YouTube poaches top ESPN executive Justin Connolly to lead sports efforts

YouTube, which has captured an ever-increasing percentage of TV audiences, has hired former ESPN executive Justin Connolly as its global head of sports and media, industry sources with knowledge of the deal confirmed to The Athletic.

Connolly was most recently the head of Disney’s Platform Distribution group, including what was expected to be leading responsibility for the launch of ESPN’s eponymous new direct-to-consumer service later this year. Connolly left the company on Friday, as first reported by Puck’s John Ourand.

Instead, he will jump to YouTube, which holds a dominant position in the marketplace and last week formally announced its partnership with the NFL to be the exclusive broadcaster for an NFL regular-season game Week 1 in Brazil between the Los Angeles Chargers and Kansas City Chiefs, anticipated to smash the record for viewership of a streamed NFL game, set last December during Netflix’s dual Christmas games.

YouTube dominates video viewing time, extending from digital devices to the TV screen, where cumulative hours watched is nearly equal to Netflix and Disney+ combined. Streaming video accounted for nearly half of all TV and streaming minutes consumed in April 2025, per Nielsen data, with YouTube accounting for 12.4% of total TV and streaming minutes in the U.S.

YouTube TV has around 9.4 million subscribers as of April 2025, per Moffett Nathanson analyst Michael Nathanson. It is the fourth-largest pay-TV provider in the U.S.

This is a significant development as YouTube may be best positioned to be the hub for sports.

Between its ubiquitous free service and its cable-lite YouTube TV, YouTube can combine subscription and free in a model that could be easier for viewers to navigate and become the hub for not only sports clips and podcasts, but also live games.

Through YouTube TV, the company has relationships with top sports providers like ESPN, Fox, NBC and CBS, and has added products like NFL Sunday Ticket to its services.

YouTube has the financial resources to buy whatever it wants, but it’s also where the audience already is, making it maybe the most attractive platform in all of media. By hiring Connolly, YouTube is indicating it could be going into sports overdrive.

(Photo: Lionel Bonaventure / AFP via Getty Images)