Jesse Sisgold has been a lifelong fan of both sports and movies, which makes him the perfect person to lead the team at Paramount Sports Entertainment.

As former president and chief operating officer of Skydance Media and chairman of Skydance Sports, the president of PSE is now in charge of sports storytelling for CEO (and friend) David Ellison’s media company — even if those stories wind up landing somewhere other than Paramount+ or CBS.

The division has projects like Hulu’s “The Land,” Apple TV’s “The Dynasty: UConn Huskies,” Netflix’s “WWE Unreal” and biopic “Mr. Irrelevant: The John Tuggle Story” in various stages of production, with much more on the way. Plus, Sisgold & Co. even received a 2026 Emmy nomination for Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Series for “Rafa,” based on tennis icon Rafael Nadal.

And while the executive also admitted it’s “pretty odd” seeing Ellison’s name pop up on the local news daily, he is confident Paramount Sports Entertainment will remain laser-focused on delivering commercially and critically appreciated content and experiences at scale.

Check out TheWrap’s full conversation with Sisgold, slightly edited for brevity and clarity, below:

How did you get your start in Hollywood before landing at Skydance and now Paramount?

I had an unorthodox path because, honestly, Skydance was my first true Hollywood job. I was born in a hippie household in Marin County; surf, skate kid. I thought, “Wow, how could I ever be Jerry Maguire?” I’ve always been a huge sports fan, watching movies every day after school. Sports agent or producer — I don’t know if either of those are real jobs, I don’t know if they’re attainable, I don’t know anyone in those worlds. That’s how it started, the passion was there.

In college, I studied both econ and theater. But I come from a humble background and didn’t know people here, so I went to law school, not necessarily to be a lawyer, but maybe to skip some steps and actually get into this game that we’re in now. So I come out of law school and I start practicing. I got moved to L.A. because the dot-com bubble had burst from the bay, which was one step closer to the action, but not quite sure how I get into it. In Hollywood, so much of it is relationships. So over time, doing hard work, doing legal work I didn’t care to be doing, eventually I was introduced to David as a client, and that’s how it
started. I first started advising and helping David from the outside in 2013 and then joined him full-out Jan. 1, 2014. Twelve people, bungalow on the Paramount lot, ironically, and built an incredible ending of that growth stage by merging with Paramount and now, obviously, an opportunity to expand there.

In that is some of my passion, which is sports, storytelling and building. I realized I really love putting the pieces together. Part of why I’m so excited here with Paramount Sports Entertainment, which houses the Skydance Sports label, is we have this opportunity to be part of a big rocket ship but still be entrepreneurial and innovate something from scratch, which this Paramount Global universe didn’t have. So that’s where I get really excited.

So what is the difference between Skydance Sports, Paramount Sports Entertainment and CBS Sports?

The biggest difference is that we are complementary, in essence. CBS Sports is, I would argue, the highest-quality offering for live entertainment. What they do with the NFL, March Madness, what they’ve been doing for nearly 100 years for the PGA and the Masters, we’re not touching that; we are meant to supplement that and bring in a broader demographic.

We are really focused on where sports meets entertainment, meets culture, meets music, meets food. It’s not pure live sporting event, it’s everything else that touches sport. We are the primary unifier of sports storytelling at the company, and live events and experiences, and really supporting the overall family. CBS Sports and Paramount+ are primarily focused on putting out incredible live sporting opportunities for audiences. Together, we have the opportunity to really fulfill the complete ‘flywheel,’ which I think gives us a competitive advantage to some of the other platforms that we compete against.

When you’re doing scripted, are you trying to make something for a sports fan that an average viewer might also enjoy, or are you trying to make a “real” TV show that a sports fan might happen to like?

More of the latter. If we go back to the Skydance Sports origin story, we saw real opportunity where streamers were actively looking at live sports and news as kind of the last bastions of traditional cable. In making moves as they’ve been doing with live rights, you’re potentially bringing in a much bigger, broader demo than you maybe had for a per show-type analysis, so that’s a great opportunity for storytellers to expand that demo that may already — or not — have an interest in the sport.

One of our primary relationships is with the largest league in America. The NFL and NFL Films are incredible partners to us, and we believe the combined expertise of NFL Films and Skydance Sports is paying dividends for a broadening audience. Case in point, we currently have over a dozen projects with NFL in various stages of production.

