Bill King

1 month ago | sportsbusinessjournal.com | Bill King

David Hill and his son, Jules, were in line for the new Batman rollercoaster at Six Flags Magic Mountain when Hill was struck by the dramatic tone of the music playing as they waited. Shopping for a theme for Fox’s NFL broadcasts as its first season approached, Hill hadn’t heard anything he liked. They all were too upbeat and breezy. The Batman movie theme was in a minor key, which he found far more dramatic.

1 month ago | sportsbusinessjournal.com | Bill King

For all the apple carts he upset and eggs he broke while disrupting network air on three continents, the most polarizing of David Hill’s changes were three that asked those in sports, and some of those sports’ most avid fans, to take themselves less seriously: NASCAR’s broadcast chief had little sense of the outcry headed his way when Fox opened the 2008 season with the introduction of Digger, an animated character the network created to highlight the use of an embedded camera that delivered...

1 month ago | sportsbusinessjournal.com | Bill King

It took Fox Chairman Rupert Murdoch four years and two bidding cycles to land the NFL rights that provided the foundation of the sports division that he assigned David Hill to build. The walls and roof went up far more quickly. Only five days after airing its first regular-season NFL game, Fox announced a five-year, $155 million deal to broadcast the NHL, outbidding CBS. Thirteen months later, it added Major League Baseball, including rights to the World Series, for five years, worth $575 million.

1 month ago | sportsbusinessjournal.com | Bill King

David Hill was winding his way back to his Pacific Palisades home after what had been a typical January morning spent running errands when he noticed an unusual stream of cars heading the opposite way. He knew small wildfires were burning in the hills six or eight miles to the northwest when he left, but he’d grown so accustomed to them that he didn’t give it much thought. The steady traffic coming from that direction alarmed him.

1 month ago | sportsbusinessjournal.com | Bill King

Lots of buzz this week -- again, and still -- around Kalshi, the disruptive financial exchange that continues to expand its sports-prediction offerings, now offering contracts not only on NBA and NHL playoff winners and PGA Tour, LPGA and LIV events but also on each day’s slate of MLB games.