Moving
quickly after getting control of the combined sports assets of NBC Universal
and Comcast, NBCU Sports Group chairman Dick Ebersol installed a new leadership
team, replacing executives who had led the national cable networks that had
been owned by Comcast.
Jon
Litner, who had been president of Comcast Sports Group, was named President of
Versus and SportsNet. At Versus, he replaces Jamie Davis, who will work on
strategy and planning for the NBC Sports Group while looking at other potential
jobs at Comcast.
As
previously reported by Multichannel News,
Mike McCarley, who had been senior VP for strategic marketing, promotion and
communications for NBC Sports, was named president of Golf Channel. He replaces
Page Thompson, who was named executive VP for strategic integration at Comcast.
Litner
and McCarley will report to Mark Lazarus, who was named president of NBC Sports
Cable Group, which includes the company's 11 regional sports networks. Comcast
had previously announced that Lazarus, a long-time Turner Broadcasting exec would
be joining the company. He will be moving to New York from Atlanta.
Ken
Shanzer, who remains president of NBC Sports, becomes lead negotiator for all
NBC Sports Groups agreements. Gary Zenkel remains president, NBC Olympics.
Jon
Miller was promoted to president of programming for NBC Sports and Versus, from
executive VP, NBC Sports. He reports to Lazarus for Versus and Schanzer for NBC
Sports.
Sam Flood
was named executive producer for NBC Sports and Versus, He had been executive
producer for NBC Sports and continues to report directly to Ebersol.
"People
are the most important part of any organization and the experience, talent and
leadership ability of this group is second to none," said Ebersol in a
statement. "As we formed the new NBC Sports Group by combining the storied
history and broad reach of NBC Sports with Comcast's 24/7 ability to
super-serve the fan, it was imperative to create a leadership team that
possessed a wide array of experience and expertise across the business. I could
not be happier with this group of collaborative leaders and I feel that our
division is well positioned going forward."
