05/30/17: ESPN’s Chip shot

Good morning. It’s Tuesday May 30, 2017 and this is your first early morning Sports briefing.

ESPN recruited former head coach Chip Kelly to the company under a multiyear deal as a studio analyst, predominantly working college football pre-games, halftimes and studio wraps each Saturday on ESPN2 as well as appearing on SportsCenter on Fridays and Sundays to offer insight to college and NFL games. “Chip is one of the most innovative football minds of our generation,” said Lee Fitting, ESPN senior coordinating producer. “As a coach, he saw the game from a unique perspective, never afraid to take an unconventional approach. We want him to bring that mentality to our college football coverage each week, offering fans a varying viewpoint outside of the conventional thought process.”

ON THE AIR

Meanwhile, ESPN its programming in line for the NBA Finals, which will see the Cleveland/Golden State begin Thursday at 9p ON abc. Mike Breen, Jeff Van Gundy, Mark Jackson and Doris Burke – who enter their eighth NBA Finals together – will once again call the series. On ESPN Radio, the broadcast team will include Marc Kestecher and Hubie Brown along with reporter Marc Stein describing the action. The televised production open will feature Grammy Award-winning hip-hop artist Kendrick Lamar, NBA Countdown and The Jump hit the road for on-site programming throughout the series. Finally, ESPN3 will provide a second-screen digital offering to viewers during NBA Finals pregame coverage and postgame coverage, which will include a live look at pregame warmups, including layup lines, and natural sound from the arena prior to the game.

Around the dial, the Stanley Cup Final is already underway on NBC Sports channels, with the next game slated for tomorrow night at 8p on NBCSN. Meanwhile, NHL Network will be showcasing up to 68 hours of live programming on-site in Pittsburgh and Nashville during the series, offering in-depth previews, interviews, highlights and analysis across studio programming, Throughout its coverage of the Stanley Cup Final, a free preview of NHL Network will be offered to Comcast video customers in Nashville and to customers of Armstrong, Comcast and Consolidated Communications in Pittsburgh. Meanwhile, the channel will also tackle the 2017 NHL Draft with two one-hour specials, including NHL Tonight: Top 31 Draft Prospects on Thursday at 8p and NHL Tonight: Scouting Combine Special on Saturday at 8p.

Speaking of hockey, the Eastern Conference Final Game 7 double-overtime battle on NBCSN set viewership and digital records, averaging a Total Audience Delivery of 3.016 million viewers, making it the most-watched NHL game ever on NBCSN to feature a Canadian team. That was also up 16% over last year’s Eastern Conference Final Game 7 and the third-most watched conference final game ever on NBCSN. In addition, the game ranked as the most streamed game in NHL history, including all Stanley Cup Final games, with 24.7 million live minutes and an AMA of 94,800 viewers. It also delivered 271,000 unique devices, which is the second-best ever.

Meanwhile, NHL announced that the Washington Capitals will host the Toronto Maple Leafs outdoors at the 2018 Coors Light NHL Stadium Series at the Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium in Annapolis on March 3. Over the next several years, the League plans to stage a series of outdoor games at the venues of the other respective U.S. Service Academies. In addition, the league locked in the Tampa Bay Lightning and the city of Tampa as hosts of the 2018 NHL All-Star. The League’s mid-season showcase will take place at AMALIE Arena on Jan. 27-28 and will include the NHL All-Star Skills Competition and the NHL All-Star Game.

Alex Rodriguez is reportedly taking his broadcast career beyond sports, and is adding ABC News to his current role at FOX Sports. CNNMoney reports that under a new deal, Rodriguez will make occasional appearances on the ABC shows “Good Morning America,” “World News Tonight,” and “Nightline.”

RIP to longtime Sports Illustrated writer and NPR voice Frank Deford, who died on Sunday at the age of 78. Deford spent 50 years writing for Sports Illustrated, and had recently announced his retirement from offering his takes on sports on National Public Radio. Deford also wrote 18 books, including “Everybody’s All-American,” during his career.

A CYNOPSIS MESSAGE

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Despite all the chatter and change about ad loads, undefined currencies, metrics and more, there has yet to be a smart, focused conversation on where we are (and aren’t) and the necessary steps to get there. This conference is that conversation.

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SPONSORSHIP & PROMOTION

Stewart-Haas Racing announced “an equitable agreement” with Nature’s Bakery that will see the brand return as a primary sponsor to the team for four Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series races split between drivers Danica Patrick and Clint Bowyer. As part of this new agreement, all lawsuits between Stewart-Haas Racing and Nature’s Bakery have been dropped, stemming from the company announcing that it would no longer sponsor Patrick earlier this year. “It’s gratifying to see a difficult situation get resolved in a professional manner that suits all parties,” said Brett Frood, president, Stewart-Haas Racing. “Together, we worked diligently to find an equitable solution to our collective challenges.”

