Bleacher Report Promotes Brian Kelly to SVP of Ad Sales

Bleacher Report, a division of Turner Sports, has promoted Brian Kelly to Senior Vice President of ad sales. In this elevated role, he will continue managing advertising sales across multiple regions and developing sales strategies for the Bleacher Report sales teams, as well as cultivate and leverage deep and strategic contacts at agencies to create and execute revenue growth strategies. Based in New York, Kelly will now report to Howard Mittman, CRO and CMO of Bleacher Report.

“Bleacher Report’s unique perspective and voice adds a new dimension to how fans engage with the teams and athletes they care about,” says Mittman. “Our audience and business growth is a testament to that focused strategy paying off.  Brian has been on the front lines telling the Bleacher Report story to our ad partners and helping them tap into our highly engaged, millennial audience. We are excited to have him take on additional responsibilities as we continue delivering to our audiences the interesting stories beyond the scores.”

Kelly has been with Turner for more than seven years, joining in 2010 to oversee ad revenue on the West Coast for Turner Sports’ digital properties. For the past three years, he has been VP of integrated sports ad sales, spearheading Bleacher Report’s efforts to grow revenue through non-traditional, integrated marketing and promotional programs with advertisers and agencies.

Kelly, working alongside Bleacher Report’s brand strategy and sales, will build upon this momentum by developing new, creative innovations that drive greater value for and investments from clients. Recent partnerships formed by Bleacher Report include PlayStation as presenting sponsor of “Gridiron Heights”, AT&T as the series sponsor of “Game of Zones”, and StubHub signing on as the official event ticketing partner of Bleacher Report.

Bleacher Report unveiled a new multi-platform campaign earlier this year, “Up Your Game”, highlighting the brand’s growing influence on sports and culture. The campaign illustrated how Bleacher Report goes beyond the one-dimensional point-of-view of traditional sports and taps into new ways to drive deeper connections with fans. Through this strategy, Bleacher Report has seen tremendous growth in its audiences, including:

• reaching more than 250 million fans each month across Twitter, Facebook and Instagram;
• 75% of its audience being under the age of 34;
• delivering more than 97 million interactions across its social media accounts on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, higher than any other major U.S. sports publisher.