TIFFANY M. CUNNINGHAM spent 16 years at The Walt Disney Company, where she served as Assistant General Counsel.
Over the course of her tenure, Tiffany led 16 legal professionals managing complex, high-impact global agreements for Disney’s vast content portfolio. She spearheaded high-value media-rights distribution deals with platforms like Amazon, Apple, Netflix, Google, and Microsoft and big-box retail giants like Walmart, Target, and Best Buy. These deals included movies, TV series, and sports content from beloved brands and franchises like Disney, ESPN, Marvel, Lucasfilm, Pixar, ABC, and FOX. Tiffany negotiated several industry-pioneering deals, including the inaugural license of Disney Watch apps, making ESPN, ABC, Disney Channel, and other Disney networks available for the first time on AppleTV; the first-of-its-kind global new media agreements, unifying Disney content licenses with top big tech platforms across territories; and multi-tiered “clearinghouse” agreements, centralizing major studios’ content libraries across big tech platforms. She was also instrumental in the launch of Disney’s premier direct-to-consumer (DTC) platform Disney+. Overall, Tiffany oversaw legal matters for business sectors generating ~$B annually, and individual deals up to half a billion dollars each. She considers it a privilege to have received first-class training alongside the best and brightest in entertainment and media.
Tiffany also spent time as a Principal Strategic Consultant to various sports enterprises including leagues, teams, athletes, marketing firms, and sports-centric tech start-ups, apps, and products. As a trusted advisor to founders, C-suite leadership, and institutional investors across sports, media, and technology, she developed expertise in emerging sports-tech ventures, innovating fan engagement through AI-driven insights and authenticated live-streaming apps.
In addition to working for the world’s most recognizable entertainment studio, Tiffany began her career in the sports broadcasting world at The Tennis Channel. She managed all in-house business and legal affairs matters during the network’s early growth stages, working on everything from programming acquisition to production and talent initiatives.
Today, a significant portion of Tiffany’s practice is devoted to the strategy, structuring, and implementation of media rights models for professional global sports organizations; strategic partnerships between media companies, sponsors, leagues, teams, and athletes; and the ancillary revenues streams—data and technology—future proofing the entire sports ecosystem. She is a published author, recently penning thought leadership on sports league distribution strategies and media rights deals in leading sports law journals. Tiffany is also an athlete in her own right, having studied Ballet, Jazz, and Hip-hop for decades; and later, as a competitive dancer in International Latin Ballroom (i.e., Samba, Jive, Paso Doble, Rumba, and Cha-Cha). The discipline, agility, and determination cultivated through her sport birthed a unique grit that she applies directly to her legal practice. For her, closing a complex deal is as much a creative endeavor as it is a substantive legal exercise. Tiffany’s passions for sports, the arts, and the law are perfectly married in her current practice, and she daily leverages her creative predisposition to advance clients’ business goals.
This broad set of experiences—working with both massive global studios and emerging sports networks; handling digital/linear/physical distribution and cutting-edge DTC product launches; managing legal compliance and commercial strategy; and competing as an athlete in the arts – enables Tiffany to tap into the creative, solutions-oriented thinking indispensable to industry evolution.
Outside of the office, Tiffany serves as a mentor for Women in Sports and Events—a women’s sports executive organization; committee member for the Sports Lawyers Association; and is a member of the Board of Directors for Just In Time–a non-profit organization that transitions foster youth aging out of the system into academic/career ambitions.
She is currently anchoring the West Coast expansion of Entertainment Law, LLC, as head of its Sports Media practice. Tiffany resides in Los Angeles, CA.