A former executive at Greenfly and MLB Advanced Media is now headed to Jomboy Media. That would be Andrew Patterson, who was most recently chief strategy officer of Greenfly (a brand-building software company), and was senior director, new media for MLB Advanced Media before that. Patterson joins Jomboy at a time of significant growth for that company, which includes their raise of a further $5 million earlier this year. Here’s more on him and this move from a release:
Jomboy Media has announced the hiring of Andrew Patterson as their first CEO, overseeing strategy, performance, operations, and development across all platforms.
“With Andrew, we have added a CEO who shares our vision of who we are, as well as what we are aiming to become. He is a proven executive with a history of navigating the digital sports world which will enable us to expand our reach and bring more people into the amazing community we have been lucky enough to create.”
“Jomboy Media has already built something special, using the brand’s unique and authentic voice to connect the next generation of fans to baseball and beyond. I’m thrilled to be joining this group of creative, talented people and helping to guide Jomboy Media into its next phase as a bonafide power player in the sports and entertainment media space.”
It’s been a few remarkable years for Jomboy Media, which has grown out of a YouTube show initially focused on the New York Yankees into a wide-ranging baseball brand that’s also now expanding into other sports. The YouTube show was launched in 2018 by founder Jimmy O’Brien and partner Jake Storiale (a former high school baseball teammate of O’Brien’s who joined the show after a few episodes), and turned into a general baseball show not long after that. O’Brien’s Twitter account particularly took off in 2019 for film clips and breakdowns, especially around the MLB sign-stealing saga, and that led to much more from Jomboy Media, including an empire of baseball podcasts.
The company raised $1 million in early 2021, then added further prominent names (including Chris Rose and Ian Happ) to their podcasting stable. They announced a content partnership with YES Network in March, then announced that raise of $5 million in May (with that including a notable list of investors, from agency CAA and WWE through athletes Dwayne Wade, Karl-Anthony Towns, CC Sabathia, Noah Syndergaard and more). At that time, they talked about that funding being used for expansion both front-facing expansion and internal:
The new funding will be used to fuel growth into all major North American sports, as well as development of original content for television and streaming platforms, new IP for Jomboy Media’s growing array of channels, podcasts, live events around tentpole sporting events and the acquisition of marquee talent to live under the Jomboy Media umbrella.
Additionally, the company will be using the new funding to further their internal infrastructure, with the goals of hiring a CEO, executives to focus on internal PR and Marketing, as well a more robust sales and merchandising team.
That CEO hire is now done. We’ll see what comes next for Patterson and Jomboy Media.
