Netflix and Formula 1 locked in a double for popular series, Formula 1: Drive To Survive, renewing the series for a fifth and sixth season on the platform. Season 4 of the breakout hit, drew the show’s biggest audience to date and broke into the weekly Top 10 in 56 countries.

In addition, Formula 1 and SiriusXM announced a multi-year extension to their relationship, which will continue to deliver coverage of every F1 race to SiriusXM listeners nationwide through 2024. Each event will air live from start to finish on SiriusXM channel 81 (ESPN Xtra). Listeners will hear the BBC 5 Live radio broadcast for each event.

“We are thrilled to announce the extension of our long term relationship with Formula 1 this week on the eve of the inaugural FORMULA 1 CRYPTO.COM MIAMI GRAND PRIX, which will be the first of two U.S.-based races this season,” said Scott Greenstein, SiriusXM’s President and Chief Content Officer. “Formula 1 races are world-class events, which showcase a tremendous combination of advanced technology, extraordinary drivers and challenging circuits. The sport’s popularity is increasing and the U.S. is one of its fastest growing markets. We are excited to meet that growing demand by adding a new weekly F1 show to our lineup in addition to giving our listeners live access to every race.”

PROGRAMMING

The 2022 NFL Schedule powered by AWS will be released on May 12 at 8p. NFL Network’s coverage will be highlighted by Schedule Release ’22 presented by Verizon at 8p, serving as a three-hour show which breaks down the 2022 NFL regular season schedule, division by division, analyzing the top matchups and primetime games. Rich Eisen anchors.

ESPN2 will air its own primetime special surrounding the release of the 2022 NFL Schedule at 8p that day with Laura Rutledge, Tedy Bruschi, Damien Woody and Adam Schefter, and appearances by the new Monday Night Football broadcasters Joe Buck and Troy Aikman. ESPN+ will also stream a separate show at 8p.

Beginning Monday, broadcast partners will announce a select game from the upcoming 2022 NFL Schedule. May 9 will see ESPN announce during Good Morning America; May 10 sees CBS announce during CBS Mornings; May 11 has FOX announce during FOX & Friends; and May 12 wraps up with NBC announcing during Today Show.

Continuing the theme, ESPN and ESPN+ will each carry an international games during the 2022 NFL season, with the first-ever exclusive NFL game on ESPN+ and the return of Monday Night Football to Mexico City. ESPN+ will feature the Broncos/Jaguars from Wembley Stadium in London at 9:30a on Oct. 30 while Monday Night Football will see the 49ers play the Cardinals from Estadio Azteca Stadium at 8p on Nov. 21.

NBC Sports revealed its team of race and studio commentators for its coverage of the Indianapolis 500 presented on May 29 at 11a on NBC. Mike Tirico and studio analyst Danica Patrick return for the fourth consecutive year, contributing to pre-race, in-race, and post-race coverage. Dale Earnhardt Jr. will contribute to pre-race coverage alongside motorsports reporter Rutledge Wood, and will join Tirico and Patrick on the Peacock Pit Box on pit road for segments during the race. The race itself will be called by INDYCAR play-by-play voice Leigh Diffey and analyst Townsend Bell, while James Hinchcliffe makes his debut in the Indy 500 broadcast booth. Marty Snider, Kevin Lee, Dave Burns and Dillon Welch will serve as pit reporters.

DAZN and Barstool Sports are teaming up to offer a new broadcast experience for Canelo vs. Bivol on May 7 live on DAZN PPV. In addition to the regular commentary, DAZN PPV viewers will have the choice of experiencing Barstool’s take on the fight. Dave Portnoy, Dan ‘Big Cat’ Katz, Robbie Fox, Caleb Pressley, Rone & Large will be calling the fight live from ringside while checking in with roaming reporters dotted about the arena floor.