They look at us as the high-premium global storyteller and an opportunity to expand their demographics. Playing games overseas certainly helps, but learning about the players and learning about their experiences in a way that’s more relatable — whether you’re a big football fan or not, in this case — all of a sudden, you’ve just extended your audience. Then longterm, ideally, that audience may now have more reason to tune in, in our case, to a game on CBS on Sunday than maybe they had prior.

And where are you at currently in production?

When we were putting together the thesis for building out Paramount Sports Entertainment, which already had a premium sports storytelling brand in Skydance Sports, we thought we could expand around it with live event opportunities to distinguish us from Sunday sports. We really wanted to focus first on the audience and what its viewing habits are doing, where its trends are going and how we can best satisfy it where sport meets entertainment.

The great news for us is since 2019, sports viewing has gone up significantly. There’s often an argument that there’s been a glut of sports storytelling and sports docs, etc. I would argue that has expanded the fandom significantly in multiple sports, and everyone’s happy about that.

We have 20+ projects slated to release within the next year across 12 distributors — covering scripted film, scripted TV, documentaries, formats and immersive narratives. We’re profitable, we’re prolific. I hate to focus on the critical side of this, but it is something we pay attention to as a sign of our growth and the acknowledgement of the audience and those that judge our content: We’ve seen our Sports Emmy noms go from one to two to 10 this year, and we just earned an incredible primetime Emmy nomination for our “Rafa” documentary.

When making unscripted, what’s the secret to doing something that the audience wants to see related to sports when the sports themselves are already unscripted?

If we’re just trying to capture that same exact duplicative audience that sits down on Sunday and watches that game, it’s a very fair question. Our goal is: Let’s get that audience and go well beyond that audience, because we’re bringing human elements. I had more people appreciate and really lean into “Rafa,” not because of an incredible set of tennis clips — they know he’s a champion, but they got to see what a champion has to endure. What are you willing to do to still continue to chase that dream? That’s a relatable concept, that’s a way in for people. Then, in a perfect world, they see the French Open on and maybe they tune in when they never were before.

You have “Mr. Irrelevant” and “The Land” both this season. How do you see things moving forward with other sports outside of your NFL partnership?

We couldn’t be more excited. “The Land” is our first scripted series for Skydance Sports, and we’ve seen all the cuts and we are incredibly excited about what’s coming for Hulu. I think that will be an opportunity to really bring in a broad audience who loves Dan Fogelman, who loves drama, and you will learn something about what it takes to be a football player in a football organization as part of that.

We’ve done movies before, including “Air.” Again, I don’t have to be an incredible basketball player or a basketball fan to connect with those characters, so we loved it as an initial calling card. I think “The Land” will serve as something similar, while “Mr. Irrelevant” is just an incredible, heroic underdog story that I think will make you cry. Could we have something that touches basketball next year? Of course. I mean, probably three-quarters of our slate is non-football.

Why do sports seem immune to the contraction that other forms of entertainment face?

I don’t have the perfect answer for that, but what I know is it’s a pretty intense time on the planet right now and sports hit at every emotion. For me, I am such a sucker for an underdog story, and I’m not sure they are better or more dramatic anywhere else than what you find in sports. There’s something that is just so emotionally gratifying. There’s also a massive unifying factor; we can all watch it come together. It’s emotionally really satisfying even through the many hard things that people are going through right now.

As a champion of sustainability, how have you implemented that concept here?

I should credit my wife, she is on the board of Conservation International. But it’s pretty simple: We just want to make sure there’s enough food, water and air for everyone going forward. Once we have that, then we can sort of settle everything else, hopefully. Also, I grew up a surfer, I’m a big ocean and mountain person and want to preserve that for my kids and beyond. So we always have a mindset towards it, we utilize our board roles, we bring in those consultants.

How does your current job title and role compare to your prior work at Skydance?

They’re similar in that I still am absolutely focused on staying close to the content and building both an organization and significant value for the ownership organization. That’s a total parallel. The difference here is I’m not across multiple divisions and multiple disciplines. I’m just focused on building the ultimate sports entertainment platform, which is of course to the benefit of us, but also to the benefit of all the leagues, teams and subject matters. We are obviously a key, No. 1 priority supplier for our home team and home channels, but we are focused on finding the best platform for the project, and a significant amount of our content is for third parties.

