08/13/21: adidas sold Reebok to Authentic Brands Group

Friday August 13, 2021

The adidas breakup with Reebok is official, with the parent company agreeing to sell Reebok to Authentic Brands Group for up to $2.5 billion. Adidas added Reebok to its umbrella in 2005 for $3.8 billion but the brand reportedly suffered more than $100 million in losses in 2020. Reebok will keep its headquarters in Boston and continue operations in North and Latin America, Asia-Pacific, Europe and Russia.

“Reebok has been a valued part of adidas, and we are grateful for the contributions the brand and the team behind it have made to our company. With this change in ownership, we believe the Reebok brand will be well-positioned for long-term success. As for adidas, we will continue to focus our efforts on executing our “Own the Game” strategy that will enable us to grow in an attractive industry, gain market share, and create sustainable value for all of our stakeholders,” said Kasper Rorsted, CEO of adidas AG.

Jamie Salter, Founder, Chairman and CEO of ABG stated, “It’s an honor to be entrusted with carrying Reebok’s legacy forward. This is an important milestone for ABG, and we are committed to preserving Reebok’s integrity, innovation, and values – including its presence in bricks and mortar. We look forward to working closely with the Reebok team to build on the brand’s success.”

PROGRAMMING

CBS inked a new long-term, multiplatform agreement with announcer and former NFL player Nate Burleson across CBS News, CBS Sports and ViacomCBS’ Nickelodeon. Beginning in September, Burleson will join CBS This Morning as co-host with Gayle King and Tony Dokoupil, anchoring the Network’s flagship morning program. He joined CBS Sports in 2017 as analyst on The NFL Today, and will continue in his analyst role alongside host James Brown and co-analysts Phil Simms, Bill Cowher and Boomer Esiason on Sundays during the NFL season. The agreement also includes select yearly appearances on Nickelodeon in a variety of capacities. Burleson’s role with NFL Network will expand to include a larger variety of programs and platforms.

The Colonial Athletic Association and FloSports are expanding their streaming rights partnership, designating FloSports as the exclusive digital platform for live and on-demand coverage of 13 conference sports. The expanded agreement provides a minimum of 850 CAA events to FloSports annually over the next two years. All regular season CAA-controlled football and men’s and women’s basketball games will air exclusively on FloSports on the digital side with CAA member institutions retaining rights for local linear television distribution. “We are pleased to expand our partnership with FloSports for the next two years,” CAA Commissioner Joe D’Antonio said. “FloSports has done a great job promoting the conference and we’re excited to provide CAA fans with a single streaming platform where they can watch nearly every game in a variety of sports.” The partnership expansion was negotiated by Collegiate Sports Management Group (CSMG).

CBS Sports revealed schedule details for the initial launch of its inaugural season as the exclusive U.S. rights holder for Serie A, on Paramount+ and CBS Sports Network. The network kicks off its Serie A coverage on Aug. 21 while CBS Sports’ coverage of the Coppa Italia begins today, with all matches available on Paramount+. CBS Sports will also provide coverage of the Coppa Italia, with matches streaming live on Paramount+ throughout August. CBS Sports Network will re-air select Coppa Italia matches throughout the month and feature dedicated 30-minute highlight shows. Paramount+, meanwhile, will deliver more than 400 club matches live each season through 2024, featuring all 380 Serie A matches, at least 25 Coppa Italia matches including all contests from the fourth knockout round on, and the Supercoppa Italiana match each year between the winners of Serie A and Coppa Italia.

NBC Sports serves up a Brickyard Weekend of NASCAR and INDYCAR racing for the second consecutive year from Indianapolis Motor Speedway, featuring NASCAR Cup and Xfinity Series and NTT INDYCAR SERIES races on the IMS road course Saturday and Sunday across NBC and NBCSN. A Saturday doubleheader on NBCSN from the IMS road course gets underway with pre-race coverage of the NTT INDYCAR SERIES Big Machine Spiked Coolers Grand Prix at 12:30p. For a second consecutive week, NASCAR coverage will feature NBC Sports’ signature fan-favorite “Radio Style” broadcasts, with announcers positioned from vantage points around the track at the following positions:

