SPONSORSHIP & PROMOTION
Major League Baseball and Barbasol announced a new multi-faceted sponsorship agreement that extends across ballparks, media and retail. Through this new partnership, beginning with the 2018 season, Barbasol will highlight its product launches with integrated branding across Baseball’s broadcast and digital platforms such as MLB Network and MLB.com, in addition to selling products featuring MLB branding at retail locations across the U.S.
Reebok announced a partnership with actress Gal Gadot. Reebok will team with the actress to inspire women and future generations to become the best version of themselves; physically, mentally and socially. Gadot joins Reebok’s growing coalition of trailblazing women – including Ariana Grande, Gigi Hadid, Victoria Beckham and more – as part of the brand’s bolstered commitment to empowering women worldwide.
Topps announced a new program, the Topps Living Set. The Living Set will feature three new cards every week that can only be purchased on Topps.com. The cards aren’t tied to any specific season or era. Inspiration for the program came from 1953 Topps Baseball, which included hand-painted artwork. As part of the Living Set program, Topps will issue one card of each player unless that player changes teams. Three new players will be offered every week and will only be available for just one week.
Snickers joined State Farm Insurance and Old Spice in sponsoring the Rocket League as it heads toward its fifth season.
DIGITAL AND STREAMING
NASCAR announced today it will live-stream one in-car camera on Twitter for 15 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series races during the second half of the 2018 racing season, including all 10 NASCAR Playoffs races. Beginning with five regular season races this summer, the experience will once again provide fans a unique look from inside the race car with a live camera stream that can be accessed via NASCAR’s official Twitter handle, @NASCAR. Fans can watch full broadcasts of these regular season and NASCAR Playoffs races on NBC or NBCSN, NBCSports.com and the NBC Sports app.
The 21st ESPN Men’s Tournament Challenge collected 17.3 million completed brackets, the second-most ever behind only last year’s explosion of 18.8 million, which surpassed the previous mark set in 2016 by nearly 6 million. At the peak period of entries shortly before the start of the first game Thursday, fans registered 33,472 brackets per minute. Also, ESPN set new all-time records for fan sign-ups and completed brackets on a tip-off Thursday. On Wednesday, ESPN set a new all-time record for completed Tournament Challenge brackets in a single day with more than 5 million. At the end of ESPN’s Tournament Challenge Marathon on Tuesday, ESPN had collected more than 8.2 million brackets, as well as two of the top six sign-up days in the 21-year history of the game.
As we near MLB Opening Day, the impact of Latino players who are active in social continues to grow, especially among the younger emerging stars. Who are the biggest and most impactful? Social monitoring leader opendorse analyzed historic Twitter data from the past year to find the five Latino MLB players with the most significant follower growth on the platform. Two Dodgers, Kenley Jansen (@kenleyjansen74) and Enrique “KiKe” Hernandez (@kikehndez) are near the top of the list, with the Yankees’ Gary Sanchez (@ElGarySanchez) and Astros’ Carlos Correa (@TeamCJCorrea) making a huge impact. The Indians’ Jose Ramirez (@MrLapara) rounds out the top five of budding Latino stars using social to grow awareness as well.
ESPORTS
Super Evil Megacorp, the maker of the world’s number one international mobile esport Vainglory, announced a new partnership with Alisports, the sports branch of Alibaba Group and the host of the World Electronic Sports Games (WESG). Vainglory will be expanding its esports ecosystem by becoming part of the WESG 2018 lineup and will be the first mobile only esport integrated with the tournament structure for 2018.
Tribeca Games will present three headline events at the 17th Tribeca Film Festival, presented by AT&T, on April 27-28 in New York City. Celebrating the artistic and technical achievements in video game today, the program includes a special gameplay session of the eagerly anticipated Shadow of the Tomb Raider followed by dialogue with the game’s creative team, an in-depth look at the latest God of War for Playstation4 with Creative Director, Cory Barlog, and a first-of-its-kind all-city League of Legends amateur esports tournament in conjunction with Super League Gaming. Additionally, the Festival will reveal three new games created by NYC-area developers participating in the IBM “Acceleration” Game Jam.
EA Sports announced that UFC President Dana White will be a “free downloadable fighter” in the “UFC 3” video game. “UFC 2” featured Mike Tyson, Bruce Lee and color commentator Joe Rogan as playable characters
ROSTER MOVES
Activision Blizzard added NBA Senior VP/Team Marketing & Business Operations Brandon Snow as CRO; Devils, Prudential Center Chief Marketing & Innovation Officer Daniel Cherry as CMO; and NBCU VP/Revenue Analytics & Strategy Marc Kolin will become VP/Finance & Strategy.
Shawn Blakeman (Western Region), Gary Buete (Southern Region), Jason Dewhurst (Eastern Region) and Tim Lesiak (Midwest Region) have all been re-elected to the US Club Soccer Board of Directors. The four Regional Board Directors will continue their service on the board with new three-year terms, which officially began March 1. In addition, Hue Menzies, of Florida Kraze Krush and the Jamaican WNT, has been appointed to the Board as an At-Large Director, which carries a one-year term through February 28, 2019. John Rennie, the former Duke University men’s coach and long-time US Club Soccer Board of Directors member, has been re-appointed as an At-Large Director carrying the same term as Menzies.
THE MAIN EVENT
March Madness continues across the networks of Turner and CBS beginning at noon.
