MUMBAI: Viacom18 on Thursday confirmed the appointment of Anil Jayaraj as CEO – Sports.
In his new role, Jayaraj, who officially started work in his new portfolio at the Reliance Industries Ltd-controlled network on Thursday, will be leading the media and entertainment network’s foray into acquisition, broadcasting and monetisation of sports properties.
Jayaraj joins Viacom18 from Star Sports, where he was executive vice president and successfully led his team to deliver business performance across multiple sporting events, including Indian Premier League, Cricket World Cup, Pro Kabaddi League, Indian Super League, among others.
For the record, Jayaraj’s “last day at the office” at Star was Wednesday, 15th September.
In a statement, Adil Zainulbhai, chairman, Network18, said: “As a leading media & entertainment network in India, Viacom18 has been dialling up its offerings to tap into whitespaces across platforms. We believe that sports is an important category in our promise to deliver wholesome entertainment to our over 800 million viewers across demographics and geographies. With his rich experience in identifying and building sporting events into high value sportainment phenomena, Anil is aptly poised to lead our newest sports vertical.”
“Sporting events in India have evolved beyond just one or two games with increasing fandom amongst audiences towards newer competitive sports. This democratisation has created an unmatched opportunity for sportainment and I am excited to build Viacom18 network’s foray into sports as a category,” Jayaraj said.
Prior to Star Sports, Jayaraj was with Pidilite Industries Limited and served as chief marketing officer. He has also worked with BP/Castrol for 16 years in sales and marketing roles based in the UK and India.
