Announcer:
From the library of the New York Stock Exchange at the corner of Wall and Broad Streets in New York City, you're inside the ICE House. Our podcast from Intercontinental Exchange on markets, leadership and vision in global business. The dream drivers that have made the NYSE an indispensable institution of global growth for over 225 years. Each week we feature stories of those who hatch plans, create jobs, and harness the engine of capitalism. Right here, right now at the NYSE and at ICE's exchanges and clearing houses around the world.
And now welcome inside the ICE House, here's your host, Josh King, of Intercontinental Exchange.
Josh King:
If you got to do a job, it helps to do that job in someplace iconic. Take me for instance, I get to do my job here at the New York Stock Exchange, one of the four buildings, according to my friend John Tuttle, that define America, which also include the White House, the Capitol, and the Supreme Court. Last Friday for example, we have the cast of Amazon Prime's Marvelous Mrs. Maisel here to ring the opening bell, celebrating the premiere of its fifth and final season. Then, just yesterday, it was the Speaker of the house offering up his vision for the economy, tweaking the president, but maybe hinting at a compromise. And let me say again, President Biden, you've got your invitation waiting for you. You are welcome here anytime, sir.
But let's talk about another iconic place, Augusta National Golf Course, site of the 2023 Masters Tournament, won this year by Jon Rahm, which I had the privilege of watching in person on the majestic first round before the calamitous weather moved in. Here is ESPN's Scott Van Pelt talking about the tournament with Tony Kornheiser and Michael Wilbon on, Pardon the Interruption.
Scott Van Pelt:
Thank God you mentioned weather because Wilbon and I are so old that we are obsessed with weather and we wanted to know about the weather. So now we can move on and I'll get you out of here on this. This is something that's expected of you. Are there one or two or three or four people where you say, "I think they can win. By the end of Sunday, I think they can win."
Speaker 4:
Well, the three I mentioned earlier that I think are the biggest talking points, the Rory, Scottie Scheffler and Jon Rahm trio. I mean there's like a prop, would you take them or the field? I'd always say give me the field just because that means I get everybody else and there are plenty who could still win.
Josh King:
Oh man, it is great to be SVP. What an assignment for the kid broadcaster from the University of Maryland. And talk about other iconic places. Bristol, Connecticut, yes, up Interstate 84 from my former home in Hartford, yes, Bristol. Home since 1979, of the Entertainment and Sports Programming Network, the worldwide leader in sports known in every household wired for cable for the last 43 years as ESPN. Now, one of the three core business segments of the Walt Disney Company, NYSE Ticker symbol, DIS. Market cap, a cool $183 billion. It's fair to say we've spent some time focused squarely on Disney and ESPN during the 360 some odd episodes of this show. We dove deep into basketball with the producer of the Sterling Affairs, the breakout 30 for 30 podcast, which is now in production as an FX miniseries starring Harriet Sansom Harris, Corbin Bernsen and Laurence Fishburne.
Then we unpack the present and future strategy for ESPN's NFL football rights with its new color man in the booth, Hall of Famer Troy Aikman who took over last season. But all of that's just sort of prelude for our guest today. Just over five years ago, James Jimmy Pitaro got the call to the bullpen to relieve John Skipper as ESPN's president and co-chair of Disney Media Network. Jimmy had been happy in his perch running Disney's consumer products in interactive media, but he took the mound formerly named chairman of ESPN and sports content in February of this year. Responsible now for sports news and original and non-scripted sports related content. In a minute, our conversation with Jimmy Pitaro, on a journey that's taken in from Westchester to Manhattan, from Burbank to Bristol, and from the Brickyard to Amen Corner. The past, present, and future of live sports and the big business that it has built. It's all coming up right after this.
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Josh King:
Our guest today, Jimmy Pitaro, is the chairman of ESPN. He joined the Walt Disney Company recruited by its past and present CEO, Bob Iger, in 2010 to come over from Yahoo where he was head of media. That's after his job riding the first dot com wave with launch.com, a job he took following a period applying the trade in the legal practice here in New York City. It's a journey that began for him at Cornell and then St. John's Law School. And yet, Jimmy's always had an eye focused on the stories, players and business of big time sports. Jimmy Pitaro, welcome inside the ICE House.
Jimmy Pitaro:
Great to be here. Thanks for having me.
Josh King:
That trek to Augusta, the pine straw, the weather, the Pimento cheese sandwiches. ESPN has had the right since 2010. The subtext this year was the PGA versus LIV, but Scott really had it right in the end, it really was Jon Rahm. What was the experience like for you?
Jimmy Pitaro:
We're there every year. When I say we, meaning a few executives and I. There's a lot of tradition. One of our traditions is to have breakfast with the chairman every Saturday morning of the Masters and this year was no different. Headed out there Thursday night, got to see some golf, walk the course on Friday, which was pretty decent weather. Had a fantastic experience. We'd been all about access to players really in the weeds with the folks at Augusta, talking about a lot of the success we've had on the Major League Baseball side, for example, putting mics on players in games that matter, live interaction with our booth. They appreciated everything we were pitching them and long story short, we were able to do a lot of that this year at the tournament. And not just us, when I say we, us and CBS.
Josh King:
Your co-production sort of?
Jimmy Pitaro:
Correct. But just in terms of providing access to the players, it was a fantastic experience. And this has been something I've been speaking about for five plus years now, from the day I got this job. Just as you think about the need to be more relevant to more people, especially younger people, providing access is one of the levers to pull here. And I give everyone a lot of credit in terms of going with us on this journey and experimenting, being willing to take a chance here. And it seems like the feedback from fans, very positive. From the media, also very positive.
There's a little bit of noise in the system in terms of, "Hey, should players really be doing this? Are they distracted by doing it? Is their performance going to be less than it otherwise would have been?" We don't see it that way. We see it as a huge net positive for the game of golf, for sports in general as we're all trying to expand our audience and be more relevant to more people. So anyway, it's just one example of my Master's experience this year, but it is something that was really important to me as I headed out there.
Josh King:
Jimmy, you could be in a different city every week checking in on your live rights, from Formula One to the Stanley Cup to Wimbledon. How much in-person stuff do you generally take in and beyond being in Augusta with the chairman, what's your experience when you get there? Do you live it like a fan or are you trying to do business?
Jimmy Pitaro:
It just depends. But a couple things. First off, I do have to say no nine times out of 10. I could be on the road seven days a week and that's not what's best for our business. But if I do head to an event, I will try to multitask. And so I'll go into the truck, see our production folks, I'll walk the course like I just said on the golf side. But just bringing it back to the Masters, that Friday morning I had back to back meetings from 7:00 AM till 11:00 AM and four meetings. We met with the SEC, the commissioner and his team. We met with one of our key talent, Scott Van Pelt, who you mentioned. I checked in with Bill Hancock over the college football playoff talking about the expansion is happening. Anyway, very productive day for me to have everyone in one spot and you can bang out a bunch of meetings back to back to back.
