milestones looming, Skipper’s replacement will have to possess a number of talents. Not only will he or she have to be a savvy negotiator – ESPN has said about 50% of its pay TV carriage comes up for renewal before 2020, including deals with Verizon at the end of 2018 and Charter in mid-2020 – but will also have to have experience in launching digital offerings as well as figure out how to stop the bleeding with traditional pay TV distributors.

ESPN has a history of looking within for its top executives – Skipper was a 20-year veteran of the network and Bodenheimer famously started out as an intern at the channel when he was in college (as a driver for NBA color man Dick Vitale). Here are a few possibilities, in  no particular order, according to reports and conversations with industry executives:

* Exec VP/Affiliate Sales & Marketing Justin Connolly. Connolly oversaw ESPN’s more recent renewal – with Altice USA – that was largely considered a win-win for both participants (Altice was allowed to shed ESPN Classic while ESPN got bigger minimum carriage guarantees). Connolly is well regarded in the company and has had several roles – he launched SEC Network and has key affiliate sales experience.

* ESPN EVP, Content Connor Schell is executive producer and co-creator of ESPN’s Emmy, Oscar and Peabody Award-winning documentary series 30 for 30 and served as producer and executive producer for its Oscar winning documentary film, OJ in America.

* EVP and Managing Director of ESPN International Russell Wolff has been with the company since 1997 and with Disney expected to gain control of European satellite company Sky as part of the Fox deal, his expertise could be key. 

* ESPN EVP programming and scheduling Burke Magnus could also be among those internal candidates considered – among his duties is the oversight of recently acquired BAMTech, the engine for ESPN’s and Disney’s direct-to-consumer offerings.

* On the Disney side of the house, Senior Exec VP/Chief Strategy Officer Kevin Mayer (where since 2005 his team has been tasked with finding and developing new business models and technologies) and Disney Consumer Products chairman James Pitaro (who also served a stint as president of Disney Interactive, where he turned around the digital operation) are two names that have been mentioned.

* Former ESPN executive Sean Bratches, now Formula 1 managing director of commercial operations, could possibly be lured back to the fold, as could NBC Sports Regional Networks PresidentDavid Preschlack, but sources say that is a bit of a longshot.

* At least two women could be considered for Skipper’s role, including Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg – who some say was being considered to replace Disney chairman and CEO Bob Iger when he retires -- and ESPN EVP and chief financial officer Christine Driessen. Driessen has been with the sports network since 1985 and leads the team that has played key roles in obtaining multimedia rights for Major League Baseball, Monday Night Football and many other major sports.  

With ESPN executive vice president John Wildhack departing as of July 28 to become athletic director at Syracuse University, the programmer named five executives currently at ESPN who will lead programming and production roles, reporting to ESPN president John Skipper.

Stephanie Druley has been named senior VP of event and studio production from SVP of production, college networks. On top of her college production duties, she will take over responsibility for ESPN's remote production portfolio including studio shows directly connected to those events such as NFL and MLB. She will split her time between the Charlotte and Bristol production facilities.

Rob King, SVP, SportsCenter and News, will continue in that role with oversight of that important ESPNfranchise. Burke Magnus will continue in his role as executive VP, programming and scheduling, responsible for program acquisitions and rights holder relations and scheduling the unparalleled 50,000 hours of programming ESPN’s networks air each year. Connor Schell, SVP, ESPN Films and original content, will add management of NBA studio shows, ESPN Audio and the Talent Office to his prior duties, splitting his time among New York, Bristol and Los Angeles. Norby Williamson, EVP of production, will add oversight of production and media sponsorship integration and an “at-large” creative television role.

Skipper said in a release: “My focus remains on three primary initiatives critical to ESPN’s growth and future success: working with our entire senior management team to navigate the changes in our industry; ensuring that our overall content portfolio remains the best in the business; and firmly establishing throughout the company the next generation of ESPN leadership. Today’s announcement is an important step responsive to each of them and demonstrates a key advantage for ESPN – a deep bench of strong executive talent. Each of these individuals is a proven leader, and each has demonstrated tremendous dexterity and creativity in developing and presenting the compelling content that is our hallmark. Working together, they will ensure that ESPN continues to serve our fans and grow the business."

