11/10/17: Amazon’s new Prime target

A CYNOPSIS MESSAGE FROM CBS SPORTS NETWORK

THE ROAD TO THE FINAL FOUR BEGINS

Memphis vs. Alabama

Pitt vs. Navy

Veterans Classic at the U.S. Naval Academy

Tonight 6:30 & 9:00 PM ET

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CynopsisSports

Good morning. It’s Friday November 10, 2017 and this is your first early morning Sports briefing.

Amazon continues to deepen its sports roots, announcing plans to forge a show around Premier League staple Manchester City. Produced by Amazon Prime Video, the series will go behind-the-scenes series following the team and coach, Pep Guardiola throughout the season. Production will be available to members of its Prime digital-video service in 2018 with Amazon reportedly paying $13.1 million for exclusive rights.

“This new Amazon Prime Original series will give Prime members extraordinary insight into Manchester City, the top English Premier League Football team and one of the most exciting and respected teams globally,” Heather Schuster, head of unscripted at Amazon Originals, said in a statement.

ON THE AIR

NBC Sports will tackle its second week of TNF coverage with its “dual” SkyCam system to present a new primary-viewing angle next week when the Titans take on the Steelers. “We are excited to present a game with the majority of live-action coverage coming from SkyCam,” said Fred Gaudelli, Executive Producer of NBC Sunday Night Football and Thursday Night Football. “After pivoting out of necessity to SkyCam in the New England fog, we’ve been aggressively planning and testing with the intent of utilizing the system for a full game. Younger generations of NFL fans have grown accustomed to watching football from this angle through their love of video games. This telecast will have a look and feel akin to that experience. We’ll still have our full complement of cameras and will revert to traditional coverage when situations dictate, but the primary viewing experience of the game will come from the SkyCam angle. Thursday Night Football has always been about technical innovation and new technologies, and this production will fit perfectly with that.”

On the ratings front, ESPN Films’ “Nature Boy” 30 for 30 documentary averaged 1.8 million viewers, according to Nielsen. The Ric Flair special debuted on Tuesday night and ranked as the highest-rated cable program for the 18-49 demo. Viewership marked a 78% increase over ESPN’s 2017 30 for 30 premieres to date (1.0 million).

Elsewhere, MLB Network saw viewership and social media records throughout the 2017 Postseason, reporting its most-watched Postseason in total day, up from MLB Network’s prior record mark in 2016 and marking MLB Network’s seventh consecutive year of growth for its Postseason audience. MLB Network is also on pace for 2017 to be its best year ever in prime time. Postseason viewership averaged 90,000 viewers per day, while Oct. 2-8 ranked as MLB Network’s most-watched week ever, with an average audience of 209,000 viewers. The channel’s social media campaign #WeKnowPostseason concluded its third year with a total of 15.6 million impressions across its platforms from Oct. 2 – Nov. 1, up 31% increase from its campaign in 2016.

Sports Ilustrated reports that around 100 staffers are now expected to lose their jobs at ESPN, with cuts coming from across the division, which has 8,000 employees worldwide. Announcements are expected to come down after Thanksgiving, although the company is also expected to hire new employees as it continues to build its digital platforms.

FOX Sports will tap the talents of Carolina Panthers tight end Greg Olsen as a game analyst on Nov. 19 for its Rams/Vikings telecast. Olsen’s team will have a bye that week, with the move marking the third time the network has used an active NFL player in the booth. Olsen will join Kevin Burkhardt, analyst Charles Davis and reporter Pam Oliver.

Bellator locked in a multi-fight deal with Quinton “Rampage” Jackson. The exclusive deal was the result of a lengthy negotiation with Jackson’s manager Tiki Ghosn from Arsenal Sports Agency, with “Rampage” expected to return to the Bellator cage in early 2018.

Tennis Channel serves up exclusive, live coverage of the 2017 Fed Cup championship between the United States and Belarus on Nov. 11-12. Tennis Channel’s Los Angeles studio will be the central hub for all 2017 Fed Cup championship action this weekend. Mary Carillo will call the matches alongside Tracy Austin and Lindsay Davenport.

