DAZN hires first CRO

DAZN has hired its first ever chief revenue officer, with Walker Jacobs leaving Twitch to take the role.

Jacobs had been chief revenue officer of Twitch Advertising and managing director of sport at Amazon Ads for the past five years, where he launched Twitch’s Brand Partnership Studio, new ad products and formats, and the Twitch Properties business unit as well as oversaw sales and marketing for Amazon Prime Video’s sports, including the launch of NFL Thursday Night Football. 

Before this, he was chief operating officer of Fandom, the entertainment and gaming platform started by Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, for almost four years, and EVP and head of Turner Digital at Turner Broadcasting, now part of Warner Bros. Discovery. During his six-year tenure at Turner, he oversaw sales for the entire portfolio including the NBA Digital joint venture with the NBA; NCAA (including March Madness Live) in partnership with CBS Sports; as well as CNN.com, Sports Illustrated, Bleacher Report, PGA.com, PGA Tour, Golf.com, NASCAR.com, TBS, TNT, TruTV, Cartoon Network, Team Coco, Funny Or Die, Adult Swim, and others.

In addition to being chief revenue officer at DAZN, Jacobs will lead Team Whistle - a New York-based social media content creation and distribution company that was acquired alongside Eleven Sports in 2023. He will also be president of DAZN US, leading its business development and looking for new commercial opportunities in the territory.

Shay Segev, DAZN Group CEO, said: “Walker’s impeccable track record of using data and technology to deliver results for brand partners will enable DAZN to maximise the value of our audience within our premium live sports content environment. DAZN has built the global digital home for sports fans and we have the technological foundations to enable brands to reach this high-value audience in a hypertargeted and sophisticated way. This is a very attractive proposition for brands and, currently, an underleveraged part of our business.

“With Walker’s experience, we can anticipate a healthy appetite for innovation, commercial integrations and new advertising products and, ultimately, strong revenue growth in this area. I am delighted to have attracted such high calibre talent to lead our advertising and brand partnerships business as we evolve our US strategy at DAZN and drive our ambition to reach one billion sports fans globally.”

Jacobs added: “DAZN has built an impressive roster of rights around the world, and we have an enormous opportunity to enhance how we partner with brands and advertisers to further drive growth. I am excited to partner with Shay and the team to unlock our full potential, especially as we lean into our free tier of sports programming. I am also incredibly excited to help DAZN grow its presence in the USA and strengthen our offering to US viewers by building strong partnerships with leagues and competitions.”

Meanwhile, in the UK DAZN has appointed Rob Jones as its VP of content engagement. Jones joins after eight years at BT Sport and later TNT Sports, where he was most recently executive editor of BT Sport Digital. He has also worked at MSN and Setanta Sports.