The Association of Volleyball Professionals set up its 2022 season slate, which launched today and delivers the tour’s longest schedule and biggest total prize purse in more than a decade, as well as a broadcast schedule that includes 44 hours of tournament coverage across three television networks. The AVP Pro Beach Volleyball Tour season will begin with the AVP Pro Series Austin Open from May 6-8 and run through November 20, totaling 16 tournaments across the United States and offering $2 million in prize money. Each of the Pro Series and Gold Series events, as well as the Championships, will be televised, with nine tournaments totaling 44 hours of television coverage on FS1, Bally Sports regional sports networks (RSNs) and Tennis Channel.

ESPN announced the launch of W. Studios, a new content generator that “creates, produces, and amplifies women-centered storytelling.” In partnership with Google, the first project under the W. Studios umbrella will be the W. Studios Fifty/50 Shorts Presented by Google, five short films centered around the fight for women’s equality across the sports and cultural landscape. “In 2010, espnW was launched with a passionate eye toward serving and elevating women and women’s storytelling, and for the past 12 years, it has done just that. W. Studios is an expansion of the espnW brand – curating, creating, producing, and amplifying narratives about women that further diversify the storytelling within ESPN,” said Allison Glock, Executive Producer. “We look forward to creating stories that are authentic to the female experience and widen the lens of opportunity for all.”

ESPN also announced the television and streaming schedule for the 2022 Premier Lacrosse League powered by Ticketmaster season, featuring coverage of 47 games across ABC, ESPN, ESPN2, and ESPN+. The 2022 Premier Lacrosse League season schedule will include 12 games on ESPN linear platforms – ABC (3), ESPN (3), and ESPN2 (6).

In viewership news, Top Rank’s fight card on ESPN last Saturday night generated 1.4 million viewers during the main event, which showcased a super featherweight title fight between Shakur Stevenson and Oscar Valdez. The event was the second most-watched on cable Saturday in the 18-49 demo, behind only the NFL Draft and ahead of UFC.

Meanwhile, Telemundo Deportes’ coverage of Chivas de Guadalajara reached 6.3 million total viewers across platforms to deliver the highest-rated and most streamed Liga MX Clausura 2022 season for the network. Telemundo delivered an average of 833,000 P2+ viewers and 390,000 adults 18-49 through its coverage of Chivas’ home matches during Liga MX’s regular season. Universo’s simulcasts lifted Telemundo’s average by 18% among P2+ and 17% among adults 18-49.

ESPN+ and the University of Oklahoma announced a multi-year agreement for SoonerVision on ESPN+ that will include more than 100 annual live events, studio programming and archival content. ESPN+ will stream one regular season college football game and the annual Oklahoma spring football game, as well as more than 100 additional competitions across men’s and women’s basketball and varsity Olympic sports.

MEASUREMENT & DATA CONFERENCE

NEW session alert for June 7th:

All About the Ad Tech

Confirmed panelist: Joni Kinsley,
VP, Product Strategy,
Gamut Total

FIND OUT MORE

SPONSORSHIP & PROMOTION

UFC and GameDay Ready, the athletic recovery organization, announced a multi-year marketing and research partnership that expands on their previous collaboration. Under the terms of the new agreement, GameDay Ready’s new Patent Pending CONOCB2 line of products has been named the Official Pain Reliever of UFC and the UFC Performance Institute. UFC and GameDay Ready will also collaborate on a research program that will study the benefits of the products when used by UFC athletes in training during their fight camps and fight week stages of preparation at the UFC Performance Institute.

The XFL will host a series of player showcases across the United States in June and July. In partnership with American National Combines, the events “will give prospective football players a chance to exhibit their skills in front of XFL coaches and personnel directors.” “These showcases are an incredible opportunity for passionate players to show up and ball out for a chance to join the XFL,” said Dwayne Johnson, Owner. “The XFL is all about being at the intersection of dreams and opportunity. It is our goal to make football more accessible to more players, and our highly experienced team of coaches and personnel directors are ready to help make these professional football dreams come true. The door is open for elite talent across the country to join the XFL – including my home state of Hawai’i. I’m looking forward to seeing these players bringing their best and leaving it all out on the field.”

