ESPN exec John Skipper thinking big

Skipper

At a time of heightened competition for TV sports rights, ESPN's
content boss is reluctant to say his network will be telecasting the
Super Bowl in the near future but any other major championship event
could likely find a home at the sports behemoth."While (the Super
Bowl) isn't going on cable anytime soon, almost everything else is
fair game," John Skipper, ESPN exec veep of content, told
Variety.Skipper, who was behind the net's recent charge in scooping up
exclusive Wimbledon coverage that left NBC without the tourney for the
first time in 43 years, said the network's mission is to acquire as
many games and events as possible.The reason is twofold: Live events
are practically DVR-proof --- meaning viewers can't pass over ads,
which makes them a premium buy for Madison Avenue --- and the more
ESPN has to air, the less its competitors can have.ESPN and ABC made a
big play for the 2014 and 2018 Olympics rights earlier this year but
were outbid by NBCUniversal, which is focused on building up Versus as
a national all-sports rival to ESPN. But NBCU isn't the only
competitor ESPN is keeping tabs on."We see our competition in a number
of places," Skipper explained. "There is competition for eyeballs on
television, for buying rights, on the Internet from social media
companies and on videogames. We still think the way to break through
all that competition is to own live rights and then build studio
content around those live rights."For the full QA with John Skipper,
visit Variety's On the Air blog. Contact Stuart Levine at
stuart.levine@variety.com