After more than five years as only the second person to run both the news and sports divisions at a major network, CBS’ Sean McManus is set to turn his focus solely to sports.
CBS announced Tuesday that McManus will be promoted to chairman of CBS Sports, leaving behind his role as president of CBS News. Since 2005, McManus had been the president of both CBS News and CBS Sports, only the second person to hold both roles at any major network.
McManus told the Houston Chronicle that it “made sense” for him to focus on one of the two divisions instead of both. McManus: “Sports was the logical choice, since that is my foundation and where my background has been” (chron.com, 2/8/11).
According to the New York Times, McManus had “been keen” to return to sports exclusively. (nytimes.com, 2/8/11).
As CBS Sports chairman, McManus will turn his attention to CBS Sports’ “expanding portfolio of sports properties” — but that will evidently not include the Olympics.
In the aforementioned Houston Chronicle article, McManus said that acquiring the rights to the 2014 and 2016 Olympic Games is “not a priority for CBS Sports,” and that the network is “happy with the portfolio we have.”
(CBS press release from Fang’s Bites; Houston Chronicle; New York Times)
