Media Man Is New NBA Emea Chief
The NBA has appointed digital media specialist Ralph Rivera as its new managing director for Europe and the Middle East, replacing Ben Morel who stepped down from the role in May prior to taking up a position as Six Nations CEO.
Rivera has more than three decades’ experience in sport and media, most recently as managing director at Eurosport Digital with Discovery Communications, where he was responsible for leading the digital business, including the sports website, Eurosport.com and over-the-top (OTT) sports platform, Eurosport Player.
He previously spent six years as director at BBC Digital, where he oversaw and led the transformation of BBC’s digital presence, increasing BBC’s online reach to 40 million people and making the BBC iPlayer the top OTT video service in the United Kingdom.
Rivera has also served as president at Major League Gaming, and spent 10 years at AOL as senior vice president and general manager for Games and International Programming.
The appointment comes as the NBA continues to lead innovation in the digital broadcast space, and reflects a growing trend for rightsholders to make key hires from the media sector, as sport seeks to maximise the transformative potential of new broadcast platforms.
Rivera will start his new role on January 2nd 2019, based in the league’s London office. He will report to NBA deputy commissioner and chief operating officer Mark Tatum, tasked with overseeing the league’s basketball and business development throughout Europe and the Middle East and continuing to grow the popularity of basketball in the region.
Commenting on the appointment, Tatum said: “Ralph’s extensive experience in leading prominent media and sports companies make him well-suited to oversee the league’s operations in Europe and the Middle East.
“We are looking forward to working with Ralph to help take basketball and the NBA to even greater heights throughout the region.”
Ralph Rivera commented: “It is an honour to join the NBA at a time when the league has never been more popular.
“I am excited to work with our partners to explore new ways to reach and engage basketball fans in Europe and the Middle East and increase the number of young boys and girls playing the game.”
Rivera joined Discovery in 2016 and was responsible for rebuilding Eurosport Digital’s direct-to-consumer business. He directed teams across Europe and expanded Eurosport’s sports coverage, launching new premium sports rights partnerships for the 2018 Winter Olympics, Bundesliga and Lega Basket Serie A. Under his leadership, Eurosport Digital relaunched the Eurosport Player, expanding the reach of the OTT sports platform to 69 countries and territories in 14 languages and increasing subscribers to the service by six times to more than 1.3 million, and making it the No. 1 Pan-European sport OTT service.