Vice Media and ESPN have entered into a distribution and production agreement where the millennial-focused content producer will create new original series to air exclusively on ESPN properties – including TV, digital and mobile – through its Vice Sports unit, while select films from ESPN’s documentary series 30 for 30 will air on the Viceland pay TV channel.

"Growing up watching ESPN I came to love the brand and their content. Maybe a little too much. The amount of manly tears shed over various 30 for 30’s throughout the years has been nothing short of embarrassing,” said Vice Media co-founder and CEO Shane Smith said in a statement. “To be teaming up with ESPN, creating brand new sports shows for them, and then showing 30 for 30’s on Viceland is perhaps one of the favorite moments in my professional life. I can now die a happy man. "

As part of the deal Vice Sports and ESPN Films will create a new short-form series to run across both ESPN and Vice properties, focusing on athletes, characters and championship events that reside outside the mainstream. In addition, Vice and ESPN are developing a short-form animated series.

On the existing programming side, select Vice Sports series like The Clubhouse, will run across ESPN’s linear and digital channels, including WatchESPN. ESPN will feature digital cutdowns of the Viceland show VICE World of Sports, after programming premieres on Viceland. Full episodes of VICE World of Sports will air on ESPN properties.

“Evoking manly tears from Shane Smith is no small task, and I take immense pride in that,” ESPN president and Disney Media Networks Co-Chairman John Skipper said in a statement.  “Shane and the team at Vice do an extraordinary job presenting stories through their own, very unique lens – and working with them will help to bring a new perspective to our storytelling. I am confident that the content borne out of this collaboration will be a win for fans of ESPN, Vice and storytelling in general. And I applaud Shane for understanding that television is the smartest path to worldwide leadership.”

Ending months of speculation, cable sports giant ESPN said Wednesday that it will layoff a number of workers in an effort to streamline operations and increase efficiencies.

ESPN had been rumored for months to be sharpening its axe to reduce the workforce. Numbers that had been bandied about in previous reports ranged from about 200 to 300 people. While ESPN did not confirm the number of people who will lose their jobs, people familiar with the company said about 300 employees, out of the 8,000 that work for the sports network, will be affected. In addition, thoses sources said the company also is trying to match up employees with abilities that can be tied to future products – say those with IP skills – who would then be placed in other positions. On the affiliate side, different groups could be consolidated into an integrated unit and the people getting cut will receive notification in the next few days.

In a memo to ESPN employees Wednesday, ESPN president and co-chairman Disney Media Networks John Skipper said that every effort will be made to make the transition more palpable for those affected. 

“Beginning today, we will be enacting a number of organizational changes at ESPN to better support our future goals – a process that will include the elimination of a number of positions, impacting friends and colleagues across the organization,” Skipper said in the memo. “We carefully considered and deliberated alternatives before making each decision.  The people who will be leaving us have been part of ESPN’s success, and they have our respect and appreciation for their contributions.  We will be as supportive as we can during this transition, including providing a minimum of 60-days notice, a severance package reflective of their years of service, and outplacement benefits to help them find future employment.”

ESPN's recent decision to part with longtime network personality and writer Bill Simmons was based on a business decision and not any personal conflicts, ESPN network president John Skipper told reporters Tuesday after the network’s upfront event.

Skipper said the decision not to renew Simmons's contract was all “business, not personal,” but said  the decision did not come down to money.

Simmons, who lauched sports and entertainment website Grantland in 2011,  has been one of ESPN’s most popular personalities during his 15-year tenure, but has had several runs-in with ESPN executives during that time.

“He was at ESPN for 15 years and he did a fabulous job for us," Skipper said. "He re-invented at one point the way you do sports writing and became the most read sports writer in the history of the medium,” he said.

Skipper also weighed in on ESPN’s lawsuit last month against Verizon over the telco’s controversial Custom TV “skinny” bundle package, saying that the network is not against new technology but existing carriage agreements have to be renegotiated before any changes can be made.

