Back in January, the headhunting firm Spencer Stuart approached Justin Connolly, Disney’s affable president of platform distribution, with a job that seemed right up his alley. Google was looking to hire a vice president for YouTube—someone who would oversee all media and sports content acquisition and relationships. Connolly, who spent more than 20 years hammering out platform deals at ESPN, would have a bigger seat at a bigger table, “cultivating direct relationships with other global media companies” and “working directly with sports leagues and conferences to license rights to build YouTube’s profile in the sports space,” per a legal filing. There was, of course, one problem. Five months earlier, Connolly had signed a contract that would keep him at Disney until March 2027 at the earliest.