02/11/22: The Rock and Halle Berry will take center stage to help open the Super Bowl

Friday February 11, 2022

NBC Sports is leveraging star power for Super Gold Sunday, featuring Super Bowl LVI and the 2022 Winter Olympics this weekend, leveraging Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and Halle Berry for the festivities. Johnson will star in NBC Sports’ opening tease for “Super Gold Sunday,” narrating the open for the 5p hour of the Super Bowl LVI Pregame Show on NBC and Peacock, in addition to having a special role on Sunday, delivering an electrifying pre-kickoff speech from the field.

Berry, meanwhile, will headline NBC Sports’ Hollywood-themed Super Bowl LVI show open, kicking off the 6p hour n featuring the likes of Kevin Hart, Marcus Allen, Carrie Underwood and Peyton Manning in the feature. The piece was shot over two days at Universal Studios Hollywood, with additional scenes in Nashville and Denver. The production team then created a football movie montage for the ages, with digital extensions giving the piece a fluid combination of live action, computer graphic builds, 3D matte-painting, and filmic visual effects.

PROGRAMMING

NFL Network, meanwhile, pays tribute to the Super Bowl host city of LA with the open to the Super Bowl LVI edition of NFL GameDay Morning titled “This is LA.” For the open, a 1500 Sound Academy student a rendition of “California Love” with featured names that include: Snoop Dogg, Ice Cube, Drew Barrymore, Jay Leno, Black Eyed Peas, Danny Trejo, Vanessa Bryant, George Lopez and more. The 8.5-hour Super Bowl edition of NFL GameDay Morning airs Sunday at 9a.

Nickelodeon is prepping the Nickelodeon Slime Cup, an hour-long special that will feature a “Nick-ified” golf course with “one-of-a-kind tee boxes, far-out fairways and greens, physical challenges, and lots of slime, culminating with an exciting final hole” taking place inside Rose Bowl stadium. Production will begin this February at a Los Angeles-area golf course, with a premiere slated for this summer on Nickelodeon. Confirmed participants include: top-ranked professional golfers Collin Morikawa, Justin Thomas, Lexi Thompson and Jon Rahm; NFL stars Saquon Barkley and Justin Herbert; actor, host and author Terry Crews; and Nick stars Isaiah Crews, Kate Godfrey, Jaidyn Triplett and Tyler Wladis.

ESPN and The Walt Disney Company are expanding the agreement with Peyton Manning and his Omaha Productions company, adding a fourth year (through 2024 season) for Monday Night Football with Peyton and Eli. Additionally, the agreement calls for alternative presentations (with other hosts) for UFC, college football and golf to be produced by Omaha Productions in collaboration with ESPN.

Canada’s CBC/Radio-Canada saw the Olympic Winter Games Beijing 2022 deliver more than half of all Canadians (56%) who have watched television coverage on its platforms, with 21 million viewers tuning in on either an English or French TV network to date, and

We are looking for Sports Media Industry experts to be on our exclusive judging panel for this year’s Cynopsis Sports Media Awards. You will be a part of choosing the winners in multiple exciting categories. Then, on April 19, join the finalists and winners as they are recognized across production, marketing, and technology teams, and saluted for their hard work and innovation from one of sports media’s most challenging years to date. Please fill out this entry form to be considered as a judge: https://form.jotform.com/220396817825161. (Oh, and get your entries in now by clicking here!)

The American Cornhole League announced the return of “SuperHole,” a multi-event cornhole series that will consist of 6 different prelims. The series will culminate with the SuperHole III Championship that will be hosted alongside the ACL World Championships this August. The first prelim of 2022 will be held live from Las Vegas at the Mandalay Bay on ESPN tonight at 9:30p.

Next Wednesday will see SiriusXM host Chris “Mad Dog” Russo join Stephen A. Smith and host Molly Qerim on ESPN’s morning debate show, First Take for the full two hours. Russo will then return for weekly engagments every Wednesday beginning March 2. “In January, First Take aired its most-watched episode ever and fans are continuing to turn to the show for can’t-miss reactions to big time moments and breaking news,” said Norby Williamson, ESPN executive vice president & executive editor, production. “We couldn’t be more excited to add another marquee name in Chris “Mad Dog” Russo to our weekly rotating lineup and further build this momentum going forward, providing viewers with the best possible debates, topics and content.”

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SPONSORSHIP & PROMOTION

Catching up on the Super Bowl activation cornucopia…
· Verizon returns to the Super Bowl for the fifth consecutive year with an in-game spot that features Jim Carrey reprising his role as “The Cable Guy.” In addition, the Pepsi Super Bowl LVI Halftime Show will be streamed in real-time by the Verizon 5G Ultra Wideband network. With the addition of strategically placed 360-degree cameras streaming in 4K throughout the stadium, field, and stage, fans will be able to curate their own second screen experience with access to exclusive vantage points not accessible on television.
· Speaking of big returns, Dr. Evil is back for General Motors’ Super Bowl LVI spot and Mike Myers rebrands the character as Dr. EV-il and takes over GM to fight climate change so he can be the one to destroy the world. With the help of his sidekicks Number Two (Rob Lowe), Scott Evil (Seth Green), and Frau Farbissina (Mindy Sterling).
· Sunday sees Prime Video unveil the next chapter of its Thursday Night Football brand campaign with a :30 second spot. The ad was created in partnership with Wieden + Kennedy, and highlights the “unique community aspect of football that brings us all together, and it represents superfans, iconic franchises, old fans, and young fans.”
· Quaker’s spot invites fans to “crack open a hot one and “pregrain” with a bowl of Quaker Oats,” serving up a beer-like experience for the staple brand.

