Cynopsis: Sports
04/13/12

Good morning. It’s Friday, April 13, 2012, and this is your first early morning Sports briefing.

The NBC Sports Group’s opening night of the 2012 NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs on Wednesday, which featured two games on NBC Sports Network and one on CNBC, delivered the most-watched NHL playoff opening night ever on NBC Sports Network with a 29% average rating increase on the channel vs. last year’s opening night. The network’s pair of games  Flyers/Penguins and Kings/Canucks — averaged a 0.44 rating, up 29% compared to last year’s opening night and the best in the channel’s seven-year history of playoff contests. The viewership average was 656,000, up 23% compared to last year.

Meanwhile, the NHL announced that the league is on pace for its seventh consecutive year of record total revenue, with more than $3.2 billion expected by the end of the 2012 Stanley Cup Playoffs. NHL Enterprises’ (League/national business minus broadcasting) revenue is forecasted to increase by 18 percent. The league also announced that ad sales for the 2012 NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs are the highest ever for NBC, NBC Sports Network, and the combination of the two, with raises of 40 percent vs. 2011.

On the Air

Rugby has found a new home in the US. Grand Prix Entertainment has locked in a deal with NFL Network to serve as its exclusive US broadcast partner for Grand Prix’s July 2013 professional rugby sevens championships in partnership with USA Rugby. USA Rugby is an official member of the Unites States Olympic Committee as well as the Rugby World Cup’s International Rugby Board, and previously awarded Grand Prix the exclusive rights to own, operate and globally broadcast the professional sport of Rugby Sevens.

ESPN revealed its commentator lineup for the 2012 NFL Draft, which marks its 33rd consecutive year of televising the event. The three-day telecast will air April 26-28 on ESPN with Chris Berman hosting ESPN’s primetime coverage Thursday, April 26 and Friday, April 27. He will be joined by analyst Mel Kiper, Jr. (working his 29th Draft) and Monday Night Football analyst coach Jon Gruden on ESPN’s main set. Senior NFL Insider Chris Mortensen and NFL Insider Adam Schefter will report from an additional set at Radio City, while NFL32 host Suzy Kolber will conduct interviews on-site. Former Indianapolis Colts President and Vice Chairman Bill Polian, will join the coverage for the first time joining Trey Wingo.

Golden Boy Promotions and Golden Boy Enterprises extended CEO Richard Schaefer to a long-term deal for the companies, where he will continue to work with company President Oscar de la Hoya to grow the business. Golden Boy’s stable includes more than 50 fighters.

NFL Network is adding veterans Kimberly Jones, Aditi Kinkhabwala, Ian Rapoport and Gregg Rosenthal to its roster. Jones joins the channel from YES Network, Kinkhabwala spent the past two years on the New York Giants and the NFL beats for the Wall Street Journal, Rapoport, covered the Patriots for three seasons at the Boston Herald. The trio will appear across multiple NFL Network programs including NFL Total Access and NFL GameDay Morning as well as contribute to NFL.com and other NFL digital media properties. Meanwhile, Rosenthal joins NFL.com as a senior editor after eight years covering the NFL for RotoWorld.com, Pro Football Talk.com, and NBC Sports.com.

FUEL TV is slating four upcoming live shows around this weekend’s UFC on FUEL TV: Gustafsson Vs. Silva, beginning today at 10a – with the live UFC Weigh-in on FUEL TV. Jay Glazer hosts the one-hour show from FUEL TV’s Los Angeles studio, with Chael Sonnen offering analysis. Mike Goldberg emcees the weigh-in onsite in Sweden, while Karyn Bryant conducts interviews with fighters backstage. FUEL TV then kicks off coverage of the bouts on Saturday at 12:30p with the Prelims streamed live on FUEL TV’s website and Facebook. UFC Fight Night on FUEL TV showcases the main card at 3p with Goldberg and UFC Vet Kenny Florian calling the fights.

