ESPN is promoting from within as executives Brian Lockhart and Mike Shiffman are both moving up and accepting new roles within the company. The Worldwide Leader in Sports announced that Lockhart will have the title of “Senior Vice President, ESPN+ Original Content and ESPN Films” while Shiffman will be “Senior Vice President, Production” with a focus on basketball.
Lockhart is taking over from departing VP’s Libby Geist and Connor Schell, who both left last November with Schell teaming up with Chernin Entertainment to form a studio for non-fiction content. Lockhart will be overseeing the entire original programming operation at ESPN. That includes studio shows, ESPN Films, and 30 for 30.
Lockhart might have only been with ESPN for a couple of years but he has already put his stamp on many ESPN+ original shows which include Peyton’s Places, Bettor Days with Mike Greenberg, and the upcoming Tom Brady docuseries Man in the Arena, as well as expansion versions of the Detail and Places series. Before ESPN, Lockhart was with NFL Media where he won eight Emmys.
Shiffman is going to be in charge of the production of ESPN’s basketball programming which includes NBA and WNBA games as well as studio programming like The Jump, NBA Countdown, and College GameDay.
An ESPN lifer who started with the company in 2000, Shiffman has held a variety of positions within ESPN going from a producer of the 11 PM SportsCenter to coordinating producer to multiple SportsCenter shows as well as NFL Primetime for a period of time. From there, Shiffman moved into overseeing the Assignment Desk and Stats and Information and was previously VP of content strategy, SportsCenter, and news.
[ESPN Press Room/Photo: ESPN]
