USA Today’s Chris Pirrone joins Arena to lead SI Media Group

There’s a noteworthy new figure overseeing Sports activities Illustrated and connected sports activities web-sites. The Arena Team (formerly Maven, they changed to the new identify previous September), which operates SI beneath license from SI brand name proprietor Reliable Models Team, announced Thursday that they’ve hired Chris Pirrone as senior vice president and standard manager of Sports activities Illustrated Media Team, a freshly-established function. Pirrone was formerly the basic manager of Gannett’s United states of america These days Sports activities Media Team. Here’s far more on this shift from a release:

As GM of Sports activities, Pirrone will oversee the growth of The Arena Group’s portfolio of sports internet sites, acknowledged as Sports activities Illustrated Media Group, anchored by Sports activities Illustrated. Sports activities Illustrated Media Team has develop into the fifth-largest sports activities media property for each April 2022 Comscore rankings, with traffic a lot more than doubling over the prior 12 months. The Arena Group sports vertical, spanning sports models which include FanNation, Early morning Read, and Athlon Sporting activities, sent 253% extra website page views in Q1 2022 vs. 2021 and 265% more social page views in Q1 2022 vs. 2021, in accordance to Google Analytics.

As General Supervisor at Usa Now Sporting activities Media Group, Pirrone released about 75 sporting activities vertical internet sites and led a sizeable growth of the publisher’s electronic promoting small business throughout electronic, social and cellular. He also grew audiences from 10M to 60M month to month Comscore unique viewers and enhanced income to above $100M on a yearly basis.

“Chris Pirrone is a welcome addition with a phenomenal observe record at Usa Today Sports Media together with sixfold viewers growth, frequent income improvements, and the expansion of dozens of productive sports activities homes these as For The Acquire and Golfweek,” reported Rob Barrett, President of Media for The Arena Group. “We are thrilled to have Chris direct the next wave of innovation at Sports activities Illustrated and The Arena Group’s sports activities vertical.”

Pirrone will get started in June and report to Barrett. He previously held positions as Typical Manager of ad community Site visitors Marketplace and Common Counsel at Visitors Marketplace and ValueClick Inc. Pirrone has a bachelor’s degree in economics from St. Lawrence College and a Juris Medical professional degree from the University of Akron University of Regulation.

Pirrone experienced been at Usa Nowadays because 2012, so it’s undoubtedly substantial to see him relocating on. It’s also appealing to see him joining Arena, and carrying out so in a job exclusively centered on their athletics qualities. We’ll see what he delivers to Arena, and what his use usually means for Sports Illustrated and its related web pages.