How has it been seeing the Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery merger dominate the news cycle as of late?

A mentor told me that your success is directly attributed to how comfortable you can be in times of total discomfort. So, if you follow our company’s growth, you know that I’ve had a few years to really work on those skills and I feel really appreciative of what I have, who I get to work with, what I get to work on … and yet I think it’s fair to say we are ready for more headlines on the work and less on the rest. I wish the merger wasn’t the natural first conversation, but we certainly understand.

Lastly, what’s next on the horizon?

I think we have a force mentality. We have to operate as if we are going to be a standalone. It doesn’t mean we can’t dream, it doesn’t mean we can’t make plans. But we here at Paramount Sports Entertainment are just primarily focused on building our business plan as we want, as we were. We will always be offering scripted film, scripted television series and a slew of docs and formats. We are really seeing a lot of growth in the live event business … we actively partner with the Skydance Games and Paramount Games groups.

I can see moving to three or four significant events next year, so we like that as a growth engine. We see the interactive business picking up. We see opportunities with CBS Sports and CBS Digital to be coming together around how we can layer in more on the fantasy embedding side. We see a lot of upside, merger discussion aside. Obviously, if the merger were to happen, there’s just more turf, more opportunity, more of an international presence. These are all great for storytelling.

EXCLUSIVE: Hyde Park International has picked up foreign sales rights to Jaco Bouwer’s sci-fi thriller Orion starring Andrew McCarthy, Debby Ryan and Drew Van Acker.

Orion is set for a nationwide U.S. release through Blue Harbor this fall.

In the pic, McCarthy plays, Jim, a NASA interrogator Jim (McCarthy) who is pitted against amnesiac astronaut Apollo (Van Acker) whose recent space mission has ended catastrophically. But not everything is as it first seems in the highly-charged battle of wits that ensues as Jim attempts to reconstruct Apollo’s fractured memories of the mission, in order to determine what — or who — slaughtered the crew before their craft crash-landed back on Earth.

Orion is produced by Sunil Perkash (Enchanted, Salt), Drew Van Acker (Last Survivors), Elle Army, and Scott Army. The screenplay is by Anne Vithayathil.

Orion arrives on the international sales market after premieres at such genre festivals as FilmQuest where it won awards for Best Actor (Van Acker) and Best Visual Effects and the Trieste Science+Fiction Festival.

Bouwer’s debut feature Gaia premiered at SXSW 2021, and won the ZEISS Cinematography Award.

Hyde Park International’s Carl Clifton commented “Orion is an excellent new entry into the canon of great first-contact sci-fi movies. It’s smart, twisty and totally compelling.”

The producers commented “On behalf of the entire Orion team, we are thrilled Hyde Park responded so enthusiastically to Orion and could not be more excited for audiences all over the world to discover Jaco Bouwer’s vision and world-building along with terrific performances from Andrew, Debby and Drew.”

McCarthy’s credits includes such 1980 classics, Pretty in Pink, St. Elmo’s Fire, and Weekend At Bernie’s. He recently directed and produced the hit Hulu feature documentary Brats in which he interviews the famed Brat Pack which included the likes of Demi Moore and Rob Lowe. He will next be seen in season 3 of Netflix hit series Wednesday.

Van Acker previously starred alongside Alicia Silverstone and Stephen Moyer in the independent crime thriller Last Survivors and he also starred opposite Addison Timlin and James D’Arcy in the Lionsgate-futuristic sci-fi thriller Life Like. On TV he is widely recognized for his prominent roles in Pretty Little Liars and DC’s Titans.

Ryan will next be seen opposite Zac Afron in A24 thriller Famous. Recent credits include the Sundance titles Shortcomings and Horse Girl, as well as Jeff Baena’s Spin Me Roundand The Sun Never Sets, which premiered at this year’s SXSW and will be released by IFC Films, and. On the small screen, she stars in Disney series Jessie and the Netflix original series Insatiable.

The ensemble also includes acclaimed singer-songwriter Karin Ann (The Tattooist of Auschwitz) and Natalia Lesz (Krime Story). Karin Ann’s 2024 debut album Through the Telescope drew widespread critical praise, and she recently released the single “i was never yours,” co-written with Harrison Whitford, Chelsea Balan, and Suki Waterhouse — the first of several new releases this year. Karin Ann also wrote and recorded four original songs for Orion’s soundtrack.

