07/15/19: NBC's Open arms

Good morning. It’s Monday July 15, 2019 and this is your first early morning Sports briefing.

The week sees action at The Open tee off at Royal Portrush, which hosts the Open for the first time since 1951 as Rory McIlroy, Brooks Koepka, Tiger Woods and Dustin Johnson headline this year’s action on NBC and Golf Channel Golf Channel has TV coverage of Thursday’s first round and Friday’s second round, with Golf Channel airing coverage of the early portion of Saturday and Sunday coverage, before NBC takes over for the last major of the year. Overall, the company serves up 410 total hours around the event, the most ever, with 200 hours of linear programming and 210 complementary hours of streaming coverage. NBC Sports golf analysts Notah Begay and Peter Jacobsen joined NBC Sports President of Programming Jon Miller to discuss the Open with press last week.

Miller on hyping the Open: The Open Championship is a relatively new property for NBC. We’ve had it for four Open Championships now. We continue to invest and make it bigger and better. We bring the entire company to bear. So we use all the assets of NBC Universal and of Comcast to make sure it’s as widely available and promoted and marketed and hopefully viewed as possible. It’s led by Tommy Roy, who is a brilliant executive producer, and probably in my career I’ve never seen anybody who approaches Tommy Roy’s levels of expertise. We put so much into what we do at the Open and making it a big event.

Now that the PGA TOUR has changed their schedule so that the Players Championship moved into March and the PGA Championship moving into May, this makes The Open Championship the last major of the year. So it takes on that much more importance, that much more relevance and that much more of a sense of urgency for those players who really need to raise their game and get to the highest level.

Jacobsen on the Open: I don’t know how many Opens I played in, but I’ve always found it to be the most difficult major championship to win. I never won any of the four, but I competed in all four. And what it takes to win an Open Championship is everything. You can play in all kinds of inclement weather. You can get beautiful weather like this. You can get wind. You can get rain. You have to be prepared to play golf in shirt sleeves or in sweaters or in rain gear. And I found that that was a challenge that sometimes it is hard to handle. But I really enjoyed that aspect. I really loved playing in an Open Championship. I’ve played Portrush before. I know they’ve changed the golf course a little bit the last couple of years, but having been involved the last four Open championships for NBC Sports, I can’t wait to get there.

Begay on golf in US vs. UK: It’s very point to point, but golf in the UK and Scotland and in this particular venue, in Ireland, is going to be more creative. It’s going to be more curvy. There’s going to be a lot of unexpected challenges and some fortunate breaks and some bad breaks. And the players that I think mentally have the capacity to deal with those things on a day-to-day basis are the ones that typically put themselves in contention on a consistent basis.

PROGRAMMING

AT&T and the NFL declined to opt out of their current deal for DirecTV NFL Sunday Ticket, according to The Athletic, and will maintain the live games package exclusively on the satellite TV carrier through the 2020-21 season. The current deal reportedly pays the league $1.5 billion a year.

Telemundo Deportes’ Summer of Soccer coverage of 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup France and 2019 Copa America Brazil reached 18.8 million viewers with programming generating more than 490 million total engagements across all platforms including television, digital, video on demand and social media, according to official national data provided by Nielsen and digital data from Adobe Analytics. “Our Summer of Soccer delivered yet another historic milestone for Telemundo’s sports efforts, validating our investment and commitment to provide authentic coverage of events that are relevant to our audience without the Mexico national team as Univision relies on. Telemundo Deportes is THE undisputed home of the Biggest, Best Global Sports in Spanish-language,” said Ray Warren, Telemundo Deportes President. “Our production teams were spread across three different countries, working endless hours to ensure the most complete soccer multimedia coverage that was engaging and memorable. We look forward to our next summer of sports and beyond.”

Meanwhile, ahead of yesterday’s Wimbledon Gentlemen’s Final, ESPN saw the 40th meeting between Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal in the semifinals get a boost of 20% in the overnight rating to hit a 1.2 over the same day in 2018. The seven-hour telecast (scheduled for six) garnered ESPN’s highest rating for this day of the tournament since 2012. Federer’s four-set victory over Nadal averaged a 1.6.

Speaking of ESPN, the company locked in talent for its coverage of the National Women’s Soccer League, with 14 matches set to be televised. A collaboration of top talent will team up to support the broadcasts, including Aly Wagner, Jenn Hildreth, Angela Hucles, Glenn Davis, Marisa Pillaand Dalen Cuff,. Hildreth comes on board as the lead play-by-play announcer and will work most games including a semifinal and the NWSL final.

