Liberty Media and the Baupost Group hedge fund have invested in The 33rd Team, the football analysis content company founded by former NFL team execs Mike Tannenbaum and Joe Banner. To lead the newly expanded company, the executive duo that helped build MLB Network has reunited. Founding MLB Network President Tony Petitti joins The 33rd Team as co-CEO alongside Tannenbaum in the deal. He’s joined by new Chief Content Officer John Entz, whom Petitti hired in 2008 to help stand up MLB Network and later served as president of production at Fox Sports.
“We’re really happy with the opportunity to work with Mike and Joe and their passion for what they’ve been doing the last few years,” said Petitti, who also served as MLB deputy commissioner/business and media. “We’re just big believers that we could take what they’ve been doing the last few years and professionalize it and add to it.”
Petitti said he’d been looking for opportunities along with Liberty and Baupost, and was introduced to Tannenbaum by their mutual acquaintance Bill Parcells. The 33rd Team currently has a roster of 44 football analysts, largely retired players and coaches, and six experts in gambling/fantasy. It produces about 15-20 pieces of content daily, Petitti said. Petitti, who also served briefly as president of sports and entertainment for Activision Blizzard, said he will focus on marketing, branding and reach -- finding more ways for fans to see and read the analysts’ content in both football analysis and gambling/fantasy. Despite his and Entz’ background, Petitti did not specifically identify baseball as a possible expansion vertical for the newly capitalized company. But he said the 33rd Team’s approach is “relatively easy to duplicate.”
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“Each sport has its own rhythms in terms of how they cover it,” Petitti said. “But I do think this overall format, this style of production, is very easily moved toward other sports.”
Alongside the new leadership and capital, The 33rd Team also is launching two new initiatives: The Edge, a free fantasy football tool powered by Sports Info Solutions, and a partnership with NFL Films to create new highlight packages for Thursday and Sunday night games. Those segments be dubbed “Now You Know.”
Tannenbaum, former Jets GM and Dolphins executive, and Banner, former CEO of the Browns and Eagles, founded the 33rd Team in 2019 with the vision of building a media property out of their NFL game and player personnel analytical expertise. Terms of the financing were not disclosed.
