Episode 133: A New Year with John Kosner

Tom and Joe sit down with long-time media executive John Kosner. In the past, John has built ESPN into the world’s leading digital sports destination over the past 15 years – increasing traffic ten-fold and turning an unprofitable business into ESPN’s fastest growing one. Kosner and his team have a track record of innovation in streaming and video-on-demand, fantasy games, podcasting, online advertising, and third-party partnerships. 

Kosner has hired and helped develop many of the top sportswriters of this generation including Wright Thompson, Bill Simmons, Zach Lowe, Ramona Shelburne, Bill Barnwell, and Sambit Bal as well as specialists like Adrian Wojnarowski, Matthew Berry, Henry Abbott, Jayski and Darren Rovell. 

A 39-year veteran of sports media, Kosner interned at NBC Sports in 1978 followed by positions at CBS Sports (’82-87), the NBA (’87-94), SI (’94-96) and ESPN (’97-’17). He was graduated with distinction from Stanford University in 1982 with a BA degree in American History. 

The CUSP Show is a production by the faculty of Sports Management at Columbia University. You can get in touch with the program on Twitter @CU_SPS_Sports. Our presenters are Joe Favorito (@Joefav), Tom Richardson (@ConvergenceTR), and produced by Tom Cerny (@Tom_Cerny19).