Joined ESPN:
1980

University:
Boston

photos

Jed Drake

Senior Vice President & Executive Producer, Event Production

Jed Drake, who joined ESPN in its first year of operation, was named senior vice president & executive producer, event production for ESPN in April 2000. In 2005, he added responsibility for sports programming on ABC. He oversees all of ESPN on ABC, ESPN and ESPN2’s remote production efforts, more than 6,000 hours per year, including Monday Night Football, NBA, Major League Baseball, X Games, Winter X Games, college basketball and football, World Cup Soccer, MLS, golf, tennis and other properties. In December 2008, he added oversight of ESPN Regional Television event productions.

In 2003, he oversaw the launch of ESPN HD, a high-definition simulcast service of ESPN, from the event production side.

Drake has been directly involved in or overseen productions that have won numerous Sports Emmy Awards. He helped build and solidify ESPN’s position as a production leader, spearheading a variety of innovations including the critically acclaimed “1st and Ten” for football and the “K Zone” for baseball telecasts, both Emmy winners.

Drake, who joined the network as a producer/director in October 1980, has held various positions in the production department. In 1989, he was named coordinating producer and was promoted to senior coordinating producer in 1992 and to vice president, remote production in November 1996.

Drake has produced virtually every sport that ESPN has televised. Drake spent six months in Australia working on ESPN's production of the 1987 America's Cup. He subsequently produced ESPN’s America’s Cup coverage in 1988, ’92 and ’95. Drake was instrumental in ESPN's successful undertaking of Major League Baseball production in 1990, which included 11 telecasts per week and the network's extensive studio electronic cut-in operation. Also, in 1988 he directed ABC’s bobsled and luge coverage at the Winter Olympic Games from Calgary.

Prior to joining ESPN, Drake worked for two years as a sports anchor at WPTZ-TV (NBC affiliate) in Plattsburgh/Lake Placid, N.Y., where he oversaw the network’s coverage of the 1980 Winter Olympic Games. He also served as a freelance production assistant for NBC Sports on the Baseball Game of the Week.

Drake graduated from Boston University in 1978 with a bachelor of science degree in broadcasting/film.

- 30 -