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Stock market today: S&P 500, Nasdaq notch records as Nvidia takes crown from Microsoft as most valuable stock
Venu Sports, the upcoming sports streaming partnership among Disney’s ESPN (DIS), Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD), and Fox (FOXA), unveiled its full management team on Tuesday.
Pete Distad, former Apple and Hulu executive, was previously announced as the joint venture’s CEO.
The team includes former executives at leading entertainment, media, technology, sports, and sports betting companies.
Brian Borkowski, who will serve as chief marketing officer, hails from FanDuel. Jessica Casano-Antonellis, senior vice president and head of communications, previously led communications at Sirius XM. Chief business officer Tim Connolly formerly led subscriber growth for Apple TV+ and MLS Season Pass at Apple.
“Getting the chance to assemble the starting lineup for the management team responsible for building the Venu organization, creating the culture, setting the pace of innovation, and ultimately, fueling the growth behind our forthcoming service has been an incredible opportunity,” Distad said.
“We searched for people with an entrepreneurial spirit who could bring diverse perspectives to Venu Sports with experience launching beloved consumer products and growing high-performing teams, and brought together a group of all-stars in their respective fields.”
The streaming service, announced in February, is set to debut sometime this fall and comes as media companies face increased pressure from investors to scale their platforms and achieve profitability.
Venu Sports will bring together the three companies’ respective slates of sports networks. Collectively, the new service encompasses about 55% of US sports rights, according to Citi Research.
According to the platform, the service will be made available directly to consumers via a new app. Subscribers will also have the ability to bundle the product with Disney+, Hulu, or Max.