“We’re in a dramatic time of technological change and clearly the way people consume video devices on different on different kinds of subscription packages is a dramatic transition,” he said. “We don’t resist the change; we do have contracts and it means that if you want to do things that are different you need to discuss it with us and we’ll have a conversation as we did with Sling TV."

Skipper also said the network’s decision to simulcast its NFL Wild Card game on ABC as well as the move of its longtime awards show The ESPY to the broadcast network was based in part on getting more exposure for the events on a bigger platform. “The Wild Card game is to get a bigger audience,” he said. “We’re going to become more opportunistic with ABC.”

There are a number of knowns with the NBA's lucrative renewal announced last week, Incumbents ESPN and TNT will be presenting games and related content on myriad platforms into the middle of the next decade.

By paying a combined $24 billion, starting with the 2016-17 season and continuing through the 2024-25 campaign, The Walt Disney Co. and Time Warner have kept Fox and Comcast/NBCU out of the national media rights for pro hoops.  ABC will remain the home of The NBA Finals, which have surpassed the World Series in ratings in recent years, while TNT will continue to host the most playoff games.

There are also plenty of unknowns most notably the over-the-top service that ESPN will launch and in which the league will hold an equity stake. The service will not require a subscription to a cable, satellite or telco video subscription.

Commissioner Adam Silver at the Oct. 6 press conference in New York said the “new service is designed to reach mobile consumers with NBA content and potentially other sports properties, as well.”

ESPN president and John Skipper, noting only that a framework has been established, pointed out that “the preponderance of our deal is to invest in new product that goes on pay television…There is no contradiction in continuing to enhance and buttress the current system while building new businesses and new ways to reach fans. We think they are complementary. We applaud the NBA for being a very forward‑thinking league and helping us do that across all of our platforms."

With Washington Wizards owner and NBA media committee chairman Ted Leonisis talking about the surge in worldwide mobility and 2.5 billion Internet connections, some were left with the impression that the OTT could be a global gambit.

ESPN officials later in the week said the OTT service would be a U.S. play only, but there were no further details -- as to whether it would function as an out-of-market service or otherwise. It remains unclear if the content would encompass only ESPN’s NBA action -- and how many other pro hoops games from across the league's slate -- or extend to the full gamut of the worldwide leader's portfolio.

What seems likely: Pay-tv distributors, who currently pay almost $6 in monthly subscriber fees for ESPN, will be angry if there are mass defections to the OTT service, especially in light of the supposition that while viewers can get access to most movies, dramas and comedies elsewhere, live sports have been the province of an ecosystem involving broadcast and to an ever increasing degree, pay-TV programmers.

The following is a scorecard touching on a number of other deal points, outlining what's known and what remains uncertain at this juncture.

More games: ESPN and ABC will add 10 contests, lifting their combined regular-season roster to 100, with most likely slated on the cable side. That means regional sports networks shouldn’t have to worry about losing full-telecast rights. The worldwide leader will also add D-League and summer league action and extended its WNBA pact to be co-terminus with the broader NBA pact.

TNT, retaining its exclusive Thursday night doubleheaders, will after the All-Star break add another dozen games with significant playoff implications on a new night. Turner Broadcasting System Inc. president David Levy told Multichannel News after the press conference that it was looking at Sunday or Monday.

License fees:  ESPN and TNT’s (around $1.40) monthly license fees will continue to rise under the new deal. Just as ESPN executives have always maintained that one property doesn’t determine the rate, Levy, noting this deal would not trigger a surcharge, said TNT’s current license fee reflects the value of the NBA and that would be the case going forward.  His boss Time Warner chairman Jeff Bewkes has talked up securing higher fees for the Turner portfolio of networks and retaining the ratings-ascendant pro hoops league should help accomplish that.