Josh King:
Focusing on another rights that you now have, so different from the long tradition that's steeped at Augusta and the Masters. That's the four-year deal you just inked with Paul Rabil of the Premier Lacrosse League. Paul sat at the chair you're sitting in four or five years ago as he was just getting the league off the ground. I've followed it in its initial NBC incarnation and now look forward to more and more coverage from ESPN and ABC and ESPN+ platform. Paul's an incredible entrepreneur. What's it like working with him in what is essentially a sport that is brand new as a televised product?
Jimmy Pitaro:
One of the things that my boss, Bob Iger, looks for in an executive is curiosity. And it's the word that comes to mind when I think of Paul. He's a world-class athlete, probably the best lacrosse player of all time, or at least one of them. He's also a really intelligent guy, but he's always trying to learn more and grow and advance. I give him a ton of credit as to what he's accomplished in a short amount of time with the PLL. But when I spend time with him, he's peppering me with questions. He's wants to learn more about the industry. He's looking for advice on to how to grow, looking for ideas, ways that we can partner to expand his audience. Really impressed by that guy. And this is a multi-year partnership. One of the things that we're focused on right now is storytelling. That's a common theme across all of our partners and looking at how we can potentially advance beyond just a live game, telling the stories behind the athletes, behind the coaches, behind the teams. And we're actively engaged with Paul and his brother Mike on that right now.
Josh King:
And we're going to get into that storytelling element too. We've talked about some of your work on the road and how you could be on the road seven days a week. Focus on Bristol for a second. How much time do you spend there and would you describe yourself more of a hands-on producer like the way we imagined Jeff Zucker was at CNN and NBC before that, or more like Roone Arledge in the corner office, stewarding the brand.
Jimmy Pitaro:
In Bristol a couple days a week. I am in New York City, maybe one day a week, one and a half. There's a lot of travel. So let's say I'm on the road a day and then I do try to work from home a day. We're now four days a week in the office. So I try to lead by example here and I want people to feel comfortable working from home on Fridays, which is pretty much the expectation unless you can't work from home. We have a lot of people who cannot work from home on Fridays, obviously, because we're producing our networks and our digital content for our digital platforms. That's pretty much my agenda, but it just varies. It depends, if there's college football championship game, I could be on the road for three days.
Josh King:
Talking to your HR team, did your past swipes show a detectable decline after San Diego State bowed to Yukon, maybe a couple hangovers in the nutmeg state?
Jimmy Pitaro:
No, I didn't see that walking the halls of Bristol, but what I did see is a ton of pride. Obviously we being headquartered in Bristol, Connecticut, we have a ton of Yukon fans here and we have a great relationship with that school. They're administration, they're athletic director, they're coaches and very happy for that organization. And Hurley is just a class act. I've actually never met him in person, but I'm looking forward to meeting him and congratulating him.
Josh King:
So I'm curious how the spirit is today, these days in Bristol while David Zaslav is unveiling Max last week. You've already got 25 million subscribers for ESPN Plus my friend and an old colleague, Chris LaPlaca, tells me you have a simple leadership philosophy, discuss, debate, decide and align.
Jimmy Pitaro:
My job is to put the right people in the right chairs. I try to surround myself with people who are smarter than I am. Going back to your earlier question, which I don't think I answered just in terms of how I operate, am I in the weeds on production, it just depends. I will certainly give notes. I try to watch as much of our programming as possible and I'll take notes and I will send them around. But I try to not send those notes unless I feel like they're material, because everyone's got an opinion and I don't want to be a distraction for our producers or our executives who are running production. So I try to be careful there. Chris LaPlaca, our head of PR and comms and I talk all the time about what it requires to be a strong employee or executive at ESPN, and it really boils down to passion.
You have to really be passionate about sports. It's hard to fake it, especially in Bristol. And I am that. It's probably unhealthy. My fandom when it comes to the Yankees, Giants, Knicks, Rangers. My wife thinks I need some help here. But I do believe that that passion that I have helps me make decisions as an executive over here. I spend a ton of time consuming our content. Even when I'm exercising, if I'm on the Peloton, I'll have my iPad on the handlebars and I'll try to multitask. I'll be watching SportsCenter, get up, First Take, whatever it might be. I'll try to squeeze in a workout, but I'll be multitasking. And I have my little notes app open and I'll jot things down. I'll use the speech to text, put my notes in, and then I'll send them around later.
Again, I'll filter them and try not to drive people crazy. But yeah, look, just going back to your earlier point, I do take a lot of pride in the talent at ESPN. We have a really, really strong and diverse leadership team in every department. And we get together weekly as a senior staff and yeah, I say discuss, debate, decide, align. And what does that mean? It means I want to provide a forum for our leaders to be heard. I don't want them to be blindsided by material decisions. Now, sometimes I will make a decision where, because of the sensitivity, the confidentiality of the matter, I can't bring all of my direct reports or all of our leaders into the conversation. That's the exception, not the rule. For the most part, I've had success in my career by erring on the side of transparency.
Maybe the day will come, but it hasn't hurt me yet. I'm pretty upfront about the issues that we're facing. So when we do get together, I'll spend an hour before every staff meeting just going through, I have a little black book and I'll go through it the prior week. I'll consolidate, crystallize my thinking, jot down a bunch of topics that I want to hit. And then yeah, we discuss and we debate. And my goal is always to align as a leadership team. More often than not, that is what happens. If we can't, if we're divided, then I got to make the decision. That's my job as the leader at ESPN. But I've been fortunate in that in my five plus years here, I can probably count on one hand the number of times where we, after discussing a debating, we were not able to align on a decision.
Josh King:
This broadcasting innovation in golf thing that we were discussing about earlier, you get this age old sporting tradition of golf and you've got the new technology that you have at your fingertips. The Masters champion has been crowned. You're going to be back at it again next month at Oak Hill way up in Rochester. You won those rights in 2020, but have now added this Manning cast variant with Joe Buck, Troy, the Mannings and others. How is that approach beginning to work out and how are we experiencing it on the screen?
Jimmy Pitaro:
Alternative broadcasts have been a part of ESPN's DNA for decades. I think it really started with the college football playoff and the megacast that we do presenting our fans with various viewing options across our networks.
Fast-forward to today, and yeah, I think it's fair to say that we're leaning more into these alternative broadcasts than we ever have in the past. And Peyton and Eli are just probably the best example in terms of a success story. Why is that? Couple of reasons. First off, I think younger people are looking for that authenticity. They've grown up watching influencers on YouTube and on various social platforms where the focus is not 100% on production quality. Not to say that our alternative broadcasts do not have that, they do. But there is a certain level of authenticity that comes along with Peyton and Eli on Monday Night Football, or Stephen A. when he does NBA. It's not your typical broadcast. It doesn't look or feel like what we have on ESPN 1 as the primary.
Speaker 7:
Peyton, have you ever been personally booed? I think that's what that is. That's not like booing Denver. That is booing Russell Wilson personally.
Peyton Manning:
I agree with you. Those are personal boos. You can just tell the difference. I know you have, when you played against the Chargers. I don't think I have necessarily.
Speaker 7:
I was personally booed.
