ESPN, NFL Ratings and Sports Media's New World Order

Peter Cohen, Global Head of Media Banking at Barclays PLC, discusses the rapidly changing landscape of sports media -- including Walt Disney Co.’s purchase of a portion of 21st Century Fox’s sports assets, declining TV ratings for the National Football League and the value of regional sports networks. The media banker also discusses the resignation of ESPN President John Skipper, and the emergence of tech companies like Amazon and Twitter as bidders for future media rights. That’s helping fuel the skyrocketing valuations of sports franchises like the NFL’s Carolina Panthers, who will be sold during the off season by embattled owner Jerry Richardson.

Cohen has run Barclays’s media banking division since 2015. Prior to joining Barclays, Cohen ran the Media and Entertainment division at Blackstone Group, where he advised on the $2.15 billion sale of baseball’s Los Angeles Dodgers in 2012, then a record for a franchise transaction. Cohen also represented the Tribune Co. on its 2009 sale of the Chicago Cubs.

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