CYNOPSISSPORTS
03.27.17 Good morning. It’s Monday March 27, 2017 and this is your first early morning Sports briefing.
With the Final Four now locked in for Saturday beginning with South Carolina/Gonzaga at 6p., Turner Sports and CBS Sports have maintained their own hot streak heading into the weekend’s game. The companies are reporting that its coverage of the 2017 NCAA Tournament through Friday ranks as the most-watched since 1993, according to Nielsen, with an average of 9.8 million viewers and up 11% over 2016 numbers. Friday’s Sweet 16 games on CBS and TBS averaged 12 million viewers, ranking as the third most-watched Regional Semifinal Friday since 1993 and up 13% over year-ago numbers.
On the digital front, NCAA March Madness Live prepares for the final weekend with tournament numbers that have scored 5.9 million live video streams for Friday’s games, marking an all-time best and up 87% over last year, adding to a record 75 million live video streams through Thursday’s contests. Now the platform, managed by Turner Sports in partnership with CBS Sports and the NCAA, will offer enhanced VR coverage of the NCAA March Madness Live VR app with Intel True VR, and sponsored by Intel, to allow fans with a virtual courtside seat for the NCAA Final Four National Semifinals and National Championship from Phoenix. Cynopsis asked Hania Poole, VP/GM of NCAA Digital, Turner Sports about the trends and what we can expect with the VR experience.
Poole on trends: The biggest trend we’ve seen has been the overall growth across all platforms through the first week television, digital and social. With NCAA March Madness Live, we’ve continued to see heavy consumption over the first Thursday and Friday of the tournament with the at-work audience. We’ve also seen more engagement through connected devices, as well as our ancillary content. We’ve invested in these areas, providing broader content integration surrounding the live streaming experience, and it has further helped the time spent within our products.
On the biggest surprise: Across an overall media landscape in which desktop viewing has dropped, it has generated considerable growth across MML year over year, speaking to the must-see nature of this event.
On VR: We’re giving fans more options than ever before to select the VR experience that is best for them. We’ve introduced a new business model, creating virtual ticket options that provide a courtside vantage point and, for the first time, a fully produced VR experience for the NCAA Tournament. In addition to live streaming coverage of the National Semifinals and National Championship, along with the VR offering through the NCAA March Madness Live VR app, we’ve added a live commentary stream feature as a companion experience to our live video. It’s a running commentary with interesting nuggets and insights as fans watch live video content and we’ve received a lot of positive feedback.
On measuring success: The best measurement is the levels of engagement with the product and each of the various types of content we provide. We’ve built up the offerings surrounding our live streaming coverage, keeping fans immersed for longer periods of time across the board this year. Content is always paramount, as is building stable products that deliver a great experience for fans, and we feel this year’s offerings have delivered on both.
The NFL is preparing to lengthen halftime, expanding the break from 12 minutes to 13 minutes and 30 seconds. “Halftime currently is 12 minutes, but there is built-in delay time that involves teams getting to the locker room and the infrastructure of our stadiums and how they’re configured,” Competition Committee chairman Rich McKay said during a Thursday conference call. “So we’re going to eliminate all of those discretionary periods of time and just have a clock, 13 minutes and 30 seconds, and at the end of that period, the ball will be made ready for play for the second half kickoff.”
FOX Sports duo Pete Rose and Frank Thomas are officially on the roster for the company’s upcoming MLB coverage, reprising their roles as studio analysts during the regular season on FS1’s MLB Whiparound and FOX’s MLB Saturday pregame coverage as well as during the postseason on FOX and FS1. The pair will make their 2017 baseball season debut together tonight during MLB Season Preview 2017 at 10p on FS1.
The NHL cemented plans to send the Colorado Avalanche and Ottawa Senators to Stockholm, Sweden for a pair of regular season games as part of the 2017 SAP NHL Global Series. The teams will square off on Nov. 10 and 11. The 2017 SAP NHL Global Series will mark the sixth time the NHL has traveled to Europe to play regular-season games and the first such time since the 2011 Compuware NHL Premiere.