DIGITAL, DATA & TECH

Twitter revealed a slate of deals and partnerships at the Digital Content NewFronts. On the sports side of the content offerings, Twitter and the WNBA locked in a multi-year extension of their partnership. The 2022 season marks the sixth year of the partnership and will include a slate of 12 live games. For the first time ever, the @WNBA will also regularly host Spaces throughout the season, as well as during WNBA tentpole events and the offseason.

In addition, FOX Sports is expanding its relationship with Twitter and elevating its digital content to feature, for the first time in the history of the tournaments on FOX, in-match previews and live pre-game shows for every FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 and FIFA Women’s World Cup Australia & New Zealand 2023 match. FOX Sports will drive new FIFA World Cup interactive pre-and-post match programming exclusively for Twitter via @FOXSports and @FOXSoccer. As part of the deal, sponsorship and advertising opportunities around FOX Sports’ content will be offered, driving significant promotion to FIFA World Cup matches and coverage across FOX, FS1, the FOX Sports App and FOXSports.com.

In their earnings report on Wednesday, Sinclair Broadcasting Group announced the name of its upcoming streaming-only option to watch sports with CEO Chris Ripley referring to the service as Bally Sports+. The service would be offered to customers for $19.99 per month or $189.99 annually.

The LA Kings and Crypto.com joined forces to launch the NHL team’s first-ever, non-fungible tokens (NFTs) in the form of digital art collectibles to commemorate the Kings’ return to the 2021-22 Playoffs. This limited-edition commemorative 2022 Playoff NFT collection was produced in collaboration with Crypto.com. The Kings 2022 Playoff NFT drop features three unique pieces of artwork, designed by Project MIDAS, that will be randomly assigned when minted on Crypto.com.

Jomboy Media announced a $5M financing fundraise led by Connect Ventures. The new funding will be used to “fuel growth into all major North American sports, as well as development of original content for television and streaming platforms, new IP for Jomboy Media’s growing array of channels, podcasts, live events around tentpole sporting events and the acquisition of marquee talent to live under the Jomboy Media umbrella.”

DraftKings announced the completion of its acquisition of Golden Nugget Online Gaming. “Acquiring Golden Nugget Online Gaming gives us synergies across our business,” said Jason Robins, Chairman and CEO of DraftKings. “We anticipate that this acquisition will provide meaningful revenue uplift by utilizing our data-driven marketing capabilities and a dual brand iGaming strategy, gross margin improvement opportunities, and cost savings across external marketing and SG&A. I am proud to welcome the Golden Nugget Online Gaming team to the DraftKings family.”

Fan engagement platform, PickUp, announced that NASCAR has selected the company to accelerate its motorsports content gamification strategy. PickUp will leverage its content creation platform to embed “contextually relevant props” across NASCAR’s content including editorial, video, audio and onsite activations.

Major League Soccer announced a multi-year partnership agreement with fan engagement and rewards company, Socios.com, making the company an Official Partner of MLS. With 26 Club deals, the partnership intends to give fans access to exclusive rewards, polls, and opportunities for their favorite Clubs. “At Major League Soccer, our Emerging Ventures team is always looking for ways to apply the latest technology to provide North America’s youngest and most tech-savvy fans with new opportunities to be connected in a significant way to our players and clubs,” said Chris Schlosser, Major League Soccer’s SVP of Emerging Ventures. “We’re excited to continue our progressive approach to blockchain technology at MLS with Socios.com.”

