Apple appears to have poached Amazon’s sports content executive Jim DeLorenzo to head up the upcoming sports-focused expansions for its Apple TV+ streaming service.
“Apple has hired Amazon exec Jim DeLorenzo to head up sports for its Apple TV+ unit, journalist Peter Kafka wrote on Twitter yesterday. According to DeLorenzo’s LinkedIn profile at the time of this writing, he joined the online retail giant back in 2016 to run sports for their video service. He is currently listed as Senior Vice President at Amazon’s Audible unit.
Trying to figure out what I think about Twitter, Facebook, Trump and George Floyd. Asked super-smart @cwarzel to help me talk it out. https://t.co/T4nDymTBNH
— Peter Kafka (@pkafka) June 1, 2020
Apple did not comment on the hired at the time of this writing.
Apple TV+ currently offers original TV shows, movies, documentaries and animated movies, but the iPhone maker is thought to be looking to purchase rights to older shows, as well as bring sports-focused content to the service in order to increase its appeal.
In December 2019, The Wall Street Journal said Apple had held initial talks with the PAC-12 in an effort to broaden its content library by bringing live college games to Apple TV+. That alone would be a huge boost for the service given the popularity of college sports.
In April 2020, Sports Business Daily corroborated the Journal’s report, saying that live streaming sports might be coming to the platform and quoted Apple executives as saying that adding live sports coverage could help the service stand out from rivals.
And now that Apple has hired DeLorenzo, I don’t think there should be any doubt left that Tim Cook & Co. are seriously planning on bringing sports to Apple TV+, and that’s awesome!
What do you think?
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