(ATR) Discovery announces a number of appointments at Eurosport to support the company’s Olympic Games strategy.
The Olympic leadership team of the world’s leading pay-TV programmer – awarded TV and multi-platform broadcast rights to the 2018-2024 Olympics across Europe in June – will have five key functional areas. They are: commercialization, operations and planning, Olympic relations and coordination, engineering/technology, and production.
Jean-Thierry Augustin, who played a key role in securing Games’ broadcast rights, is named president of sports development and Olympic commercialization.
"The Olympic Games are the premier sporting event in the world, and we look forward to working with our commercial partners to achieve their business objectives, and ensure the Olympic Games reach more people, across more screens, than ever before," he said.
David Schafer is appointed to senior VP of Olympic operations and planning at Discovery, owner of Eurosport. He oversee Olympic coverage in close cooperation with Olympic Broadcasting Services (OBS) as well as taking responsibility for the smooth execution on all linear and digital platforms across Europe.
Schafer brings vast experience in sports production and Olympic broadcasting from a previous role in Olympic operations at NBC. He has worked on seven Olympics, starting at the Sydney 2000 Games.
As VP of Olympic relations and project coordination, Géraldine Filiol will manage external stakeholder relationships including with the IOC and international federations.
"Eurosport has been a broadcaster of Olympic sports for over 25 years. I look forward to building on the excellent relationships we have established in this time, and forging new partnerships with broadcast partners, sports federations and the Olympic Movement," Filiol said.
Antonio Ruiz moves over from the Southern European arm of the business to become Eurosport’s VP of marketing and franchise management.
Fiona McLachlan, who led the sports practice at Weber Shandwick, joins Eurosport as VP of communications, while Sameer Pabari joins as VP of business development.
"Discovery is committed to elevating the excitement and engagement in the Olympic Games through our world-class storytelling, local market expertise, and Eurosport’s heritage of connecting fans with key Olympic sports all year long," said JB Perrette, president of Discovery Networks International.
Written by Mark Bisson
20 Years at #1: Your best source of news about the Olympics is AroundTheRings.com, for subscribersonly.
Recent Articles
Sinner-Alcaraz, the duel that came to succeed the three phenomenons
Beyond the final result, Roland Garros left the feeling that the Italian and the Spaniard will shape the great duel that came to help us through the duel for the end of the Federer-Nadal-Djokovic era.
Table tennis: Brazil’s Bruna Costa Alexandre will be Olympic and Paralympic in Paris 2024
She is the third in her sport and the seventh athlete to achieve it in the same edition; in Santiago 2023 she was the first athlete with disabilities to compete at the Pan American level and won a medal.
Rugby 7s: the best player of 2023 would only play the medal match in Paris
Argentinian Rodrigo Isgró received a five-game suspension for an indiscipline in the circuit’s decisive clash that would exclude him until the final or the bronze match; the Federation will seek to make the appeal successful.
Rhonex Kipruto, owner of the world record for the 10000 meters on the road, was suspended for six years
The Kenyan received the maximum sanction for irregularities in his biological passport and the Court considered that he was part of a system of “deliberate and sophisticated doping” to improve his performance. He will lose his record and the bronze medal at the Doha World Cup.
Katie Ledecky spoke about doping Chinese swimmers: “It’s difficult to go to Paris knowing that we’re going to compete with some of these athletes”
The American, a seven-time Olympic champion, referred to the case of the 23 positive controls before the Tokyo Games that were announced a few weeks ago and shook the swimming world. “I think our faith in some of the systems is at an all-time low,” he said.
