Jamie Horowitz is the former executive vice president for development and digital at World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE). He has been working in the sports entertainment industry for over two decades. Through the course of his illustrious career, Horowitz has established himself as a highly successful and innovative executive.
Horowitz has worked with many major sports broadcasters including ESPN and NBC. He first established himself as an innovative content creator while working at ESPN, where he worked from 2006 to 2014. He created and produced several successful shows, including Winners Bracket, SportsNation, Numbers Never Lie, and Olbermann. However, it was the startling ratings success of First Take that propelled him to fame as a groundbreaking and in-demand sports executive.
Today, Jamie Horowitz is the Co-Founder of Omaha Productions, a sports production company he founded with former quarterback and NFL Hall-of-Famer Peyton Manning. At the helm of Omaha, Horowitz continues to develop innovative programs for traditional and digital channels including ESPN, Netflix, Prime, and ABC.
Jamie Horowitz Grows WWE’s Reach
In his former role as the EVP at WWE, Horowitz was tasked with expanding WWE’s presence outside of the US. He collaborated with WWE’s global partners to develop strategies for international events, consumer products, and generate new sources of revenue.
Horowitz delivered on his goals in little time. Within less than two years of starting the job, the streaming viewership of WWE’s WrestleMania increased by nearly 30%, with many viewers tuning in from The UK, Canada, Germany, and India. The same year’s Royal Rumble became the most-viewed in company history and smashed merchandising and sponsorship records.
Much of Jamie Horowitz’s success can be attributed to his ability to form successful partnerships to leverage results. In recognition of his meteoric rise, Sports Business Journal named him to their Forty Under 40 list. His formula has been consistent: partner with cut-through talent and empower them to make shows that reflect their strengths.
The Path to Sports Entertainment: Jamie Horowitz’s Career History
Before working at WWE, Jamie Horowitz was the EVP at DAZN, where he collaborated with LeBron James to produce a highly successful docuseries. He also worked with Sylvester Stallone to make a boxing film. Before DAZN, he produced some of the most iconic sports talk shows and helped make the careers of today’s best-known sports pundits, including Skip Bayless, Stephen A Smith, Shannon Sharpe, and Colin Cowherd.
Big names are not the only reasons for his success. His decision-making is driven by market research. When he was brought on the production team of First Take, ESPN2 was struggling to tap into the morning show market. It was through market research that he realized that “embrace debate” was the future of daily sports talk shows.
Talking about the show on ESPN’s corporate blog, Horowitz said, “Research showed that debate was the perfect complement to highlights and analysis fans were also consuming on morning offerings, SportsCenter and Mike & Mike. With that in mind, we changed the show format to two hours of debate. Debate would no longer be the best part of the show, it would now be the entire show.”
This direction proved to be more than a game-changer for First Take—it transformed sports entertainment forever. Debate-style programs would soon become the norm across networks as competitors sought to cash in on Jamie Horowitz’s format.
Horowitz’s Track Record of Stand-Out Sports Media Programming
Ratings continued to grow for all of Jamie Horowitz’s shows, and his reputation grew with it. After serving as VP at ESPN, Horowitz became the President of Fox Sports and continued to evolve his programming format on FS1 and FS2 with shows like Undisputed and The Herd with Colin Cowherd. Critics were divided over Horowitz’s departure from the traditional stats-and-analysis focus on sports TV. However, those who worked with him did not doubt that Horowitz gave audiences what they wanted and helped grow sports media audiences.
Nearing the end of his time at ESPN, Horowitz produced the nightly talk show Olbermann, a sports talk show hosted by the divisive Keith Olbermann. Olbermann had the following to say about Horowitz: “In my experience, he was an exceptional producer and an exceptional executive—that is a tremendously rare thing in this business.”
As DAZN’s EVP of Global Content, Horowitz’s shows were met with resounding success. He worked at DAZN for two years, and during this time, he devoted his attention to three key areas: original programming, editorial strategy, and social media content.
