WWE Hires Jamie Horowitz as EVP of Development and Digital

A long-time entertainment brand with a history of providing cutting edge content and viewer engagement, WWE recently upgraded its front office to reflect its growth goals for a modern audience. Refreshing its leadership, WWE hired Jamie Horowitz as its executive vice president of a newly formed development and digital department. Consolidating management and the approach to handling digital and social content, the company expects to see unprecedented progress for its variety of content across both scripted and unscripted programming.

Jamie Horowitz’s Robust Background in Sports Entertainment

Jamie Horowitz is a sports media professional with several decades of experience leading network programming through change. He has been an innovator since College, where he founded Amherst College’s first sports magazine, SportsAmherst. Entering the professional field, Horowitz made a quick impact, working his way through producer roles at NBC Sports where he created and produced, among other programming, the National Heads-Up Poker Championship. ESPN identified him as an innovative producer and recruited him to help run ESPN Original Entertainment. He worked for over eight years at ESPN in a variety of production roles growing to become vice president of original programming and production. Throughout his tenure, he took stock of the entertainment landscape and created and produced talk programs that changed how ESPN programmed its daytime line-up: First Take, Numbers Never Lie and SportsNation. 

As Horowitz’s career progressed, so did the way that the industry engaged with audiences. He was quick to recognize the role of digital and social content in capturing viewers on and away from the screen. His achievements were recognized as he was given roles of increasing responsibility for programming and operations extending to his time as president of national networks for Fox Sports. Most recently, Jamie Horowitz served as the executive vice president of content for DAZN, an international over-the-top sports network and streaming service. There, he oversaw North American content development in a newly created role that demanded innovation to grow the subscriber base by creating content beyond live rights. He was also charged with developing original digital content and find new models of distribution in both the United States and Canada. 

WWE Looks to Jame Horowitz for New Vision and Creativity

With WWE, Jamie Horowitz will have a similar challenge. In the specially crafted role of EVP of development and digital, he will primarily be focused on expanding the brand’s digital presence and helping better reach global audiences. The move to bring Horowitz onboard, along with the refresh of several board of director positions, comes at a time when WWE has also made moves of its own to progress its digital reach. The company recently partnered with Peacock as its streaming platform of choice, helping to make on-demand programming more accessible to its fan base. The availability of WWE Network on Peacock broadens the reach of everything from live programming to documentaries and archived shows that have fast become fan favorites.

While the expansion to online streaming enhances accessibility for U.S. audiences, Horowitz will be tasked with finding new avenues to connect with and entertain professional wrestling fans across the globe. To do this, he will leverage his background in content and digital growth, finding new ways to connect with and provide content for people from all locales and walks of life. His wealth of knowledge regarding distribution strategies and business models is expected to be a great fit for WWE’s digital media business needs. 

To this end, Jamie Horowitz will oversee the development of not just the brand’s social media presence but also its digital content offerings through avenues including WWE Studios. The platform, which has already released over 50 films and series, provides a wide variety of content but with historically disparate distribution. With an eye to both development and delivery under a newly consolidated team led by Horowitz, WWE plans to expedite its own growth while getting more value from the content it has already produced. Horowitz himself has demonstrated an ability to do more with less through his time with both Fox Sports and ESPN, where he leveraged some of his own relationships and industry expertise to expand programming offerings and innovate in the space.