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Howard Katz (born 1949) is an American sports executive, best known for his work as the Senior Vice President of Broadcasting & Media Operations for the NFL.
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Howard Katz (born 1949) is an American sports executive, best known for his work as the Senior Vice President of Broadcasting & Media Operations for the NFL.
Katz graduated from Colgate University, and began his career as a production associate for ABC Sports in 1971, where he worked on the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, Germany, Monday Night Football, and Wide World of Sports. From 1971 to 1993, Katz worked at Trans World International (the television arm of IMG Media) and as president of Ohlmeyer Communications Company (OCC), which was bought out by ESPN in 1993.
While at ESPN, Katz helped launch ESPN2 in 1993, and was promoted to executive vice president of production. In 2002, he hired John Madden to announce Monday Night Football for ABC. He also helped to launch ESPNews, ESPN Radio, ESPN International, ESPN Classic and the ESPY Awards.
In 2003, Katz joined NFL Films, and the same year he began the "flexible scheduling" model currently used by the NFL, which allows the league to move matchups to and from primetime to maximize visibility. He also played a role in the rise of streaming services carrying games, especially Amazon Prime. [1]
In 2022, Katz was named the winner of the Pete Rozelle Radio-Television Award from the Pro Football Hall of Fame. [2]
The Pro Football Hall of Fame is the hall of fame for professional American football, located in Canton, Ohio. Opened on September 7, 1963, the Hall of Fame enshrines exceptional figures in the sport of professional football, including players, coaches, officials, franchise owners, and front-office personnel, almost all of whom made their primary contributions to the game in the National Football League (NFL).
Alvin Ray "Pete" Rozelle was an American businessman and executive. Rozelle served as the commissioner of the National Football League (NFL) for nearly thirty years, from January 1960 until his retirement in November 1989. He became the youngest commissioner in NFL history at just the age of 33. He is credited with making the NFL into one of the most successful sports leagues in the world.
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During the early 1960s, NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle envisioned the possibility of playing at least one game weekly during prime time that could be viewed by a greater television audience. An early bid by the league in 1964 to play on Friday nights was soundly defeated, with critics charging that such telecasts would damage the attendance at high school football games. Undaunted, Rozelle decided to experiment with the concept of playing on Monday night, scheduling the Green Bay Packers and Detroit Lions for a game on September 28, 1964. While the game was not televised, it drew a sellout crowd of 59,203 spectators to Tiger Stadium, the largest crowd ever to watch a professional football game in Detroit up to that point.