The European Broadcast Union (EBU), the umbrella body of free-to-air broadcasters, has announced that Alan Fagan has been appointed to the role of managing director of Eurovisionsport.com, the EBU’s new digital streaming platform.
In his new role, former ESPN executive Fagan will report to the executive director of EBU Sport, Glen Killane, joining the EBU senior management team.
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The new role will give Fagan full responsibility for all strategic, editorial, and commercial aspects of Eurovision Sport, as well as supporting efforts to expand the EBU Sport team, with several new roles set to open in the next few months.
He will take over from Jean-Baptiste Casta, who will leave the EBU this year to take up a senior position in a different industry, the umbrella body has said. Fagan has over 25 years of commercial experience with various media companies such as in his previous role as vice-president of ESPN Sports Media EMEA (Europe, the Middle East and Africa), where he had commercial responsibility for media rights, partnerships, direct-to-consumer, and advertising sales.
Fagan also managed Disney’s multi-brand advertising and partnership business in the UK and for ESPN across EMEA. In addition, he was part of Disney’s UK leadership team during the launch of the Disney+ streaming service.
Killane has now said: "The leadership team at the EBU … were impressed by Alan’s depth of experience and leadership skills.
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By GlobalData“He will now play a pivotal role in driving Eurovision Sport forward, helping us continue to innovate and deliver exceptional sport experiences that complement our Members’ extensive efforts across Europe and beyond.”
Fagan added: “The Eurovision Sport platform has enormous potential. Although still in launch mode, in six months over 100 events across more than 30 sports have been streamed, delivered to fans completely free of charge.
“Uniquely, the platform brings the support, scale, and output of more than 50 of Europe’s leading broadcasters – with a potential audience of over 1 billion.
“I am delighted to be joining Glen and the excellent team at the EBU and I look forward to working with them to continue to grow audiences, content, and distribution, and deliver on the commitment to being the first gender-balanced streaming platform in sport.”
Casta had only taken up the role of director of business operations and the new Eurovision Sport streaming platform in June, having had a leadership role in the sport team since 2015 when he joined as senior sports rights manager of soccer from international sports marketing agency Sportfive.
Since then, he has been head of business development and head of strategy and business operations, and has also played a key role in strategic projects such as the recent development of the EBU’s first direct-to-consumer sports streaming platform.
In terms of recent rights deals, late last month the EBU secured TV and radio broadcast rights to the 2026 and 2030 editions of soccer’s iconic FIFA World Cup in five territories – Bulgaria, Czechia, Hungary, and Israel (2026 only).
