Steve Bornstein (born April 20, 1952) is the chairman of the Media Networks division of the gaming company

Activision Blizzard Activision Blizzard, Inc. is an American video game holding company based in Santa Monica, California. Activision Blizzard currently includes three operating units: Activision, Blizzard Entertainment and King (company), King. Founded in July 2 ...

. He previously held high-ranking roles at

NFL Network NFL Network (occasionally abbreviated on-air as NFLN) is an American sports-oriented pay television network owned by the National Football League NTP and is part of NFL Media, which also includes NFL.com, NFL Films, NFL Mobile, NFL Now and N ...

ESPN ESPN (an initialism of their original name, which was the Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by the Walt Disney Company (80% and operational control) and Hearst Commu ...

, and ABC. While at ESPN, he organized showing ''

SportsCenter ''SportsCenter'' (SC) is an American television sports news broadcasting show broadcast by ESPN. Originally anchored by Chris Berman, George Grande, Greg Gumbel, Lee Leonard, Bob Ley, Sal Marchiano and Lou Palmer, it premiered on Septem ...

'' reruns during the morning hours.

Early life and education

Bornstein was born and raised in a

Jewish Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...

family in Fair Lawn,

New Jersey New Jersey is a U.S. state, state located in both the Mid-Atlantic States, Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern United States, Northeastern regions of the United States. Located at the geographic hub of the urban area, heavily urbanized Northeas ...

to Julian Leon and Marge Frankel Bornstein. Bornstein is the youngest of four siblings, the others being Fred, Andy, and Faye. He attended the

University of Wisconsin–Madison The University of Wisconsin–Madison (University of Wisconsin, Wisconsin, UW, UW–Madison, or simply Madison) is a public land-grant research university in Madison, Wisconsin, United States. It was founded in 1848 when Wisconsin achieved st ...

and graduated in 1974 with a

Bachelor of Science A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, B.S., B.Sc., SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree that is awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Scienc ...

communications Communication is commonly defined as the transmission of information. Its precise definition is disputed and there are disagreements about whether Intention, unintentional or failed transmissions are included and whether communication not onl ...

Career

Bornstein began his career as a producer, and later executive producer, at

WOSU-TV WOSU-TV (channel 34) is a PBS member television station in Columbus, Ohio, United States. Owned by Ohio State University as part of WOSU Public Media, it is sister to public radio stations WOSU-FM (89.7) and WOSA (101.1 FM). The three station ...

in Columbus,

Ohio Ohio ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders Lake Erie to the north, Pennsylvania to the east, West Virginia to the southeast, Kentucky to the southwest, Indiana to the ...

. He also worked with Warner-Amex Cable, producing

Ohio State Buckeyes football The Ohio State Buckeyes football team competes as part of the NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision, representing Ohio State University in the Big Ten Conference. Ohio State has played its home games at Ohio Stadium in Columbus, Ohio, since 1 ...

programming for the company's interactive QUBE system.

ESPN

In January 1980, he joined ESPN as the manager of program coordination when the cable sports network was a four-month-old start-up. During his time as manager of programming coordination, he developed and implemented ESPN's successful programming philosophy of presenting a mix of events, sports news and special interest programming. In 1988, Bornstein was promoted to Executive Vice President of Programming and Production. He advanced through the network's programming and production ranks, becoming ESPN's youngest president and CEO in 1990 at age 38. In January 1992,

ESPN Radio ESPN Radio, which is alternatively branded platform-agnostically as ESPN Audio, is an American sports radio network and extension of the ESPN television network. It was launched on January 1, 1992, under the banner "SportsRadio ESPN". The netw ...

was launched and began a rollout of 24-hour programming in October 1998. Also in 1992, Bornstein established the subsidiary ESPN Enterprises to develop new businesses like ESPN.com, which has grown to become the leading sports news and information site on the internet. Bornstein helped to oversee the debut of

ESPN2 ESPN2 is an American multinational pay television network owned by ESPN Inc., a joint venture between the Walt Disney Company (which owns a controlling 80% stake) and Hearst Communications (which owns the remaining 20%). ESPN2 was initially ...

in October 1993 and

ESPNews ESPNews (pronounced "ESPN News," stylized ESPNEWS) is an American multinational digital cable and satellite television network owned by ESPN Inc., a joint venture between The Walt Disney Company (which owns a controlling 80% stake) and Hear ...

in November 1996. In October 1997, Bornstein directed the acquisition of Classic Sports Network and rebranded the channel as

ESPN Classic ESPN Classic was an American multinational pay television television network, network owned by ESPN Inc., a joint venture between The Walt Disney Company (which controlled an 80% stake) and Hearst Communications (which had 20%). The channel was ...

, adding yet another network to the ESPN family. Additionally, Bornstein oversaw the development of

ESPN International ESPN International is a family of Broadcasting of sports events, sportscasting and production networks around the world. It was begun in 1983, is operated by ESPN Inc. and owned by The Walt Disney Company. Current operations Canada ESPN Int ...

, which has grown to include ownership - in whole or in part - of 24 television networks internationally, as well as a variety of additional businesses that allow ESPN to reach sports fans in over 61 countries and territories across all seven continents. In March 1998, ''

ESPN the Magazine ''ESPN The Magazine'' was an American monthly sports magazine published by the ESPN sports network in Bristol, Connecticut. The first issue, with the cover line "NEXT.," was published on March 11, 1998 (cover date March 23, 1998), and featured K ...