Jimmy Pitaro:
When we've looked at this and we've looked at the audience for the most part, these alternatives, they do anywhere from seven to 15% of the audience. We're very happy with that because it's additive. But more importantly is the fact that it's a younger demographic, it's a more diverse demographic, so it helps us expand our audience without being cannibalistic. And then the last thing I'd say is really interesting point in terms of our research. What we've seen is that, for example, with Monday Night Football, the majority of people that are watching on ESPN 2, meaning watching Peyton and Eli, they're, they're flipping back and forth between ESPN 1 and ESPN 2, so they're trying to get exposure to both and they're loving it in the aggregate. And then we do pool the rating. We have a sales team that sells across both experiences. So it's definitely a positive for us.
Josh King:
Beyond the alternative broadcast, you mentioned athletes being mic'd up earlier. And I've seen outfielders mic'd up in past years and the product is always great, but I've heard you talk about taking progressively more risks with that concept. And I watched some of last Sunday's ESPN Sunday night broadcast of the Rangers against the Astros. And to see an umpire's eye view of the Astros' pitcher, Framber Valdez, on the mound with Martin Maldonado behind the plate at three and two count. It's just riveting. I just want to listen to some of the audio from that.
Martin Maldonado:
Right here.
Commentator :
Martin, why did you want to do this?
Martin Maldonado:
There's a lot of young guys out there, looking up to me, who want to be a catcher. Nice to see [inaudible 00:21:26] so I think that's [inaudible 00:21:37]. Atta boy Framber.
Commentator :
So much trust with that curveball, even on the 3-2 count.
Martin Maldonado:
He can throw that pitch anytime.
Speaker 11:
So you shook your head to get him to shake off, right?
Martin Maldonado:
Yeah, a little trick we learned back in the day.
Speaker 11:
That's a great little sequence there. When the catcher shakes his head to the pitcher, wants him to shake to get into the hitter's head.
Josh King:
He couldn't see it Jimmy, but it was a 3-2 count strikeout, throw the ball down to third base, ask Martin what was going on. Ask Martin why he does this when he's getting knocked around all day, why has he put the mic on because he knows he's a role model for kids who want to play catcher someday.
Jimmy Pitaro:
I'm glad you called that out, I was going to say that. I'm also glad that you aired that specific clip. That was a good one. Look, couple things. You mentioned having the ump cam. So we have the ump camera combined with having the catcher mic'd. That's never happened befor. Fantastic combination in terms of what you're seeing, what you're hearing. To his credit, you're wearing a catcher's mask.
Josh King:
Hard to hear a little bit.
Jimmy Pitaro:
It was a bit jumbled. But he realized that without anyone even telling him, he realized that. So several times during the game, he pulled his mask forward so that it wasn't interfering with the mic.
Anyway, another success story. We're going to continue doing this. I just give baseball, I give the players a ton of credit for going with us on this because there was a moment of time not too long ago, a few football seasons ago, where we would take one step forward, but then we would take a step back where something that was not live that went into the truck still upset a player or two. And so when we went into this, we knew that this was not going to always be perfect. We're all human beings. We understand we could say things that we regret, so we have to take that into account.
But we do feel like as we're trying to grow the game of baseball, for example, one of the best ways to do that is by providing this access. And the differentiator here I think is live. Whereas when we were doing this years ago, it was recorded and then we would review it in the truck and we'd show it later. The fact that it's live now, just again, recurring theme going back to my point on authenticity and what kids want, they know when it's live and when it's not. I've pressure tested this with my teenagers. They're fully engaged when we have these mics on players for a couple innings.
Josh King:
I've heard you say a couple times, you just said it again, how you use your boys as an antenna, as an in-home focus group and trying to figure out how to capture the attention of millennials. And you're not a focus group moderator, you're a dad. What are the tells the son gives a dad to say that they're zoned in?
Jimmy Pitaro:
I'll tell you, that's easy. They're not looking at their phone. They're on the couch with me and they're paying attention. They're staring straight at the screen. They don't want to miss something and they've put down Instagram or Snap or TikTok and they're fully engaged with me.
Josh King:
Let's talk about some of your talent. You mentioned Scott Van Pelt earlier and some of the people that you surround yourself with, you want to sign to long-term contracts. You've mentioned Peyton Manning. He was our guest at our ICE Experience mega conference in Las Vegas a couple weeks ago. We asked him about Peyton's Places on ESPN+, and in that show, talking about the difference between live and something designed and produced, he shows a lot more range as the student of history. I want to listen to him in his visit to the man cave of Vince Lombardi.
Peyton Manning:
This is Vince Lombardi's basement.
Brett Favre:
Wow.
Peyton Manning:
It sounds crazy, but I swear you could hear the ghost of Lombardi.
Brett Favre:
I'm assuming Vince was probably not a tall guy.
Peyton Manning:
Yeah. This is where the long neck kind of kind of gets me in trouble back here.
Josh King:
That's Brett Favre's voice as well, and the editing and the sound mix on that piece is incredible. You sat with Bob Iger when he is screening a new Lucas film or Pixar movie. As a curator of prestige content, how do you feel when you get a new creative piece of content from Omaha Productions?
Jimmy Pitaro:
Look, Peyton, he's won in a hundred million. He's that rare combination of substance, heart and humor. And he's so wickedly intelligent and he's got such a great personality. He resonates with me, he resonates with my dad, he resonates with my children. There are very few people that can do that, that can accomplish that. And so just to back up here, from the day I got this job, we've been focused on figuring out how to partner with Peyton. It's no secret, it's been out there that for many years I would fly to Denver and sit with Peyton and have a conversation with him about joining our primary booth. And I felt like each year we made a bit of progress. We built up some trust, we advanced our relationship, and then COVID hit. And this idea of maybe being able to try some new things, do things a bit differently than we've done them in the past, caught on, and that made its way into our conversations. And we ultimately discussed and aligned on this idea of him doing it from his man cave or a man cave. It's actually not his man cave.
Then we discussed this idea of doing it with his brother. I'm lifelong Giants fan, big fan of Eli's. Had no idea that Eli was going to be as good at this as he is. It's just worked out so incredibly well and we're so pleased. But yeah, what I just said about Peyton, I would also apply to Eli. He's so great at breaking down plays. They're also great at doing it in a way that I think most people can understand. They can geek out and be overly technical, but they can also present it in a way that's going to resonate with a casual fan as well. But they do it in a way that, well, they're self-deprecating, that's stating the obvious. They're they're just incredibly funny and there's a ton of heart in it.
Josh King:
And yet, appears from our conversation with Peyton out in Las Vegas too, that Omaha would love to bring you a version of Peyton's Places with other athletes and their journeys and their places around the world that resonate with their fans, whether it's professional soccer or other sports. And what he's brought you is not just that live charisma and chemistry that he has with his brother and ability to do that, but then he's put together a creative house that can give you finished long form content as well. That really works well on the + app.
Jimmy Pitaro:
That's right. And we've already started to do that, to expand Peyton's Places. So part two or step two was Eli and college football, he's perfect for that, Eli's Places. There's a long list. David Ortiz, and baseball. They've done a really good job at identifying talent that fit in well, like Big Papi, he's very funny guy, knows a ton about baseball, but also charismatic. So we love the idea of continuing to build out this relationship with not just Peyton, but with Omaha.
