Processing Your Payment

Please do not leave this page until complete. This can take a few moments.

September 16, 2024 On The Record

After 6 years leading ESPN, Pitaro may be on deck to succeed Disney CEO; he’s also trying to reshape the Bristol-based sports media company

CONTRIBUTED PHOTO | ESPN ESPN Chairman James Pitaro answers questions during a recent media day in Bristol.
HBJ PHOTO | GREG BORDONARO Retired Philadelphia Eagles center Jason Kelce is one of the newest high-profile analysts at ESPN.
Greg Bordonaro | Hartford Business Journal Retired Alabama football coach Nick Saban has joined ESPN as an analyst on "College GameDay."
By David Krechevsky

Jimmy Pitaro says he’s “sitting in his dream job.”

Pitaro, 54, has helmed ESPN, which is owned by the Walt Disney Co., since he was hired as the digital sports broadcaster’s eighth president in March 2018. He previously had served about two years as chairman of Disney’s consumer products and interactive media division. He joined the Walt Disney Co. in 2010 as co-president of Disney Interactive, after serving as vice president and head of Yahoo Media, which included Yahoo Sports.

He was promoted to ESPN chairman in February last year.

In the six-plus years he’s led the Bristol-based enterprise, Pitaro has proven himself an all-star in Disney’s C-suite lineup, leading ESPN through the COVID-19 pandemic and strengthening its dominance on digital and social media platforms.

His performance has been strong enough to prompt his recent endorsement as the successor to Disney CEO Bob Iger by former hedge fund manager and CNBC host Jim Cramer.

Iger is scheduled to step down in December 2026, and Pitaro is among those being considered to take his place. But when asked during ESPN’s 2024 Media Day on Aug. 28 about succeeding Iger, Pitaro shrugged it off.

“I literally grew up wanting to work here,” he said of ESPN. “Even the years that I was competing against this place, I wanted to work here.”

He added, “Last thing I’ll say is, we are in a really important time at ESPN right now, incredibly important … and I’m excited to be a part of it.”

‘Anytime, anywhere’

That excitement stems, in part, from plans to offer an as-yet unnamed direct-to-consumer streaming service for ESPN’s flagship programming, which is expected to launch sometime in mid-2025. The company already offers ESPN+, but that is a complementary streaming service providing content not available on its primary channels.

It also leads the industry in fantasy sports engagement, and late last year launched ESPN BET, its official sportsbook operated by PENN Entertainment that is available in 19 states (though not yet in Connecticut).

“As you walk the halls and experience this place, you’re probably going to see on some of the walls, ‘Serve the sports fan anytime, anywhere,’ and that’s our mission,” Pitaro told journalists on media day, which took place in late August at ESPN’s 120-acre campus in Bristol that is home to more than 1.3 million square feet in 18 buildings and about 4,000 employees. “When I started here about six-and-a-half years ago, we sat down and we looked at it, and I felt then, and I feel now, that it remains incredibly relevant.”

“In fact,” he added, “I’d argue serving the sports fan anywhere is more relevant today than it’s ever been.”

What that really means, he said, “is that we need to be everywhere.” That includes remaining on cable TV, but also optimizing digital platforms, Pitaro said.

ESPN has done that during his tenure. According to data from Comscore, a global media analytics company, ESPN Digital topped the U.S. sports category in July for the 29th consecutive month. It recorded 102.3 million unique visitors, more than 33 million above visitors for Yahoo! Sports/NBC Sports Network.

ESPN is also one of the top-followed brands on TikTok, with over 47 million followers, the company said.

HBJ PHOTO | GREG BORDONARO
ESPN debuted a decade ago its $178 million Digital Center 2, where live programming like NFL Live takes place.

But, the focus on digital and sports betting isn’t just a diversification play. It’s needed for ESPN’s long-term survival as the cord-cutting trend has threatened the sports entertainment company’s key revenue source: cable subscriptions.

According to a report in the Wall Street Journal in March, ESPN’s cable business has shrunk dramatically. Since 2011, the number of U.S. households paying for cable packages that include ESPN has fallen by about 29 million, the Journal reported.

That’s forced Pitaro and ESPN to make some tough decisions, including several rounds of layoffs to cut costs as the company makes the digital transition. That includes last year when ESPN let go of some high-profile on-air personalities like former NFL Hall of Fame quarterback Steve Young, Max Kellerman, Keyshawn Johnson and Suzy Kolber.

Still, ESPN has remained profitable. In the third quarter of its 2024 fiscal year, which ended June 29, the company reported $4.28 billion in domestic and international revenue, up 5% from a year earlier, and $1.09 billion in operating income, up 4% from the year-ago period.

The increases were driven by higher advertising and subscription revenues as a result of higher rates, which helped offset a decline in traditional cable subscribers, the company said.

