07/23/18: Tiger claws Open windows

Good morning. It’s Monday July 23, 2018 and this is your first early morning Sports briefing.

With hot competition at The Open and Tiger Woods in contention, NBC Sports/Golf Channel report that Saturday scored the highest-rated third round at The Open since 2013, reeling in a 3.0 in Nielsen overnight numbers and up 25% over 2017. Friday’s action, meanwhile, hand Golf Channel with a TAD of 1.141 million average viewers, up 4% over 2017 and ranking as the most-watched early round telecast at The Open ever on the channel. On the digital front, through three rounds, The Open has seen 91.1 million total minutes streamed across NBC Sports’ digital platforms, up 13% year-over-year.

ON THE AIR

In other viewership numbers, ESPN’s coverage during the Wimbledon fortnight drew a markup of 6% in audience over the 2017 Championships, according to Nielsen. ESPN’s coverage averaged 667,000 viewers vs. 630,000 a year ago with Serena Williams’s return to Wimbledon after missing 2017 driving the Ladies’ Championship match window to be the most-viewed since 2012 with an average of 2.7 million viewers, up 32% over 2017. Digital consumption of tennis content grew across ESPN.com and the ESPN App, up 63% over 2017’s Championships.

Meanwhile, ESPN is tackling a new season of college football with the newest single from Imagine Dragons’ “Natural” selected as this year’s college football anthem, driving the overall collaboration between ESPN, Interscope Records and Universal Music Group Nashville for the fourth consecutive year. Once again, music from the labels’ biggest artists will be incorporated into ESPN college football programming, promotion and games throughout the season. Other artists from the partnership that will be heard will be One Republic, DJ Snake, Keith Urban, Eric Church, Jamie N Commons, Jay Rock, SUR, and more.

The NFL and NFLPA are pulling the plug on the league’s revised anthem policy, announcing that “In order to allow this constructive dialogue to continue, we have come to a standstill agreement on the NFLPA’s grievance and on the NFL’s anthem policy. No new rules relating to the anthem will be issued or enforced for the next several weeks while these confidential discussions are ongoing.”

The NCAA will be examining how the expansion of legalized betting could affect college athletics and member schools, according to the AP. The NCAA announced it will create a working group of “subject matter experts” to assess areas such as officiating, NCAA rules, federal and state laws, and the use of integrity services. “While we certainly respect the Supreme Court’s decision, our position on sports wagering remains,” said Donald Remy, NCAA chief legal officer. “With this new landscape, we must evolve and expand our long-standing efforts to protect both the integrity of competitions and the well-being of student-athletes.”

BTN carries over 14 hours of live coverage of the 2018 Big Ten Football Media Days from Chicago today and tomorrow. Coverage will include press conferences of all 14 Big Ten head football coaches, as well as remarks from Big Ten Commissioner Jim Delany and FOX Sports National Networks and BTN President Mark Silverman. Programming kicks off at 11a with Delany, followed by Scott Frost (Nebraska), Pat Fitzgerald (Northwestern), James Franklin (Penn State), Jeff Brohm (Purdue), P.J. Fleck (Minnesota), Chris Ash (Rutgers) and Jim Harbaugh (Michigan).

Around the dial, Pac-12 Networks launches coverage of the 2018 Pac-12 Football Media Day on Wednesday. Programming begins with the first of two three-hour long episodes of Inside Pac-12 Football: Media Day Special at 8:30a PT, with a spotlight on the Pac-12 North division, followed by coverage of the Pac-12 South at 1p PT. Mike Yam hosts with coverage set to include Commissioner Larry Scott’s opening remarks at 8a PT.

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SPONSORSHIP & PROMOTION

Organizers for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics and Paralympics unveiled the official mascots for the events on Sunday. The mascot for the Olympics is named Miraitowa while the Paralympic mascot is Someity. According to Reuters, Miraitowa is a combination of the Japanese words for future and eternity while Someity comes from a popular cherry blossom variety “Someiyoshino” and echoes the English phrase “so mighty.” The two mascot designs were selected by elementary schoolchildren across Japan.

Another day, another partnership for Pizza Hut, which announced a deal with the Pittsburgh Steelers, to mark the second official NFL team partnership for the brand, following last’s week’s announcement with the Seattle Seahawks. Pizza Hut became the Official Pizza of the NFL earlier this year. “Few franchises in sports are as revered as the Pittsburgh Steelers, so it is with great pride that we enter into a partnership with one of the most iconic teams in the NFL,” said Zipporah Allen, CMO, Pizza Hut. “We look forward to the opportunity of offering fans of the Steel Curtain exclusive deals, promotions and entertainment throughout the season.”

