With a Super Bowl presentation two seasons away, ESPN has made a change on its Monday Night Football team with the addition of Artie Kempner as its new director. This will mark the third different director of the prime time broadcast franchise in seven years despite the property attaining its two most-watched seasons in the last two years. During a meeting at the Broadcasting and Cable Hall of Fame ceremony, Magnus came to meet Kempner and learned that he was going to become available in the future. Having previous Super Bowl directing experience, the 12-time Emmy Award winner will assume the role beginning next season.
Kempner previously worked with play-by-play announcer Joe Buck and analyst Troy Aikman at FOX Sports, directing coverage of two Super Bowl championships the longtime duo called. On top of that, he has directed a variety of other events throughout his time with FOX, CBS and NBC, including NFL playoff games, tennis, golf and Olympics coverage. Burke Magnus, the president of content at ESPN, explained to Michael McCarthy of Front Office Sports that Kempner is “a very decorated guy who just dropped into our laps” as the network was preparing for its first-ever Super Bowl broadcast.
Kempner will be replacing Derek Mobley in the directing role and continue to work with Monday Night Football producer Steve Ackels. Both Mobley and Ackels were granted their roles ahead of the 2023 NFL season, but Magnus told Andrew Marchand of The Athletic that he does not feel the network is “in the same conversation as Fox and CBS” regarding its overall game presentation. Kempner moves to ESPN following more than three decades at FOX, which utilizes Rich Russo and Richie Zyontz as director and producer, respectively, for its lead NFL broadcast booth.
Over the last several seasons under an 11-year media rights deal with the league reportedly worth $2.7 billion per annum, the network has made several changes to its talent lineup. Outside of the hiring of Buck and Aikman as the lead broadcast team, the network forged a content partnership with Omaha Productions that includes the alternate broadcast featuring Peyotn and Eli Manning.
On top of that, the network instituted Mike Greenberg as the host of Sunday NFL Countdown and Scott Van Pelt on Monday Night Countdown while adding Jason Kelce to the latter. ESPN also recently hired Andy Tennant as vice president of Super Bowl production, granting him oversight surrounding coverage of the championship matchup for ESPN and The Walt Disney Company.
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