NEW YORK: Facebook has announced that Peter Hutton, who has just left his position as chief executive of Eurosport, is joining the social network behemoth as director of global live sports partnerships and programming.
The industry veteran will start in late May and report to Dan Reed, head of global sports partnerships.
In the newly created role, Hutton will collaborate with both TV broadcasters and rights holders on creating live-streaming deals for sports content.
“He knows the global sports rights landscape, owns strong relationships, and has a track record of delivering results on multiple continents,” said Reed in a Facebook post. “Plus, he’s worked on behalf of both broadcasters and rights holders.”
The fact that Hutton, an old India hand, was joining Facebook was first reported in January and followed the network’s global search for a head of live sport after being frustrated in a $600 million bid to secure digital rights to the Indian Premier League.
As part of its recent push into video, Facebook has been bulking up on its live sports offerings. Most recently, the company inked a deal with Major League Baseball to exclusively stream 25 games in the US during the 2018 regular season.
Hutton joined Eurosport in 2015, charged with strengthening and localizing the brand worldwide. In the three years since he took charge of Eurosport, Hutton’s biggest acquisition was the Discovery-owned network’s £920 million deal to take control of the rights to broadcast the Olympic Games across Europe.
Prior to joining Eurosport, Hutton worked in the sports industry for over 30 years in a variety of roles all over the world. He was CEO at the MP and Silva sports rights agency, and previously he was part of Fox International Channels, driving the launch of their sports business outside the Americas, including the acquisition of Setanta Sports in Africa and ESPN-Star Sports in Asia. He became CEO of ESPN-Star Sports based out of Singapore and oversaw its change into Fox Sports in Asia and Star Sports in India.
Before that, Hutton has a seven-year tenure at Ten Sports, which he launched along with Chris McDonanld in 2002. Prior to that Hutton was with IMG from 1994 to 2002, based out of India.
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