ESPN college basketball analysts Fran Fraschilla, Dan Dakich and Seth Greenberg will headline the commentator team for the company’s coverage of The Basketball Tournament, the single-elimination, five-on-five, open-application tournament with a winner-take-all $2 million prize. The sixth annual TBT event features 64 teams competing in regional events in eight cities across two weekends (July 19-21 and July 25-28) with the eight regional winners advancing to TBT Championship Week in Chicago from Aug. 1-6. ESPN will present live coverage of all 63 games, including 25 games across its linear networks.

Major League Soccer and Liga MX locked in Las Vegas to host the final of the inaugural Leagues Cup, the new continental club soccer competition featuring eight teams from North America’s two biggest leagues with the final taking place on Sept. 18 at Sam Boyd Stadium. “An intense rivalry is developing between Major League Soccer and Liga MX clubs, and Leagues Cup will provide thrilling competition while further elevating the profile of the game in North America,” said Don Garber, MLS Commissioner. “We have no doubt that the support for the historic, first-ever Leagues Cup final from the passionate soccer fans of Las Vegas and surrounding region will be tremendous, and the atmosphere at Sam Boyd Stadium will be electric.”

A CYNOPSIS MESSAGE

CYNOPSIS TECHFRONTS

News, Solutions & Deals Disrupting Marketing, Advertising, & the 2019-2020 Upfront Season.

Read all about…

Facebook presents Showcase

Google Targeting Shoppers with New “Discovery” Ads

How AI and Machine Learning are Impacting Media

Mobile Video: How to Create a User Experience That Drives Revenue

Twitter Testing GIFS, Emoji on its TweetDeck App

http://www.cynopsis.com/techfronts/

SPONSORSHIP & PROMOTION

Procter & Gamble, an official partner of US Soccer, announced its support for equal pay from the NGB, taking out a full-page ad in Sunday’s editions of The New York Times, urging US Soccer “to be on the right side of history.” Procter & Gamble, which backs the org via its Secret brand, is also making a donation of $529,000 to the women’s national team’s players association, which represents the team’s interests in its dealings with U.S. Soccer. “Inequality is about more than pay and players,” Procter & Gamble said in the ad. “It’s about values.”

DIGITAL, DATA & TECH

DraftKings and Hotwire unveiled a new, free game called “The Hotwire Effect Series,” taking away the famous names and enabling users to draft players based on stats alone. The game was built exclusively for the online travel site with players able to see all the typical fantasy stats for any player, with the exception of the player’s name. Once each contest begins, users will have their players’ names revealed, similar to how the Hotwire app works when booking a hotel. “Statistics have always been the driving force behind DraftKings’ Daily Fantasy Sports products and resonate tremendously with baseball fans on our platform,” said Ezra Kucharz, chief business officer at DraftKings. “Conceptualizing our latest free game ‘The Hotwire Effect Series’ with a company like Hotwire is a great opportunity that gives our customers a new way to engage in a unique experience we are sure will be a hit.”

ESPORTS

Riot’s LCS locked in a new streaming partner, adding Caffeine to its arsenal. Fans of the League of Legends org will be able to stream and live host the official LCS program every weekend through the remainder of the 2019 Summer Split regular season, as well as the playoffs and finals. “As our audience continues to grow and evolve, we’re excited to bring the LCS to new platforms and distribution channels ensuring our fans are able to watch the broadcast on their preferred devices,” said Matt Archambault, Head of Esports Partnerships and Business Development for North America at Riot Games. “We’ve seen demand from our community around new streaming platforms and we’re excited to work with Caffeine to see what engaging content our community and aspiring shoutcasters will be able to create with our broadcasts.”

Meanwhile, the League of Legends European Championship updated its viewership stats at the halfway point for Summer, reporting record-breaking viewership during the period. In the first three weeks of Summer alone, LEC saw a 37% uptick in viewers over last year, bringing up the Average Minute Audience each week to 136,000, marking the Riot’s most-watch Summer Split since 2015 for the conference.