Josh King:
Speaking of new sources of talent and content, my old Swarthmore classmate, Dawn Porter, got into business with you last year with her documentary 37 Words on the 50 year anniversary of Title IX of the United States. What's your process for mining new voices Dawn's?
Jimmy Pitaro:
When we talk about our priorities at ESPN, we start usually with audience expansion, as I've mentioned a few times now, direct to consumer. Obviously, with ESPN+ the potential of taking our flagship channels direct to consumer. Then there is innovation. We've talked a lot about that already within the example of mics on players, but there's a long list of examples there. And then there's quality storytelling and programming and diversity, equity and inclusion.
So to answer your question, I'll focus on the last two there. Quality's the business model. There's a high bar at ESPN when you have platforms or programming like 30 for 30, E:60, SC featured. These are the products that represent ESPN at its best, in my opinion. So again, and I take zero credit for this, I inherited these programs, but it's my job to continue to advance and keep that bar very, very high. As we head down this path, we're very focused on diversity, both in front of and behind the camera, and then also telling stories that very much highlight diverse athletes, diverse coaches. And so this was another opportunity to do that and do it at a very, very high level.
Josh King:
One way or another, Jimmy, it all translates into a really big and successful business. I mentioned earlier in the conversation Bob Iger the past and president King of the Magic Kingdom. Here he is on the company's first quarter fiscal year '23 earnings college just a couple weeks ago.
Bob Iger:
Our television business is second to none, and that includes ABC News, which remains America's number one news network. Power of ESPN brand also continues to deliver for us. In calendar '22, ESPN linear ratings were up 8% overall and 14% in primetime. And we are also growing rapidly across our digital platforms. We're being selective in our rights renewals and continue to approach rights acquisition with discipline and a focus on supporting both sides of ESPN's business, traditional linear and digital. ESPN is more than just a network, and today the team is harnessing innovative technology to deliver spectacular coverage and entertainment to audiences who have a deep connection to the brand and content.
Josh King:
Selective in our rights renewals, the other things that Bob talked about, unpack that for us.
Jimmy Pitaro:
We take a ton of pride in the rights that we've acquired over the past few years. I think starting with the NFL deal, got significantly more rights at very fair, average annual value. We secured flexibility in terms of scheduling starting with this upcoming season with week 12. That was a big thing, having the ability to flex on Monday Night Football. We have another post-season game now. We're in the Super Bowl rotation, first will be 2027 first back. Anyway, feel really good about that deal. Then we took the A package on the SEC side, so now we have complete exclusivity with the Southeastern Conference across ESPN and ABC, the Walt Disney networks. Brought NHL rights back to the Walt Disney Company. We extended with Wimbledon. We secured an extension with Formula One, despite the fact that there were other bidders out there that were bidding above where we were.
There's all of the rights that we've acquired that set us up for the next five to 10 years. Then there's also the rights that we have not acquired, the rights that have gone to one of our competitors, and we feel really good about that bucket as well. And why do I say that? We know that we can't have everything, obviously. We've always operated with discipline, and that was more important than ever over the past couple of years. So we have to make some very tough choices. For example, the Big Ten. Big Ten is a fantastic conference. We would've preferred to stay in with them, but you had some of our competitors bidding aggressively and we modeled things out and it just wasn't penciling for us. So we had to make tough decision to walk away there.
And there were several examples of that over the past few years. Major League Soccer, I have a fantastic relationship with Don Garber. We were looking to stay in business with MLS, but Apple came in and they loved the idea of having global exclusivity, and I totally understand that. And so we wish Apple and Major League Soccer all the best there. So long story short, when I look out over the next five to 10 years, I feel incredibly optimistic about our portfolio of rights, and I feel like we're not just set up within the traditional ecosystem, meaning our linear networks, ESPN 1, ESPN 2, ACC Network, SEC Network. We're also very well set up in terms of direct-to-consumer digital ESPN+.
Josh King:
I visited the Walt Disney World with my daughter last year, and I rattled off an email at that moment to the then CEO Bob Chapek, about what a great experience it was and got a excited about looking forward to hosting him here to celebrate Disney's 100th year right where the company's listed. And curious, what was it like when you got the news in November as many Disney executives did when they were at the Elton John Farewell Concert in Dodger Stadium, that the board was moving Chapek out and Iger back in? Where were you at the time? What were you thinking?
Jimmy Pitaro:
I knew already. Bob Iger had given me a heads-up. Bob hired me in 2010. I think you mentioned this. I was well situated at Yahoo at the time. I had a ton of variety. I wasn't just doing sports, I was doing news and finance and entertainment, and I felt like my future was bright at Yahoo. I got a call from a board member, and long story short, I took a meeting with Bob and within probably 15 minutes I knew that if he offered me the job, I knew I was going to leave Yahoo and I was going to take it, which prior to that meeting, I thought there was very little chance I would leave Yahoo again because I was happy.
So Bob hired me. He's put me in five different jobs now at the Walt Disney Company. I think it's fair to say I owe most of my success to Bob, certainly would not be where I am right now without him. He is the best leader I've ever been around. Bob doesn't get too high, he doesn't get too low, which is exactly what you want. He's calm, he's collected. When things are rough,
He and I will sit down and he'll not just provide support, but he'll provide guidance. He's seen it all. By the way, he grew up in sports, as you know. And he just knows so much about this industry. He's well connected with all of the commissioners and the executives, but there are very few problems that I'm going to face that Bob hasn't faced when he was working in sports. Now, yes, it's a different environment with digital direct to consumer, but he's been leading the charge there as well on the digital side. So he's a great manager, but he's also someone that I can go to for advice. And so I feel my father has always said to me, probably the most important thing in your career is having a manager who you trust, who trusts you, who you can learn from, and I've had that.
So when Bob let me know that he was coming back, I was very happy about that because he's just been such a strong leader at the Walt Disney Company, but he's been so valuable to ESPN, and I've learned so much from him. And I quite honestly wasn't ready to stop learning from him. And I did keep in touch with Bob when he was gone. We got together every now and then, but we would maintain our personal relationship, and he's just someone who I've always wanted to work for, and I feel very fortunate to get to work with him again.
Josh King:
That board member that reached out to you in 2010, I think it was our mutual friend, the wife of the late Dave Goldberg, who you worked with at launch.com, Sheryl Sandberg, who I worked, I worked with the Treasury when we were in the Clinton administration together. She's very persuasive in her career. She's been known as a great recruiter. She asked you to take a meeting with Bob. I've read Bob's book, Ride of a Lifetime, talked not just about recruiting Jimmy Pitaro, but recruiting so many executives to Disney, getting so many deals done, doing a big, huge deal with Steve Jobs and Rupert Murdoch. What have you learned with from people like Sheryl and Bob about recruiting, about courtship, about doing deals, about getting to, yes?
Jimmy Pitaro:
You're right, it was Sheryl who reached out and yes, I was a lawyer for a startup called launch.com, that was founded and run by Dave Goldberg, who ended up being one of my closest friends on the planet. Sheryl called, asked me to take a meeting, and at first I thought it was a bad idea because I didn't want to waste anyone's time. But yes, she is persistent. We spoke a few more times, and ultimately, we agreed that it made sense to take the meeting. And I already told you what happened there.
