Industry Moves

Zarah Al-Kudcy, the commercial director for reigning WSL champion Chelsea Women, is leaving the club to become the chief revenue officer for NewCo, the independent body set up to run the top-flight women’s league and the second-tier Women’s Championship.

Jonathan Davis has become the latest DAZN media rights executive to join Peak Sport Media, the joint venture set up a year ago by Spain’s LaLiga and Simon Denyer’s Ocho Sport Advisory company.

Former Sky UK boss Stephen van Rooyen has been appointed chief executive of VodafoneZiggo, the Dutch telco and pay-television operator

Cricket Australia has filled a key void in its executive team, with the appointment of Ed Sanders as its chief commercial officer.

Structural changes unveiled this morning at the EBU have been put in place with a view to the onboarding of Olympics broadcast rights and to further develop the new Eurovision Sport streaming platform.

Bundesliga International has made a trio of executive hires and promotions across Asia-Pacific and India, as it looks to further build the league's exposure on the ground with media rights deals already locked in across much of the region for the long term.

The merging of Endeavor’s OpenBet and IMG Arena has led to a high-profile casualty as Max Wright, who has been with IMG for 11 years, negotiating various betting rights deals with sports bodies, leaves the company.

Paramount Global, which is in exclusive merger talks with Skydance Media, has announced the immediate exit of president and CEO Bob Bakish, to be replaced by three executives in a new leadership team amid a period of ongoing financial uncertainty.

FC Porto has elected a new president for the first time in more than 40 years as one of Portugal's Big Three clubs prepares to play a crucial role in the commercial overhaul of the Primeira Liga this decade.

Sports media rights executive Stew Walker has been recruited by Commercial Sports Media (CSM) as a consultant to work in the UK market

Pascal Fratellia, the European Broadcasting Union’s director of Olympics and head of football rights for close to 15 years, is leaving the free-to-air broadcasting consortium.

The Professional Fighters League has hired World Wrestling Entertainment executive Emilio Revelo to a senior role overseeing the global distribution of its Bellator brand as well as developing the growth of the company's Hispanic audience.

Alex Kay-Jelski, a UK football journalist and editor, has today (Thursday) been named director of sport at the BBC, an appointment likely to be viewed as a surprise choice given his lack of sports media rights buying experience.

DAZN has continued its pivot towards free, advertising-supported content with the appointment of Elena Novokreshchenova as its first ‘global chief executive of freemium’.

Joe Markowski is leaving his role as chief executive of DAZN in North America with IMG’s Michael Ridout to take on certain duties heading up the broadcaster’s combat sports activities, SportBusiness can reveal.

The new joint venture streaming service of ESPN, Fox and Warner Bros. Discovery today (Friday) named Pete Distad, the experienced media, sports and technology executive, as its chief executive.