Twitter unveiled its most-mentioned esports teams, events and athletes for the first half of 2019, as Rishi Chadha delivered the rankings. The most discussed team globally on the platform is FaZeClan, followed by Tea Liquid, G2 Esports, and 100 Thieves. The most talked about esports athletes – @TTfue, @OpTic_Scumper, @TSM_Leffen, @LiquidHbox and @OpTic_Crimsix. Finally, the most discussed esports events were led by IEM Katowice, MSI 2019, CWL Anaheim, the Opening Weekend of Overwatch League and CWL London.

RFRSH Entertainment is reportedly poised to break from the company’s two competitive brands, Astralis and Origin, which are now operating under a newly-formed company with the moniker RFRSH Teams. Reports state that negotiations are now underway for majority shares owned by people in RFRSH Entertainment to be acquired by RFRSH Teams and that the two companies will be operated independently before the StarLadder Berlin Major on Aug. 23.

ESL announced a partnership with Gamers Outreach, a charity organization dedicated to providing gaming equipment, technology, and software to help children and teenagers cope with treatments in hospitals. The alliance comes as part of ESL’s new “Gaming for Good” initiative where the two orgs will launch an awareness, fundraising, exhibition, and integrated campaign in conjunction with IEM Chicago next week on July 20-21, and then continuing on with various ESL events in the future.

Hi-Rez detailed plans for the 2019 SMITE World Championship, taking place in Nov. with a return to DreamHack Atlanta as part of the Hi-Rez Expo. The SMITE World Championship Placement Round will run Nov. 4-8 on the publisher’s official channels, with the top two teams who survive the Placement Round continuing on to compete against the top six SPL teams in the playoff bracket during Hi-Rez Expo at DreamHack Atlanta 2019 and a winner crowned on Nov. 17.

Republic of Gamers by ASUS announced that the company will serve as the official hardware sponsor of EXP, the esports gaming series created by ESPN, which saw its summer tournaments launch last week with a Pro-Am Apex Legends Exhibition. “We’re thrilled to have ROG as a key sponsor of our first-ever EXP esports event series,” said Kevin Lopes, director of business development, ESPN. “Together, we’re able to serve both the athletes and fans with a unique and high quality playing and viewing experience, and we look forward to continue doing so for the next two events at The ESPYS and X Games.”

INDUSTRY & ROSTER MOVES

The NBA announced that Jason Phillips, a referee with 19 seasons of officiating experience in the league, has been named Replay Center Operations Principal. In his new role, Phillips will be responsible for the day-to-day operations of the NBA Replay Center in Secaucus.

THE MAIN EVENT

Dodgers/Phillies on ESPN at 7p.

ON THIS DAY in 1912: Jim Thorpe earns an Olympic record of 8,413 points to win the Decathlon gold medal.

In the Know: For what reason was Jim Thorpe stripped of his Olympic medals in 1913? (They were reinstated in 1982.) (Email [email protected] with your answer and be sure to include your company and city).

Answer to Our Last Sports Trivia Question: 40 years ago, the Chicago White Sox had to forfeit a game due to field damage caused by a Demolition Day promotion designed to destroy what? Answer: Disco records. Kudos: Cory Angerthal-AMC Networks/NY; Tom Buffolano-LTN Global/Brooklyn; Art Salisch-CBS-TV/NY; Chris Long-DraftKings/NY; Jason Wilmoth-Learfield IMG College/Winston-Salem; David Haney-Bosack & Co./Pottsville; Michael Stutts-Bloomin Brands Inc./Tampa; Michael S. Evranian-Richmond Raceway/Richmond; Joe Vogl-Saginaw Valley State University/University Center; Jean Edhlund-Cooperative Network Services, LLC/Menahga; Jason Brist-Outdoor Sportsman Group/Chicago; Brandon Morales-U.S. Soccer/Chicago; Will Allmendinger-Clear Channel Outdoor/Chicago; Greg Moloznik-GLM Media/Scottsdale; Rich Wolfe-Lone Wolfe Press/Scottsdale; Dave Sikula-San Francisco State University/San Francisco; Dan Weiner-Condé Nast/LA Dennis Treleven-21CF/LA; Dave Hammargren-KCPQ/KZJO-TV/Seattle

Later — Chris

Chris Pursell @VegasandVine
Kerry Smith Division President Access Intelligence Roberta Caploe Publisher @robertacaploe	Cynopsis Ad Sales Mike Farina 203-218-6480 Albert Nassour 917-545-3129	Cynopsis Job Listings Sales Trish Pihonak 203-899-8459 Director of Operations

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