David Levy, ex-CEO of Turner Media, ‘serious candidate’ to replace Brett Yormark

David Levy, who left the presidency of Turner Media in March, is a “serious candidate” to replace Brett Yormark as CEO of the Nets, reports Adrian Wojnarowski.

Yormark announced his departure on Friday following 14 years as CEO of the Nets and later as head of Brooklyn Sports & Entertainment, Mikhail Prokhorov’s holding company. The position would likely be the first the Nets new owner, Joe Tsai, would want to fill now that he’s purchased 100 percent of the team and arena.

Levy exited Turner, which has had extensive business with the NBA, during a shake-up following AT&T’s acquisition of Time Warner, parent of Turner Sports.

”After things wind down here, I’ll take a little time off, for sure. Call it a summer vacation. But come fall, my wife tells me I’d better be out of the house, so…” Levy told Ad Age back in March.

When Levy departed, he had been in the CEO role since 2013 and with the company since 1987. In his CEO role, he oversaw the company’s portfolio of domestic networks, including TBS, TNT, Cartoon Network, Adult Swim, Boomerang, truTV and Turner Classic Movies (TCM).

Prior to serving as head of Turner Media, Levy had spent 10 years with Turner Sports, famously engineering the landmark TV and digital rights deal with the league. He had been key to negotiating Turner’s big sports rights deals, most notably with the NBA (for TNT) and MLB (for TBS). The NBA package, which also included ABC and ESPN, provided the league with a guaranteed $24 billion in revenues over nine years.

He also greenlighted the pairing of Charles Barkley and Kenny Smith on TNT’s basketball coverage.

Levy also engineered of Turner’s joint pact with CBS to televise the NCAA men’s basketball tournament —March Madness— and its recent involvement with the e-sports E-League joint venture with WME/IMG.

The former Turner CEO has been on the advisory board of Brooklyn Sports & Entertainment since its formation by Yormark over three years ago. Levy’s son, Brett, was a video coordinator for the Nets from 2015 through 2018. He now works for the Hornets.