But Sheryl is a fantastic recruiter. As you know, she's incredibly intelligent. She also has a motto or a strategy I should say, of just bringing on the best athlete. And some folks look at an work chart and say, all right, let's create the right jobs and then you put the right people in them. You do the best you can there in terms of finding the right people to slot into those roles. Sheryl's taken a slightly different approach, at least as far as I can tell, which is, let's find the best people and bring them on board, and then great if they slot into an existing role. But there's also an opportunity to create a role around these great executives or great employees. And I subscribe to that theory. Now, it's tougher in a world where you're very focused on efficiency, that's harder. Now, I will acknowledge that. But yeah, look, I am still in touch with Sheryl today. We remain very good friends and I'm very grateful that she reached out to me and asked me to take that meeting with Bob.
Josh King:
So fast-forward 12 years, Bob turns to you, Dana Walden, Christine McCarthy, Alan Bergman, to work together on what might be Disney's new structure after he's come back. And I'm quoting him here, "It puts more decision making back in the hands of our creative teams and rationalizes costs." How did you get down to work with these three, four other people and what have the results been so far?
Jimmy Pitaro:
We spent a great deal of time together over a several month period. Now, I knew Alan very well. I knew Christine McCarthy very well. Been at the company for close to 13 years now. They have both been at the company for far longer than that. I don't know the exact number of years, but probably twice the number of years that I've been there. Dana came over, obviously, with the Fox acquisition. Now, I had the good fortune of also knowing Dana because my wife is an actress, and my wife worked on a show for six or seven years that aired on CBS, but it was owned by Fox, and I believe Dana is the one that signed my wife to that show. And so my wife had a very good relationship with Dana. Dana's fantastic with talent.
And what I'm getting at is when Bob put together this small team of four individuals, I felt really comfortable with each of them because I knew them so well, I trusted them. There was, I think a mutual respect. And we gelled very quickly as this little tiger team, this little unit. I take a lot of pride in the fact that nothing leaked. We kept it very tight. We brought in the right people, the people that we felt like we needed to be fully informed as we made these decisions. But basically, what we did is we looked at the organization holistically, including what was called DMED at the time, Disney Media Entertainment and Distribution. And we asked ourselves, "Is this the right structure or is there a better way to do this?" And ultimately, as you know, as Bob has indicated several times, the North Star or the prevailing thinking was need to return the decision making, the accountability, the responsibility to the folks on the content side, the creatives.
And Alan, Dana and I, we've never just been creatives, we've all run businesses before. So it wasn't like you were handing it back really truly to folks who only have creative experience and no business background. We all did, and we all do. So it just made sense. It felt right. And so long story short, we brought it back to Bob made the recommendation to him, and it was consistent with what he was thinking when he first returned. At a macro level, he felt like this was what needed to happen, although he did not lead the witnesses at any point during the process, he let us go off and do our thing. Fortunately, what we presented to him aligned with his thinking, and here we are.
Josh King:
Maybe some of these challenges were more front and center for other members of the tiger team, but I've heard you talk about a poster in your office that says, work hard and be nice to people. And it's a little different than Ted Lasso's one word mantra, believe. But in a hospitality business like Walt Disney World, how do you instill that ethos in 80,000 cast members who have to take care of 60 million guests each year?
Jimmy Pitaro:
I'm very fortunate in that I inherited a culture at ESPN where people work really hard, really hard. In fact, there's not a lot of tolerance for folks who do not show up with the right work ethic. And so we like to say, it's not just what you do, how you do it. And tough decisions have to be made every day, but if you're direct and you treat people with respect and with dignity, it all, in my mind, ends up in the right place. So again, I feel very fortunate in terms of beyond ESPN and the Walt Disney Company, I've been really impressed with the leaders around the enterprise, from theme parks to the movie studio, to the non-sports television group, we have a diverse set of leaders, we have a set of leaders that are very focused on collaboration.
It's interesting with this new org structure, you mentioned before the three pillars. You have non-sports, television and film, you have ESPN and you have parks, consumer products, games. We're each responsible Josh D'Amaro, Dana Walden, Alan Bergman, we're responsible for our segments. You could easily imagine a scenario where we're now each doing our own thing, focused on what's best for our individual groups. It's not the case. It's not how this is playing out. And we've been at this for several months now. Everyone understands that it's what's best for the Walt Disney Company.
And great, if what's best for ESPN is what's best for the Walt Disney Company, great. But if I have to make a decision between what's best for ESPN and what's best for the entire enterprise, and our leaders get that. And so as a result, there's this spirit of comradery, there's a spirit of collaboration. We have a team within ESPN that's called Synergy. As far as I know, every group at Disney has a Synergy team. And this team does nothing but look at how we can provide value, for example, the movie studio or the theme parks team, and also how we can benefit from promotion from our partners. And so again, that spirit of collaboration kind of rules the day at the Walt Disney Company.
Josh King:
How are you synergistic with one of my favorite aspects of the Walt Disney Company, the cruise product?
Jimmy Pitaro:
Look, that's probably the area where there's the least amount of synergy, but we're constantly talking about what we can do on a cruise line. What can the sports experience be on the ship? In that regard, I think it's probably more about the value that ESPN can provide back. Obviously, across our networks, across our digital platforms, we're constantly promoting, calling out all the parts experiences, not just the cruises.
Josh King:
After the break, more with Jimmy Pitaro, ESPN chairman, on the future of sports content, products and experiences across all of Disney's platforms worldwide. That's all coming up right after this.
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Josh King:
Welcome back before the break, Jimmy Pitaro, chairman of ESPN and I were talking about his network, his career, and the products that captivate our attention night after night, weekend after weekend, and all the hours in programming in between. Now we're going to pivot a little bit to some of the things more behind the scenes, some things we haven't seen yet and where the industry might be headed.
So Jimmy, a big part of that first earnings call that Bob returned for was the analysts first and foremost expressing their joy at having him back. But these are shrewd investors trying to figure out where stock that's trading right now at about $100 is headed, up or down. Here's part of the Q&A with Michael Nathanson of MoffettNathanson.
Michael Nathanson:
Now that you've returned with more data and time, what's the vision for Disney Plus? You know, don't want to give us long-term targets, I get that, but what is the product vision? Is it a more narrow vision? Any type of long-term size and the investment and the only profitability case of D+ would be helpful. And then on linear, the bench question, a big part of the cost structure of sports costs, you've signed a ton on them lately. But when you think about going forward, can you help us understand what will change going forward on sports rights investment in terms of must have and not necessarily must have? Thanks.
Bob Iger:
Well, the second question, as you know, we've locked in a number of deals already, including some of the biggest ones, which is in college football with the SEC as well as with the NFL. The one that's looming is the NBA, and I know that's on people's minds, which is a product that we've enjoyed having and hope to continue to enjoy having because not only its volume, but its quality.
Josh King:
Not only volume, but it's quality. Jimmy, you've got my hometown Boston Celtics against the Atlanta Hawks on Friday night at 7:00 PM on ESPN round one of the NBA playoffs. What's the future of the NBA on ESPN?
