Harvey Schiller is a retired Air Force brigadier general, who later helped to transform sports media as president of Turner Sports and chairman and CEO of YankeeNets.
Schiller grew up in the Flatbush neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York, and then attended The Citadel in Charleston where he played football and graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in chemistry. He then served as a pilot in the U.S. Air Force, flying more than a thousand sorties in a C-123 Provider in South Vietnam and winning the Distinguished Flying Cross. He later earned Masters and Doctoral degrees in chemistry from the University of Michigan before becoming a professor and head of the chemistry department at the United States Air Force Academy. He reached the rank of brigadier general before retiring.
Schiller began a second career in sports in 1986 when he was named commissioner of the Southeastern Conference. Four years later he became executive director of the U.S. Olympic Commission before moving on to Turner Sports, where he served as president. He later became chairman and CEO of YankeeNets, the ownership group that then included the New York Yankees, New Jersey Nets, and New Jersey Devils. While at YankeeNets, he played a key role in creating the YES Network, one of the original and most successful regional sports cable networks.
In 2013, he was honored as one of the “Pioneers and Innovators in Sports Business” by the Sports Business Journal.
Schiller currently serves as chairman of Schiller Management Group, a global consulting and business solutions company, and as vice chairman of Diversified Search and CEO of Goal Acquisitions. He is also on the board of the National Baseball Hall of Fame.
He became chairman of the board of the National Medal of Honor Leadership and Education Center in August 2023.