NBA TV: NBA TV will add a handful of games, lifting its schedule to 100 regular-season contests annually. Under the new deal,Turner also willserve as the principal affiliate negotiatior. While Silver is confident that NBA TV will benefit, it's way too early to determine how much the network will grow beyond its current 60-million base via its inclusion within the Turner portfolio of services. As Levy said, it's, in part, a function of opportunities synching up with contract lengths

Digital: The programmers retain their TVE rights across their myriad platforms.  ESPN is slated to add some 750 hours of linear/digital content that will make the NBA --- like the NFL -- a year-round business in Bristol and beyond.

Turner, which will continue to manage NBA Digital, including NBA TV, NBA.com, NBA Mobile, NBA League Pass, WNBA.com and NBADLeague.com., can add more video-focused content to its Bleacher Report online service. It’s unclear if that will manifest as NBA game streaming.

Labor: What’s known is that Cleveland’s LeBron James and Brookyn’s  Deon Williams are already beating the owners-can’t-cry-poverty-anymore, and the- players-need-a-higher-percentage-of basketball- related- income drum.  What’s unknown is the exact minute in 2017 when the players will opt of the current collective bargaining agreement and another NBA work stoppage/ lockout/strike will ensue.

New York -- There will be a lot more NBA games and content in play under the rights extensions the league has inked with ESPN and Turner Broadcasting System.

And rightfully so, considering that the pro hoops league media partners are almost trebling the combined $920 million in annual outlays under their current contracts that run through the 2015-16 season. Together, the parties will pay some $24 billion over a nine-year term that will conclude with the 2024-25 season. Reports indicate that ESPN, whose current contract averages $480 million, will pay about $1.4 billion for each year of the new deal, which includes the launch of an over-the-top systems outside of the pay-TV ecosystem.

For its part, Turner will allocate some $1.2 billion per season, which features a new 12-game slate in the second half of the seasons, and more content for its Bleacher Report digital property.  TNT spends some $440 miillion per season under its present contract.

During the press conference announcing the deal at the Saint Regis Hotel on Monday morning, both ESPN president John Skipper and Turner Broadcasting president David Levy said the deals made financial sense for their respective parents The Walt Disney Co. and Time Warner.

“Sports rights are more and more valuable," said Skipper. “It continues ESPN’s long-stated strategy to invest in a portfolio of live rights. This is a key property for us given the ascendant nature of the league.”

Levy stated that the deal was a priority for Turner's parent. “Each year the playoffs help TNT win nights of television during the all-important May sweeps. We look forward to that tradition continuing,” he said  "It will be meaningfully valuable to our company at the end of this deal and we'll have a strong R.O.I. when the end of this deal happens."

Asked afterward, if that meant TNT affiliates should expect a meaningful increase in their monthly license fees accordingly, Levy said: “The value of TNT programming is reflected in its license fee and that includes the NBA.”

He said there would be no TNT surcharge tied to the NBA renewal, and that affiliate pacts “have to run their course. Going forward, the value of NBA will be reflected in Turner’s enhanced set of assets" with the league.

TNT, in addition to retaining its exclusive Thursday night doubleheaders, will tip off a dozen more live games on another night of the week during the second half of the season. The programmer will have NBA Opening Night, exclusive coverage of most of NBA All-Star Weekend, including the game itself and more playoff contests than ESPN/ABC.  Turner will also create a new NBA awards show and proffer additional programming around the beginning of the season and the start of the playoffs.

Turner Sports will also retain TV Everywhere rights that allows for all NBA content airing across Turner Broadcasting networks to be streamed live across the company's multiple digital platforms. Additionally, Turner will have enhanced digital rights to serve NBA content across its Bleacher Report online service.

Turner Sports will also continue to manage NBA Digital, including NBA TV, NBA.com, NBA Mobile, NBA League Pass, WNBA.com and NBADLeague.com.

Levy said Turner is eyeing Sunday and Monday nights as potential landing spots for the additional 12-game package that will begin after the All-Star break and be centered on delivering matchups with significant playoff implications.

