Vizrt is appointing Sam Leadsom to its leadership team as commercial director of Global Sports as the company reinvigorates its sports offerings.
"The sports market continues to lead the way for transformation in storytelling, and Vizrt supports that with its impressive and innovative range of products," Leadsom said. "I am delighted to be joining Vizrt at this exciting time for our industry and am looking forward to helping the Vizrt Group bolster its position as the market leader in broadcast technology and continue to support our customers and partners' aspirations to deliver highly creative sports content."
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Leadsom has a vast background in sports production with IMG Media, Fox Sports and Sail GP where he has been responsible for large sports productions in many parts of the world; the Premier League, Sail GP, Bundesliga, US Masters and Moto GP are a few examples.
He also spent several years in Asia where he focused on rebranding channels and producing a wide range of award-winning and sustainable content. While in Asia, Sam was also responsible for overseeing FoxSports' production on multiple platforms in the region and was a member of the senior team that led the 2014 rebrand of the four sports channels.
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Before his time in Asia, Sam spent over two decades working in the U.K. across various sports with IMG Media as executive producer, head of Premier League Productions. He started the Premier League's 24/7 TV channel and oversaw the day-to-day running of all editorial output. In addition, Leadsom has worked with Sky, BBC, ITV, the European Tour, UEFA and HBS as a producer and director for athletics, tennis, football, cricket, snooker and darts.
"We are constantly innovating and want to continue to strengthen our market position in sports," said Vizrt president Daniel Nergard. "We are doing this through several investments, with the appointment of Sam Leadsom being an initiative that I am particularly excited about. Sam has extensive experience in live sports production. He intuitively thinks like a sports storyteller and will be a vital component in our strategy to develop our sports output in close collaboration with our customers."
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Vizrt is expected to expand and enhance its sports solutions throughout 2022, dubbed the "year of sports," with a solid product roadmap and clear go-to-market strategy with more announcements coming soon.
