THE GAMES HAVE BEGUN

Three days in, advertisements during the Paris Olympics on NBCUniversal are providing higher attention (+18%), greater message recall (+33%) and an increased likelihood to search (+67%) on linear than competitive broadcast/cable television, reports NBCU. The Games are offering impact for advertisers across key categories, including:
– Auto: Paris Olympics viewers are +24% more likely to be in the market for a car than the total population, with Paris auto advertisers already seeing a +52% greater incremental brand search vs. competitive TV.
– Restaurants: Paris Olympics viewers are +79% more likely to visit casual dining restaurants than the total population, with Paris Olympic restaurant advertisers earning +50% higher intent to visit a restaurant after seeing an ad vs. competitive TV.
– Movie Studios: Paris Olympics viewers are +38% more likely to be movie goers, with Paris Olympic advertisers seeing a +25% higher movie title recall and +37% higher intent to go see a movie that’s advertised vs. competitive TV.

The Olympic Games are firmly underway in Paris, and as the athletes compete for gold medals, there are those in the thick of the competition sharing the stories of athletes as far away as Tahiti. Eli Velazquez, EVP, Sports for NBCUniversal Telemundo Enterprises, sees that as a golden opportunity for his network and its Spanish-language coverage.

The network has quite an Olympics entourage, doesn’t it?
Yes, over 40 talent on camera, hundreds of people behind it, so we have a large army and contingent of folks back at the Telemundo Center in Miami, and we have a small army here in Paris. Our coverage will be the most hours we’ve ever had across our platforms—over 315 hours of coverage—that will get expanded, of course, as some of the efforts we’ll do on social and some of the original content we’ll produce on digital. Our coverage will also live on Peacock as well.

What do you hope to see Telemundo accomplish with its coverage?
Whenever we have the honor of doing these events, our first thought is always around the stories we will tell. Ultimately, to get fans and consumers and viewers engaged with our efforts, there has to be something that connects with them emotionally. We don’t try to look at it as a regional obligation, we look at it as a narrative obligation, with a focus of course on the region that we represent.

What are the challenges that come with covering an event like the Olympics?
I think the biggest challenge is fulfilling the commitment of telling every Hispanic’s Olympic story, because we don’t have an unlimited amount of space. What we try to focus in on is making sure that we cover the events that resonate most with the demographic that we serve, but at the same time, we make sure that we have people completely immersed in all of the other disciplines where our Hispanic athletes are featuring.

CBS Sports made a pair of soccer media rights announcements. The network agreed to a multi-year, multi-platform rights agreement with the English Football League in what it says will offer “the widest distribution of EFL matches ever in the United States.” CBS Sports will air at least 250 EFL matches each season across the Championship, League One, League Two, Carabao Cup and Bristol Street Motors Trophy. When broken down by league, it’ll shake out to be a minimum of 155 Championship matches, a minimum of 38 League One and League Two matches, all 15 Play-Off matches across the leagues, a minimum of 30 Carabao Cup matches and three Bristol Street Motors Trophy matches. Matches will air on Paramount+, with select matches being put on CBS Sports Network and CBS Sports Golazo Network. The deal will run through the end of the 2027-28 season.

“Appetite for football in the North American markets has been growing year on year, and this partnership with CBS Sports and their leadership in covering the sport marks a significant milestone,” Trevor Birch, the EFL’s CEO, said. “The EFL is already broadcast to a global audience of 400 million across 182 territories, beaming into more than 250 million homes outside of the UK. We believe that American fans will embrace the excitement, tradition, and competitiveness that is embodied by our EFL competitions.”

CBS Sports also re-upped its agreement with the Italian Serie A in a two-year, multi-platform deal. CBS Sports will remain the exclusive U.S. English-language rights holder of every Serie A Championship, Coppa Italia and Supercoppa Italiana match. Paramount+ will air over 400 club matches live, with all 380 Serie A matches, at least 25 Coppa Italia matches and all Supercoppa Italiana matches being aired. Additional live match and studio coverage details for the 2024-25 season are still to come.

On the subject of soccer, FIFA is still searching for a media rights partner for the 2025 Club World Cup. The Athletic reports that despite indicators pointing to a potential deal with Apple, the two sides never reached an agreement and thus the bidding floor is open. Apple and FIFA’s supposed deal supposedly came in at under $1 billion, but that’s only 1/4 of FIFA’s initial target.

ESPN extended its agreement with the Big Sky Conference through 2030, per Dan Thompson of The Spokesman-Review. Conference commissioner Tom Wistrcill said the new deal comes with a “very nice increase in dollars” and will go into effect in 2025. Financial terms weren’t disclosed.