Under its deal, ESPN and broadcast brethren ABC, which remains the home of The Finals, gain 10 additional games (plus 10 additional exclusive windows) raising their combined regular-season total to 100 (85 on the cable network, 15 on the broadcaster). The new agreements also give ESPN significant increases in their radio and international rights, as well as extend its agreement with the WNBA through 2025. ESPN will add about 750 hours per year of linear/digital content, and televise D-League and NBA Summer League games, giving pro hoops a year-round presence on the worldwide leader.

As to the planned OTT service, Skipper said it wouldn’t upset the current pay-TV system.

“There is no contradiction in continuing to enhance and buttress the current system by building new business and new way to reach fans,” said Skipper. “We think they are complementary.”

Skipper said the OTT service was in its incipient stages, but the plan calls for the inclusion of some live games, as well as studio programming, highlight and analysis. It also may include content beyond pro basketball. Whatever the ultimate content, it will reflect ESPN’s quality of production.

All that being said, Skipper emphasized this was merely a “framework” for the service. “We have a lot of work to do,” he told MCN after the press conference. 

The league’s partners also paid a premium to keep others from getting a chance to play in the NBA’s growing arena.

The NBA and the media companies, which were in the midst of their exclusive negotiating windows that wouldn’t have closed until next year, began their negotiations in earnest during February, which Silver said escalated to “around the clock” talks over the last 10 days or so. Skipper said he didn’t know what it might have cost ESPN had competitive bids were entered.

“We clearly made the calculation that we were uninterested in exploring that possibility,” Skipper said.

In announcing the first national rights deal under his watch, Silver said:  “We decided to renew our agreements with Turner and Disney two years early, because they have been terrific partners and they each share responsibility for the tremendous growth and popularity of our game.”

Silver said the league had engaged in “discussions, but not negotiations," with Comcast and Fox, both of which are deeply rooted with the league via their regional sports networks’ coverage of NBA clubs. "I don't think we left any money on the table."

After the presser, Silver said that NBA TV was also adding 10 games to its schedule, pushing its lineup of regular-season telecasts to 100. He believes that the league’s in-house service will grow beyond its current 60 million subscriber roster as Turner assumes primary distribution responsibilities.

Levy said “Turner will take more of a lead role in affiliate negotiations, but we will continue to work with Bill Koenig," the NBA’s president of global media distribution.

Although Levy acknowledged NBA TV will be rolled into Turner portfolio, he cautioned that buttressing its sub base will depend on “how it lines up” with other networks and their affiliate deal lengths.

The homepage on Dish Network’s website touted the fact that it would be carrying the SEC Network weeks before the freshman service’s Aug. 14 launch date, heralding its arrival and using it as a marketing tool to attract potential new subscribers.

That satellite-TV provider Dish would devote nearly half of its home page to the SEC Network speaks volumes about the influence and popularity of the preeminent football conference in all of college athletics. It also serves as a not-so-subtle reminder of how ESPN, which owns and operates the SEC Network and shares profits with the Southeastern Conference, remains an monolith on the television sports landscape, casting a shadow over the competition in its never-ending quest to dominate the business.

ESPN marked its 35th anniversary this past Sunday (Sept. 7). Earlier this summer, the network bid farewell to its coverage of the FIFA World Cup by providing comprehensive coverage of the tournament from Brazil that broke ratings records. It is also winding down its coverage of the NASCAR Sprint Cup and Nationwide Series this fall.

The worldwide leader is continuing to push its WatchESPN suite of products and will usher in the new college-football playoff format, a system that marks the first change in how a major sport decides its championship since Super Bowl I, and one that could break all-time cable-audience marks.

LOW-KEY MILESTONE

But ESPN isn’t airing any big television specials or series to commemorate the occasion, as was the case when the programmer turned 25 and then 30. ESPN president John Skipper pointed toward a more low-key celebration to mark the event.

“I’m sure we’ll have some sort of [internal] town hall thing and people will talk about it,” Skipper said. “It is right around the time of the employee picnic, so I think it will be an internal situation. There won’t be any program initiative. Our sense is that it matters to us internally. It’s more important as a business story, but we’re more excited about the start of football season.”

