As managing director of the region's biggest sports broadcaster, ESPN Star Sports, Jamie Davis has a lot on his plate. But, according to the man himself, that's just the way he likes it.
Born and bred in Chicago, Davis has followed the Cubs baseball team religiously. So after university in New York, it seemed a natural progression to move into a sports-related area.
Born and bred in Chicago, Davis has followed the Cubs baseball team religiously. So after university in New York, it seemed a natural progression to move into a sports-related area.
As a young broadcasting executive at CBS, Davis would sit with the production crews in the rear of the outside broadcast vans on game day, learning the intricacies of putting to air a major sporting event. Watching and listening, he'd ask questions during the downtime, and mentally note how the broadcast logistically came together, with only a passing interest in the game itself. It gave him the respect of his peers in the production department as a man willing to learn, but the knowledge also allowed him to better negotiate broadcasting deals for the network.
Although happily immersed in the CBS sports schedule after completing an MBA with one of New York's big eight accounting firms, Davis' feet were getting itchy, a condition that eventually resulted in him moving to the new Fox Sports channel, which had just picked up the rights to CBS-held National Football League.
"It was a gamble I was willing to take," he says, "and it was probably one of the best career decisions I've ever made in the years I have been working."
Davis was swamped with work from day one, but instead of pleading for a more realistic approach from his superiors, he put his head down and asked for more, a quality he still holds today.
"Whenever you're in a start-up environment, you get a lot dumped on your plate," says Davis. "But I was able to grow, and I proved to myself that I was able to handle it."
According to Davis, that was his first big break career-wise. His second was moving to Asia and then, ultimately, on to China. With ESPN and Star Sports competing for broadcast deals, he was part of the peace-making team that gave birth to today's current alignment. Soon after, he was asked to head up to China to take the helm of Star TV, in a market early in its development and very much the subject of intense interest from media mogul Rupert Murdoch. Davis says it was an offer he mulled over for a long time. "I had to come up with a game-plan of how I was going to succeed," he recalls. "You have to look in the mirror, and say 'what do I know that I don't know, and how am I going to overcome that?'"
He admits he did not speak Mandarin, was unfamiliar with the culture, and was faced with the crucial task of coming to grips with China's at times convoluted and always complex regulatory environment. In the end, Davis says he was accepted because of his 'sink or swim' mentality, and his love of a challenge. He left the sporting arena, which, by his own admission, had become a comparatively safe environment, and dived into Star's programming push in China. Now an established channel, he credits his success to a two-way learning exchange with the China team he helped build.
"I would use my job to try and educate them on the skill sets and experiences I had learned in the international markets," says Davis. "I would also work with them and learn from their experience what the Chinese wanted, so that we, as a team, could create relevant and innovative content for the mainland market."
Now, having returned to the fold at ESPN Star Sports, Davis happily admits it feels like he has come home. And with new media creating endless possibilities, it seems he's back at just the right time. "The opportunities in the next five years will be at a whole new level."
