A Juneteenth Miracle: Venu Sports' New Management Team!
Ah, Juneteenth. A day to celebrate freedom, progress, and... the announcement of yet another extremely diverse C-Suite team core for the new sports streaming app, Venu Sports.
Bravo!
So let's give a round of applause to Venu for assembling a C-Suite that truly reflects the diversity of its content. 👀
After all, the NBA and NFL, are predominantly played by Black athletes (70% and 53%, respectively), so it makes sense that they'd mirror that representation in the offices of the CEO, CTO, CMO or CBO...right?
But seriously...
In the year of our Lord, 2024, with Juneteenth as a backdrop, this decision to assemble the C-suite management team featured in this image below feels like a monumental step backward. How can we "celebrate" the emancipation of enslaved Black Americans while companies continue to overlook multicultural talent for leadership roles in industries that thrive on Black excellence?
Black Americans are not just key players on the field; we are also voracious content consumers. According to Nielsen, African Americans spend over 50 hours per week watching live and time-shifted television, outpacing the general population. We dominate digital media consumption and lead in media engagement across multiple platforms. And most importantly, 23% of the NFL's viewership is Black, while 45% of the NBA's viewership is Black—overindexing against the general population.
Studies also show that Blacks "engage more with sport content in the form of documentaries, highlights, and game analysis, than other populations."
I imagine shoulder content will be kind of important to an all-sports streamer in July and August.
But I digress.
So how does Venu conclude it’s a good idea to roll out a new sports streaming service without a single Black person in the room where it happens?
And how did they care so little about diversity that they didn't even bother to "break glass in case of emergency" and name a woman as the chief marketing officer...?
Some will say I'm just pointing this out to be noisy—besides the fact that I've dedicated myself to this topic for decades and that I've pretty much put it all on the line to support Black content, ownership, and community.
But this is important for so many reasons. Many of which are too deep to go into with the characters I have left. But as it most pertains to this topic—sports—when the core of the C-Suite for the "Hulu of Sports" looks like this, we can't be surprised when there are no Black team owners in the NFL, all of the lead announcing teams look like this management team, and that the health issues of Black players go underreported and under-addressed—just to name a few of the resulting issues.
But hey! They've made their bed.
Now we'll see if they can get anyone to lie in it.
Aspiring Coordinator with a background in Animation Production
5dI was just saying to my dad there needs to be more women in this space. I can’t handle listening to all these male led podcasts