Why shouldn’t Skipper be pumped? The lengths to which Dish went to promote the launch of the SEC Network shows how excited the satellite-TV provider is to team with college football’s most powerful conference and the sport’s biggest player.

With all major distributors except Cablevision Systems on board (as of press time), the SEC Network counts more than 62 million subscribers and is available to more than 95 million homes, making it one of the largest network launches in cable history.

Launching the SEC Network is in line with ESPN’s approach to new ventures. It hasn’t shied away from trying new things, like the WatchESPN initiative that launched a few years ago. The app platform is now available to some 75 million homes across the nation.

“Our goal, and I tell people I’m tired of hearing it internally, is that I want to do the very dynamic thing and I want to be the leader in risk-taking and innovation,” Skipper said. “Those are usually two things that don’t go hand in hand when you are the company leader, looking to protect [what you have]. The insurgents look to do more of the new stuff and risk-taking. We want to take that away and say we are doing more.

“I don’t see us as being 35 [years old],” Skipper added. “We refuse to grow up and mature. We want to keep innovating and taking the risks.”

It’s a bit easier to take risks, though, when you have the foundation that ESPN has. It has been an industry leader in presenting college sports, not just football, for decades and has been just as impactful in its coverage of the National Football Leauge, National Basketball Association and Major League Baseball.

Fox Sports I launched a year ago and was predicted by many to become “the next big thing” in sports broadcasting. A year later, though, FS1 is still struggling to find its footing in a landscape saturated with all sorts of never-ending sports programming. NBC Sports has its own cable network, and CBS Sports does, too. Throw in the fact that MLB and the NFL, NBA and NHL all have league-specific networks, and it has become increasingly difficult to make an impactful splash.

That’s what makes the launch of the SEC Network such an intriguing venture. A network dedicated to a collegiate conference is not a new idea. The Pac-12 and Big Ten each have their own networks, and ESPN has the Longhorn Network for the University of Texas.

“I think the ratings for the SEC Network outside the [SEC] territory are going to shock people,” Skipper said. “It’s not going to be in just the 11 SEC states. That makes no sense.”

ESPN, however, does not have complete control over the conference’s programming. CBS, which has a longterm deal with the SEC that goes through 2023, gets the first choice of which games will be televised each week on what has been the highest-rated college football package on any network in the last five years.

“They are accurate when they say that they have a deal with the SEC where they get the pick every week,” Skipper said. “They get the top pick, subject to some limitations, so they can’t pick Alabama every week. They have a good game from the SEC every week, but the good news is that we’ll have three or four good games every week and another three or four on the other ESPN networks. So I’m happy with our position. We do what we do, and they do what they do.”

The SEC Network also has some familiar faces. Veteran play-by-play man Brent Musberger will be joined by Jesse Palmer as the lead team calling the games. Tim Tebow, Greg McElroy and Marcus Spears are analysts on its SEC Nation studio show, hosted by Joe Tessitore.

FAMILIAR FACES

“Our goal is to produce a very high-quality conference network,” Skipper said. “The Big Ten and Pac-12 do good jobs, but our model is the ESPN networks. When we put the Longhorn Network on air there were challenges in distribution because of lack of games. But everyone is impressed with the quality of production, studio shows, programming, etc. If we’re looking to emulate anything, it will be ESPN, ESPN2 and ESPNU.

“I see more similarity to those networks than anyone else,” he added. “And we’ll have a higher volume of live games. What we are emulating, though, is the fact that we have Brent Musberger and Jesse Palmer.”

During the first four weeks of the season the SEC Network is broadcasting one game involving every school and will be at each of the conference’s 14 stadiums. The network will air more than football, though. It expects to broadcast 160 basketball games, nearly 100 baseball games and 50 softball games as well as volleyball and soccer matches.

Collecting a reported $1.40 per subscriber in monthly fees within the Southeastern Conference’s 11-state footprint and 25 cents beyond those boundaries, ESPN has added more green to its coffers and those of parent, The Walt Disney Co.

