CYNOPSISSPORTS
11.02.15 Good morning. It’s Monday November 2, 2015, and this is your first early morning Sports briefing.
Amy Poehler once stated that athletes made the best hosts of Saturday Night Live, due to their ability to take directions, and the NBC franchise has delivered the sports/comedy one-two punch in spades over the years spotlighting names that range from Joe Montana, Walter Payton and Chris Evert to Derek Jeter, The Rock and LeBron James. The sports/comedy connection was made bigger last week, when Bryan Tucker, co-head writer of Saturday Night Live, announced the launch of The Kicker, while Funny or Die locked in a deal with the Detroit Pistons (story below).
The Kicker was launched through Above Average Productions, offering “a unique take on daily sports news and hilarious video content, starring top athletes and celebrities and upholding a ‘for fans, for fun’ philosophy,” with an eye toward helping brands connect. Last week saw one piece of content go viral courtesy of a video of "Weird Al" Yankovic offering a great take of a coach’s press conference. Other stars taking part in the endeavor include the likes of Kenan Thompson, Andy Samberg, JB Smoove, Ricky Williams, Jamaal Charles, Odell Beckham Jr. and Eric Decker. Cynopsis Sports spoke with Tucker about the ties between comedy and sports, how brands are able to take advantage of it, and how to bring the best out of athletes.
Tucker on sports and comedy: Part of The Kicker is personal. I’ve been involved in comedy for a very long time, but I also have a passion for sports. I went to the University of North Carolina and am a huge college basketball fan. I just thought, also, that there was an audience for this that was underserved. There are so many sites that are exclusively about sports and give you analysis and commentary, and then there are sites that are primarily for comedy that might have a little sports content, but that’s not their focus. I just didn’t see anything out there that focused entirely on comedy and sports.
On launching The Kicker: It took a while. I’ve been thinking about it and even pitched it a little bit for the past ten years, but once I was at Saturday Night Live and part of the Broadway Video/Above Average family, I had those resources at my disposal and refocused it into being a digital destination. Together, we pitched it around to the right people, and with the help of Above Average and started picking out a staff in May and started putting out content about a month ago.
On athletes: I’ve been at SNL for ten years and have been lucky enough to have had a bunch of great athletes as hosts. Peyton Manning was one that was especially memorable. We had LeBron James there during my fourth year and I wrote a sketch with Jason Sudeikis where we got to shoot around a basketball with him at rehearsal. One thing we have to do at SNL that a lot of other shows don’t have to do, is that we have a new person coming in every week and we have to figure out their voice and what makes them funny. They obviously aren’t all comedians. Some are serious actors, and we have a politician coming up, and it’s our job to figure out there strengths and try to write around that. I’ve had some experience doing that and I thought I could bring that to this.
On working with brands: This summer we did a branded campaign with Lenovo, called Fantasy Online College where I got my friend JB Smoove to do a bunch of fun videos with NFL players. I wrote the script for the first few of the videos that they did. Having those athletes shine by using their own natural charisma is a big help. Since we’ve gone up, we are getting a lot of calls from both athletes and brands to take part in this. What we do that the brand doesn’t necessarily have is that we can be funny, first of all, and have access to a great pool of talent. I’ve been in TV for 15 years and I know a lot of comedians and writers and they get the entire family involved that we can call.
Game 4 of the World Series continued FOX’s fortunes as the Royals’ win pitched a 7.8/15 household rating/share for the network, according to Nielsen, with 13.6 million viewers tuning in. That represents markups of 24% in rating and 27% in audience over Game 4 a year ago and ranks as the highest-rated, most-watched World Series game on a Saturday night since 2009. Meanwhile, FOX Deportes’ Spanish-language telecast posted 273,000 total viewers, making it the most-watched game this series to date.
