Steve Bornstein (born April 20, 1952) is the chairman of the Media Networks division of the gaming company Activision Blizzard.
He also worked with Warner-Amex Cable, producing Ohio State Buckeyes football programming for the company's interactive QUBE system.
[6] In January 1980, he joined ESPN as the manager of program coordination when the cable sports network was a four-month-old start-up.
He advanced through the network's programming and production ranks, becoming ESPN's youngest president and CEO in 1990 at age 38.
Also in 1992, Bornstein established the subsidiary ESPN Enterprises to develop new businesses like ESPN.com, which has grown to become the leading sports news and information site on the internet.
It was also Bornstein's suggestion to move the start of each NFL Draft from Saturday afternoon to Thursday evenings in prime time.
[19] Currently in more than 72 million homes, NFL Network now has carriage agreements with each of the country's largest television providers including Comcast, DirecTV, DISH Network, Cablevision, Cox, Charter, Time Warner Cable, Verizon FiOS and AT&T U-Verse.
What started as an eight-game, cable-only schedule, Thursday Night Football has expanded to a staple in the NFL calendar, with Amazon Prime taking over the primetime package in 2021.
Bornstein was instrumental in the December 2011 landmark nine-year extensions with CBS, FOX and NBC which continue the NFL's tradition on broadcast television through the 2022 season.
Those new deals came just three months after he helped secure an eight-year agreement to keep Monday Night Football on ESPN until 2021.