Let’s face it: We are not OK.

Horror movies have a beautiful — and beautifully nasty — way of reflecting our anxiety back at us. That’s how you know they’re working. Horror filmmakers aren’t just trying to reach the audience, they’re trying to scare the audience. So it’s in everyone’s best interest, artistically and financially, to keep track of what’s keeping everybody up at night.

There was an illuminating and lucrative wave of ultraviolent, ultra-cynical horror films in the 2000s (“Saw,” “Hostel”), a response to the vulnerability Americans felt after 9/11, and our culture’s violent, ugly response to suddenly feeling vulnerable. The found footage genre (“Paranormal Activity,” “Unfriended”), besides being inexpensive, finally boomed when a whole generation started carrying cameras around in their pockets and living online in videos which will, one day, be the only evidence we existed at all.

Alexander Ullom’s beguiling directorial debut “It Ends” is a vital entry in the latest horror zeitgeist, which tunes into a younger generations’ sense of futility. What, after all, is the point of living if our futures came pre-ruined, and are unresponsive to our desires and actions? We seem to have fallen through the cracks of the world, a la “Backrooms,” lost and forgotten. Bodily autonomy can be ripped away at any moment by mediocre, sexist men wielding too much power — politics by way of “Obsession’s” One Wish Willow — who view other people as property to be hoarded and maintained.

If we have no power to change our lives, to protect ourselves, or build a better future, what are we supposed to do? Just keep going like nothing’s wrong? “It Ends” finds a simple, miserable metaphor to having nothing to live for but still being expected to live. Four friends drive down a road chosen for them by a supposedly trustworthy GPS system — a tidy example of our malaise about the corporate takeover of every aspect of existence, even our sense of direction — and they just keep driving. The road never ends, there’s nowhere to turn, and if they stop long enough to try to solve their problems they’re swarmed by desperate, violent strangers begging to be saved.

After all, our heroes may not have hope but at least they have a car. In this economy we should be so lucky. But the car never runs out of gas and its passengers have been robbed of their basic human desires. They no longer need to eat or sleep. Their sex drives have vanished. They can try to amuse themselves along the way, to fill their days with routine and art and the occasional primal scream. But when all that fails to distract them, there is only a long, monotonous road ahead.

It reflects back how our own roads turn up as soon as we wonder if we should settle down, as though a future of pointless tedium is all that lies ahead and we may as well get used to the idea now.

At least, that’s one theory. James (Phinehas Yoon) becomes obsessed with solving the puzzle in “It Ends,” searching for patterns, for meaning, for loopholes, driving himself mad with the idea that anything means anything and there’s some way to emerge from his journey victorious. Tyler (Mitchell Cole), a stalwart veteran who broke up with his girlfriend just because she wanted to take him to a pumpkin patch, isn’t built for extended human interaction. Day (Akira Jackson) recently tried to end her own life and Fisher (Noah Toth) is prone to panic attacks. How will these sensitive souls handle a perpetual, heartless grind?

“It Ends” is terrifying. It’s not brutal. There’s a good chance these kids are dead already so threatening their mortality doesn’t mean much. Like Gooseworx’s heartbreaking “The Amazing Digital Circus,” Alexander Ullom’s film accepts the possibility that our lives cannot be changed, so what matters is either how we live them or why we decide to give up. Either way we are the company we keep. The road leads to nowhere but we’re all along for the ride.

“It Ends” makes us wonder whether living is worth the trouble and if giving up has its merits. God damn, that’s disturbing. Ullom may be equating “giving up” with self-harm but that’s only one interpretation. People abandon hope in all kinds of ways. We turn our backs on our dreams. We settle for circumstances which could be worse because trying to improve them is exhausting. In “It Ends” — a title which could be a promise or an omen — extracting yourself from a pointless existence is the same as accepting it.

Watching Alexander Ullom’s “It Ends” is to watch a generation wander a world where they affect nothing, live in constant fear or denial, and — in one way or another — come to terms with their plight. It’s profoundly troubling and all the more powerful for its simplicity. It’s not just something to do while we keep on going and going and going, until for one reason or another we stop. It asks big questions, the questions that are worth pondering. What is the meaning of it all? Or is the wondering the point all along? And if so, is wondering worth the bother?