ESPN Announces Organizational Changes Across Digital & Print

As ESPN continues to expand the delivery of its digital and print content to sports fans across the globe, John Kosner, Executive Vice President, ESPN Digital & Print Media, announced several organizational changes that will shift and increase responsibilities for key leaders in charge of ESPN’s digital and print content. 

The moves are designed to fully utilize ESPN’s global technology infrastructure, extensive international digital rights, sophisticated analytics, and unmatched editorial talent covering sports around the world. The changes also reflect the diversity of ESPN’s digital leadership and its continued drive to find new and better ways to personalize experiences for fans, even as ESPN remains No. 1 in digital sports in every category.

Patrick Stiegman takes on the new role of Vice President, Global Digital Content, a newly created position overseeing the development of ESPN’s editorial content around the world. Stiegman will lead the editorial efforts for all the international editions of ESPN.com and all coverage of major global sports events, including the Olympics, major international football championships, as well as rugby, cricket, golf, and tennis. He will work closely with ESPN’s international digital product teams and content editors, as well as continue to chair the ESPN Editorial Board and contribute to editorial oversight of all written enterprise, commentary, and investigative journalism.

Chad Millman becomes Vice President, Editorial Director, Domestic Digital Content, after serving as Editor-in-Chief of ESPN The Magazine, leading the print publication to No. 1 among U.S. magazine brands, according to a recent Association of Magazine Media report, and ESPN.com. Charged with broadening the scope of ESPN content across the web and mobile platforms, Millman will have oversight over all daily editorial content, planning, and creation for ESPN.com and the ESPN App.

Alison Overholt adds to her responsibilities, becoming Editor-in-Chief of ESPN The Magazine in addition to espnW, which has set audience records and produced award-winning long-form journalism, film series, and a national radio special. As the first female Editor-in-Chief of a general interest sports magazine, Overholt will continue to drive collaborative, innovative approaches to storytelling, with oversight over producing ESPN’s multiplatform enterprise content. Under Overholt, Scott Burton will lead The Mag’s day-to-day editorial development.

Ryan Spoon, Senior Vice President, Digital Product Management, will lead ESPN’s new Audience Development unit, charged with creating new and enhanced ways to curate and present content across ESPN.com, the ESPN App, and third-party platforms. As part of these efforts, Nate Ravitz will report to Spoon, adding oversight of the new Audience Development unit to his existing role managing ESPN’s branded social media content, notifications, and video strategy. The Audience Development group will work in partnership with Millman, Overholt, and other ESPN content leaders.

Stiegman, Millman, Overholt, and Spoon will report to Kosner. Stiegman will also report to Russell Wolff, Managing Director and Executive Vice President of ESPN International. Overholt will continue to report to Laura Gentile, Senior Vice President, espnW and Women’s Initiatives, on espnW matters. All changes are effective immediately.

“These changes enable our Digital & Print Media leaders to accelerate our work to make ESPN the worldwide leader in sports news and information,” said Kosner.  “No one can bring the combined power of our editorial resources, technical capabilities and infrastructure, product, and design wizardry to the task of serving sports fans everywhere at anytime on their devices of choice.”

ESPN celebrated the 20th anniversary of ESPN.com last year, relaunching its signature digital properties – ESPN.com and the ESPN app – on a global technology infrastructure designed to enable powerful global editions of both properties, the first of which were launched last year in the U.S., U.K., Mexico, and across Latin America.

ESPN continually set new usage records in the digital sports category in 2015, expanding the strength and scale of ESPN’s digital audience and its lead over other properties in the category. In fact, ESPN’s average minute audience on ESPN digital properties was more than double its nearest competitor for each month of the year. Moreover, there were fourth months in 2015 during which ESPN’s digital audience in an average minute was larger than every sports television network, except ESPN and ESPN2.