Speaking of football, FedEx Corp., the Official Delivery Service Sponsor of the NFL, unveiled the FedEx Football Fellowship, a new collaboration with the USO that will work with NFL teams to create on-the-job professional experiences for recently-transitioned veterans as they navigate their way from military to civilian life. The program began accepting applications on July 19. In its inaugural year, the FedEx Football Fellowship will award four former service members a 12-week fellowship with the Washington Redskins and the Tennessee Titans.

The Vegas Golden Knights resolved a trademark dispute with the US Army over the NHL franchise’s name as well as its gold and black color scheme. The team said in a statement that the deal allows the team to continue using the “Vegas Golden Knights” and “Golden Knights” while the Army can keep using the “Golden Knights” nickname and variations of it for its parachute exhibition team.

DIGITAL & STREAMING

SendtoNews reports records from June’s comScore rankings, drawing a record 171,693,000 video views in the month. “The independent validation of our growth by comScore is a great measure of all the hard work we do to help our digital publishing partners thrive.” says SendtoNews CEO Matthew Watson. “We are thrilled not only to help our publishing partners deliver the best user experience in sports news coverage, but extend the reach of the leagues we work with to new and engaged fans.”

ESPORTS

Epic Games confirmed that third-party Fortnite: Battle Royale tournament organizers will see their prize pool capped at $10,000, according to Kotaku. The sole exception to the rule will be for Daniel “KEEMSTAR” Keem who will be allowed to stake $20,000 for his weekly Fortnite tournaments, per the report. Meanwhile, UMG Events, which had been assisting KEEMSTAR in hosting the Friday Fortnite tournaments, announced that the company would no longer have any involvement in the weekly competition. In order to dodge Epic’s own tournaments, KEEMSTAR will now be moving his weekly tournaments to Sunday.

Mercedes-Benz is partnering with ProGaming Italia and Sony Interactive Entertainment Italy to launch the Gran Turismo Sport E-Cup by Mercedes. Online qualifying for the event runs through Sept. 16, in addition to two live qualifying sessions. The first will take place during the Italian Grand Prix weekend from Aug. 30-Sept. 2 and the second “Last Chance” qualifier running at ESL esports arena at the Milan Games Week 2018 on Oct. 5–6. A total 12 racers will compete for the championship on Oct. 7, the last day of Milan Games Week.

Team Envy and the Dallas Fuel hitched their wagons to the upcoming SMU Guildhall, with eGency Global announcing that partnership for the inaugural event this fall.. Fans at OP Live Dallas Powered by Team Envy and the Dallas Fuel will have the opportunity to meet and interact with Fuel head coach Aaron “Aero” Atkins, Dallas Fuel general manager Mat “TazMo” Taylor and even Envy Gaming owner Mike “Hastr0” Rufail. Staff will be available for autographs, coaching sessions for fans, educational sessions and more.

Super League Gaming launched its Saturdays Series for League of Legends. The free-to-compete slate will allow players to compete online from home or at participating Microsoft stores. Gameplay will alternate weekly between 1v1 ARAM and 5v5 team builder style Summoner’s Rift tournaments, with prize pools and weekly raffles available

Last week’s grand meeting between sports, esports and Olympic communities met at the esports forum in Lausanne, Switzerland over the weekend. With Rick Fox anchoring the discussion, the event was hosted by the International Olympic Committee and the Global Association of International Sports Federations. The IOC and the GAISF will team up to launch an Esports Liaison Group to continue to drive the discussion.

ROSTER MOVES

Learfield named Alfred Vaca as senior director-sales analytics to work alongside Jeff Gosey, the company’s newly appointed vice president-sales acceleration. Vaca spent the last two years working for the NFL’s Miami Dolphins and Hard Rock Stadium.

THE MAIN EVENT

Diamondbacks/Cubs on ESPN at 8p.

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ON THIS DAY in 1996: Competing on an injured ankle, American gymnast Kerri Strug makes headlines after landing her second vault to help the US win a team gold medal in women’s gymnastics.

In the Know: Who was the last NFL RB to break 2000 years in a season? (Email [email protected] with your answer and be sure to include your name, company and city.)

Answer to Our Last Sports Trivia Question: Severiano Ballesteros famously hit the ball into what unique location to help him win the Open in 1979? Answer: The Parking Lot. Kudos: John Ferlazzo/London; Denis Barry-CBS/NY; Synda Kollman-Charter Marketing Group/Boca Raton; Matt Sautter-WideOrbit/Harrisburg; Andy Pittman-TAMU/College Station; Lance Phegley-Texas Runner and Triathlete magazine/Houston; Rich Wolfe-Lone Wolfe Press/Scottsdale; Tom Moore-Kalt Productions/LA; David Westberg-SAG-AFTRA Federal Credit Union/Burbank

Later – Chris

Chris Pursell @VegasandVine
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