‘Pro-competitive service’

Pitaro is hardly done trying to serve sports fans. In addition to the streaming service, ESPN also was working with Warner Bros. Discovery and Fox on a joint sports-streaming service venture called Venu Sports that was announced in February.

Last month, however, a federal judge temporarily blocked Venu’s launch, citing antitrust concerns after a lawsuit was filed by sports-streaming service FuboTV.

Pitaro said Disney, Warner Bros. and Fox “respectfully disagree” with the court’s decision.

“We believe that Venu is a pro-competitive service,” he said. “It is pro-consumer, pro-sports fan, and we believe it’s giving the sports fan another option. It’s primarily directed at sports fans that are on the sidelines today … because they’ve cut the cord, or they’ve never subscribed to the traditional ecosystem.”

Pitaro was the opener for ESPN’s media day, spending 45 minutes answering questions and talking about himself and the company.

Here’s what else Pitaro had to say. The Q&A was edited for space and clarity.

Q. ESPN is celebrating its 45th anniversary. Why do you believe the company’s future is bright?

It starts with (broadcasting) rights (to high-profile sporting events). … We’ve done an amazing job, in my opinion, of acquiring marquee rights, championship rights, differentiating rights with discipline, and we take a ton of pride in that. And I think we are very well set up for the foreseeable future from a live-game perspective.

A couple of examples. We entered this fiscal year saying to ourselves, we really want to renew with the NCAA. We really want to maintain our exclusivity with some optionality on the College Football Playoff, and we really want to close the NBA (broadcasting-rights deal).

And so, if you fast-forward to right now, we could not be prouder of the fact that we were able to close all three of those deals and on terms that are very attractive from our perspective, not just from a linear perspective. But we think about ourselves as not just a linear network, but a sports and multi-platform sports ecosystem.

(In deals inked this year, Disney/ESPN has paid for rights to broadcast national NBA games through the 2035-36 season, the new College Football Playoff through the 2031-32 season, and 40 NCAA championships for a variety of men’s and women’s sports — including soccer, lacrosse and baseball — for eight more years.)

Q. What’s the future of studio programming?

It wasn’t very long ago where I would hear repeatedly, ‘Why are you guys continuing to invest in studio programming? Like every highlight is just one click away. Why do we need this?’

And if you look at our ratings, it’s just staggering. If you look at “Get Up!,” “First Take,” Pat McAfee, “SportsCenter,” if you look at our ratings throughout the day, it’s really, really impressive. And we take a ton of pride in the fact that ratings are growing for studio programming in a world of cord-cutting.

And so, why is that? It’s, again, place of record. It’s delivering the news with personality, with charm, with charisma, with authority, and so that, to me, sets us up well for the future, including in a flagship, direct-to-consumer world.

When you ask yourself, why are people going to subscribe to ESPN? I don’t think you can discount or dismiss the quality of our studio programming.

Q. What’s the most surprising part of your job?

Well, look, I spent years competing against ESPN (when I was at Yahoo! Media). I would literally wake up every day saying, ‘We need to beat ESPN.’

Then I spent years sitting at Bob Iger’s leadership table, first next to (former ESPN President) George Bodenheimer, then next to (former ESPN President) John Skipper, where I would hear about the attention that ESPN gets now.

But I will tell you that I didn’t quite realize the amount of attention, how significant the coverage is. And look, … outside pressure is a privilege. It beats the alternative, where folks are not paying attention to the moves that you are making.

But I do recognize that when we make the bars move, when we sign an NBA deal, that’s going to get a ton of attention. But now I realize how even the smaller moves get a lot of focus and attention.

Q. What is your go-to leadership principle?

My direct reports are all here (in this room). They’ll tell you this: ‘Discuss. Debate. Decide. Align.’ So I’ve been saying that for a long time.

I want to make sure that the right people are in the room, that we’re hearing from diverse voices, diversity of thought. I want to make sure that I’m learning every single day in this job, and so I like it when people challenge me, and my direct reports certainly do challenge me.

Now, we meet every single week as a leadership team and we debate, and then we try to decide as a team. So, Discuss. Debate. Decide. Align. I will tell you that almost always we are able to unite and decide as a team.

If we can’t decide as a team — I think if Bob (Iger) were sitting here right now, he’d tell you that I get paid to make the decision for the ESPN business. That’s my responsibility, and so fortunately, I can probably count on one hand the number of times when we have not been completely aligned as a leadership team.

And then the most important element of that is the aligning, right? So, there may be someone in the room who disagrees with the decision, but you get to a certain level at ESPN or at Disney, or anywhere in fact, and if you’re not in the majority, okay, but as a leader, your responsibility then is to align.

Sign up for Enews

Most Recent

Most Recent

0 Comments

Order a PDF