PARTNERSHIPS AND SPONSORSHIPS

An unexpected superfan is helping out USA Water Polo. Rapper Flavor Flav signed a five-year sponsorship deal to become “the official hype man” for the USA Water Polo Women’s and Men’s National Teams. Flavor Flav will make a financial contribution to the 2024 U.S. Women’s Water Polo Olympic Team and create digital content. “As a girl dad and a champion of all sports, I’m excited to bring my energy and voice to this incredible sport,” Flavor Flav said. “Niche sports often don’t get the spotlight they deserve, but they are packed with incredible talent and heart. Together, we’re going to make some serious waves!”

English soccer champions Manchester City inked a multi-year partnership with the online betting and gaming brand Betway. Betway will become City’s official global betting partner beginning this 2024-25 season. The two will collaborate on activations and exclusive content opportunities in addition to featuring both brands across digital and in-stadium assets. To commemorate the partnership, leaders from City and Super Group—which owns Betway—rang The Opening Bell at the New York Stock Exchange on July 26.

DOUBLING DOWN ON SPORTS

TNT Sports is growing its programming on truTV after debuting the dedicated block earlier this year. TNT Sports said it will televise nearly 1,000 hours of sports on truTV this year, and plans on significantly increasing that volume come 2025. The block—which will kick off at 6pm starting in October—will feature live games and events spanning the MLB postseason, NBA, NHL, U.S. men’s and women’s national soccer teams, Mountain West football, MotoGP and more. In 2025, that list will grow to include NASCAR, the French Open, the Big East and more.

Another network leaning more into sports is CW Network, and which is making noise across college and professional football. CW unveiled its broadcast crews for the upcoming ACC and Pac-12 college football games, including veteran commentator Thom Brennaman, who’s making his return to the booth after being let go by Fox Sports Ohio in 2020 for making disparaging remarks during a game between the Cincinnati Reds and Kansas City Royals. Brennaman has experience commentating marquee NFL and MLB games in addition to high-profile college games. Other members of CW’s crew include booth analyst Max Browne and sideline reporter Treavor Scales. Ted Robinson will take Pac-12 games, with Chase Daniel serving as the booth analyst and Nigel Burton as the sideline reporter.

CW Network’s football frenzy doesn’t stop at the college level. The network revealed that eight-time Super Bowl champion Bill Belichick will join the cast of “Inside the NFL” for its second season. It’ll begin Aug. 30 at 9pm, with Belichick appearing alongside the likes of Ryan Clark, Chad Johnson and Chris Long.

GETTING TECHNICAL

The ACC and SEC will be using iPads this football season. The two conferences announced they’re providing their respective member schools with iPad Pro and iPad Air models for sideline and booth usage. The move comes after the NCAA Playing Rules and Oversight Panel approved the use of video for in-game evaluation. The video provided to each team’s sideline will include the broadcast feed and camera angles from the coach’s sideline and coach’s end zone.

Global content provider SES is partnering with Ateme to integrate its technology into SES’ distribution network for broadcasting sports and other events worldwide. SES will use Ateme’s TITAN encoders, multiplexers and decoders for ultra-high and high-definition content distribution via ground and satellite infrastructure. Ateme is also integrating premium frame rate conversion with motion compensation while supporting HDR in UHD.

The milestones keep coming for the WNBA, with the latest being a record audience for the league’s All-Star Game. Team WNBA’s victory over the U.S. Women’s Basketball Team scored an average audience of 3.44 million viewers on ABC, beating the previous record of 1.44 million by a whopping 139%. Viewership peaked from the 10:30-10:43pm window with 4.05 million viewers. This year’s All-Star contest also went up 305% compared to last year’s mark of 850,000. It was the largest WNBA audience ever on ESPN even when including the regular season, playoffs, draft, etc. The game checked in as the third most-viewed WNBA event ever and the largest WNBA audience since the league’s first two nationally televised games in 1997.

Fox’s Summer of Soccer came to a sizzling end after Spain took the Euro 2024 crown and Argentina claimed the Copa América title. Spain’s 2-1 win over England was the most-watched Euro telecast and final in U.S. English-language TV history with 6.43 million viewers, peaking at 8.47 million viewers in the 4:30-4:45pm window. Argentina’s 1-0 win against Colombia recorded 6.02 million viewers and peaked with 7.07 million, making it the most-watched Copa América final telecast in U.S. English-language TV history. Overall, this year’s Euro tournament averaged 1.68 million viewers across Fox and Fox Sports 1, up 34% compared to the COVID-impacted 2021 edition of the tournament. Copa América finished the summer with 1.42 million viewers across Fox, FS1 and Fox Sports 2, up 359% compared to 2021’s tournament and up 44% from the 2016 edition.

The MLB All-Star Game on Fox came in with 7.44 million viewers, up 6% YOY and good for the network’s most-watched telecast since Jan. 28. Viewership peaked with 7.9 million viewers from 9-9:15pm. Top markets include Pittsburgh (9.9/24), Philadelphia (8.6/25), Kansas City (8.5/25), Cincinnati (8.0/21) and Baltimore (7.3/22). Additionally, Fox Deportes had 116,000 viewers, up 36% from last year’s 85,000.

