John Textor

Mr. Textor is the majority owner and Chairman of Eagle Football Holdings Ltd. , the leading shareholder of Olympique Lyonnais (Lyon, France), Botafogo Futebol (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil), Racing White Daring Molenbeek FC (Brussels, Belgium) and Crystal Palace Football Club (London, UK). In addition to professional football club ownership, Mr. Textor is a globally recognized, pioneer and developer of disruptive technologies, creative content, and digital distribution business models for media, entertainment and the internet. Mr. Textor is the retired Executive Chairman (and formerly the largest shareholder) of fuboTV, Inc. (NYSE:”FUBO”), an American streaming television service that focuses primarily on channels that distribute live sports, including NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL, MLS and international soccer, plus news, network television series and movies. Mr. Textor previously served as Executive Chairman, CEO and Head of Studio of Facebank Group, Inc., a developer of digital human likeness for celebrities and consumers, which acquired fuboTV, Inc. in April 2020. Facebank Group, Inc. formally changed its name to fuboTV, Inc. in August 2020. In October 2020, fuboTV listed on the New York Stock Exchange, ultimately reaching a peak market valuation of more than $8 billion, becoming one of the most successful IPOs of 2020. Featured as “Hollywood’s Virtual Reality Guru”, by Forbes in 2016, Mr. Textor stands among the earliest advocates of the convergence of entertainment media and technology. Once a programmer-turned-venture capitalist, Mr. Textor presided over great successes and great failures in the startup, turnaround, acquisition and growth of more than a dozen pure technology ventures, a number of which achieved global notoriety, unicorn valuations and successful exits. Known for his leadership of the legendary visual effects company, Digital Domain , Mr. Textor’s once diverse film and technology career has become focused on a singular mission of far reaching importance, the development of hyper-realistic, artificially intelligent, computer generated humans…digital humans that assist, that entertain, that educate…digital humans that represent us…digital humans that think. In our accelerating evolution from organic to digital, where AI is so often introduced to replace human contribution, Mr. Textor is devoted to the creation of thinking digital humans that help to improve mankind. The ‘rise of the machines’, once just a fantasy feature film, is now upon us…and the choices we make during the next decade of digital human development and AI-intent will be as critical to the future of mankind as any decisions made in technology. In 1999, at a time when major record labels and film studios were rejecting all forms of digital distribution, and Napster was treated as a ‘defendant’ more than a pioneer, Textor’s startup, Jester Digital Corporation, created an internet-based 3-D multi-user virtual world for music, film and social networking, becoming the first digital distribution platform to be endorsed by Metallica , one of the most outspoken opponents of Napster and online content sharing. With the support of landmark joint ventures with IBM and Metallica, and break-through online environments for feature films such as Disney’s Pearl Harbor, Textor’s virtual 3-D worlds were among the very first internet-based multi-user virtual reality and game environments in the entertainment industry, collectively paving the way for hundreds of massive multi-player games and downloadable music applications to follow. In 2013, with a strong core of his Digital Domain human character team, he founded Pulse Evolution Corporation (PLFX), an innovator and leading developer of hyper-realistic digital humans for holographic live performances, virtual reality, augmented reality and artificial intelligence. Mr. Textor became widely credited as the pioneer of the new Holographic Entertainment industry, responsible for the 2012 appearance of Virtual Tupac Shakur at