Jimmy Pitaro:
Incredibly important partner, as I said, in the past. That hasn't changed. I typically don't like to negotiate in public. In fact, I've never done it. But I'm very comfortable saying that this relationship is really important. I also think the relationship is in a really good place. We have not been sitting idle here. We've made some changes to our studio programming. We've gotten much better on NBA today. We have improved NBA countdown. We've offered alternative broadcasts. I mentioned before Stephen A. Smith as an example, but that's just one example.
And the league is pleased. We're in regular touch, in contact with the league, and I'm in regular contact with Adam Silver. And I think it's fair to say that the relationship has never been better. Having Bob Iger back is great. He's got a very good relationship with the league, with owners with of course Adam Silver. And so we're now just starting to dig in and look at what a renewal or an extension could be for us. But it's hard to imagine a universe without the NBA, just such a long positive relationship value being added on both sides, and hopefully we'll be able to keep this fantastic partnership going.
Josh King:
Talking about that relationship with Adam Silver through thick and thin. Back in 2020, this building, the NYSE, shut down for nine long weeks at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. How did COVID land in Bristol Jimmy and your business, and what was it like being part of the solution as live sports returned to the NBA bubble at Disney World?
Jimmy Pitaro:
I think it was March 10th, maybe March 11th, 2020, I was sitting at my desk in my home office and got the word that the NBA was pausing. And so we immediately scrambled, got together, our programming team and I got together, started to think about how we were going to continue to provide programming across our various networks. You got to remember, we don't just have one network, we have many. And so it was no easy task to identify content, live games, live events that we could leverage to keep our networks going here, give the team a ton of credit. Then, fast-forward a little bit to the NBA, trying to figure out if and when they could come back. Going back to my point before on the relationship, yeah, we worked very closely with the league in terms of coming up with the solution, which was of course Wide World of Sports on our park side.
Little sidebar, I don't know if you saw, but recently we announced that Ros Durant would be returning to ESPN as our leader of programming rights acquisitions ESPN+. Ros worked at ESPN for many years and she moved over to the park side in either February or March of 2020. And she was responsible for, among other things, Wide World of Sports. So pandemic hit, we started to engage with the NBA on a potential solution here, and we had Ros now over on the park side leading the charge for Wide World of Sports, well known, well regarded by the NBA, helping us all figure this out.
Ras, again, is now back here at ESPN, which is also great timing because she's leading programming and rights acquisitions as we're starting renewal conversations with the NBA. But Ros was instrumental in helping us figure this out, put together the bubble. It all went incredibly well. I'm still blown away. It's one of our proudest accomplishments, I think, yet at the Walt Disney Company. Not at ESPN, but at the Walt Disney Company as an enterprise. I think if Adam were sitting here right now, he would echo that. I don't want to put words into his mouth, but it's been nothing but positive feedback that I've received from the NBA in terms of that entire experience.
Josh King:
Well, you think about what you as a business ESPN and what Disney as a company did for consumers, for their customers, really in the spring and summer 2020. It's so remarkable. Jimmy, a lot of us found solace in those early months of COVID, watching the 10 episodes of ESPN, The Last Dance, directed by Jason Hehir from my hometown of Newton, Massachusetts. I just want to take a quick listen to one of the episodes.
Speaker 27:
At that point, Michael Jordan's already the ultimate sports alpha male. I mean, the only comparisons that I can recall being apt were to Babe Ruth and Muhammad Ali. That's it. That's the list. There's nobody else on it.
Speaker 28:
Michael, obviously in the wake of this incredible celebration, there'll be some very difficult business decisions.
Speaker 29:
We are entitled to defend what we have until we lose it. If we lose it, then you look at it and you say, okay, let's change, let's go through a rebuilding. No one's guaranteeing rebuilding. It's going to be two or three, four, five years. Cubs have been rebuilding for 42 years.
Josh King:
That piano track gets me every time. What was it like? What did it mean to ESPN? What did it mean to America to be able to have that product and put it on the air that June and July?
Jimmy Pitaro:
When the pandemic hit, it wasn't ready. So we scrambled. And Jason and his team moved heaven and Earth to get it out as quickly as possible because we all knew we didn't have a lot of programming and the country needed it. It was a motivating force for us at ESPN. And so I'd be lying if I told you that we knew it was going to be as successful as it was. But it was, I think probably the single piece of content that has resonated with the most people since I've been at ESPN. The number of emails and texts and phone calls that I got from friends and family, really just with two words, "Thank you." That's all I kept hearing is, "Thank you. We needed this."
And as a sports fan, just full circle here, I lived that. I lived that whole dynasty, and I thought it was just so incredibly well done. And you mentioned briefly, before the music, yeah, the music was incredible. My son's a musician and I remember him saying to me, "Dad, you got this music right." And just one example of the quality. We were talking before about the bar. Every aspect of The Last Dance worked. And I give Jason and our producers a ton of credit.
Josh King:
I'm talking about quality. I've heard you talk about various times about a ton of original and non-scripted sports related content, shows like Once Upon a Time in Queens, directed by Nick Davis and executive produced by Jimmy Kimmel. Really the devastating story of what happened to my 1986 Boston Red Sox. What maybe better content do you have than you can beyond that?
Jimmy Pitaro:
I suggest Four Days In October. And 30 for 30, that's probably more up your alley. I would put Once Upon a Time in Queens up there, and it's probably in my top 10, favorite 30 for 30s. So well done. Again, I don't want to be a broken record here, but substance, heart and humor. It told the story and it did so with a ton of heart, and it was laugh out loud, funny. Jimmy was great. Jimmy Kimmel was a great partner on that, and we'd love to do more with him. But that one landed really well as well. The ratings were, The Last Dance were, we were very pleased with the performance.
Josh King:
Substance, heart, and humor. Growing up in Edgemont, New York, you're watching some of the same sports movies that I am in Newton, Bull Durham, Hoosiers, Any Given Sunday, Slapshot, to name at least one from each of the four major sports. Here's a bit of Pacino from Any Given Sunday.
Al Pacino:
I don't know what to say, really. Three minutes to the biggest battle of our professional lives all comes down to today. Either we heal as a team or we're going to crumble, inch by inch, play by play till we're finished. We're in hell right now, gentlemen. Believe me. And we can stay here, get the shit kicked out of us, or we can fight our way back.
Josh King:
Fight our way back. Jimmy, what was going on in your mind as you were high school running back and then headed to Cornell, needing to fight your way back from injury? Steered ultimately in the business world toward law and launch.com, and then when the movie came out in 1989, your head is still in the game of sports want to get there, eventually.
Jimmy Pitaro:
I Need to go back and watch that movie again. There's been so many ups and downs for me. You mentioned going from high school to college. I was super excited to play college football, and it just didn't work out for me. I showed up, I tore my medial meniscus. I was on crutches my freshman year, which I ended up getting some exposure and getting out there. But it was a constant battle for me. And then I was just plagued my injuries my entire career. I try not to have any regrets, but I wake up all the time thinking, "Oh, would I love to do that again and be healthy." But it is what it is, and it wouldn't change anything about my life. But I had a high school coach that said, "You win or you learn." And I probably learned more from all of my failure in college football than I would have if I had been a success in college.
