11/29/18: NBA CMO books end game

Good morning. It’s Thursday November 29, 2018 and this is your first early morning Sports briefing.

The NBA announced that Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer Pam El will retire at the end of 2018. During her tenure at the NBA, El has been integral to the global growth of the league, leading the marketing strategy, advertising and brand management and development for the NBA, WNBA, NBA G League and NBA 2K League. In her role as EVP and CMO, she has also overseen a dedicated team responsible for the league’s customer data strategy, market research and media planning and buying. Following her departure, El will consult for the NBA serving as an adviser on marketing and branding matters.

“Pam’s contributions to the NBA have been extraordinary,” said NBA Deputy Commissioner and COO Mark Tatum. “Even before she joined the league in 2014, we benefited greatly from Pam’s expertise during her time as head of Marketing for State Farm Insurance, where she established vital partnerships between the NBA and WNBA and the leading U.S.-based insurance company. We are grateful for her incredible impact spearheading marketing strategy for all four of our leagues, and we wish her well in retirement after an award-winning career.”

PROGRAMMING

ESPN saw its Week 12 Monday Night Football game reel in an average of 9,822,000 viewers across ESPN and ESPN Deportes, according to Nielsen, to mark a rise of 17% over last year’s week 12 game. The bolstered ESPN to win the night among all networks, broadcast or cable, in households, viewers and all key male and adult demos (18-34, 18-49, 25-54) for the 12th straight week this fall. On ESPN, Titans/Texans averaged a 6.0 US household rating and 9,735,000 viewers. Season-to-date, MNF on ESPN is up 10% over last year.

With Week 12 complete, the NFL is now reporting that – season to date – NFL games are averaging 15.8 million viewers on TV, up 5% over last year and that NFL games have accounted for 19 of the top 20 and 46 of the top 50 most-watched shows on television. Week 12 itself averaged 20.3 million viewers, up 15% over week 12 in 2017.

ABC’s Saturday Night Football college football matchup pitting Notre Dame/USC delivered a total live audience of 7,809,000 viewers. Among all November primetime games, the nearly eight million viewers is best on ESPN’s networks since the 2014 season and is up 46% year-over-year.

The Dallas Cowboys, Federacion Mexicana de Futbol, FC Dallas, and the Dallas Sports Commission detailed plans for the Mexican National Team US Tour to hit AT&T Stadium through 2022. The first match under the deal takes place on June 9 and will see FC Dallas stage watch parties for out-of-market Mexico matches as well as participate in youth clinics and community initiatives.

FloSports locked in a deal with the Abu Dhabi Combat Club to carry live and on-demand coverage of the 2019 ADCC World Championship exclusively on FloGrappling.com. The biennial no-gi tournament will be held at the Anaheim Convention Center on Sept. 28-29, 2019.

NBC Sports Group lined up a slate of 30 Premier League matches across 11 days beginning this Friday, highlighted by a “Triple Derby Day” on NBCSN on Dec. 2, as well as the “Premier League Mornings Live” Fan Fest on Saturday, Dec. 8 in downtown Manhattan. This week’s live Premier League coverage begins Friday at 2p with Premier League Live on NBCSN, followed by Cardiff City/Wolverhampton Wanderers at 3p.

FOX Sports is tapping Michael Bisping and Kenny Florian to serve as analysts alongside lead host Karyn Bryant in FOX Sports’ Los Angeles studio for this weekend’s back-to-back UFC events which include The Ultimate Fighter Finale: Dos Anjos vs. Usman on Friday and FS1 UFC Fight Night: Ds Santos vs. Tuivasa on Saturday. Brendan Fitzgerald and analyst Jimmy Smith call TUF live in Las Vegas, while Heidi Androl adds reports and interviews fighters onsite. Dan Hardy and John Gooden call FS1 UFC Fight Night live from Australia, with Laura Sanko reporting.

