Deltatre recruits MLB broadcast executive Johnson

Sports streaming technology company Deltatre has hired Major League Baseball’s James Johnson to the role of vice-president, Americas business development within its Live division.

Johnson spent 14 years at MLB, most recently as vice-president of broadcast services and production at MLB Advanced Media. Before that, he held the roles of senior director of remote operations and manager of broadcast engineering.

Announcing his arrival, Deltatre said that James will be responsible for “continuing to grow the adoption of Deltatre’s live production, broadcast and digital services across the United States, Canada and Latin America”. He is to assume responsibility for “delivering value to new and existing clients across the region and ensuring they are provided with the technology solutions that suit their needs”.

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Johnson, who will primarily be based in New York, will report to Stefan-Eric Wildemann, senior director of business development at the Live division. Wildemann, previously Fifa’s head of TV sales and distribution, joined Deltatre at the start of 2019.

Gilles Mas, president of Deltatre’s Live Division, said: “We have an exciting year ahead of us, both in terms of the projects we are delivering and the new relationships we are making in the Americas. Bringing James on board – with his impressive breadth of experience – will only accelerate our plans.”

Deltatre added that the past 18 months have “seen significant growth across the region, most recently having deployed a new CMS across MLB digital properties and partnering with [production studio] Sneaky Big to deliver a bespoke TV graphics solution for college basketball”.

Johnson’s early experience in the industry includes work as video co-ordinator at the Chicago Blackhawks NHL team, plus video coaching for the Blackhawks, the NBA’s Chicago Bulls and MLB’s Chicago White Sox.