Brian Bedol

He began his career as an advertising writer in Chicago writing McDonald's commercials, but soon after moved to New York as an on-air promotion producer for the not-yet-launched MTV.

[6] After receiving his MBA from Harvard University, Bedol joined MTV founder Bob Pittman, as a partner overseeing television and home video at Quantum Media Ventures, where he created and executive-produced the ground-breaking and controversial Morton Downey Jr.

While an executive at Quantum, Bedol, Pittman, and another partner, Mayo Stuntz, developed and launched Court TV with Steven Brill's American Lawyer Media.

He also served on the board of directors of Quincy Jones Entertainment, the creator and producer of the hit television show, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.

The division's highest profile activity was its purchase of Six Flags Theme Parks from Wesray Capital Corporation, the pioneering leveraged buyout firm started by William E. Simon and Ray Chambers.

Partnered with Stephen Greenberg, former Deputy Commissioner of Major League Baseball and son of Baseball Hall of Famer Hank Greenberg,[12][13] the pair raised venture capital funding from Allen & Company, sports and business tycoon Wayne Huizenga, Paul Tudor Jones's Tudor Capital, and others.

The network launched May 6, 1995 with a critically acclaimed programming stunt, "Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee, 24 hours of Muhammad Ali."

[15] An innovative marketer, Bedol recognized the value of using some of the greatest names in sports history to help grow the network.

Since he couldn't afford to pay them in cash at the time, he formed the Classic Sports Network "Board of Champions", and gave each of its members a slice of equity in exchange for helping to promote the channel.

The board's members included Joe Namath, Magic Johnson, Mary Lou Retton, Wilt Chamberlain, Gale Sayers, Ernie Banks, and Ted Williams.

After a hiatus of a few years where he was primarily an investor in early-stage media businesses (See Other Business Ventures), in 2002 Bedol announced that he was returning to the cable industry with a new network featuring primarily college sports, called (at the time) NCSN, or National College Sports Network.

[20] Although the events CSTV acquired were not big enough for ESPN or Fox Sports, Bedol was one of the first media executives to recognize the value that could be created from aggregating niches using the internet.

The creation of CSTV led to Bedol's selection by Sports Business Journal as one of the "20 Most Powerful People in College Athletics" in 2004.

[26] Bedrocket has also collaborated on several projects including the digital destination, Flama,[27] with Univision, the first comedy channel on Spotify,[28] Mike Birbiglia's film Sleepwalk With Me[29] and an interactive interview with Jon Hamm for ESPN.