He created a new docuseries called 40 Days, which followed boxers in the 40 days leading up to a fight. The first season followed the lead-up to the fight between Daniel Jacobs and Saul “Canelo” Alvarez. For that series, Horowitz worked with LeBron James and Maverick Carter’s “Uninterrupted.” The collaboration with LeBron James put DAZN on the map, helping it reach hundreds of thousands of new customers.
While at DAZN, he also directed his first film, One Night, a look at boxer Andy Ruiz’s wildly improbable victory over Anthony Joshua. The docuseries was shot from Sylvester Stallone’s perspective and featured boxing greats such as Mike Tyson. “For the first film in this series, we wanted to tell the definitive story of an unlikely underdog boxer achieving what few thought possible,” Horowitz said.
Jamie Horowitz’s experience producing docuseries for DAZN proved invaluable to his future at Omaha Productions, where he would later produce groundbreaking documentaries such as Netflix’s Quarterback.
Horowitz’s third move at DAZN was to acquire The Pat McAfee Show in 2020. The award-winning talk show successfully captured the attention of sports fans as the aspiring sports broadcaster pulled in viewers with his candid humor and sarcasm.
“We’re incredibly lucky that Pat chose DAZN to join him for the next step in his rapidly evolving broadcasting career,” said Horowitz. “Pat is a unique voice in sports media with an avid following of fans, and we’re thrilled that Pat will be our first daily talk show in the U.S. and Canada.”
Though Jamie Horowitz wouldn’t stay at DAZN for long, he knew he’d found something special in Pat McAfee. After leaving WWE, Horowitz would bring The Pat McAfee Show to Omaha Productions, where it would take a coveted time slot on ESPN.
Jamie Horowitz Blazes New Trails at Omaha Productions
After leaving WWE, Jamie Horowitz took the position of President of Omaha Productions, a production company he founded with Peyton Manning. While Horowitz didn’t officially become the President of the company until 2024, he had been heavily involved as a consultant since he started the company in 2020.
Together, they’ve turned Omaha Productions into a half-billion-dollar brand in a few short years. They scored their first big hit with ManningCast, a sports commentary program featuring Peyton and Eli Manning playcalling Monday Night Football from their respective man caves. The show became an instant success, averaging nearly 2 million viewers per broadcast in its first season and scooping up two Sports Emmys.
Omaha Productions soon branched out to create digital content for streamers like Netflix. The docuseries Quarterback, a fly-on-the-wall look at three of the NFL’s biggest QBs, was one of Netflix’s most successful shows of 2023 and one of the most acclaimed shows of the year on any platform.
Omaha Productions’ rise is partially due to Jamie Horowitz’s uncanny ability to understand what sports fans want to watch even before they know it themselves. For example, Iowa Hawkeye’s point guard Caitlin Clark made history this year as the NCAA’s all-time leading scorer in college basketball history, and several of Iowa’s games during March Madness shattered women’s basketball viewership records. Fans can’t get enough of Caitlin Clark, and Omaha has been producing a docuseries featuring her for the past year. The new program, Full Court Press, will follow Clark and two other women’s basketball superstars during the 2023 – 2024 season.
Full Court Press is all but guaranteed to be a massive hit for Omaha Productions, and it’s only just one program on Jamie Horowitz’s production slate. Omaha is producing a new season of Quarterback for Netflix as well as a similar show, Receiver, produced by the same team of documentarians. The receiver will follow NFL wide receivers and tight ends, giving fans unprecedented access to the player’s professional and personal lives. A similar docuseries is also planned in partnership with Lebron James SpringHill Company, featuring a behind-the-scenes look at some of the NBA’s biggest names, including James.
As the President of Omaha Productions, Jamie Horowitz has proven that it doesn’t matter if he’s the head of a major network or a start-up production company. His innovative programs continue to define sports entertainment and thrill fans around the globe.
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