Jon J. Franklin

Jon J Franklin WPST CEO, Aspen

Jon J. Franklin GLORY 18

Jon J Franklin, London Olympics Boxing Supervisor with Broadcast team in ring.

Jon J Franklin (aka "Jon Franklin") is a sports marketing and sports television business executive who is currently Chief Executive Officer of the revitalized World Pro Ski Tour and Chief Executive Officer of a now re-surging "Ski Racing Media", the world's foremost digital publication focused on alpine ski racing. The World Pro Ski Tour is the world's leading professional head to head dual format ski race tour. Ski Racing Media has for over 50 years been known as the "Bible of the Sport" for Alpine ski racing news. The World Pro Ski Tour was originally founded by Bob Beattie in 1969 with champions from Billy Kidd and Spider Sabich to Jean Claude Killy to Phil Mahre to Phil Brown (skier), the World Pro Ski Tour is dual ski racing in a single elimination format akin to drag racing on snow and is in expansion mode. For 2020 Franklin has brought Double Olympic Gold Medalist Ted Ligety onto the World Pro Ski Tour. Up to the challenge, Ted immediately jumped into the top ten of the standings. Through the start of 2018, Franklin was CEO of Glory Sports International, the parent company of Glory Kickboxing that's seen on ESPN in the USA along with UFC Fightpass and Veronica/SBS Holland and others in more than 170 countries. Franklin began working with Glory in 2012 and joined full time as CEO in 2014. Under Franklin's leadership, Glory Kickboxing was named the World's Number One Kickboxing promotion for 2017 by Combat Press and as one of the World's most influential combat sports and martial arts promotions (along with Bellator and UFC) by Fox Sports the same year. Franklin continued at Glory as USA Promoter and Chief Development Officer in 2018 and early 2019. In this role he secured Monster Energy as Glory's first global sponsor.

Career[]

Prior to Glory, Franklin was a Vice President of IMG Media, President of Golden Gloves LLC Boxing, President of a division of America Presents - Boxing, and President of The Sports and Entertainment Company (Sports-EntCo). At IMG Media for 15 years, Franklin ran the Winter and Olympic Sports divisions and managed a number of Olympic and World Champion athletes. In addition Franklin sold and managed the Ski World Cup title sponsorship activation program for Cafe de Colombia and Swatch Watch and brought in numerous sponsors to the World Pro Ski Tour (US Pro Ski Tour). At that time he led the charge to bring Olympic Gold and Silver medalist skiers, Phil and Steve Mahre back to Pro Ski Racing under a major Coors Light sponsorship. While at IMG, Franklin was also part of the team that developed the Stars on Ice and Symphony on Ice tours along with other skating properties. Running Sports-EntCo for 13 years, Franklin concluded significant sponsorship deals for Olympic athletes such as Bode Miller and Julia Mancuso and managed various global sports marketing programs for companies such as Barilla Pasta and Rip It Energy Fuel. Franklin was the promoter of X Games Champion skateboarder Danny Way's world-renowned jump over the Great Wall of China in conjunction with Quicksilver brands. As President of Golden Gloves Marketing LLC, Franklin promoted the Golden Gloves National Championships in the early 2000s bringing it back to national television (on Fox Sports) after a 20-year lapse. In addition he brought in the US Army as Golden Gloves title sponsor. While at America Presents Franklin was part of the team that promoted Mike Tyson fights from Francis Botha through Brian Nielsen. At that time he also managed fights for the Fox Sunday Night Fights and promoted a number of pay-per-view events including David Reid v Felix Trinidad (in conjunction with Don King Productions). In 2014 and 2015 with Sports-EntCo, Franklin executive produced television events for Iron Mike Tyson Productions for international syndication along with Fox and Spike Networks. This followed the promotion and television production of over 30 International WSB inaugural professional boxing matches on Versus and NBC Sports Network initially for IMG Media and later for AIBA, the governing body of Olympic boxing.

Olympics[]

Summer: At the 2008 Summer Olympic in Beijing China, Franklin worked with AIBA and IMG Media to announce the World Series of Boxing programs opening the door for professional boxers to retain Olympic eligibility. At the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, Franklin served as Broadcast Supervisor for boxing for the International Olympic Committee's Olympic Broadcast Services (OBS) and AIBA. Franklin has also been a consultant to AIBA, designing a plan to help bring professional boxers to the 2016 Olympics. In 1995 Franklin worked with the International Waterski Federation in an attempt to add waterskiing to the Olympic Games. This included a waterski demonstration for the IOC Executive Committee in Seville Spain.

Winter: While at IMG- Media and later with Sports-EntCo, Franklin worked with athletes and managed sponsor programs at every Winter Olympics from the 1988 Calgary Winter Olympics through to the 2006 Italy Winter Olympics.

Personal[]

Franklin, an INT slalom waterski competitor, was the television analyst for the Waterski World Cup for Versus Television and Outdoor Life Networks through the 1990s.

In the course of his television production career, Franklin has won numerous television awards including Telly and Aurora awards for TV production for sport shows on Fox, ESPN, CBS and other networks.^{[citation needed]}

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References[]

External links[]

• www.glorykickboxing.com
• http://foxsports.ph/combat-sports/823927/most-influential-organizations-martial-arts/
• https://skiracing.com/ski-racing-media-world-pro-ski-tour-join-forces-with-jon-franklin-as-ceo/