ESPN showcases NCAA Division I Women’s Soccer with the 2018 Women’s College Cup starting tomorrow, opening with Georgetown/North Carolina at 5p as part of the semifinals, followed by Florida State/Stanford at 7:30p. Jen Hildreth and Julie Foudy handle microphone duties, with the Championship set for Sunday at 1p. All matches will air on ESPNU.

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The 2018 Cynopsis TV Awards

The TV Awards recognizes outstanding achievement across teams, platforms, and overall merit. Winning a Cynopsis TV Award is acknowledgement from your peers – and from the leading B2B digital publication in our industry – that your work has risen to the top in entertaining and enriching a broad audience. New categories include: Awards Show, Comedy Special, Companion Series/After-Show, Financial Series, Network Rebrand and more (view all categories here ).

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SPONSORSHIP & PROMOTION

PlayStation will officially return as the Fiesta Bowl title sponsor as part of a multi-year agreement with ESPN. This year’s PlayStation Fiesta Bowl will be played on Jan. 1, at 1p at State Farm Stadium in Glendale. The category exclusive deal secures PlayStation as the official gaming and virtual reality sponsor for the College Football Playoff and its New Year’s Six Bowl games. ESPN will once again collaborate with PlayStation on multimedia content integrations across ESPN programming, featuring the PlayStation brand messaging “Greatness Awaits” to drive excitement and anticipation for the bowl season and throughout the regular season. PlayStation and the Fiesta Bowl organization are also engaged in a partnership where PlayStation integrates into the gameweek activities.

ExxonMobil’s Mobil 1 brand, the Official Motor Oil of NASCAR, was honored with the 2018 NASCAR Marketing Achievement Award. This year saw the global brand continued its promotion of Mobil 1 Annual Protection motor oil, utilizing NASCAR as a catalyst to the national campaign, renewing its series of advertising creative featuring Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series driver Kevin Harvick.

Syracuse University Athletics and IMG extended their partnership with a long-term agreement for multimedia rights and licensing. The partnership provides for innovative opportunities for brands and fans to connect with Syracuse Athletics locally and nationally via digital and social media platforms, the Syracuse IMG Radio Network, game programs, corporate hospitality events, promotional activities at athletics contests, and signage in all home venues.

The Alliance of American Football unveiled team uniforms for its inaugural season, which kicks off on Feb. 9. Designed by Starter and produced by G-III Sports, teams include the Orlando Apollos, Atlanta Legends, Birmingham Iron, Memphis Express, San Antonio Commanders, Arizona Hotshots, San Diego Fleet, and Salt Lake Stallions.

National Pro Fastpitch is launching of a new advertising program focused on “unique ad locations provided on the individual players themselves.” The initiative will begin immediately, with apparel items making their debut in the 2019 season. “We exist in the space of women’s professional sports, which in this day and time translates always, to players being underpaid,” said NPF Commissioner, Cheri Kempf. “This program allows sponsors to engage with players directly, and players to tap into their personal network resources, to add financial support to their endeavor of playing professional softball.”

DIGITAL, DATA & TECH

The NBA announced its first betting data partnerships in the US, partnering with Sportradar and Genius Sports for the non-exclusive rights to distribute official NBA betting data to licensed sports betting operators in the US. Genius Sports and Sportradar will work closely with the league to ensure those who choose to bet on sports legally have access to official NBA betting data through licensed gaming operators in their respective states. This will include official betting data for all NBA and WNBA games, including the preseason, regular season and playoffs.

This week, The Players’ Tribune showcases content exploring female African-American coaches in NCAA Women’s Basketball. The package premiered with a first-person written article and sit-down video interview from Hall of Famer and current University of South Carolina head coach Dawn Staley. Thursday see the package continue with an exclusive video roundtable of current female African-American head and assistant coaches including: Staley (University South Carolina), Carolyn Peck (Vanderbilt University), Yolett McPhee-McCuin (University of Mississippi), Vanessa Blair-Lewis (Bethune-Cookman University), and Felisha Legette-Jack (University of Buffalo).