Telemundo Deportes reports that Tokyo Olympics numbers reached 10.6 million viewers on Telemundo and Universo and generated 16.5 million minutes streamed across Telemundo Deportes’ digital platforms, rising 22% from Rio 2016. “Telemundo Deportes’ coverage of the Tokyo Olympics was unprecedented. With more hours than ever for storytelling, we were committed to delivering the best Olympic moments that were relevant to the Hispanic audience, in a challenging and different environment. From Mexico advancing to the bronze medal match in men’s soccer, to the historic performance of Venezuela, Colombia and Puerto Rico in track & field, Ecuador’s gold medals in cycling and weightlifting, and the silver medals Colombia and Venezuela won in BMX,” said Ray Warren, president of Telemundo Deportes. “We are proud of the tremendous efforts between our teams in Tokyo and Telemundo, and our close collaboration with NBC Sports. It is an amazing achievement.”

Amazon Prime Video announced that all five episodes of Canadian Amazon Original docuseries, All or Nothing: Toronto Maple Leafs, will premiere October 1 on Prime Video. The series offers an insider view of the team during the historic 2020-21 NHL season. The Canadian Amazon Original series will be available in more than 240 countries and territories.

SiriusXM will kick off its coverage of the 2021-2022 Premier League soccer season today, offering talkSPORT’s live play-by-play broadcasts of multiple Premier League matches each week throughout the season. Matches will air on SiriusXM’s dedicated soccer channel, SiriusXM FC (channel 157).

HURRY! FINAL WEEK TO ENTER
***
The 9th Annual Cynopsis Digital Model D and It List Awards final deadline is approaching.
These awards recognize outstanding work in Video Content, Ad Tech, Creative Campaigns, Individuals and Teams – the influencers and those working behind the scenes.
But hurry, you can’t win if you don’t enter.

COMPLETE YOUR ENTRY BY 8/17

SPONSORSHIP & PROMOTION

UFC and Monster Energy are renewing of their global partnership in which Monster will continue to serve as the “Official Energy Drink of UFC.” In addition, the deal will expand to include Monster as the “Official Water of UFC,” launching a new sponsorship category for the MMA promotion. Under the terms of the agreement, Monster will continue to have center canvas and entrance logo placement inside the fighter gate of UFC’s world-famous Octagon at all events. Monster will also partner with UFC on retail promotions and social and digital media integrations during events in select markets, as well as serve as the presenting sponsor for UFC’s Twitch channel.

DIGITAL, DATA & TECH

The Professional Fighters League announced a partnership with Brandon Steiner’s CollectibleXchange to offer fans the chance to buy autographed and match-worn collectibles. A wide-range of items will be available for purchase, launching with gear and items from the three win-or-go-home Playoff events on August 13, 19 and 27 airing live and in primetime across ESPN networks and streaming platforms.

WAVE.tv inked or renewed deals with more than 20 sports leagues during the first half of 2021, the company announced. With this sweep, WAVE.tv features more than 115 rights partners and widens it leadership position as holder of one of the most diverse digital IP libraries of popular traditional and non-traditional sports content, including big four sports, amateur and professional levels, backyard and beach sports, MMA and combat sports, extreme and alternative sports, and more.

Caesars Entertainment announced an agreement with the Houston Texans to become the official casino partner of the team ahead of the 2021 NFL season. As part of the agreement, Caesars Rewards will sponsor the free-to-play “Schedule Pick ‘Em” game, available on the Texans official mobile app. As part of the partnership, Caesars Rewards will be integrated into the team’s promotional channels, including in-stadium signage and digital and traditional media assets.

The Washington Football Team and NBC Sports Washington announced a “first-in-its-class” alternative StatsBlitz Broadcast featuring Next Gen Stat, powered by AWS and brought to life by SMT. The alternative live-game coverage on NBC Sports Washington Plus will allows viewers to experience StatsBlitz Broadcast and showcase live, in-game stats, with an additional opportunity for fans to participate in interactive sweepstakes that will be hosted in parallel via the Washington Football Team’s social media accounts.

ESPORTS

The League of Legends European Championship announced partnership ahead of the LEC 2021 Summer Playoffs. SAP will be partnering with the LEC stats team to create new statistics segments during the Summer Playoffs, providing insights into the performances of LEC players. “With our experience in in-game analytics in the MOBA genre, we are proud to now bring our knowledge of data and software to the LEC, providing relevant context and new ways for League broadcasts, as well as delivering richer and more meaningful insights to the audience in the live stream,” says Lars Lamadé, Head of Global Sponsorships at SAP.