'' was launched as a joint venture of Disney Publishing and ESPN with distribution being handled by Hearst Magazines. Throughout his time at ESPN, the network created the ''

'' franchise, '' NFL Countdown'', '' NFL PrimeTime'', '' Baseball Tonight'' and the '' Outside the Lines'' series. In addition to his contributions to ESPN programming, Bornstein developed the X Games and Winter X Games, week-long extreme sports competitions. Bornstein is also credited with the creation of the ESPYs Awards, short for Excellence in Sports Performance Yearly Award. First awarded in 1993. During his tenure at ESPN, Bornstein's team won 59 Emmys and 57 Cable Ace Awards.

American Broadcasting Company

In April 1996, Bornstein was named President of ABC Sports. In a short time, Bornstein established ABC Sports as the preeminent network of college football, creating the College Football Championship Series, and extending contracts with all major CFB conferences. In 1999, Bornstein was named President of ABC, where he was responsible for all the media network and cable assets at ABC/Disney.

NFL Network

In January 2003, Bornstein was appointed president and CEO of NFL Network and Executive Vice President of Media by then NFL

Commissioner A commissioner (commonly abbreviated as Comm'r) is, in principle, a member of a commission or an individual who has been given a commission (official charge or authority to do something). In practice, the title of commissioner has evolved to incl ...

Paul Tagliabue. While at the NFL, Bornstein oversaw the league's media division, which included the relationships with national broadcast and sponsorship partners as well as NFL-owned media assets and revenue. In November 2003, Bornstein launched

, which was the most widely distributed sports network in the history of the industry when it launched and became the youngest network ever to win a Sports Emmy after just 58 days on the air. On April 14, 2004, Bornstein was integral in creating the first NFL schedule release special. The two-hour segment was the first of its kind to announce the schedule for the upcoming NFL season. Since then, similar segments have aired each year across various competing networks in prime time. It was also Bornstein's suggestion to move the start of each NFL Draft from Saturday afternoon to Thursday evenings in prime time. The yearly draft has since become a staple on the NFL calendar with millions of people tuning in every year. In 2009, Bornstein spearheaded the creation of NFL RedZone, the widely acclaimed channel produced by NFL Network that whips around live to every NFL game on Sunday afternoons delivering the touchdowns and most exciting moments to viewers. Under Bornstein's leadership, NFL Network and NFL RedZone completed distribution deals with Cablevision and Time Warner Cable in 2012. Currently in more than 72 million homes, NFL Network now has carriage agreements with each of the country's largest television providers including Comcast, DirecTV, DISH Network, Cablevision, Cox, Charter, Time Warner Cable, Verizon FiOS and AT&T U-Verse. Ultimately, Bornstein would bring the league's internet and mobile assets in-house and help build NFL Media into a collection of league-owned media assets including NFL Network, NFL.com, NFL Mobile, NFL RedZone, NFL Now, and NFL Films along with the NFL's social media platforms. While building out and growing the NFL's own media assets, Bornstein reconfigured and repackaged the NFL's television assets and helped the league bring NBC back into the fold, move ''Monday Night Football'' to ESPN, introduced flexible scheduling, and created a new package of Thursday primetime games for NFL Network which introduced the modernized version of Thursday Night Football. What started as an eight-game, cable-only schedule, Thursday Night Football has expanded to a staple in the NFL calendar, with

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taking over the primetime package in 2021. Bornstein was instrumental in the December 2011 landmark nine-year extensions with CBS, FOX and NBC which continue the NFL's tradition on broadcast television through the 2022 season. Those new deals came just three months after he helped secure an eight-year agreement to keep ''Monday Night Football'' on ESPN until 2021. Bornstein also helped lead renewal negotiations in 2014 with DirecTV for exclusive rights to carry NFL Sunday Ticket and its package of every Sunday afternoon out-of-market game through a new multi-year agreement. The 2014 renewal also expanded DirecTV's rights to stream NFL Sunday Ticket live on mobile devices and via broadband, known as NFL Sunday Ticket TV. In 2014, Bornstein was succeeded by Brian Rolapp as CEO of

Charitable activities

Bornstein takes part in numerous charitable activities with a wide range of organizations. He is the founder and current board chair of The V Foundation, one of the nation's cancer research funding organizations, which has raised more than $125 million for cancer research in the name of late

college basketball College basketball is basketball that is played by teams of Student athlete, student-athletes at universities and colleges. In the Higher education in the United States, United States, colleges and universities are governed by collegiate athle ...

coach Jim Valvano. In addition, he has served on the President's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports and the California Governor's Council on Physical Fitness, the National Cable Television Association, Hampton University, Steamboat Ventures, and Infoseek.

Activision Blizzard

In October 2021 the video game publisher

announced the establishment of a new

esports Esports (), short for electronic sports, is a form of competition using video games. Esports often takes the form of organized, multiplayer video game competitions, particularly between professional players, played individually or as teams. ...

competitive video game division headed by Chairman Steve Bornstein and Senior Vice President Mike Sespo of

Major League Gaming Major League Gaming Corp. (MLG) was a professional esports organization based in New York City. Founded in 2002 by Sundance DiGiovanni and Mike Sepso, MLG held official video game tournaments throughout the United States and Canada. The ''Boos ...

Personal life

Bornstein lives in

Los Angeles Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...

with his wife Carol and four children.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bornstein, Steve 1952 births Living people American Broadcasting Company executives NFL Network people People from Fair Lawn, New Jersey University of Wisconsin–Madison School of Journalism & Mass Communication alumni Presidents of ESPN Presidents of ABC Sports Presidents of the American Broadcasting Company Esports businesspeople Activision employees American chief executives in the mass media industry Jews from New Jersey Businesspeople from Bergen County, New Jersey