03/23/18: The Players’ Tribune goes global

Good morning. It’s Friday March 23, 2018 and this is your first early morning Sports briefing.

The Players’ Tribune is going global, announcing “the first step” in the global expansion of its digital platform with a debut in Europe, the Middle East and Africa that will offer stories that have both global reach and local sensibility. With offices in London and Barcelona, that company is entering a new venture in partnership with Gerard Pique and his investment group, Kosmos. Alongside Pique, athlete launch partners include Dani Alves, Ronaldinho, Carmen Jorda, Thibaut Courtois, David Villa, Pau and Marc Gasol, Ivan Rakitic, Tomas Berdych,Stipe Miocic, Thiago Alcantara, among others. TPT will officially launch in EMEA in spring 2018 with content leading up to the 2018 World Cup.

“While The Players’ Tribune has already become a trusted destination for many athletes, it’s clear that there is a real opportunity to double down on our traction on a global scale,” said Derek Jeter, cofounder of TPT. “Our athlete community is extremely important and has been the driving force behind everything we do, so I’m excited to welcome Gerard to the team and look forward to working with him on building an even larger community as part of the next evolution of TPT.”

ON THE AIR

ESPN saw its coverage of the NCAA Wrestling Championships reach nearly eight million fans over the three day span (March 15-17). The network averaged 308,000 viewers for the second round on March 15, marking the network’s best viewership for the second round ever, while the semi-finals the next day pulled 451,000 viewers and the finals averaged 628,000 viewers on ESPN2.

In other ratings news, Golf Channel reports that its Day 1 coverage of the World Golf Championships-Dell Match Play drew a 33% uptick year over year, hitting a .36 in Nielsen overnight numbers, the highest Day 1 score for the event in ’12. Coverage also saw 1.96 million minutes streamed, up 84%.

Turner Sports and CBS Sports added Wichita State Head Coach Gregg Marshall as a guest studio analyst for Sweet Sixteen coverage the 2018 NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Tournament. Marshall return to join the Atlanta studio team tonight.

Major League Soccer found its Goliath for the 2018 MLS All-Star Game, announced that Italian squad Juventus will be thus year’s opponent. The match will take place in Atlanta’s Mercedes-Benz Stadium on Aug. 1 with ESPN and UniMas carrying the game. “We welcome Juventus – one of the world’s iconic clubs – as our opponent for the 2018 MLS All-Star Game presented by Target,” said MLS Commissioner Don Garber in a press release. “Our midseason showcase annually attracts the most prominent clubs in global soccer, and this year our All-Stars will face one of the sport’s most historically successful teams. And we can’t think of a better city to host the game than in Atlanta, which due to the incredible success and popularity of Atlanta United, has rapidly captured the attention of the entire soccer world.”

The BIG EAST Conference released its slate recommendations aimed at reforming the recruiting process in men’s college basketball and restructuring the pathway for elite men’s basketball players. Recommendations were developed under the leadership of an internal working group made up of Conference athletics directors, men’s basketball coaches and Conference Office staff and includes: a “none or two” draft eligibility rule by the NBA instead of a “one and done”; a new summer recruiting model; modified apparel company relationships with universities; and a regulated role for advisors and agents, among other action items.

BBC America reports that Premier League Darts is reaching more than 1.3 million viewers a week on the linear network and online, averaging around 100,000 viewers. BBCA’s first tournament, World Darts Championship, was the highest-rated darts tournament on US TV in three years.

Olympic gold medalist Monique Lamoureux-Morando makes her debut as NHL Network’s newest studio analyst today, where she will join Kevin Weekes and Tony Luftman on “NHL Tonight.” The three-time Olympian scored the tying goal against Canada to help the U.S. team capture the gold medal last month in South Korea.

MLB Network is diving deep for Opening Day on March 29, which will mark the first time since 1968 that every team across Major League Baseball begins their season on the same date. The channel lined up 17 hours of coverage starting at 9a. Regular season programming will then return on Friday, March 30, including MLB Central, High Heat with Christopher Russo, The Rundown, MLB Now and more. Leading up to Opening Day, MLB Tonight will air a predictions special on March 28 at 7p, hosted by Matt Vasgersian.

Telemundo Deportes offers the second episode of its first-ever, original documentary sports production “Que Momento” on Saturday at 7p on Telemundo. The second installment focuses on the final 60 seconds of three CONCACAF World Cup qualifiers for Russia 2018 that were played on October 10, 2017. The three historic games took place at the same time in three different countries, reshaping this soccer region.

Formula One locked in a deal with China’s CCTV to showcase around 100 hours of live coverage of the new F1 season. “We are very happy to bring back Formula One on CCTV,” said Ian Holmes, Formula One’s director of media rights. “CCTV is the dominant broadcaster in China, with more than 1.1 billion people watching its channels each year, offering our sport an extraordinary opportunity for Formula One to engage with mass audiences.

A CYNOPSIS MESSAGE

Announcing Finalists & Event Details
The Cynopsis Social Good Awards

Tuesday, May 22^nd | 8:30am – 10:30am | NYC

Given the remarkable initiatives and groundbreaking campaigns that we received for this year’s Cynopsis Social Good Awards, we’re thrilled to announce this year’s finalists whose efforts are bringing communities into a much brighter place for the new year.