Sporting Kansas City and Compass Minerals expanded the First Team partnership which saw Compass Minerals become the official jersey partner of Sporting Kansas City. The company’s logo will now be prominently displayed on the front of all Sporting Kansas City jerseys from the start of the 2022 Major League Soccer season until the end of 2028. Compass Minerals unveiled a new company logo in concert with the jersey sponsorship.

UFC announced an expansion of its partnership with Stake.com. The company will continue as UFC’s Official Betting Partner in Asia and Latin American and now the partnership will be expanded to include Brazil, the first time UFC has had a betting partner in the country.

DIGITAL, DATA & TECH

The American Gaming Association projects that Super Bowl LVI will be the most heavily bet-on game ever, with an estimated $7.61 billion expected to be bet on Sunday. That marks a gain of 78% over last year with 31.4 million Americans planning to bet on the game.

Fubo Gaming secured market access agreements for Fubo Sportsbook in Mississippi, Louisiana and Missouri through Caesars Entertainment, Inc., bringing the company’s total to 10 states. The agreements provide statewide mobile access for sports betting, with the launch of Fubo Sportsbook subject to obtaining requisite regulatory approvals and, in certain jurisdictions, enactment of legislation.

The Washington Nationals announced a partnership with the Terra community, marking the first-ever partnership between a sports organization and a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO). The deal establishes a foundation for cryptocurrency to be accepted as a payment method at Nationals Park as early as the 2023 season and includes title sponsorship of the premier club space behind home plate at Nationals Park, additional in-stadium signage and a five-part video series on Nationals social platforms.

RealResponse, the feedback, monitoring and anonymous reporting platform, announced that Kansas Athletics became the latest to join its platform. The Jayhawks have begun implementing the program in an effort to provide additional benefits for student-athlete communications.

Buffalo Wild Wings will be selling three non-fungible tokens, “NF-OTs”, celebrating the fifth anniversary of the only Super Bowl to go into overtime and featuring original overtime-inspired artwork, by New York City street artist JordanNYC starting on game day. The “NF-OTs”, will be available for auction for 24 hours on Rarible.com and the first owners of each of the three “NF-OTs” will also receive free wings from Buffalo Wild Wings for a year.

ESPORTS

Misfits Gaming Group named global sports marketing agency SPORTFIVE as its exclusive global commercial sales agency, where the company will work across Misfits’ esports and gaming portfolio across the US and Europe, focusing on revenue generation, business development, sponsorship integration, and partnership development. Additionally, SPORTFIVE will be tasked with finding brand partners for Misfits recently announced Minecraft initiatives featuring two massive Minecraft creators Ranboo and Tubbo, who boast over 35 million total followers on social media.

Envy rebranded its VALORANT team under the OpTic Gaming banner. The two orgs merged in November. The VALORANT Champions Tour Stage One Challengers event in North America opens today.

Esports tournament organizer BLAST Premier and online bookmaker Betway announced a two-year extension of their partnership – taking the deal up until the end of the 2023 season. Both brands will continue to create playable custom maps and Betway branding will be shown across all seven of BLAST Premier’s events in 2022, including broadcast content integration, social giveaways and fan-led activations. The online bookmaker will also own the ‘Power Picks Prediction’ segment.

Torrent completed the signing of a competitive Halo roster, marking the organization’s first foray into the Halo esports scene. “As a legacy franchise, Halo has played an instrumental role in shaping the development of esports in North America,” said Wade Penfold, VP of Esports, Wisdom Gaming. “With Halo Infinite, we are entering a new era for Halo esports and Torrent as an organization. We’re excited to welcome HotShotGhost, Abature, Huss, and FilthyG and we look forward to the new content provided to the community and organizations.”

For the fourth year in a row, Super League Arena is bringing back their all-woman, female-identifying, and non-binary Galentines Games Valorant tournament. The tournament is designed to inspire a positive and constructive outlook for the future- all while some of the best of the best players compete in thrilling gameplay and feature competitors from Shopify Rebellion, Complexity, Dignitas, Polaris, Moon Raccoons, Man I Love Fwogs, Aim Punch and Team Serenity Purple. The finals will be broadcast at 3p on Valentine’s Day on Super League’s Twitch channel.

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ON THIS DAY in
1957: The NHL Player Association is formed.

IN THE KNOW
Which team lays claim to scoring the most points in a single game in a Super Bowl, clocking in with 55? (Email [email protected] with your answer and be sure to include your name, company and city).

Answer to Our Last Sports Trivia Question
Which TV show saw its characters mistakenly celebrate The Superb Owl instead of the Super Bowl? Answer: What We Do in the Shadows. Kudos: Allison Weiner-MMSI/Warwick; John Hayden-Happening Out Television/Fort Lauderdale; Synda Kollman-Charter Marketing Group/Boca Raton; Joe Lyons-ESPN Remote Operations/Dallas; Brienne Chance-Gannett/Phoenix; Brian Robin-South Coast Repertory/Costa Mesa; Tom Moore-Kalt Productions/LA; Shannon Latta-Pluto TV/Seattle

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