Viacom18 has announced the signing of Anil Jayaraj as the CEO-Sports. Jayaraj will be in charge of the Media & Entertainment network and will look over the sports properties of the organisation for broadcasting and monetization rights.
Anil Jayaraj was previously associated with Star Sports where he was the Executive Vice President and managed advertisement revenue and sales. He was in charge of tournaments like the Indian Premier League, Cricket World Cup, Pro Kabaddi League, Indian Super League. Moreover, he has experience in both B2C (business to consumer) and B2B (business to business) strategies.
In the past, Anil Jayaraj has worked as Chief Marketing Officer at Pidilite Industries Limited. Jayaraj was also at BP/Castrol in sales and marketing roles in the UK and India for 16 years.
“As a leading media & entertainment network in India, Viacom18 has been dialling up its offerings to tap into whitespaces across platforms. We believe that sports is an important category in our promise to deliver wholesome entertainment to our 800mn+ viewers across demographics and geographies. With his rich experience in identifying and building sporting events into high value sportainment phenomena, Anil is aptly poised to lead our newest sports vertical,” said Adil Zainulbhai, Chairman, Network18.
“Sporting events in India have evolved beyond just one or two games with increasing fandom amongst audiences towards newer competitive sports. This democratisation has created an unmatched opportunity for sportainment and I am excited to build Viacom18 network’s foray into sports as a category,” said Anil Jayaraj.