ESPORTS

Team Liquid and parent company aXiomatic closed a $35 million growth round led by funds managed by Ares Management. The raise lifts Liquid’s valuation to an estimated $415 million. The round includes venture capital funds Revolution Growth and Hiro Capital, “From competitive excellence to engaging fan touchpoints, Team Liquid has always strived to be the best in everything that we do,” said Team Liquid President and COO Claire Hungate.“This growth round bolsters our ability to build out our business and ensure long term sustainability within this ever-evolving ecosystem.” “

FaZe Clan entered into a multi-year partnership with GHOST, a lifestyle brand that includes sports nutrition products, energy drinks, dietary supplements, merch and apparel. GHOST will be featured as an official sponsor of FaZe1: The Warehouse. “We are beyond excited to embark on this journey with our new partners at GHOST,” says Adam Bauer, SVP of Partnerships at FaZe Clan. “Our goal with this partnership is to propel GHOST as a household name within gaming and youth culture by giving our fans access to their range of sports nutrition and active lifestyle products. This was a perfect fit from day one as we share a common goal of creating a new standard for what a best-in-class partnership is through dynamic storytelling, authenticity and innovation. We can’t wait to get started.”

Intel Extreme Masters returns to North America from June 3-5, during DreamHack Dallas for IEM Dallas 2022. While battling it out for a share of the $250,000 total prize pool, 16 top CS:GO teams will face off starting May 30 to earn a spot in the playoffs and play on stage in front of a live audience. The IEM Katowice 2022 runner-up G2 Esports, the ESL Pro League Season 15 runner-up ENCE Esports, the Danish powerhouse Heroic, the recently signed Cloud9 roster, and the remarkable Australian squad LookingForOrg are all among the qualified teams.

INDUSTRY & ROSTER MOVES

The XFL announced that Erica Muhleman joined the League as Senior Vice President, Team Services. Muhleman will serve as a liaison between the League’s business operations departments – ticketing, communications, marketing and content – and all eight teams to implement best business practices and create synergistic opportunities, while also curating to each of the markets’ unique demands.

The BIG3 announced that Bill Lee, co-founder of Craft Ventures, has purchased 25 Fire-Tier editions of BIG3’s Aliens through Dogecoin, marking the largest commercial transaction in history for the cryptocurrency. “Having buy-in from Bill, who has done so much in the NFT and crypto world, confirms what we are doing here is a game-changer,” said BIG3 co-founder, Jeff Kwatinetz. “We are thrilled to partner up with Bill and have the MyDoge and Dogecoin communities be represented by the Aliens. We have made history with this transaction, and we hope it inspires others in the Doge world to support the team whether by purchasing the Gold-Tiers, by attending games, or by tuning in.”

FINN Partners announced Zach Groen, a sports public relations executive who has worked with the Big Ten Conference and various NFL teams, has been appointed as Vice President of FINN’s Sports Division.

NBA star Kevin Durant and entrepreneur Rich Kleiman are joining NJ/NY Gotham FC’s ownership group and become minority investors of the club. The investment includes additional partnership elements such as content creation, social media support, player relations, and community outreach.

THAT BIG TV CONFERENCE

NEW SESSIONS ADDED for September 29-30, NYC

Cultural Equity in Media Planning, In the Streaming World, Kids’ Content Is Key, What’s In Store for Shoppable TV, and Privacy, Personalization & Permission

VIEW THE AGENDA

ON THIS DAY in
1997: Rick Pitino becomes coach of the Boston Celtics.

IN THE KNOW
In the original Top Gun movie, in which sport did Maverick and Goose face off against Iceman and Slider? (Email [email protected] with your answer and be sure to include your name, company and city).

Answer to Our Last Sports Trivia Question
Name the only country to have won a gold medal in the Olympic men’s rugby sevens. Answer: Fiji. Kudos: Michael Ritz-Lenox Advisors/NY; Roger Furman-Sports Marketing Communications/Greentown; Andy Pittman-TAMU/College Station; Joe Lyons-ESPN/Dallas; David Westberg-SAG•AFTRA Credit Union/Burbank; Tom Moore-Kalt Productions/LA

Cynopsis Team