In addition, the LEC extended its partnership with Mastercard as finals partner for the LEC Summer Playoffs 2021 – as well as Spring and Summer Playoffs 2022. As the official partner for the LEC, Mastercard will sponsor a new Play of the Week segment during the Summer Playoffs. “We are proud to partner with the League of Legends European Championship. This builds on our successful global partnership with Riot Games. We want to connect people to their passions and in Europe, the passion of League of Legends esports fans have for the game is indisputable,” says Jeannette Liendo, Senior Vice President, Marketing and Communications, Mastercard Europe.

DreamHack reports that the seven-day, interactive event DreamHack Beyond on July 31, drew more than 45,000 fans registered to experience the event, with over 1.7 million viewing hours. “The goal for all of us at DreamHack is to provide great experiences, so to have brought our community back together for this hybrid festival was super special for us,” said Bas Bruinekool, Vice President, Festivals, DreamHack. “DreamHack is more than an event — it creates an arena where you can come to connect, explore, win, play a part, and be yourself through a gaming lifestyle experience. We are so happy to have reconnected and shared this with our loyal fans.”

The WTA and ATP are teaming up with Tennis Clash to launch a new co-branded in-game mobile tournament, Tennis United, giving participants the chance to compete, show off their skills and win prizes in a brand-new virtual arena. The event is the latest in a series of co-branded marketing initiatives between the Tours and runs parallel to the 2021 Western & Southern Open, a WTA 1000 and ATP Masters 1000 combined tournament in Cincinnati.

Saturday at Midnight sees the first episode of the EA Sports FIFA 21 North America Playoffs, featuring the best matches and moments from the ELEAGUE NA Regional Online Cup tournaments. The episode will take a look at FIFA stars Agitpower and KingCJ0 as they battle to advance to the North American Grand Finals and win a spot at the FIFAe World Cup. The episode will include key matches, behind-the-scenes player interviews and more.

Allied Esports reports that its 24-hour programming schedule on Twitch, featuring Allied Esports-produced tournaments and exclusive original content, has generated 13.4 million live views and 7.6 million unique views since its debut in November 2020. Allied Esports also added 46,752 Twitch followers during that time. “The market for esports content is growing rapidly, and we are all-in on delivering our popular tournament broadcasts to fans across a diverse set of digital platforms,” said Jud Hannigan, CEO of Allied Esports. “As the past several months have proven, gaming fans want to watch competitive, high-quality content and with weekly productions across multiple continents, we have the ability to grow our distribution library and reach new audiences quickly and broadly.”

SPORTS BROADCAST JOURNAL w/David J. Halberstam

Fox Sports excels covering HOF Game:

With NBC’s focus on Tokyo, Fox aired the HOF game, producing a beefy show by using more talent
NBC labored through Olympics for a number of reasons:
A sensible and thorough break down of NBC’s Olympic coverage which didn’t get rave reviews overall
Halby’s Morsels: Covering a broad field, ranting and opining
Halby’s Morsels: CBS smartly extends Burleson; Good vs. weak MLB voices; Remote nightmare; Salary dichotomies
The best of the rest baseball voices #1:
These local ex-MLB play-by-play voices were unsung, yet fans appreciated them locally; (Part #1)
The best of the rest baseball voices #2:
These local ex-MLB play-by-play voices were unsung, yet fans appreciated them locally; (Part #2)

Sports Broadcast Journal

TIME TO CELEBRATE

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ON THIS DAY in
1969: Baltimore Orioles pitcher Jim Palmer throws a no-hitter.

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Answer to Our Last Sports Trivia Question
What company were the Green Bay Packers named after? Answer: The Indian Packing Company aka Acme Packing Company. Kudos: Frank Costa-CBS Sports/NY; Michael Ritz–Lenox Advisors/NY; Denis Barry-CBS/NY; Sam Pittman-Juniper & Berkeley/Raleigh; Synda Kollman-Charter Marketing Group/Boca Raton; Roger Furman-Sports Marketing Communications/Greentown; Willy Gibson-WTG Sports/ColumbusBrianne Maciejowski-Odyssey/Grand Junction; John Raven-Raven Consulting/Phoenix; David Westberg-SAG•AFTRA Credit Union/Burbank; Tom Moore-Kalt Productions/LA

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