Wimbledon wrapped up in mid-July as the ladies’ championship averaged 1.4 million viewers on ESPN, a 9% improvement compared to last year. Barbora Krejčíková won in three sets (6-2, 2-6, 6-4) against Jasmine Paolini. The gentlemen’s final averaged 2.2 million viewers on ABC, as Carlos Alcaraz took down Novak Djokovic 6-2, 6-2, 7-6 (4) to win his second Wimbledon title. The tournament average on ESPN networks came in at 677,000, down 2% from 2023 but up 5% from 2022.

RECORD-BREAKER

There’s a new all-time highest-earning female jockey in town. Emma-Jayne Wilson surpassed Hall of Fame jockey Julie Krone, whose record previously stood at $90,126,584. Wilson broke the record at Toronto’s Woodbine Racetrack on the back of a first-time starter Perfect Lady Bee.

PLAYING NOW & COMING SOON

HBO Original released a four-part docuseries telling the life of baseball great Pete Rose. “Charlie Hustle & The Matter of Pete Rose” has all four episodes out now on Max.

ESPN looks at former tennis prodigy Michael Chang in its latest “30 for 30” film “American Son.” The doc captures Chang’s rapid rise onto the tennis scene and shock upset of Ivan Lendl at the 1989 French Open. The program is available to stream on ESPN+.

It won’t be long until the next “30 for 30” documentary debuts. “Dude Perfect: A Very Long Shot” chronicles a group of friends whose trick shots and “backyard antics” turned into a global phenomenon and sustainable business. The doc premieres Aug. 3 at 9:30pm on ESPN, with ESPN+ having it available to stream.

Netflix’s “Receiver” series, the other end of its “Quarterback” franchise, was released on the streamer. The eight-episode first season follows the Las Vegas Raiders’ Davante Adams, Minnesota Vikings’ Justin Jefferson, San Francisco 49ers’ George Kittle (the only tight end featured), fellow 49er Deebo Samuel and the Detroit Lions’ Amon-Ra St. Brown.

Welcome back to The Ocho! ESPN’s annual ESPN8: The Ocho programming event is returning for its eighth year from Aug. 1-4, and it’ll expand to a four-day format with 54 hours of programming (21 of which will be live content). The Savannah Bananas will kick things off for a second straight year Aug. 1 at 7pm on ESPN2. This year’s Ocho slate also includes 21 new sports such as the Robot Fighting Championship, Speed Puzzling, Competitive Speed Cubing, Carjitsu, Roofball and Putting.

The “Hard Knocks” franchise returns Aug. 6 when “Hard Knocks: Training Camp with the Chicago Bears” begins at 9pm on HBO, available to stream on Max. This season will include five episodes and offer a glimpse at how the Bears are managing expectations after drafting the No. 1 overall pick and quarterback Caleb Williams.

EXECUTIVE MOVES

Washington Commanders president Jason Wright is departing the organization after this season. Wright, who was the first Black team president in the NFL’s history, will be a senior adviser until his departure. Wright was hired in August 2020 by the team’s previous owner Dan Snyder. A search is underway for a new president.

Jamie Davis will become the CEO of USA Water Polo effective Oct. 1. He’ll replace Christopher Ramsey, who is retiring after serving as the organization’s CEO since 2006. Davis will join after an eight-year stint as CEO of USA Volleyball.

Mike Minnella is being upped to the NFL’s Senior Director of Business Development. Minnella has been Director of Business Development since Jan. 2022 and has worked with the league for five years.

Scott Epstein is the new Head of Corporate Partnerships for the New York Red Bulls. Epstein will manage all partnership opportunities for both the club and Red Bull Arena, which includes identifying new partnership opportunities such as brand partners for venue naming rights, maximizing existing partnerships and business development opportunities. Epstein was most recently Managing Partner at Force Sports + Entertainment and SVP of Live Events for Townsquare Media.

ON THIS DAY

1930: Uruguay defeated Argentina 4-2 to win the first-ever FIFA Men’s World Cup Final. The competition featured 13 teams from three confederations, a far cry from the 48 teams that’ll compete in the 2026 World Cup in Canada, Mexico and the U.S. Speaking of the U.S.—the 1930 World Cup was the best performance the USMNT has ever recorded at the competition after it finished in third place.

1966: England defeated West Germany 4-2 on the back of a hattrick from Geoff Hurst to secure the country’s first FIFA Men’s World Cup title. It remains England’s only major trophy.

1990: New York Yankees principal owner George Steinbrenner was permanently banned from day-to-day management of the franchise by MLB Commissioner Fay Vincent. Though Steinbrenner remained an owner and would later be reinstated in 1993, his punishment came after paying a gambler to look into the background of right fielder Dave Winfield.