FOX Sports locked in adidas as the presenting sponsor of the full company streaming effort across all digital platforms for the 2018 FIFA World Cup Russia, running June 14 – July 15. Meanwhile, Coca-Cola is sponsoring the short-form 90 in 90 match highlights, one of the top-performing FOX Sports digital offerings, as well as joining adidas as a co-sponsor of Team Channels. The FIFA World Cup Hub, launches the week of June 4, offering live streams and full replays of all 64 matches, bonus feeds, commentary, rosters, stats and highlights and more. FOX Sports will produce a country-specific experience encompassing three live video feeds as well as real-time, team-vs-team stats.
Heineken inked a four-year partnership with European Professional Club Rugby to return as title sponsors for the European Champions Cup, according to Reuters, starting with the 2018/19 season.
Van Wagner Sports & Entertainment inked a media and sponsorship sales representation agreement with the upcoming FEI World Equestrian Games Tryon 2018 and the Tryon International Equestrian Center. Under the new partnership, VWSE will represent a variety of brand categories for multiplatform sponsorship assets around the 2018 WEG, set for Sept. 11-23, 2018, at the TIEC, located less than 90 miles west of Charlotte, North Carolina.
The United Soccer League locked in a partnership with WSC Sports to harness WSC’s technology platform to automate and simplify USL’s video creation capabilities. Via WSC’s machine learning technology, USL can create automated video highlights for more than 500 games of the regular USL season and playoff games, allowing for customizable highlights packages and individual player highlight reels.
InstaVR Inc closed a Series B funding round, which will help further its mission of empowering enterprise businesses to create VR applications. The company received $5 million in additional capital, bringing its total funding to date to $7.2 million. New participants in the funding round are YJ Capital, ITOCHU Technology Ventures, and Mizuho Capital Partners, who join follow-on investors GREE Ventures, COLOPL NEXT, and The Venture Reality Fund (The VR Fund).
FanDuel announced the launch of World Soccer Pick’em, presented by GameCredits, marking the company’s first fully integrated fantasy US product for a global sporting event. Soccer fans will have access to a wide range of fantasy contests for the World Cup, including a free-to-enter game and paid daily fantasy contests. FanDuel’s World Soccer Pick’em will be available by Thursday, June 7th on FanDuel.com and on the FanDuel app.
ESL locked in a deal with AT&T to sponsor a slate of mobile game tournaments in North America. USA Today writes that AT&T will have a 5G demo at the ESL Arena at E3 and score a presence at upcoming events that include the Arena of Valor Pro League, ESL One New York in September, and IEM North America in November.
ESL also announced that the CS:GO Pro League wrapped up its seventh season with almost 118 million video views, marking a 42.4% growth compared to Season Six and a new all-time record for Pro League with the languages Chinese (49M), English (36M), and Russian (17M) leading views. More than 18 million hours of content, made up of 44 live streams in 22 languages across seven digital platforms including Facebook, Twitch, YouTube, Mixer, Znipe, Caffeine and Huomao, were consumed in Season Seven.
Finally, ESL and WESA announced that Season Eight of the CS:GO Pro League will return to Odense, Denmark. The sixteen best CS:GO teams from Europe, North America, South America and the Asia-Pacific region will battle it out for a lion’s share of the US $1 million prize pool at the Sparekassen Fyn Arena from Dec. 7-9, while the group stages of the CS:GO Pro League Finals will be played out in front of a live audience for the first time, running Dec. 4-6.
Splyce locked in a deal with Foot Locker Europe, which will support the team’s EU LCS roster for “both lifestyle and performance as they pursue the Summer Split championship.”
High school esports league PlayVS locked in $15 million in a Series A funding round that includes the San Francisco 49ers, Twitch co-founder Kevin Lin and professional athletes Russell Okung, Baron Davis and Kelvin Beachum, according to ESPN. The round was led by New Enterprise Associates with the total valuation for PlayVS hitting $50 million.
James M. Danko, President of Butler University, was elected to a two-year term as Chair of the BIG EAST Conference Board of Directors. Danko replaces Rev. Brian J. Shanley, O.P., President of Providence College, who served on the BIG EAST Executive Committee since 2013 and as BIG EAST Board Chair since 2016. Rev. Peter M. Donohue, OSA, President of Villanova University, will serve as new Vice-Chair of the Board of Directors. Fr. Michael J. Graham, S.J., President of Xavier University, was elected to fill the third Executive Committee position.
Combate Americas named former NBCUniversal executive, Jacqueline Hernandez, as Combate Americas President. She will be based in New York and will report to Campbell McLaren, CEO and Founder of Combate Americas, overseeing the entire business apparatus and P&L of Combate Americas.
VSiN announced a partnership with former CBS Radio CEO Dan Mason, who will join VSiN as Strategic Advisor and Investor participating in all aspects of the company’s operations. VSiN Founder and Chairman Brian Musburger said, “With decades of experience in the media industry, Dan brings a wealth of knowledge to our team. We are excited to leverage his expertise to drive continued growth at VSiN, capitalizing on the incredible opportunity presented by the burgeoning sports gambling industry. His overall enthusiasm for our product brings an energy level to the room that is contagious.”
FloSports brought in Lindsey Ross as Director of Rights Acquisition. Ross joins FloSports with more than 16 years of experience in college conferences and sports media, and most recently worked for ESPN as Manager of Programming and Acquisitions.
French Open quarterfinal action begins at 7a on Tennis Channel.