On the regional front, SNY laid out plans for the network’s comprehensive 2017-2018 coverage for UConn women’s basketball, featuring more than 350 hours of programming devoted to the team. SNY’s live game schedule tips off Nov. 17 at 7p against the Golden Bears. Play-by-play announcer Eric Frede returns for his fifth season as the television voice for UConn women’s basketball on SNY where he will be joined courtside by game analyst Meghan Culmo, while Justine Ward serves as SNY’s in-game reporter. For the first time, all games and pre/post-game coverage on SNY will be accessible live via SNY.tv and the NBC Sports app to authenticated subscribers.

Meanwhile, MSG Networks will broadcast a DraftKings Fantasy Live special on MSG+ on Monday that will also be streamed on MSG GO. MSG Networks’ host Bill Pidto, MSG Networks’ analysts Alan Hahn & Wally Szczerbiak, and DraftKings’ Fantasy Contributors, Julian Edlow and Greg Ehrenberg take on talent duties for the special, which will see the on-air hosts will discuss how to build a fantasy basketball lineup, among other topics.

Pac-12 Networks locked in talent for men’s and women’s basketball coverage this season, which will showcase a record 111 women’s basketball games this season. Handling play-by-play for the platforms in women’s coverage will be Thad Anderson, Anne Marie Anderson, Krista Blunk, Cindy Brunson, Christian Miles, Ann Schatz and Kate Scott with analysts that include Tammy Blackburn, Joan Bonvicini, Layshia Clarendon, Maylana Martin Douglas, Ros Gold-Onwude, Mary Murphy, Elise Woodward and Julianne Viani. On the men’s side, new faces this year include P.J. Carlesimo, Mike Crispino, Alex Faust, and Drew Goodman.

Longtime NFL coach Charlie Weis joins SiriusXM’s roster of NFL analysts on the SiriusXM NFL Radio channel. He will debut today and can be heard every Friday on Airing it Out with co-host Bruce Murray a 10a.

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SPONSORSHIP & PROMOTION

The WNBA is hitting the free throw line to boost revenues next season. FTW reports that the league will feature new on-court sponsor logos for all non-ESPN network games next season that will appear on the foul line. The league will also allow another jersey patch, sold to a different sponsor than the original jersey patch allowed that will be on the upper left-hand shoulder and will measure 2.25 X 2.25 inches according to the league. WNBA COO Jay Parry said the initiatives would help bring “new ways for brands to connect with our players and our fans and our teams.” It’s an extension, she said, of the marquee partnership program that first put sponsor patches on jerseys in 2009 — something the NBA replicated at the start of the 2017 season.

DIGITAL & STREAMING

FloSports inked an extended partnership with NCAA to exclusively live stream both of the men’s and women’s NCAA Division I Cross Country Championships. The live streams include coverage of the men’s and women’s NCAA DI, DII, and DIII Championships. Coverage begins today on FloTrack.org with the NCAA DI Regionals, including the NCAA Division I West Regional XC Championships and Great Lakes Regional Championship.

Red Bull TV announced the global on-demand release of the documentary, Blood Road. Premiering tomorrow, the feature length film follows ultra-endurance athlete Rebecca Rusch’s 1,200-mile ride on the Ho Chi Minh Trail in search of the place where her father’s plane was shot down during the Vietnam War.

The Professional Fighters League notched its highest online audience ever in the five-year history of the league and its predecessor WSOF, totaling 238,000 unique streams for the Nov. 2 event. The four-fight card was the featured entertainment at this year’s Fight Night, a nearly 30-year-old charity gala benefiting Fight For Children’s work on behalf of underserved youth in Washington, DC. “Fight Night featured four dynamic MMA matchups that electrified the room and brought the PFL a historic online audience,” said Carlos Silva, President of the Professional Fighters League. “Both Blagoy Ivanov and Lance Palmer showed why they are so highly regarded with hard-fought wins over tough opponents. We can’t wait to see them in next year’s championship season as we look toward the official launch of the world’s only true MMA league in 2018.”