Notre Dame’s win over Temple on Saturday on ABC ranked as the highest-rated college football game from week 9 of the season, notching a 3.9 overnight rating, according to Nielsen, and drawing an 18.1 overnight rating in Philadelphia. That rating marks a 26% rise over Saturday Night Football in week 9 of 2014. Overall, ESPN/ABC nabbed seven of the eight highest-rated games of week 9 across all networks including Ole Miss/Auburn, which drew a 2.6 overnight. On WatchESPN, the Rebels/Tigers showdown scored as the most-streamed game of week 9 with 70,000 average minute impressions in addition to the TV audience, with 321,000 live unique viewers and 15,200,000 live minutes viewed — up 108%, 94% and 131%, respectively.
Meanwhile, Saturday also saw the final outing for American Pharoah who went out a winner to capture the Breeders’ Cup on NBC. The Triple Crown winner helped the channel to a 2.63/6 in Nielsen overnight markets, marking the best numbers for the race since 2010 and up 46% over last year’s primetime telecast on the channel. Markets were led by Louisville with an 8.6/17, followed by New Orleans, Cincinnati, Dayton and Indianapolis.
We are at the one month mark in our countdown to the Dec. 2 Cynopsis Sports Engagement Summit in NY. Don’t miss out on sessions covering data, public relations, eSports, social media, our CMO Roundtable as well as our terrific keynotes (not to mention our Leaderboard winners and our Athlete and Media Personality of the Year)! Get your tickets now before it sells out. More information can be found at http://www.sportsengagementsummit.com.
FS1’s Colin Cowherd will play host to presidential candidate Donald Trump today as part of the channel’s The Herd with Colin Cowherd, which airs from noon to 3p on the channel. In addition, FS1 will break out a 30-minute primetime special from the telecast at 8p featuring the best exchanges from the afternoon’s conversation.
Speaking of FOX, Pete Rose was not present on the channel’s Game 4 telecast of the World Series, with the network stating that Rose would not be available for the rest of the series due to previous commitments. Here’s the statement. "Pete was an absolute pleasure to work with this season. He was an informative and entertaining addition to our studio coverage and we look forward to his return next season. We knew at the time Pete agreed to join us that he had prior commitments to multiple events made over a year ago, and it was his desire to honor those commitments. He will be missed by our entire crew but we are lucky to have Kevin Millar join us for the remainder of our World Series coverage."
Continuing the theme, NHRA and Fox Sports officials announced that two-time Funny Car world champion Tony Pedregon has signed on to provide the analysis and color commentary for Fox Sports’ television coverage of the 2016 NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series.
A CYNOPSIS MESSAGE
Beating the Ad Blockers Call it the “Attack of the Ad Blockers” – display and search ads are hidden, and video ads (whether running on YouTube or an OTT network) simply won’t play. And that means lost revenue. So what are advertisers, TV programmers and publishers going to do about it? Join Cynopsis Digital on Tuesday, November 17 from 1:30-3PM EST for our latest webinar, to get tips and insights from leading figures in the ad-blocking fight.
Save your spot and register
now!Danica Patrick wrapped up her lineup of sponsors for the 2016 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series season, announcing that TaxAct had extended its partnership with the driver and Stewart-Haas Racing in a multi-year deal. The agreement sees TaxAct continue as the official online tax preparation partner of SHR and Patrick will be behind the wheel of the No. 10 TaxAct Chevrolet SS for four races annually beginning next year with an associate sponsorship status for Patrick in all other Sprint Cup races.
As mentioned earlier, famed comedy platform Funny or Die locked in a deal with the Detroit Pistons that will see the site embed “a dedicated creative team within the Pistons marketing department to create funny, unexpected and engaging content for the entire 2015-16 NBA season.” Funny Or Die Executive Producer Betsy Koch is leading the creative team in Detroit, which includes Head Writer CJ Toledano, a former staff writer for "Late Night with Jimmy Fallon." Harlan Hendrickson, Pistons’ VP of Marketing, is running point with the Detroit-based FOD team.
Editor’s Note: Please join the Cynopsis team and your industry peers for the half-day Programmatic TV Summit on Nov. 5. Register now.
