Dave Finocchio is an American businessman who co-founded the sports news website

Bleacher Report Bleacher Report (often abbreviated as B/R) is a website that focuses on sport and sports culture. Its headquarters are in San Francisco, with offices in New York City and London. Bleacher Report was acquired by Turner Broadcasting System in Aug ...

, which is the second-largest digital sports publisher with over 45 million monthly readers. In 2012, Finocchio led the company through an acquisition by

Turner Broadcasting System Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. (alternatively known as Turner Entertainment Networks from 2019 until 2022) was an American television and media conglomerate. Founded by Ted Turner and based in Atlanta, Georgia, it merged with Time Warner (lat ...

for approximately $175 million. He stepped away from daily operations of Bleacher Report in 2014 but returned to the company as its

CEO A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a central executive officer (CEO), chief administrator officer (CAO) or just chief executive (CE), is one of a number of corporate executives charged with the management of an organization especially ...

in 2016.

Career

Finnochio graduated from the

University of Notre Dame The University of Notre Dame du Lac, known simply as Notre Dame ( ) or ND, is a private Catholic research university in Notre Dame, Indiana, outside the city of South Bend. French priest Edward Sorin founded the school in 1842. The main campu ...

with a bachelor's degree in economics and history. He lived in Alumni Hall. Bleacher Report was founded in 2005 by David Finocchio, Alexander Freund, Bryan Goldberg, and

Dave Nemetz Dave Nemetz is an American entrepreneur and business executive best known for co-founding Bleacher Report. He founded Inverse in 2015, and was CEO of the company for its first years; he sold it in 2020. Career Nemetz co-founded Bleacher Report, ...

while they were working in

Silicon Valley Silicon Valley is a region in Northern California that serves as a global center for high technology and innovation. Located in the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area, it corresponds roughly to the geographical areas San Mateo County ...

—four friends and sports fans who had been high school classmates at Menlo School in

Atherton, California Atherton () is an List of municipalities in California, incorporated town in San Mateo County, California, San Mateo County, California, United States. Its population was 7,188 as of 2020. Atherton is known for its wealth; in 1990 and 2019, Athe ...

. They saw that sports was not entertaining enough for younger fans, and sports journalists were out of touch with the college demographic. Finocchio found that events such as the

NFL draft The National Football League Draft, also called the NFL Draft or (officially) the Player Selection Meeting, is an annual event which serves as the league's most common source of player recruitment. Each team is given a position in the drafting o ...

, the

NBA The National Basketball Association (NBA) is a professional basketball league in North America. The league is composed of 30 teams (29 in the United States and 1 in Canada) and is one of the major professional sports leagues in the United St ...

free-agency window and the NBA trade deadline were not fully covered by

sports journalism Sports journalism is a form of writing that reports on matters pertaining to sporting topics and competitions. Sports journalism started in the early 1800s when it was targeted to the social elite and transitioned into an integral part of the ...

at the time. Using Google Insights, Finocchio discovered the stories people were searching for to build a media company. He mined data based on search traffic to discover what people wanted to see about every sport and team on a daily basis. Rather than focus on individual site views, Finocchio and his team focused on scaling their audience and introduced hundreds of newsletters based on specific teams and leagues. The newsletters showed high engagement rates with over 70 percent open rates. The newsletters, sent three times a week, included relevant stories from both Bleacher Report and other sources. Eventually, the newsletters were converted into a

mobile app A mobile application or app is a computer program or software application designed to run on a mobile device such as a phone, tablet, or watch. Mobile applications often stand in contrast to desktop applications which are designed to run on d ...

. The content was later adapted to social platforms as well. During the first two years of running Bleacher Report, Finocchio worked part-time in private equity before leaving the industry to work with Bleacher Report full-time. In 2012, Turner Media acquired Bleacher Report for $175 million. In 2014, Finocchio stepped away from day-to-day responsibilities in the company. However, in 2016, he returned to the company as its CEO. In February 2019, Finnochio announced that he would step down as the company's CEO to be replaced by Howard Mittman.

Media appearances

Since the foundation of Bleacher Report, Finocchio has given commentary about what makes media companies successful and the future of the industry. His opinions have been featured in publications such as ''

Business Insider ''Insider'', previously named ''Business Insider'' (''BI''), is an American financial and business news website founded in 2007. Since 2015, a majority stake in ''Business Insider''s parent company Insider Inc. has been owned by the German publ ...

'', ''

Digiday ''Digiday'' is an online trade magazine for online media founded in 2008 by Nick Friese. It is headquartered in New York City, with offices in London and Tokyo. Description ''Digiday'' provides daily online news about advertising, publishing, an ...

'', ''

Recode ''Recode'' (formerly ''Re/code'') is a technology news website that focused on the business of Silicon Valley. Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher founded it in January 2014, after they left Dow Jones and the similar website they had previously c ...

'', ''

Reuters Reuters ( ) is a news agency owned by Thomson Reuters Corporation. It employs around 2,500 journalists and 600 photojournalists in about 200 locations worldwide. Reuters is one of the largest news agencies in the world. The agency was estab ...

'', and '' Wired''. In 2013, he spoke at the

MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference The MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference (SSAC) is an annual event that provides a forum for industry professionals (executives and leading researchers) and students to discuss the increasing role of analytics in the sports industry. The conferen ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Finocchio, Dave Year of birth missing (living people) Living people American chief executives People from Mountain View, California Notre Dame College of Arts and Letters alumni