07/29/19: ACL pitches growth

Good morning. It’s Monday July 29, 2019 and this is your first early morning Sports briefing.

Aug. 7 will see the return of ESPN8: The Ocho Presented by State Farm as ESPN2 transforms for a day flush with events such as The Amazing Games, Premier League Darts, World Sumo Challenge, Burger Eating and Spikeball. Anchoring the action will be The Ocho’s first live event in the 2019: WCO World Cornhole Championship at 8p. A long-time staple of the tailgating experience, cornhole’s emergence as an organized sport has seen the saw the American Cornhole League cement a three-year deal with ESPN, where they were showcased 49 times last year. Ahead of this year’s championship, Cynopsis asked Stacey Moore, the Commissioner and Founder of the American Cornhole League, about the sports rise and building the community.

Moore on the growth of the ACL: There are several trends and activities working in our favor to accelerate the growth of the ACL. People of all ages have being playing the game for a while in their backyard or at a bar or at a tailgate party. I don’t think there is a single craft brewery that does not have people playing cornhole. Our is motto “anyone can play and anyone can win.” That familiarity makes people want to check out our ESPN broadcast to see what it is all about and once they tune in the first time. They are hooked. We have seen celebrities such as Jake Owen and Jason Aldean tweet at us telling us they have their eyes glued to cornhole. Chrissy Teigen even tweeted at us a few weeks ago letting us know she has a new addiction. It’s a sport that truly reaches everyone.

On ACL’s appearance on the Ocho: We are honored to be the ONLY live content on the Ocho August 7. We have a great 8p time slot and hope everyone tunes in and joins in the social media conversation. We are showcasing the WCO World Championship. We will be showing the finals of the ACL Pro American Event and the finals of the International Event. Then those two teams will square off to determine the World Champion. This will be the largest international field of players to date at a cornhole event. We view this as a milestone event to advance conversations of cornhole becoming an Olympic Sport which has been my dream.

On building communities: Without players, you don’t have a league and you don’t have a sport. Starting out we wanted to give existing cornhole players a reason to play with us and give us a shot. We did not want to be a league that just caters to the top players in the game, we wanted to be able to segment players and create skill level based events. We created our own software to power this segmentation along with the scores, stats and the database for the sport. We consider anything and everything when we look at making rule changes to evolve the sport. The introduction of the BYOB – Bring Your Own Bag Policy was an important innovation that spurred new companies to start making bags and along with a lot of conversation within our community. I think it was the single best rule decision made to date that brought the community a lot closer together through positive and negative conversations about the policy. Our goal is to provide a great experience for our players, great tools and support to our 300+ directors across the US that run events with the ACL, and a great broadcast to showcase the ACL Pros and our league. We have to be great at all of those things so that whether you a player, or director or fan, if you are wearing ACL gear or taking part in a event, you are proud to be a part of the ACL community.

On the league in five years: In five years, I hope that most if not all of our ACL Pros will be able to focus on cornhole full time as their profession if they choose to do so. We have a well defined path for players to become pros. Anyone can play their way into becoming an ACL Pro. We are leading the organization of cornhole as a college sport with the National College Cornhole Championship that is for students and alumni. Within the next five years we hope that high schools have started cornhole teams to compete against other high schools. We see team and club competitions developing rapidly over the next five years.

PROGRAMMING

Dish Network and Sling dropped access to 21 regional Fox Sports regional networks on Friday after failing to reach a new agreement with the RSNs. the satellite and streaming service and television network failed to reach a new agreement. The broadcast group noted on its site that it had offered to extend DISH and Sling under the current terms of our existing agreement, but DISH and Sling rejected the offer. Meanwhile, Dish Network said the Walt Disney Company, which owns the channels, “is making unreasonable demands for the continued carriage of their stations” and refused Dish’s attempts to extend the contract.”

