• by Wayne Friedman , April 5, 2006

ESPN ABC Sports, looking to streamline its advertising operations, will realign some of its executives and new "team" strategy under Ed Erhardt, president of ESPN ABC Sports customer marketing and sales.

Sean Bratches, ESPN executive vice president, sales and marketing--to whom Erhardt reports--made this announcement.

In January, ESPN ABC Sports created the "team" approach for its advertising executives, consisting of 13 teams with four executives. Each executive is trained to sell all aspects of ESPN's different media platforms--broadcast, cable, video games, radio, Internet, print, wireless, and broadband.

"They want to make it as easy as possible to do business," said Doug Seay, senior vice president of Starcom MediaVest Group.

Originally, those 13 teams reported directly to Erhardt. Now those teams will report to Michael Rooney, who has been promoted to executive vice president of multimedia sales.

Other direct reports to Erhardt will include Sean Hanrahan, senior vice president, marketing and promotions, who will oversee a new integrated sales marketing and promotions team. Jeff Siegel now oversees a new team as senior vice president of regional sales, direct response, and emerging media. He had been senior vice president of programming and production management.

Oliver Dizon will also continue to report to Erhardt, as senior vice president of strategic sales planning and revenue enhancement, overseeing business planning and pricing activities. Michael Fox, vice president, ESPN International advertising sales, will continue to report to Erhardt and Russell Wolff, executive vice president of ESPN International.

Lori LeBas is now senior vice president, strategy and business operations for the ESPN ABC Sports sales and marketing divisions, reporting directly to Bratches. She had been senior vice president of affiliate operations and syndication sales.