MLB Network’s #WeKnowPostseason campaign handed the channel with its most successful social media promotion ever from Sept. 29 Oct. 28. The hashtag delivered a total of 58 posts to its Twitter and Facebook platforms to generate 1.1 million video views and 9.1 million impressions.
It was the end of the line for Grantland on Friday when ESPN announced that it was ending the site, four months after founder Bill Simmons’ left the company. In a statement, ESPN stated that, “After careful consideration, we have decided to direct our time and energy going forward to projects that we believe will have a broader and more significant impact across our enterprise,” adding that “Despite this change, the legacy of smart long-form sports story-telling and innovative short form video content will continue, finding a home on many of our other ESPN platforms.”
Nielsen is plugging into the eSports arena, announcing a study that breaks down fans of the competitions. New data from the upcoming inaugural Nielsen eSports Report stated that the audience boasts an average age of 32 with an income of nearly $70k. Overall, 57% of U.S. eSports fans are considered Millennials, in the 18-34 age bracket. In fact, the study found that 10% of eSports fans do not play games at all. Over the past year, U.S. fans were most likely to engage with eSports via live online streaming of an eSports event, followed by watching pre-recorded online events and following eSports via news and programming.
FanDuel is being hit with a class action lawsuit, led by Redskins’ player Pierre Garcon, claiming that the daily fantasy sports site used NFL players’ likenesses and names without their permission. In a statement, Garcon said, “I am bringing this lawsuit against FanDuel for using my name, image, and likeness in both daily fantasy contests and through advertising on TV ads and infomercials. FanDuel has taken the liberty to engaged in these actions without my consent and without proper licensing rights. As a result of these activities, FanDuel daily fantasy contests have shown increasing revenues leading to large profits. Therefore, on behalf of myself as well as any other players who are being treated unjustly, I chose to file a complaint.” Pro Football Talk reported that FanDuel issued a statement, which read: "We believe this suit is without merit. There is established law that fantasy operators may use player names and statistics for fantasy contests. FanDuel looks forward to continuing to operate our contests which sports fans everywhere have come to love."
Colts/Panthers on ESPN at 8:30p.
A CYNOPSIS MESSAGE
Innovators. Inspirers. Creators of all kinds. We celebrate those in online video content and advertising who are at the forefront of this new industry, elevating it with their state-of-the-art contributions to branded content, technology, ad campaigns, and original content.
Celebrate with us on
November 13th at the Marriott Essex in New York City.View the finalist list here.
ON THIS DAY in 1990: The Phoenix Suns beat the Utah Jazz in Tokyo, marking the first regular season game of the four major professional North American sports to be played outside of North America.
In The Know: Who is the all-time points leader for the Phoenix Suns? (Email [email protected] with your answer and be sure to include your name, company and city.)
Answer to Our Last Sports Trivia Question: The movie Ferris Bueller’s Day Off saw Cameron wear the jersey of what team throughout the film? Answer: Red Wings. Kudos: Erin B. Weissman-ABC/NY; Deborah Kapetanakis-Universal McCann/NY; Jackie Mahon-PHD/NY; Daniel Lowenthal-Mindshare/NY; Maureen Akers-WTVM/Raycom/Columbus; Brianne Maciejowski-Miles/Sarasota; Rick Goralnick-Lucky 13 Consulting/Bridgewater; Tony Mariano-Norwich University/Northfield; Sarah Traficanto-Turner Emerging Consumers/Chicago; Chris Hartweg-Wunderman/Chicago; Robert Teinowitz-Live Action Media/Chicago; Derrick Stasica-THV11/Little Rock; Greg Moloznik-GLM Media/Scottsdale; Daniel Hanson/Vail; Michael Jaquet-U.S. Ski and Snowboard Association/Park City; Scott Sarra-Universal Sports Network/Denver; Jack Simmons-Fox Sports/LA; Jeff Mirkin-Jeff Mirkin Productions/Santa Monica; Glenn Carnahan-SmackDab/Auburn; Miriam Aardahl-OMD/LA.
Later — Chris
Chris Pursell for Cynopsis | Sports @VegasandVine
11.02.15
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