ESPN hits the big 25 in its upcoming covering of the Pro Football Hall of Fame Enshrinement in Canton, with coverage kicking off today with a SportsCenter Special in prime time honoring the Class of 2019 and will culminate with live coverage of the induction ceremony honoring the eight-member class on Saturday. The enshrinement telecast will see Trey Wingo lead ESPN’s coverage for the 16th year, joined by Chris Mortensen and NFL analyst Jeff Saturday while correspondent Michele Steele will contribute to SportsCenter coverage throughout the weekend. Additionally, Chris Berman will once again serve as the Hall of Fame’s Master of Ceremony for the 20th year.

Speaking of the NFL, EPIX and NFL Films announced lineup of regular contributors who will take part in the weekly series NFL: The Grind, which premieres Sept. 11 at 9p. The diverse lineup includes Pro Football Hall of Famers Brett Favre, Charles Woodson and Terrell Owens, along with stars DeMarcus Ware, Chad Johnson, Clinton Portis and Michael Vick, all of whom will be on the road meeting with and documenting coaches, players and personnel around the NFL. Rich Eisen hosts.

The Pac-12 is adding a new bowl game to its postseason lineup beginning in 2020. The Los Angeles Bowl will pit teams from the Pac-12 and Mountain West in the new NFL stadium under construction in the LA area.

Obstacle Course Racing Media TV launched a 24/7 live feed, with programming on OCRM TV now airing live on FlixFling and is available On Demand as part of Amazon Prime in a partnership with Ashling Digital Inc. OCRM will also be the official home of Obstacle Course Racing events for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

A CYNOPSIS MESSAGE

CYNOPSIS TOP WOMEN IN MEDIA AWARDS GALA

September 9 | 5:45PM – 8PM | Tribeca Rooftop, NYC

Cynopsis is celebrating the 2019 Top Women in Media — the outstanding women across every facet of the media industry — TV, digital/tech, esports, sports, marketing and more. From corporate visionaries to rising stars, they are making bold decisions and driving their businesses forward and they deserve their moment in the spotlight.

Join us September 9^th in NYC!

SEE THE LIST OF HONOREES REGISTER BEFORE AUGUST 9

Platinum Sponsor: Turnkey Search

SPONSORSHIP & PROMOTION

The 2-0 triumph by the U.S. over The Netherlands in the final of the FIFA Women’s World Cup in France paid dividends for Fox Sports. According to research from SQAD, the average 30-second spot in FOX’s coverage of the July 7 championship match sold for $506,665, topping the $437,707 on the network for France’s 4-2 victory over Croatia in the men’s 2018.World Cup final. That price also outscored the $491,359 on ABC with the 2014 World Cup final in which Germany beat Argentina 1-0, while almost doubling the $256,262 for the U,S’s, 5-2 beat-down of Japan in the title contest of the 2015 Women’s World Cup in Canada, which aired on FOX in primetime. Advertiser outlays averaged $126,055 and $180,473 per 30-second unit on FOX’s presentations of the U.S. quarterfinal wins over France and England in this year’s tournament on June 28 and July 2, respectively. The average costs for the spots reflected the price paid in the upfronts and in the scatter markets, according to SQAD.

DIGITAL, DATA & STREAMING

WNBA.com/Stats, the league’s official basketball statistical site, is now integrating video for 2019 statistics. Users will now have be able to select a stat and view a video list of the plays when the stat table is highlighted. The feature is available throughout the site on both sortable stats pages and individual player or team profiles

WWE Network is getting a facelift, and will reportedly be introducing a tiered system which will include a free tier with limited WWE programming in addition to a VIP tier that will include additional programming.

EA Sports announced Real Madrid’s Eden Hazard as the cover athlete of the FIFA 20 Standard Edition and Liverpool FC’s Virgil van Dijk as the cover of the FIFA 20 Champions Edition. “EA SPORTS FIFA is the biggest Football game on the planet, and I have been playing it for years against my brothers,” said Hazard. “I am lucky to have been on the cover before but to be on FIFA 20 globally is amazing and I hope to excite as many gamers as I do when I take the field for Real Madrid this season!”

