Temple, who owns a farm in South Carolina, was part of ESPN’s layoffs last monthESPN IMAGES
Longtime ESPN exec ROB TEMPLE was named CEO and equity partner of FishBait Solutions, which counts ESPN Events, the Country Music Association, Anheuser-Busch and Capital One as clients. As part of the move, FishBait Marketing and its affiliated agency R&R Bait & Tackle, will be combined as FishBait Solutions. FishBait Founder RICK JONES will be CCO and R&R partner RON COOK will be Chair of the combined companies. Temple left ESPN last month after an 18-year career. Most recently, he was Senior VP/Programming & Acquisitions, where he worked on rights deals with MLB, the Little League World Series and the Korean Baseball Organization. Temple first started talking with Cook about this move 16 months ago, but Temple said he was not ready to make the move then. “I was in the middle of the Little League renewal negotiations, which we completed in August. I was on ESPN’s MLB renewal. I did the Korean Baseball deal.” Temple, who owns a farm in South Carolina, was part of ESPN’s layoffs last month. He then reengaged Cook. “I didn’t want to commute again for work. I wasn’t going to move,” Temple said. “I want to work around things that I love and enjoy and where I think I can have an impact, like college sports, country music, the outdoors lifestyle.” FishBait has three divisions -- FishBait Marketing, which counts ESPN Events, the CMA, World Food Championships and Opry Entertainment Group as clients; FishBait consulting, which counts A-B InBev, Capital One, Dollar General, TicketSmarter and Werner Ladder as clients; and FishBait Ventures, where it is an equity partner with EngageMint.