ESPN Deportes reports that its exclusive Spanish-language coverage of the 2017 World Baseball Classic pitting the US/Puerto Rico in the championship on Wednesday drew the channel’s largest audience for a baseball game on Spanish-language television, with viewing for the overall tournament on ESPN Deportes growing 67% over 2013. Wednesday’s final notched a record 364,000 viewers and a 1.6 Hispanic household rating whole the simulcast on ESPN2 added an additional 397,000 viewers.
Golf Channel detailed its production plans for live coverage of the 2017 Drive, Chip and Putt National Finals, which run April 2 at 8a ahead of The Masters. The challenge will feature 80 finalists with Golf Channel on deck to highlight the skills of all 80 finalists, across the eight respective age groups (Boys/Girls 7-9; 10-11; 12-13 and 14-15). Rich Lerner will handle play-by-play with Peter Jacobsen serving as lead analyst. Reporting from the Tournament Practice Area and alongside the 18th green will be Michael Breed, Paige Mackenzie and Charlie Rymer, and Steve Sands will conduct interviews.
Get you tickets here! Don’t miss out on the Cynopsis Sports Awards, our annual breakfast honoring the best media and marketing in sports, taking place on April 13 in NYC. Click here for tickets and a list of nominees and get ‘em before they sell out!
ITV Studios Entertainment Manchester is partnering with IMPACT Wrestling to bring WOS Wrestling back to ITV, with an initial commitment for a 10-part series. This initial commission is part of a comprehensive co-production agreement that will bring British stars to ITV while leveraging the roster and creative team of IMPACT Wrestling along with its expertise in live event production and international distribution.
Showtime announced that unbeaten WBC Super Welterweight World Champion Jermell Charlo will defend his world title top-rated challenger Charles Hatley on April 22 on the network. Televised coverage begins at 9p, and will be headlined by Andre Berto/Shawn Porter.
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.NASCAR named Aspen Dental as the Official Dentist of NASCAR courtesy of a new multi-year deal. The announcement coincides with the launch of Aspen Dental’s ‘Get Started’ awareness building health initiative with NASCAR and Stewart-Haas Racing driver Danica Patrick. “Aspen Dental’s level of dedication to drive awareness and educate fans about the importance of dental health, especially as it relates to quality of life for everyday Americans is inspiring and contagious,” said Chad Seigler, Vice President, Business Development, NASCAR. “We welcome Aspen Dental to our family of Official Partners and look forward to adding our voice to amplify the important message behind Aspen Dental’s Get Started initiative.”
Delta is getting in on the action as the Atlanta Braves prepare for their home opened on April 14 at the new SunTrust Park. To celebrate the inaugural season, Delta will unveil a variety of signage and branded elements within SunTrust Park, as well as a new fan engagement campaign title Braves First Class, featuring Dansby Swanson as its ambassador. In addition, the airline brand brought in a 25-foot tail from Delta Ship 624, a retired Boeing 757-200 aircraft, to just outside the main gates of SunTrust Park where it will be a prominent landing spot for fans to gather before and after a game.
The YES Network debuted a new 60-second spot during its Blue Jay/Yankees Spring Training game on Saturday. The spot comes as part of a multi-faceted campaign, marks a departure from previous YES on-air promotion efforts, as YES’ Yankees announcers participate in a yoga class in a move to showcase their various personalities. The yoga motif will maintain a presence on YES and will also live on YESNetwork.com and on the aforementioned YES social media platforms, along with a “mockumentary.”
In a bid to bring back Thursday Night Football, Twitter is reportedly competing with YouTube, Facebook and Amazon for the NFL’s digital package for the 2017 season, according to a Recode report. Twitter’s victory last season cost the company $10 million for the worldwide internet streaming rights to the package.