VIEW FINALISTS EVENT INFO REGISTER

SPONSORSHIP & PROMOTION

NBCUniversal Telemundo Enterprises is launching “El Campeón en Ti” (The Champion Within You), a new company-wide campaign under its corporate social responsibility initiative, “El Poder En Ti” (The Power Within You). As the Spanish-language home of the World Cup, the initiative will focus its first efforts on soccer, investing more than a quarter of a million dollars and partnering with the U.S. Soccer Foundation, Alianza U Foundation and local community organizations to expand access to organized soccer for underserved Latino youth. “El Campeón en Ti” promotes the positive benefits of participating in sports and help to bridge gaps in education and health for the Hispanic community’s youth and feature a series of segments across network shows including “Un Nuevo Día,” “Suelta La Sopa” and “Noticias Telemundo,” among others.

DIGITAL & STREAMING

The USOC saw Team USA fans around the world pump social media numbers, with consumption on Team USA channels (those managed by the USOC) accounting for nearly 217 million impressions following more than 87 posts per day on average during the Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games. During the Olympic Winter Games, Team USA ranked No. 12 among the top-221 U.S. sports franchises for digital engagement, following NBC Olympics (No. 2), the Olympic Channel (No. 4), NBC Sports (No. 5) and the Olympics (No. 10). Additionally, Team USA ranked No. 18 among 316 global sports franchises and No. 47 among 891 major consumer brands. Across social and digital platforms during the Olympic Winter Games, Team USA accumulated 16.4 million video views.

Verizon Digital Media Services is being tapped by Tennis Channel to power the Tennis Channel app’s video delivery, offering live tennis matches and tennis-related VOD content to fans around the world. “As we grow Tennis Channel’s app, Verizon Digital Media Services lets us deliver the exceptional streaming experiences our users have come to expect,” said Adam Ware, senior vice president, head of digital and business development, Tennis Channel. “They’ve been flexible enough to integrate with our existing systems, with a 24-hour support team and Live Event Operations managed service that have helped us scale significantly.”

Young Hollywood unveiled short-form digital docu-series, “Rookie On The Rise,” featuring Utah Jazz Star Donovan Mitchell. The series will launch on April 3 and will include 15 original episodes, with three launching every Tuesday, showcasing behind-the-scenes moments with Mitchell following his rise.

Univision is taking up the talents of Howie Schwab for its podcast lineup. The series, The Schwabcas, features the former co-star of ESPN’s popular trivia show Stump the Schwab podcasting twice a week, with Friday’s episode set to include Fox Sports and Pac-12 Network analyst Steve Lavin. Previous guests have included Hall of Famer Dick Vitale, Fran Fraschilla and Iowa State coach Steve Prohm. In addition to offering his take on all sports, a trivia question and answer, interviews with stars from the sports world and statistical thoughts.

ESPORTS

Nintendo will be holding tournaments for Super Smash Bros for Switch and Splatoon 2 during E3 in LA this year. The Super Smash Bros Invitational will take place from June 11-12. The tournaments will feature players from around the world and be streamed on YouTube and Twitch. Qualifiers for Splatoon 2 launch on April 21, and additional information regarding E3 will be announced at a later date.

ROSTER MOVES

Adaptive Spirit, the single largest fundraiser supporting the Alpine, Nordic, Snowboard and Biathletes of Paralympic Team USA announced that NBC Sports’ Carolyn Manno will serve as emcee of the Annual Event’s Closing Gala. The annual event takes place in Vail starting April 5 with the Closing Gala on April 7.

THE MAIN EVENT

Sweet Sixteen continues tonight starting at 7p with Clemson/Kansas then Syracuse/Duke on CBS, followed by West Virginia/Villanova and Texas Tech/Purdue on TBS beginning at 7:30p.

A CYNOPSIS MESSAGE

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ON THIS DAY in 1994: Wayne Gretzky scored a record-breaking 802nd career NHL goal.

In the Know: The Phillies retired #20 in honor of which player? (Email [email protected] with your answer and be sure to include your name, company and city.)

Answer to Our Last Sports Trivia Question: Who is the all-time leading scorer for Major League Soccer? Answer: Landon Donovan. Kudos: Marissa Sunio-Columbia University/NY; Michael Ritz-BucStar Consulting/NY; Chris Schwartz-ISC/Charlotte; Rick Rosenfelt-New York Red Bulls/Harrison; John Langermann-WINK-TV/WXCW-TV/Fort Myers; Synda Kollman-Charter Marketing Group/Boca Raton; Tony Ferranti-MMSI/Warwick; Wayne “World B.” Otto-Pro-Am Sports/Boone; Andy Pittman-TAMU/College Station; Matthew Shapiro-AT&T SportsNet/Denver; Jack Simmons-US Army Reserve/LA; Tom Moore-Kalt Productions/LA; David Westberg-SAG-AFTRA Federal Credit Union/Burbank; John Baghdassarian-Olympusat/LA

Later – Chris

Chris Pursell @VegasandVine
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