Since joining ESPN in 1990, Derek Mobley has risen to be one of the top Directors in sports television, including a 5-time Sports Emmy Awards winner and 40-time nominee. During his rise, he has played a key role in ESPN’s production of marquee properties, specifically, college football, Grand Slam tennis and college basketball, directing thousands of events for ESPN and ABC.

In totality, over the course of Mobley’s 33-year ESPN career, he has run productions on 15 properties for ESPN, working with all the leading commentating teams for each. A signature moment for his career was directing the 2006 Rose Bowl Game between USC and Texas which holds the record for the highest rated college football game in the history of the sport.

In advance of the 2023-24 NFL season, Mobley assumed the role of Director of Monday Night Football. In his role, Mobley directs MNF each week, one of ESPN’s NFL Doubleheader Saturday Week 18 games, and ESPN’s Super Wild Card and Divisional Round playoff game. He works alongside Producer, Steve Ackels, the duo’s first season teaming up together in an NFL production truck and Joe Buck, Troy Aikman and Lisa Salters, who are in their second season together as a trio. With the 2023-24 NFL season being Buck and Aikman’s record-setting 22nd season together, Mobley will play a part in the duo’s achievement as the NFL’s longest-standing broadcast booth partners.

In his new role, Mobley will continue working on college basketball – an ESPN property that he has been involved with for over two decades – directing regular season games and the SEC Men’s College Basketball Tournament.

Throughout his impressive career at ESPN, Mobley has directed 15 College Football National Championships, 15 Rose Bowl Games and, as director of ABC’s Saturday Night Football package, the majority of ESPN’s marquee regular-season college football games since the network assumed the rights to the package in 2006. Mobley most recently worked with ESPN’s lead college football booth of Chris Fowler and Kirk Herbstreit. Prior to that, he worked with Brent Musburger and Herbstreit and Keith Jackson and Dan Fouts.

Beyond college football and basketball, his resume is vast, highlighted by 20 Wimbledon Championships, 15 US Open Championships, 10 Scripps National Spelling Bees, 18 seasons of MLB on ESPN. Other properties and events on Mobley’s resume include multiple Super Bowls, Olympics, NHL, X Games, Little League World Series, College World Series, Great Outdoor Games, Americas Cup, boxing and most recently, the 2023 Masters Par 3 Contest and the PGA Championship. 

Mobley initially got his start at ESPN as a college student; assisting ESPN whenever the network was on campus for an Indiana University sporting event. He graduated from IU in 1991 with a degree in telecommunications.