It should all make for an interesting viewing and what should be a great way to mark ESPN’s 35th anniversary. Keeping the content on its flagship networks fresh and lively may prove to be a challenge at times, but ESPN has done well in terms of breaking new ground.

FOCUS ON QUALITY

“We want to keep things fresh by making everything high-quality,” Skipper said. “We launched [Bill “The Sports Guy” Simmons-helmed website] Grantland, which is long-form sports journalism; FiveThirtyEight [the website helmed by political statistics guru Nate Silver], a push forward for data and numbers in sports; and the 30 for 30 series.

“We can’t fight saturation but we’re producing more content than ever. We’re living in a world with more content than ever.”

Part of that content was the WatchESPN initiative for mobile devices. According to Skipper, 44 million minutes of World Cup soccer was “consumed” on WatchESPN.

World Cup records were not limited to digital. The 2014 event was the most-viewed World Cup ever on English-language TV in the U.S. Buoyed by ESPN’s record 18.2 million for the U.S.-Portugal “Group of Death” match and the 17.3 million who saw Germany lift the trophy with its 1-0 win over Argentina on ABC, ESPN, ESPN2 and the broadcaster averaged 4.56 million viewers for the 64 matches. Viewership was up 39% and 96%, respectively, over the 3.27 million in 2010 and 2.32 million from Germany in 2006.

The 2014 World Cup marked the end of ESPN’s run with the world’s most popular sporting event. The programmer is still on the pitch, though, with a new deal with Major League Soccer, the U.S. men’s national team and Euro 2016, among other futbol properties.

“We remain committed to the growth of soccer, and our presentation of the World Cup clearly demonstrated that,” Skipper said.

Improving on the WatchESPN experience, whether it’s via the SEC Network, Sunday Night Baseball or cable’s top franchise, Monday Night Football, remains a priority for Skipper moving forward.

“Watch ESPN is going to be increasingly important,” Skipper said. “Mobile devices are rapidly overtaking desktop computers, and we have to be there. I could suggest that the 35-year era has been the pay television era. Going forward, pay television is still critical but it’s a more complicated landscape, and we have to make sure that we are playing in those complicated places.

“If you download the [WatchESPN] app and authenticate it, it is a fabulous experience,” Skipper continued. “The part that I’m not satisfied with is that it’s still hard to do. The service is fabulous and the quality is great. We just have to get it to more people.”

With the latest rollouts, the product of expanded carriage renewals inked as part of far-reaching deals Disney struck earlier this summer, the WatchESPN suite of services became available to subscribers of Mediacom Communications, Suddenlink Communications, the National Cable Television Cooperative and the National Telco Television Consortium last week, increasing its roster to 75 million homes.

DirecTV is the only major provider that doesn’t have a contract to supply the WatchESPN products.

Adding more WatchESPN subs by year-end would be a big plus for the network. ESPN will televise the College Football Playoff — a 12-year, $5.6 billion deal gives it media rights through 2026 — as well as a majority of the bowl games played.

All told, ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, ESPNEWS, ABC, broadband portal ESPN, the SEC Network, the Longhorn Network, ESPN Radio and highlights service Goal Line will present more than 450 college-football games during the 2014 regular season, which will then culminate in the bowls and the inaugural College Football Playoff, featuring a pair of semifinal contests with the winners meeting at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, to crown a new champion.

Many expect the playoff games to challenge, if not surpass, the 27 million who watched Auburn top Oregon in the 2011 BCS National Championship Game, the most-watched telecast in cable history.

“Few events are more meaningful than these games,” Skipper said. “This represents a seminal moment in college football and we could not be more pleased to be a part of it.”

It’s also another way ESPN has tried to stay ahead of the competition.

“We have to continue to serve the fan,” Skipper said. “We have to take into account that the fan wants instantaneous highlights and they can do it on any mobile device. We were the first network where you could watch live games on your iPhone, iPad and desktop. You have to find new ways to create business.”

Finding new ways to create hasn’t been much of a problem for the all-sports network. It has been the industry standard for 35 years. Based on Skipper’s vision and what the network has been able to accomplish so far, the next 35 years should be just as exciting and innovative.