WWE Network unveiled its WrestleMania Week programming line-up with contest pushed out starting today and running though WestleMania on April 2. Highlights include the premiere of WWE 24: WrestleMania Monday; a special edition of WWETalking Smack; Kurt Angle: Oh, It’s True…It’s True!, and a new episode of Bring It To The Table. In addition, fans can also watch 205 Live, NXT, the WWE Hall of Fame 2017 Red Carpet and the WWE Hall of Fame 2017, NXT Takeover: Orlando, and the WrestleMania Kickoff show in addition to the annual card.
Super Evil Megacorp announced that its spring season championships for Vainglory will hit London at O2 for the title’s first unified championships, per VentureBeat. The event will span May 19-21 as the top six teams from North America and Europe square off.
Esports stalwart StarCraft is getting an overhaul as Blizzard unveiled StarCraft: Remastered, described as “a reverently crafted modernization of the original award-winning real-time strategy game.” The title received a full graphical overhaul of the original StarCraft and the StarCraft: Brood War expansion designed to bring a modern look and feel to the game with widescreen UHD support for up to 4K resolution. Other updates will include new illustrations to enhance storytelling in campaign missions; advanced matchmaking; full connectivity to Blizzard’s gaming network for social features and updates; cloud saving for campaign progress, custom maps, replays, and keybinds; support for eight new languages in addition to the original five; and more.
Boston Celtics Managing Partner and Governor Wyc Grousbeck talked esports on the Forbes SportsMoney podcast, breaking down the team’s approach to the industry as the team prepared for the NBA 2K league. “This first season coming up will be an interesting one,” he said on the show. “It’ll be more of an R&D season probably versus a full-fledged complete huge thing. We think the economics are real. The teams will each opt-in. The Celtics will be opting in. There will be an eCeltics.”
Sportradar named Ashok Balakrishnan as Senior Vice President of Technology and Product Management for the US market where he will oversee the company’s Product Management teams in New York, San Francisco and Minneapolis, while being responsible for developing advanced analytics and data science capabilities that will be used to design and develop innovative technology driven products and solutions.
Cavaliers/Spurs on TNT at 8p.
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Live events continue to offer spectacular opportunities for brands to connect directly with fans and build consumer loyalty. In esports, this is especially true if you know how to speak to the market. Moderated by Intersport, panelists will include Intel, AEG, NGE, Ultimate Media Ventures and Super Evil Megacorp.
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ON THIS DAY in 1971: UCLA tops Villanova to win their fifth consecutive NCAA men’s basketball championship .
In The Know: What number did the White Sox retire to honor Frank Thomas? (Email [email protected] with your answer and be sure to include your name, company and city.)
Answer to Our Last Sports Trivia Question: From what school was Dan Fouts drafted? Answer: Oregon. Kudos: John Ferlazzo/London; Lewis Blaustein-GreenSportsBlogger/NY; Michael Ritz-BucStar Consulting/NY; Rick Ramage-UTA/NY; Tom Lopez-UPS/Atlanta; Kevin McIntyre-Amayse/Boston; Willy Gibson-WTG Consulting/Columbus; Steve Scheer-FOX Sports/Morristown; Andy Pittman-TAMU/College Station; Matt Fumagalli-NBC Sports/Chicago; Steve McNair-KUBE TV/Houston; Lance Davis-ESPN Milwaukee/Milwaukee; Greg Moloznik-GLM Media/Scottsdale; Michael Jaquet-US Ski and Snowboard/Park City; Jack Neumann-University of Calgary 5th Quarter Alumni Development/Calgary; Larry Hutchings/Nipomo; Jim Himmel-TCB Media/San Clemente; John Baghdassarian-Olympusat/LA; Miriam Aardahl-OMD/LA.
Later — Chris
Chris Pursell for Cynopsis | Sports @VegasandVine
03.27.17
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