NBC Sports chief Pete Bevacqua is leaving NBCUniversal to take on a new role as the athletic director at the University of Notre Dame, marking the second exit of a major executive from the Comcast-owned media giant since the ouster of former CEO Jeff Shell. Bevacqua, who has played a large hand in steering NBCU’s sports efforts into digital arenas, will stay until the end of June, staffers were told in a memo Thursday. Executives at NBC Sports are expected to report to Mark Lazarus, the NBCU executive who once ran NBC Sports and currently oversees all of the company’s TV and streaming operations.
Pete Bevacqua, who joined NBC Sports in 2018 as its first president in nearly a decade, has been elevated to the top role at the NBCUniversal-owned unit. Bevacqua, the former CEO of the Professional Golf Association, was named chairman of NBC Sports Group, filling a role that was vacated when Mark Lazarus took on a bigger role within the parent company.
NBC Sports Group President Pete Bevacqua has been given oversight of the entire NBC Sports division, effective immediately. Bevacqua will have oversight, among other things, of NBC Olympics, which had been run by Jim Bell, who is now showrunner of Jimmy Fallon’s Tonight Show. Bevacqua also gains control of production and operations.