Lagardere Sports is teaming with Tough Mudder to produce more than 14 hours of live programming for World’s Toughest Mudder, a 24-hour race with more than 1,600 competitors from 21 countries that is taking place this weekend at Lake Las Vegas, Nevada. Programming throughout the eventcan be seen on both ToughMudder.com and the Tough Mudder Live Showpage on Facebook. CBS will broadcast the World’s Toughest Mudder one-hour special on Dec. 23 at noon.

ESPORTS

Twitter will once again partner with The Game Awards to live stream The Game Awards 2017 for the second consecutive year on Dec. 7. The social platform will also live stream a pre-show beginning at 5:30p PT. This year’s live stream will also be accompanied by a Twitter timeline, featuring related real-time conversation to create a unified experience for viewers to watch, Tweet and view commentary on gaming’s biggest night. “We are very excited to collaborate with The Game Awards once again to bring this annual gaming celebration to Twitter,” said Todd Swidler, Global Head of Live Video Business at Twitter. “The Game Awards coverage will give passionate gaming fans and awards show enthusiasts around the world live video and real-time conversation all in one place on Twitter.”

Machinima now boasts its own linear-style channel on the Amazon-owned Twitch platform. Machinima is a division of Warner Bros. Digital Networks; it was wholly acquired by Warner Bros. about a year ago. The new channel, which is ad-supported and runs 24 hours a day, features content focused on gaming, fandom, and animation. To start, the programming will derive mostly from Machinima’s existing originals, including videos from Mega Man Dies at the End and Body Count Fighting. The channel will also broadcast two hours of live programming each weekday, with shows such as VR Power Hour and the geek-oriented talk show Spacebar.

THE MAIN EVENT

Notre Dame/Miami on ABC at 8p on Saturday.

A CYNOPSIS MESSAGE

It’s Deadline Day!

The Cynopsis TV Awards: Looking for the best in TV Programming

Winning a Cynopsis TV Award is a symbol of acknowledgement and appreciation from your peers – that your work has risen to the top in entertaining and enriching a broad audience. With expanded categories (check out full list hear) and the terrific year we’ve seen in television, this is sure to be our best year yet! The final deadline is Friday, November 17^th. Need help with your entries? Contact [email protected]

Submit

ON THIS DAY in 1991: Bernie Kosar ends a run (and NFL record) of 308 passes without an interception.

In the Know: Two MLB pitchers have claimed four Cy Young Awards in a row. Who are they? (Email [email protected] with your answer and be sure to include your name, company and city.)

Answer to Our Last Sports Trivia Question: Which city played host to the first Summer Olympics to take place in the southern hemisphere? Answer: Melbourne. Kudos: Stephen Kelley-9 Story Distribution International Ltd/ Dublin; Denis Barry-CBS/NY; Marc Goldstein-Media Solutions/NY; Russell Sargeant-NBC Sports/NY; Troy Perlowitz-ESPN/Charlotte; Peter Lasser-Lasser Productions/Atlanta; Mike May-PHIT America/Wellington; Synda Kollman-Charter Marketing Group/Deerfield Beach; Andy Pittman-TAMU/College Station; Jack Neumann-University of Calgary Dinos 5th Quarter Alumni Development/Calgary; Tom Moore-Kalt Productions/LA; David Westberg-SAG-AFTRA Federal Credit Union/Burbank; Judie Henninger-Valentine Productions Inc./Santa Monica

Later – Chris

Chris Pursell @VegasandVine
Roberta Caploe Publisher @robertacaploe	Diane K Schwartz Senior Vice President Media Communications Group	Cynopsis Ad Sales Mike Farina \| 203-218-6480 VP, Sales	Cynopsis Job Listings Sales Trish Pihonak \| 203-899-8459 Director of Operations

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