But yeah, I got to the point where I realized this was it for me. I was not going to be a professional football player and I needed to figure out what I wanted to do with my life. And I was very fortunate in that I had semester, not abroad, but in Washington, DC. A lot of my friends went to like France or Spain. I went to DC. I worked for the government, a small business administration during the day and I took classes at night, and took this class called the Holocaust and Jurisprudence. And my professor was a gentleman named Neal Sher, who was leading prosecuting attorney for the United States government going after Nazi war criminals. And it was six people in the class, and we would oftentimes go out after class and get some pizza. And he was the one who said to me, "You'd make a good lawyer."
And at that point in my life, I hadn't heard anything like that before, outside of sports. So that's why I went to law school, and I'm very happy with the fact that I went to law school, even though I'm not practicing law, I learned a ton through that experience, that three year experience, very challenging. Then taking the bar exam, I was a litigator in Manhattan. All of that has been very helpful to me. I spent a huge percentage of my time doing deals. And what I learned by being a transactional, I went from litigation to transactional. What I learned from being a transactional attorney is in invaluable for me today in this job.
Josh King:
Two weeks ago, we hosted the Vietnam Veterans here on the 50th anniversary of the end of Operation Homecoming, which brought the last of our POWs home from the war in Southeast Asia. One of them was the Naval Aviator, Everett Alvarez, who spent 3,113 days as a guest at the Hanoi Hilton. Everett was a naval aviator. Your dad was in a construction battalion in Vietnam. What did he tell you about those days and how did it affect things at home?
Jimmy Pitaro:
Yeah, my dad was a CB, construction battalion, during Vietnam. I wouldn't say he talked about it a lot, but he talked about it enough to let me know that it was hell for him. I will tell you that I grew up worshiping my dad. My dad didn't go to college, went to Vietnam, I think at 18, maybe 17. No, I think it was 18 years old. And my dad was tough. Coming out of the Navy, it was all about discipline in my house. My dad wanted more for me than he had. And so he had a policy. There were no Cs on the report cards, and my whole life was sports. I was football, baseball, basketball, and it was pretty much what I cared about, excelling on the field or on the court.
And my dad had, well, both of my parents, my mom and my dad had a policy, we had 10 week quarters in my high school, if you got a C on your report card, even if it was just for the quarter, you were not allowed to play that sport the following quarter. So I never got a C. That was enough incentive for me. And I look around at a lot of my friends who didn't have that discipline or didn't have that parental focus, and they slacked off and they didn't get into the colleges that they wanted to. And I feel very fortunate in that I had parents who, like I said before, just were constantly focused on me having... By the way, my sister's the general counsel at Major League Baseball. And so she's done incredibly well. She's by far the smartest one in the family, or at least the smartest sibling. But yeah, we both feel very fortunate that we had parents who were, they weren't just phoning it in, they were in the weeds every day focusing on our wellbeing and how we could set ourselves up for the most success.
Josh King:
20 years ago, you aren't in Edgemont anymore, you aren't at Cornell, you aren't at law school. You're hustling and trying to make it into this industry. Did whatever it took to build a career. I heard Ben Affleck and Matt Damon talking on Bill Simmons's podcast the other day about the people they've watched grow in the industry. Just want to hear a part of that banter.
Bill Simmons:
Patriots, they just keep moving up.
Ben Affleck:
Jimmy Pitaro, we've known for years and years and years and years. First of all, by the way, I couldn't think of a better guy to do that job, and he's an amazing guy. But it does trip me out. Like Jimmy runs ESPN, like he's the boss of ESPN. You know what I mean? Which just seems like the coolest job in the world. And he's the nicest guy, but he's a guy when you're 29, you don't think to yourself, this guy's going to run the giant sports network to which I aspire-
Matt Damon:
Or Stuber or Sean or all these guys that we knew.
Bill Simmons:
Yeah, Sean Bailey, you knew forever.
Josh King:
Going back to that poster in your office, Jimmy, work hard to be nice to people, is Matt and Ben's banter on you a manifestation of that? They say it's hard to make true friends in Hollywood, the reality.
Jimmy Pitaro:
Look, just to back up, I met my wife in 1994. I had just taken the bar exam and immediately hit it off. I didn't know she was an actress. She didn't tell me she was an actress for several weeks. She'd just graduated from Columbia undergrad, and I found out she was an actress by watching some television movie sitting next to a buddy of mine who looked at the screen and pointed at it and said, "That's Jeany." That's how I found out. So up until that point, I had almost no exposure. Actually, I had no exposure to Hollywood. But it was baptism by fire for me because she was working consistently at the time. So I started to really pay attention to the industry and it was fascinating. So I'm a lawyer by day, but I'm also thinking, "Hey, this is a pretty cool industry. This might be something for me. Maybe I could take my law degree and my litigation slash transactional experience and add value to this industry. I'm interested in it."
And so we were living in Manhattan at the time, and she got on a television series that was shooting in Vancouver, Canada. I resigned from my law firm and we packed up and moved to Vancouver, Canada, and we were rookies. We thought that this show, it's a television show, they picked it up, it's going to run for five years, it's going to be friends. And it lasted for nine episodes.
Josh King:
That's Cold Feet.
Jimmy Pitaro:
It's Cold feet, exactly. A one hour dramedy. She was the lead. And it was heartbreaking for her because it was like a dream job for her. And she had spent years resisting television. She had done some film in some Broadway, but she never really love the idea of doing television because it would usually mean the West Coast. And she loved being on the East Coast. She's from right outside of Boston, family of Red Sox fans.
So anyway, we left Vancouver, moved down to LA and my wife had already been very, very close with Jennifer Garner. They played sisters in some movie right after we met, I think it was like 1995. And so they've been close ever since. So that's how I got to know Ben. We've crossed paths a lot of different ways. Going back to Dave Goldberg when I was working at launch.com, this is interesting, Ben and Matt actually wrote part of Goodwill Hunting using the computers at launch.com. Long story is not that interesting as to why that was, but Ben was often in our offices, so I got to know him a little bit that way. Then he married Jennifer Garner, and so we ended up spending a ton of time together as couples. But I was always super interested in that industry and I never ended up really working in it. I ended up being fortunate enough to touch it briefly, I mentioned before when I was at Yahoo, I was doing sports and news and finance, but also entertainment. So that was some exposure there. But my focus has really been on sports.
Josh King:
So Jeany ends up without getting the long-term series gig in Vancouver with Cold Feet, but makes it down to LA and gets the long run on Yes, Dear. And those of us who don't follow her career closely catch up with her most recently last year as Sarah Kazansky, the wife of Admiral Tom Iceman Kazansky and Top Gun: Maverick. Here's part of that iconic scene.
Tom Iceman Kazansky:
The Navy needs Maverick. The kid needs Maverick. That's why I fought for you. That's why you're still here.
Pete Mitchell:
Thank you guys for everything.
Josh King:
As Jeany and you reflected on that big role that she got last year, has the fact of this journey and the partnership that you've forged together wherever it may lead, has been really endemic to both your success and hers.