USBets announced the acquisition of Sports Handle, a sports betting industry news site that covers legislative and regulatory developments through original reporting, features and analysis. Effective immediately, Sports Handle founder and editor-in-chief Brett Smiley will join the USBets team, as will deputy editor Jill Dorson. Sports Handle will continue its editorial operations within the USBets portfolio.

For the second month in a row, the ESPN mobile app had its best month ever in October, with 20.6 million unique visitors (up 19% YOY) and 2.2 billion minutes (up 21% YOY). Meanwhile, ESPN collected more than 100 million unique visitors for the 6th time ever in October, which was ESPN’s 5th best month all-time.

ESPORTS

In this week’s edition of Cynopsis Esports…

DreamHack adds new Rocket ride
Starcraft touching down in Katowice
CWL Vegas gets ready to rumble
ELEAGUE’s newest AR journey
Monitoring Twitch/NFL
ESL’s Cologne plans
SPORT1’s networking opportunity
Breaking down DreamHack Atlanta
Black Friday drives gaming sales
FTC targets loot boxes

ROSTER MOVES

NBC Sports Regional Networks named Matt Murphy SVP and General Manager of NBC Sports Bay Area & California, effective January 2. He will be charged with overseeing the networks, their multiplatform content and relationships as the league’s local sports networks of the San Francisco Giants, Golden State Warriors, Oakland A’s, Sacramento Kings, San Jose Earthquakes, and San Jose Sharks.

ASICS America Corporation named Sean Mannion as Vice President of Sales where he will lead and oversee all commerce functions for the brand across the US and serve as a key member of the ASICS America executive leadership team. Mannion comes to ASICS after having held roles at Nike, Saucony and Under Armour.

The World Golf Foundation Board of Directors announced that Greg McLaughlin will assume the combined roles and responsibilities of World Golf Foundation Chief Executive Officer & President of The First Tee. McLaughlin most recently served as President of PGA TOUR Champions.

THE MAIN EVENT

Saints/Cowboys on FOX and NFL Network at 8p.

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Uniting media’s most philanthropic teams

The Cynopsis Social Good Awards

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Cynopsis is opening the call for entries for the fifth annual Cynopsis Social Good Awards, and we encourage you to show us your work as we learn from each other and look to forge new alliances. Enter before December 13th to save. Finalists will be announced in late February and winners will be announced at the fifth annual awards event taking place this August in NYC.

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ON THIS DAY in 1890: The first Army/Navy football game is played.

In the Know: Which stadium served as the only venue to host the Army/Navy game west of the Mississippi? (Email [email protected] with your answer and be sure to include your name, company and city.)

Answer to Our Last Sports Trivia Question: Who had the longest run as manager of the Baltimore Orioles? Answer: Earl Weaver. Kudos: Phyllis McQuillan-MSG Networks/NY; Denis Barry-CBS/NY; Matt Meachem-Gracenote/NY; Bob Dudelson-Leverage Agency/NY; Rick Ramage-United Talent Agency/NY; Randy Ingram-WISH/WNDY-TV/Indianapolis; Rich Dubroff-BaltimoreBaseball.com/Baltimore; Mark Lehman-Atlanta Braves/Atlanta; Don Micallef-Investigation Discovery/Silver Spring; Andy Pittman-TAMU/College Station; Joe Lyons-ESPN/Dallas; Matt Fumagalli-NBC/Chicago; John Kukla-KDFW/KDFI/Dallas; Greg Moloznik-GLM Media/Scottsdale; David Hauptman/Denver; Tom Moore-Kalt Productions/LA; David Westberg-SAG-AFTRA Federal Credit Union/Burbank; Andy Babb-Super League Gaming/Santa Monica; Tony Reyes-ShadowMachine/Hollywood

Later – Chris

Chris Pursell @VegasandVine
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