Menu
Download the app

SBJ subscribers – Enhance your experience with the revamped iOS app

Most Influential

50 Most Influential People in Sports Business

Media moves as well as labor harmony (or the lack thereof) shake up our annual list of the executives who set the agenda for North American sports.

1
STEVE
BURKE

President & CEO

NBCUniversal Holdings

CHANGE FROM 2010: NOT RANKED

It was the biggest question facing the sports industry all year, starting in January when the mega-merger between Comcast and NBCUniversal closed.

Would Comcast — a company that ran its national sports network, Versus, on a shoestring — become a major bidder for rights and a force in sports as the new owner of NBC? Most looked to Comcast Chairman and CEO Brian Roberts to chart the course.

Roberts, of course, was intimately involved in many of the deals. But throughout the year, it was Burke who set the direction. The 53-year-old executive from a media-family background clearly values the sports business both as a market mover and content generator. Every major decision he made this year set off a confluence of action or reaction in the industry. The company was at the table for virtually every major sports rights negotiation. It overwhelmed International Olympic Committee executives with its aggressive bid for four Olympic Games, while also winning bids for the NHL and MLS. NBC also is poised to retain the NFL’s “Sunday Night Football.”

Abe Madkour and Tom Stinson talk about who's up, who's down and other notable changes in this year's list.

But Burke has influenced the process even when NBC was outbid — forcing competitors’ hands and paving the way for unlikely alliances. That happened with the Pac-12, where ESPN and Fox Sports teamed up to keep NBC out of the college sports space.

Over the course of the year, Burke moved to instill a Comcast culture throughout NBC. That showed in his influence on personnel matters. In the spring, he made the bold decision to let Dick Ebersol and Ken Schanzer — two executives who ran the network’s sports division for more than two decades — leave the company. The executives left in charge, NBC Sports Group Chairman Mark Lazarus and President Jon Litner, now are assigned to build NBC, NBC Sports Network, Golf Channel and its stable of regional sports networks in Burke’s vision.

Burke doesn’t run in top sports circles and isn’t out glad-handing. Instead, he prefers to be a quiet, under-the-radar leader. Still, this razor-sharp executive is driving some of the biggest moves in the sports business.

Most Influential: 2-10
Most Influential: 11-20
Most Influential: 21-30
Most Influential: 31-40
Most Influential: 41-50
How they stack up: Who's new, who's out, and other rankings

SBJ Morning Buzzcast: March 25, 2024

NFL meeting preview; MLB's opening week ad effort and remembering Peter Angelos.

Big Get Jay Wright, March Madness is upon us and ESPN locks up CFP

On this week’s pod, our Big Get is CBS Sports college basketball analyst Jay Wright. The NCAA Championship-winning coach shares his insight with SBJ’s Austin Karp on key hoops issues and why being well dressed is an important part of his success. Also on the show, Poynter Institute senior writer Tom Jones shares who he has up and who is down in sports media. Later, SBJ’s Ben Portnoy talks the latest on ESPN’s CFP extension and who CBS, TNT Sports and ESPN need to make deep runs in the men’s and women's NCAA basketball tournaments.

SBJ I Factor: Nana-Yaw Asamoah

SBJ I Factor features an interview with AMB Sports and Entertainment Chief Commercial Office Nana-Yaw Asamoah. Asamoah, who moved over to AMBSE last year after 14 years at the NFL, talks with SBJ’s Ben Fischer about how his role model parents and older sisters pushed him to shrive, how the power of lifelong learning fuels successful people, and why AMBSE was an opportunity he could not pass up. Asamoah is 2021 SBJ Forty Under 40 honoree. SBJ I Factor is a monthly podcast offering interviews with sports executives who have been recipients of one of the magazine’s awards.

Shareable URL copied to clipboard!

https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/Journal/Issues/2011/12/12/Most-Influential/1.aspx

Sorry, something went wrong with the copy but here is the link for you.

https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/Journal/Issues/2011/12/12/Most-Influential/1.aspx

CLOSE