NEW YORK -- Jim Kathman has been named Global Director of AP Sports Products, a new position for The Associated Press. Tom Brettingen, Senior Vice President of Global Newspaper Markets, said Kathman will be the business owner for AP Sports with responsibility for driving the strategic and financial growth of this key vertical segment for AP.

"Jim will work to enhance our already-powerful AP sports brand," said Brettingen, to whom Kathman reports. "He'll lead the transformation of AP into the leading global, multimedia sports news agency."

Kathman, based in Washington, D.C., has been Director of Product Management for Global Broadcast and Director of Marketing and Strategy for AP Broadcast. Since joining AP in 2001, he has helped drive a number of strategic projects for AP Broadcast, including the partnership with Microsoft which created the Online Video Network. He previously held positions with Perot Systems and Dow Chemical. A graduate of Purdue University, he has joint master's degrees from the University of Maryland.

Earlier in January, the AP announced the appointment of Daniel Becker to the newly created post of director of entertainment content. He's overseeing AP's expanding entertainment coverage across video, photo, audio and text formats and helping develop new multimedia products. In tandem, the Becker and Kathman appointments reflect AP's strategic emphasis worldwide to expand its news coverage by taking primary roles in covering sports, entertainment and financial news across all platforms while raising the profile of the AP brand internationally with enhancements in newsgathering, technology and on the business side.

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