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| From curling in Canada to skateboarding in South Korea, Russell Wolff leads ESPN International’s 30 sports channels and other properties in trying to maintain a mastery of competition — and customs — in countries outside the United States. |
As executive vice president and managing director of ESPN International, Russell Wolff is responsible for the company’s 30 television networks outside the United States as well as radio businesses in 13 countries and several sports Web sites. In addition, he oversees International X Games events and ESPN The Magazine in China and other ESPN enterprises, and he represents the company’s interests in such joint ventures as ESPN Star Sports in Asia, ESPN Classic Sport in Europe, CTV Specialty Television Inc. in Canada and Sports-i ESPN in Japan. Wolff also directed the 2004 launch of ESPN Deportes, the company’s 24-hour Spanish-language network in the United States.
He stood still briefly to speak with SportsBusiness Journal New York bureau chief Jerry Kavanagh.
Age: 37
Hometown: Brooklyn, N.Y.
Education: B.A. (1989), MBA (1994), Dartmouth
Favorite vacation spot: Bali
Favorite author: Ernest Hemingway
Favorite piece of music: I’m a big R.E.M. fan.
Favorite movie: “All the President’s Men”
Last book read: I’m one of those guys who keeps four books on his night table. I just finished “Blink.”
Best call: Continuing the localization of our various “SportsCenter” franchises around the world. We’ve taken what was five years ago one version of “SportsCenter” outside the United States and customized it through a bunch of languages.
Basic business philosophy: I have two. One is, treat others the way you want to be treated; the other is, perception is reality.
Best advice you ever received: Go with your gut.
Under your direction, the distribution of ESPN programming and branded products outside the U.S. has grown to an estimated 180 million households in 192 countries. That sounds like missionary work.
Wolff: Proselytizing for the fans is how I describe it.
What is your mission or goal?
Wolff: To serve sports fans everywhere they watch, read, debate about, discuss or play sports.
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| ESPN, which broadcast from Kuwait last fall, takes its “worldwide leader” claim seriously. |
How big of an untapped market is it? What’s the potential?
Wolff: There is growth potential in a variety of ways. One is to launch in places where we don’t yet have our end-game business in place, places like Europe, where we’ve launched in France, Italy and about … 20 other countries. We still have lots of opportunity for expansion. As cable and satellite penetration grows, the exposure of ESPN will grow more toward the levels it has in the U.S. and Canada and in places like Taiwan, where multichannel television is more highly distributed.
With such a broad reach, is it difficult to keep a handle on it all?
Wolff: It’s 30 sports channels and about 13 different radio businesses and a magazine we just launched. I think at the end of the day you have to set good strategies, hire great people and be strong in communicating back and forth. You can’t be involved in every decision every day about each of those 30 sports channels plus all the other things.
How many languages are ESPN products carried in?
Wolff: Twelve.
How many languages do you speak?
Wolff: My English is very good and I speak a bit of French and a touch of Hungarian.
About living abroad, you said, “You have to become a big sponge. You have to live in a culture other than your own and be a minority, which I think everyone should have.” Talk a little about that.
Wolff: I think one of the greatest experiences of my life was having the opportunity to go and live somewhere where you actually felt like a minority, where you weren’t comfortable, where your personal boundaries were sort of tested and where professionally you had to find new ways to communicate.
There must be some obstacles to overcome in reaching the goal: language, culture, technology. Has that been the case?
Wolff: On the language front, everywhere you go you’re going to find people who speak English at different levels. We use people who are very good interpreters. At the end of the day, the local managers we’re hiring almost everywhere are bi- if not trilingual.
In terms of technology, I think we’ve done a pretty good job of ensuring that our people around the world have world-class technology. And in terms of culture, I think it comes down to sensitivity. You have to understand what the local customs are, and you have to prepare not to just do things the way you’re used to doing them at home. If we’re going to be a local sports channel in Argentina, we have to learn to act appropriately for that market.
In paying respect to the local traditions and cultures, do you receive an anthropological briefing for some of the ventures?
Wolff: One of my favorite books, which someone gave me when I was moving to Hong Kong, was “Kiss, Bow, or Shake Hands: How to Do Business in Sixty Countries.” It was a great way to just read up on what the appropriate customs were in each place.
In the ESPN acronym, “sports” comes second to “entertainment.” Have the two converged to the point where they’re now inseparable?
Wolff: For a sports fan, sports is entertainment. And whether we’re producing entertainment-driven content or live-event-driven content or sports news information, our goal is to entertain and inform sports fans.
John Walsh said ESPN is probably the worst name you could possibly have for a company.
Wolff: [Laughing] He’s been here longer, so he can say that.
A number of people in these pages have spoken of the significance of sports in the U.S. as a tonic or respite or diversion after 9/11. Do you see a similar national fervor overseas for sports?
Wolff: I think what you find outside the United States is a slightly different dynamic. Sports tends to be a much more nationalistic endeavor, particularly soccer. So, people are following their national soccer team and national rugby team aggressively and the dynamics within each country’s sport is a much more club-driven culture. I don’t think 9/11 had the same impact outside the United States that it did inside the United States. But different events in different countries link into sports differently. So, for example, in Italy the Serie A was postponed the weekend that the pope died.
Is there a sports story or sports angle you are paying particularly close attention to these days?
Wolff: I’d say there are probably nine different stories. For example, in Canada, particularly on “Sports30,” which is our flagship news
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| Over time, soccer will fill more and more seats in the United States, Wolff says. |
sports show in French, they’re following the [NHL] lockout day in and day out. In the Indian subcontinent they’re following Indian cricket. And so, the story lines are different in each place. I think one event that’s of particular interest to the global sports community on the business side of sports is the awarding of the 2012 Olympics, which will be done in Singapore in July.
Will soccer ever take hold in the U.S.?
Wolff: You’re talking to a soccer fan, someone who grew up playing soccer. I often have this conversation traveling around the world. As you know, there’s an enormous number of kids playing soccer today in the U.S. And I believe, over time, that, yes, soccer will continue to take hold in the U.S. I have a couple of bets in place that the U.S. will win the World Cup in the next five World Cups.
Look for more of this conversation in our sister publication, SportsBusiness Daily, located at www.sportsbusinessdaily.com.