ESPORTS

With $30 million being awarded to competitors of the Fortnite World Cup Finals and Sentinels player Bugda becoming the first Fortnite World Cup Solo Finals champion, audiences tuned in in a big way. Esports Charts reports that the final round six drew peak viewership of 2,334,826 across the various platforms running the event, with 22.5 million hours watched overall. Meanwhile, average concurrent viewership for the weekend’s action was 1,157,885 viewers.

Electronic Arts and the NFL are giving a facelift to the EA SPORTS Madden NFL 20 Championship Series and announced that this year’s MCS will look to bolster the connection to the sport as all four Madden NFL Major tournaments occur during key NFL moments – the NFL Kickoff, the NFL playoffs push, the Super Bowl and the NFL Draft. Additionally, official NFL partners Pizza Hut and SNICKERS will serve as official MCS sponsors. The Madden NFL 20 Classic will kickoff play from August 30-September 1, serving as an open registration format featuring the largest competitor pool in the history of this event. Held at Esports Stadium Arlington and running on the Madden NFL Twitch and YouTube channels. In addition to the Madden NFL 20 Classic, fans can compete to represent one of the 32 NFL teams in the Madden NFL 20 Club Championship December 18-21. Next is the Madden NFL 20 Challenge occurring January 30-February 1 during Super Bowl weekend. The Madden NFL 20 Bowl concludes the MCS season during the NFL Draft April 23-25.

Meanwhile, MCS Major live tournaments will occur in Pizza Hut Stadium – the new home of competitive Madden NFL with Pizza Hut Stadium serving as the first-ever official virtual stadium rights deal in esports. SNICKERS will return for another season and continue to surround the biggest plays and most memorable moments of the MCS.

At the PUBG Mobile Club Open, Tencent announced that launch of the PUBG Mobile World League. The new org is slated to debut in 2020 with more info to be released in the months ahead.

Gen.G Esports is partnering with Meta Threads in a deal that will see the company produce Gen.G-branded gaming apparel, beginning with the Gen.G 2019 Pro Jersey. “We’re really excited to work with Meta Threads to expand our merchandise offering in the U.S.,” said Gen.G. COO Arnold Hur. “They are a great partner for us and will help us continue to build and reach out to a unique fanbase around the world. We’ve got a lot of exciting plans ahead for all our fans.”

INDUSTRY/ROSTER MOVES

Wanda Sports Group, a sport events owner whose interests include the distribution of media rights in Asia for the FIFA World Cup, said on Friday it priced a smaller-than-expected U.S. initial public offering below its targeted range to raise $190.4 million, according to Reuters. The Beijing-based company old about 23.8 million American depositary shares at $8 each, compared with a previously stated target of selling 28 million ADS between $9 to $11.

THE MAIN EVENT

Braves/Nationals on ESPN at 7p.

A CYNOPSIS MESSAGE

“ The future of AI is similar to the future of most every new technology, which in short is improvement, commoditization, and democratization. How do we make it better, cheaper and get it into the hands of more people?”

–David K, Sr. Product Mngr, Watson Video Analytics – IBM Watson Media

(Featured speaker at That Big TV Conference on Sept. 9 – 10 in NYC)

DON’T MISS OUT

Sponsored by: Sinclair – NY Interconnect – Friend MTS – iSpot.tv – NCC Media – Simpli.fi – TV Time – Tubi

ON THIS DAY in 1948: The XIV Summer Olympic Games open at Wembley Stadium in London.

In the Know: Which former NFL player helped hammer vamps in the movie From Dusk til Dawn? (Email [email protected] with your answer and be sure to include your company and city).

Answer to Our Last Sports Trivia Question: Who was the MVP of the first WNBA All-Star game? Answer: Lisa Leslie. Kudos: Michael Ritz-Northwestern Mutual/NY; Mike Seidel-CSI Sports/Jersey City; Synda Kollman-Charter Marketing Group/Boca Raton; Mike May-PHIT America/Wellington; Andy Pittman-TAMU/College Station; Tom Moore-Kalt Productions/LA; David Westberg-SAG-AFTRA Credit Union/Burbank; Anne Wettig-Fox/Fox Sports S&P/LA

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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