Jimmy Pitaro:
I've been so fortunate in that I met a woman who has been my best friend for our entire relationship. And part of that bond has been compromise. And yeah, rewind to 1999, and she gets cast as the lead in a series that's shooting in another country, and I'm a litigator in Manhattan, and we got a tough call to make. We had already spent three years more apart than together because she was constantly filming something. And once we got married and she got cast in Cold Feet, it was like we both agreed we can't continue this way. And so I made the tough call to quit my job as a litigator in Manhattan. And so that was me compromising. Moved to Vancouver. I wasn't admitted to practice in Canada. So it was a weird experience for me. It was great. And I definitely decompressed and spent a lot of time on the beach with my dog Pags, after Mike Pagliarulo, a third basement for the Yankees.
And fast-forward to 2018, and Bob asked me to leave consumer products and interactive at Disney and move to Connecticut to lead ESPN. And when I first got the job, we didn't decide that we were going to move as a family. We decided to feel it out. So I was commuting for several months, and it was Jeany who actually came to me and said, "This is crazy. We miss you too much. We got to come up with a different plan here."
And so ultimately, we decided that we would move. And for an actress, being in Westport, Connecticut is very different from being in Los Angeles. Now fortunately, she's been able to make it work. She flies back and forth. We created this little tiny little studio in our house, and so she's been able to do her auditions from our house. In fact, she had to do a voiceover for a film, and I walked by, I was actually listening to her do it knowing that this was probably going to be in the movie that I saw. So that's always fun and cool. To your point, it's compromise. It's 50/50. We've always looked at our relationship as 50/50. There are times where I've compromised, times where she has, and we've been able to make it work.
Josh King:
As we wrap up Jimmy, you're running linear networks, you're growing your social engagement to 6.8 billion total actions across the platforms, 120 million visitors to your digital platforms, 11 million visitors to your fantasy app, doing all those new rights deals that we've talked about. And you and Jeany are sending the kids off to college. All that, you still have some time to give back among your roles as service on the board of directors of the V Foundation. Just want to hear as we wrap up a little of the speech from Jimmy Valvano, now 30 years ago, March 3rd, 1993, on the ESPY Awards.
Jimmy Valvano:
I also tell you that 500,000 people will die this year of cancer. And I'll also tell you that one in every four will be afflicted with this disease. And yet, for somehow we seem to have put it in a little bit of the background. I want to bring it back on the front table. We need your help. I need your help. We need money for research. It may not save my life. It may save my children's lives. It may save someone you love, and it's very important. And ESPN has been so kind to support me in this endeavor and allow me to announce tonight that with ESPN's support, which means what, their money and their dollars, they're there helping me, we are starting the Jimmy V Foundation for Cancer Research. And its motto is, Don't give up. Don't ever give up.
Josh King:
Jimmy, ESPN covers a lot of games, offers a lot of hot takes and scoops from Adam Schefter, but it's also saved a lot of lives through the more than $250 million in game changing cancer research grants. And it all started on the screen of ESPN.
Jimmy Pitaro:
It's one of the things that we are most proud of, our direct involvement with the V Foundation. I have a good fortune of sitting on that board with several of my colleagues at ESPN, both executives and talent. But if you walk the halls of Bristol and you ask people what really represents ESPN? Yeah, you'll hear SportsCenter, 30 for 30. You'll also hear the V Foundation. And say it's that, it's our support of veterans in the military. We've been very careful in terms of where we dedicate our energy.
And this cause, cause behind the V Foundation, it resonates obviously with all of our employees. It's also such a natural fit for us. It's such a natural extension of the ESPN brand and I think it represents our people so incredibly well. So yeah, you can expect this support to continue. I love what Dick Vitale did at the ESPY's last year when we honored him. I thought his speech was incredible and I've gone back and watched it several times because I also think he represents us so very well. But yeah, we take a ton of pride in all of our efforts and all of the dollars that we've raised here.
Josh King:
Let's end on a controversial note. As I look for new passions and new sports to follow, I've discovered pickleball bolstered by a conversation I had on this show with former Bucks owner, Marc Lasry, when he brought his team here for the opening bell last year. We even put down a full size court in our boardroom for an exhibition match by pro pickleballers. And then Jimmy, the other day, I'm minding my own business watching ESPN on a Sunday per usual, and I see this-
Speaker 37:
She wasn't finished, Conors scored. I wasn't ready.
John McEnroe:
She called it, man.
Speaker 39:
Courtney Johnson is allegedly in charge of this match. Debatable.
Speaker 40:
Until now.
John McEnroe:
14-12.
Chair Umpire:
It was 13-12.
John McEnroe:
And I just won the point.
Chair Umpire:
You did.
John McEnroe:
Yes. Thank you.
Speaker 39:
Some confusion. There'll be a freeze here.
Speaker 37:
How do you argue that?
John McEnroe:
Come on. What happened?
Chair Umpire:
Nothing.
Speaker 39:
So it's game point for McEnroe.
Speaker 40:
She said, "Nothing." What happened? He got the point-
Chair Umpire:
You'll be serving at 14.
John McEnroe:
I appreciate that.
Speaker 37:
We're not playing a let?
John McEnroe:
It's the first argument I've won in 40 years. Unbelievable. But I don't think he was playing it, so I don't feel right. I know this... I don't feel right about it.
Speaker 39:
Sportsmanship from Johnny Mac.
John McEnroe:
I better not lose.
Chair Umpire:
We will replay the rally at 13.
Speaker 39:
So it's back to 13-12.
Speaker 40:
13-12.
Speaker 39:
Within two points-
Josh King:
How did that show rate?
Jimmy Pitaro:
The ratings were good. David Levy, who used to run Turner Sports, brought the idea to me several months ago. And I think at the time he even said he had Roddick and Chang and Agassi and McEnroe locked up. And so as soon as I heard that, I said, yeah, this is worth the experiment. So let's see. Let's see how it rates. And ratings were solid. If you compare it to what was typically what had typically been in that time slot, we were up. I think if David were sitting here right now, he'd say he wants to do this again. Hopefully we can make this recurring and figure it out. Obviously, a growing sport. We've been asking ourselves the question internally, is this a sport that people want to watch or just a sport that people want to play? And it sure seems like people are watching. If that's any indicator. Now, we'll see if we can maintain some kind of consistency here, but we're definitely interested.
Josh King:
As a player and a watcher, if I can make one request from you from your visit to the New York Stock Exchange today, Jimmy Pitaro, can we please get more pickleball on ESPN?
Jimmy Pitaro:
We'll work on that. You have my commitment.
Josh King:
Thanks so much for that and for coming inside the ICE House.
Jimmy Pitaro:
Thanks for having me. It's been great.
Josh King:
That's our conversation for this week. Our guest was Jimmy Pitaro, chairman of ESPN, one of the three core business segments of the Walt Disney Company, NYSE ticker symbol DIS. If you like what you heard, please rate us on iTunes so other folks know where to find us. And if you get a comment or a question you'd like one of our experts to tackle on a future show or a guest like Jimmy Pitaro, email us at [email protected] or tweet on us, @ICEHousePodcast. Our show is produced by Pete Ash and Ian Wolff with engineering and editing from the NYC Broadcast Team. I'm Josh King, your host, signing off from the library of the New York Stock Exchange. Thanks for listening. Talk to you next week.
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