74. NFL Evangelist

Steve Bornstein
Title: President/CEO, The NFL Network

Why Him? If NFL Network had secured deals with Time Warner, Cablevision and Charter by our deadline, we'd have put him higher. But give Bornstein credit for the 160 or so operators, including Comcast and Cox, that the net does have deals with. And it looks like he's ready to put up a heck of a fight to keep anyone from moving his channel to a sports tier. (Did we mention that the NFL doled out $100 million for an ad campaign targeting cable operators that don't carry the network?). Not only is cable going up against the powerful NFL, but Bornstein's had a lengthy schooling in these types of spats from his days at ESPN. In fact, Bornstein has said that reluctant MSOs are using the same argument against carriage—that a surfeit of like programming already exists—they used decades ago against ESPN. His job is to get fans to demand this 8-game package, and to show distributors that NFL games and league-related content is the “platinum standard” in programming, as he calls it. Keep an eye out for where he appears in next year's list. - AM

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