UFC lightweight champion Conor McGregor is offering a new kind of beat-down, signing on for an endorsement deal with Beats by Dre. The fighter announced the partnership on Instagram and Facebook and he will now join Bono and Drake as the main ambassadors of Beats by Dre.

DIGITAL & STREAMING

The Olympic Channel showcases Shredding Monsters on Friday, a 44-minute documentary that follows a group of surfing friends as they descend on the Portuguese fishing village of Nazare to surf the what they expect to be the biggest swell of the year. Featured will be Garrett McNamara, Jamie Mitchell, Hugo Vau,Andrew Cotton and Alessandro Marciano and marks the Channel’s first film dedicated to the sport of surfing.

Memorial Day saw WWE pay tribute to the men and women who made the ultimate sacrifice in serving the country as part of its Monday Night Raw programming on USA last night. The video can be found here .

ESPORTS

ELeague’s Street Fighter V Invitational Grand Final ended with Victor “Punk” Woodley defeating Arman “Phenom” Hanjani but audiences saw the league leverage augmented reality character visuals into its live coverage through a partnership with Ross Video and The Future Group. The tech allowed for large, lifelike virtual Street Fighter characters to appear next to analysts, on stage next to the players and throughout the competition space.

IMG’s Boomeo announced a partnership with esports franchise Astralis that will see the team’s CS:GO squad exclusively use Boomeo servers and game mods – including Duels, Pre-Fire, Deathmatch and Retakes – to warm up and train for competitions. Members of Astralis will be producing exclusive educational and training content for Boomeo that will be released throughout the summer. “We’re excited to work with Boomeo on innovative educational content and specific skill training. For us it’s about continuously developing as a team and as individuals, and to constantly move forward,” said Frederik Byskov, Manager of Astralis. ” The competition in CS:GO is fierce and cooperating with professionals like Boomeo is a part of our strategy to constantly improve to stay ahead.”

ROSTER MOVES

U.S. Ski & Snowboard named Dan Barnett as its Chief Commercial Officer with the hire designed to drive the organization’s commercial and marketing efforts and provide strategic vision for continued growth of its brand. “We have an opportunity at U.S. Ski & Snowboard to dramatically enhance our brand and the revenue needed to drive our athletic programs,” said President and CEO Tiger Shaw. “Dan Barnett brings a fascinating array of global experience in brand development, commercial sales and both broadcast and digital media. It’s timely for him to join our team and help raise the profile of our organization.” Barnett is currently serving as Chief Commercial Officer of the America’s Cup Event Authority and ORACLE TEAM USA.

Alliance MMA promoted Burt Watson to Executive Vice President, Operations. “Based on his outstanding track record, I have complete trust and confidence that Burt will excel in this new assignment, adeptly assuming ownership of the overall customer experience, including standardizing performance expectations, and persistently pursuing process improvements by identifying and deploying best business practices across the enterprise,” said Paul Danner, CEO of Alliance MMA.

THE MAIN EVENT

Dodgers/Cardinals on ESPN at 7p.

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ON THIS DAY in 1986: Barry Bonds makes his MLB debut.

In The Know : With which team did Barry Bonds make his MLB debut? ( Email [email protected] with your answer and be sure to include your name, company and city.)

Answer to Our Last Sports Trivia Question: Traditionally, what beverage does the winner of the Indianapolis 500 drink after the race? Answer: Milk. Kudos: Tamara DeLaMora-NBCUniversal/NY; Marc Wollis-Cadent Network/NY; Ged Young-GC Marketing LLC/NY; Bruce Jackson-Disney and ESPN Media Networks/NY; Wayne ‘World B.’ Otto-Pro-Am Sports/Boone; Dave Ridpath-Ohio University/Athens; Peter Lasser-Lasser Productions/Atlanta; Bob Scanlon-Velocity/Silver Spring; Mike Wilhelm-Momentum/Atlanta; John Kukla- KDFW FOX 4/KDFI my27/Dallas; Will Allmendinger-Clear Channel Outdoor/Chicago; Andy Nelson-Heartland Industries/Richland; Tom Doherty-Starcom Media/Chicago; David Hauptman/Denver; Matt Sautter-Imagine Communications/Denver; Jack Neumann-University of Calgary/Calgary; Jim Seifert/Denver; Dave Sikula-San Francisco State University/San Francisco; Larry Hutchings/Nipomo; Jim Himmel-TCB Media/San Clemente; Maria Shuckahosee-audible/San Francisco

Later — Chris

Chris Pursell @VegasandVine
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