Endemol Shakes Up Sports Unit

LONDON: Endemol is reorganizing its international sports business, as co-managing directors Gregg Oldfield and Lawrence Duffy exit the group.

The company’s sports content will come under the direct management of the group’s operating companies around the world at a local level, rather than Endemol Sport. Endemol will pursue further growth in sports entertainment and current productions around the world will continue. The group’s projects include the Dutch Premier League ‘Eredivisie’ channel in the Netherlands, the English Premier League channels for Abu Dhabi Media in the Middle East, The Guinness Football Challenge Pan Africa, TV7 Sport channel in Kazakhstan and a number of international media partnerships with sports bodies and football clubs.

Just Spee, the chief financial officer of Endemol Group, commented: “Endemol’s Sport’s output has grown to a level where we need to bring it in line with how we develop and produce all our other content internationally. This new structure will allow us to continue building our business in this genre whilst delivering the best service to our clients at a local level. We are extremely grateful to Gregg and Lawrence for the role they have played in making Endemol the international player in sports entertainment that it is today and we wish them all the very best for the future.”

Oldfield and Duffy added: “We have enjoyed a fantastic three-plus years at Endemol and created a valuable and successful sports media business from a standing start. The restructuring makes sense and we are leaving behind major, award winning sports channels and format productions in Abu Dhabi, Kazakhstan and Africa, as well as genuinely talented sports teams within the group. We are hugely grateful for the support of our many sports federation clients and we expect to make a further announcement about our future plans shortly.”