The sports agency Excel Sports Management, representing talent, brands and properties, has hired Ryan Holcomb as its first-ever Head of Content.
Holcomb will be LA-based as he join the agency’s media division, Excel Media, which has recently put out docuseries highlighting the careers of two Excel clients, Joe Montana (Peacock’s Cool Under Pressure) and Derek Jeter (ESPN’s The Captain). His brief at the company will be to drive the creation and development of original content and programming for Excel and its clients.
“Ryan brings a wealth of knowledge in the content space and an understanding of how to shape an idea to make it interesting to both platforms and viewers,” said Excel Sports Management’s Founder and President, Jeff Schwartz. “We are seeing exponential growth in the opportunities for athletes to connect with fans and the world beyond their sport through compelling stories and shared interests. With Ryan’s experience and our deep roster of talent, there are endless ideas to bring to life.”
Holcomb joins Excel from the World Surf League, where he served as the Executive Vice President of WSL Studios and led the league’s content division—developing programming, selling concepts and running branded content efforts. He there oversaw ABC’s The Ultimate Surfer, a co-production between the WSL and Pilgrim/Lionsgate, also helping to develop and sell a seven-part series about the WSL’s Championship Tour to Apple TV+, in partnership with Box to Box Productions (Drive to Survive). Holcomb is an exec producer on the series, titled Make or Break, which has been renewed for a second season.
Prior to WSL, Holcomb was running his own production company, Tower 2 Productions, where he set up multiple projects with MTV, WEtv and CMT, in addition to a series order for Verizon Go90’s A Little Too Farr and two series with E!, The Platinum Life and Flip It Like Disick. Before that, he was with Rogue Atlas Productions and Lionsgate as SVP of Development, where he developed, sold and was an exec producer on non-scripted series including OWN’s Deion’s Family Playbook, GSN’s Family Trade, BET’s DeSean Jackson: Home Team, TruTV’s Way Out West and TBS’s The Good Life of Cee-Lo Green, while also co-developing E!’s Revenge Body with Khloe Kardashian. Holcomb worked, earlier in his career, in the sports and non-scripted TV department at WME and for eOne Entertainment.