• by Alex Weprin , November 7, 2017

Bob Bowman, who led Major League Baseball Advanced Media since it was formed 17 years ago, will step down in early 2018, the league announced.

Bowman, a former executive at ITT and former state treasurer for Michigan, joined MLB in 2000, where he helped create the company that would become MLBAM. He would add control over all of the league’s licensing, sponsorship and revenue deals in 2015.

Originally launched as digital extension of the sports league, MLBAM became one of the biggest players in streaming videos, powering not only streaming subscriptions for baseball games, but WWE Network, HBO Now and ESPN3, among other clients.

MLB spun out the streaming video company as BamTech in 2015, with Disney paying $1 billion for a 33% stake the following year. Earlier this year, Disney paid an additional $1.58 billion to take a majority stake in BamTech.

Disney plans to use BamTech’s streaming video technology to power its upcoming suite of over-the-top video services, including a new ESPN service, and a Disney movies service.