Efter att Jamie Horowitz tog över som chef på FOX Sports Digital och FOXSports.com har han valt en helt ny strategi, som bland annat inkluderar att sparka omkring 20 sportskribenter för att istället, nästan uteslutande, satsa på videoproduktion.
Detta har exempelvis lett till att Damon Martin – en av de mest respekterade MMA-journalisterna – blivit av med jobbet.
As I'm sure you've heard by now, I am no longer at FOX Sports and I'm officially a free agent as of today. Let's see what the future brings!
— Damon Martin (@DamonMartin) June 27, 2017
Horowitz menar att han vill satsa på TV-personligheter som Shannon Sharpe och passade även på att skicka iväg en känga till komikerna Brendan Schaub och Bryan Callen, då han anser att de utnyttjade FOX Sports varumärke för att bygga upp deras egna när podcasten ”The Fighter and The Kid” sändes i samarbete med FOX Sports.
Se en del av Horowitz uttalande nedan (via awfulannouncing.com):
“We’re also going to walk away from non-core digital original content. There are some projects we have worked on, again it’s not a value judgement that these are not good, just like the deer, these things were enjoyable, but they don’t belong at Fox. And the Fighter and The Kid was actually doing the worst version of it. They were actually using our brand to build up their brand. And really what we want is to lean into the people that are already part of the Fox family. We’re not trying to build outside brands. So we’re going to walk away from this strategy. Instead, we are going to focus on using our A-list talent. This is one of the many good things that has been made, Shannon Sharpe weighing in on the Conor McGregor fight. That’s perfect. We own Shannon all across all platforms and Shannon is weighing in on what was the big story of the week. That’s what we want to do more of.”
Horowitz kontroversiella utspel togs inte emot särskilt väl av den tidigare UFC-fightern Schaub, som fullständigt läxade upp FOX Sports-chefen i det senaste avsnittet av ”Big Brown Breakdown”. Kolla in videon ovan!