ESPN confirmed that this year’s WNBA Draft will return to ESPN Headquarters, where 15 of the world’s top female college basketball seniors have been invited for the selection process. The annual event will be held Monday, April 16 in Bristol with coverage starting at 2p on ESPN2, followed by the second and third rounds televised on ESPNU and NBA TV from 3-4:30p.

The Los Angeles Times wrote that the California Interscholastic Federation reached a deal with Time Warner for exclusive rights to televise all state championships for a cool $8.5 million. The rights are for championship games only and will pay CIF $550,000 in its first year and increase every year for the next 14 years of the deal.

Comcast SportsNet was awarded a 2012 Regional Edward R. Murrow Award for Remembering Richie, a story about a Philadelphia-area native hockey player, Richie Stewart, who lost his life on September 11, 2001. This marks the second consecutive year Comcast SportsNet has won a regional award.

BET will be celebrating the 65th Anniversary of Jackie Robinson Day with the world television premiere of documentary Harvard Park, which chronicles how a neighborhood park “in the midst of the economically devastated and crime-infested South Central LA of the 1980s became a destination for many future baseball legends.” The 88-minute documentary will premiere on BET on Sunday, April 15 at 11a and on CENTRIC at 11p.

The UFC announced that they wholeheartedly approved the recent creation of the new International Mixed Martial Arts Federation (IMMAF). The creation of the organization was designed to help to foster the development of the sport at the grassroots level and bolster the work being done by the UFC and all other MMA organizations worldwide in order to further develop the integrity and legitimacy of the sport.

Legendary journalist Bud Collins will receive a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Cynopsis Sports Business Summit on April 24 in New York. Collins is, of course, a longtime staple of the sport as a reporter, television commentator, and historian whose experience includes NBC, CBS ESPN and Tennis Channel. Join us at the Grand Hyatt to honor Collins’ work and dedication to his craft where he, along with Dr. Harvey Schiller and Tony Ponturo, will receive this year’s Award. Register now at this site: http://www.cynopsissportssummit.com/ 

A CYNOPSIS MESSAGE

Sponsorship & Promotion

The NFL decided to allow teams to accept advertisements for casinos and other state-licensed gambling-related institutions over the next two seasons, according to the AP. However the loosening of the rules means that ads can appear only in game programs, on local radio broadcasts and in the upper bowl and inner concourses of stadiums.

The NBA is once again teaming with BBVA Compass this spring for a mobile grassroots basketball tour dubbed “BBVA Compass NBA Team. Works. on Tour.” The event will launch in San Antonio on Sunday and stop in six markets over the course of two months with scheduled stops include San Antonio, Scottsdale, Ariz., Birmingham, Ala., Addison, Texas, Denver and Houston.

The Madison Square Garden Company and Swiss Watchmaker Tissot locked in their first marketing partnership, which will make Tissot the “Official Timepiece of Madison Square Garden.” Tissot will be displayed on The Garden’s 7th Avenue Marquee, as well as the 8th Avenue Marquee. Tissot will also be counting down the minutes to Knicks and Rangers games on the Marquee before home games at The Garden.

Digital Fields

PGATour.com finished the first quarter of 2012 with record-setting traffic to the site, delivering more than 5.8 million average unique users per month from January through March. That marks a boost of 40% versus the same quarter in 2011. In addition, March 2012 set a new monthly record for unique users with 7.5 million, for a 62% increase from 2011.

MLB Advanced Media announced that the MLB.com At Bat 12 application has surpassed the three million download mark, only eight days into the 2012 MLB regular season and more than four months earlier than its record-setting 2011 campaign. Last year, At Bat reached that mark on August 22, 145 days into the season. Since Opening Day, the app has delivered a daily average of over 800,000 live audio and video streams, for an increase that nearly doubles last year’s comparable daily average.

The University of Michigan announced that it is painting the hashtag ”#GOBLUE” in two places on the field for Saturday’s annual spring football scrimmage, according to the AP. University officials said that they believed it would be only the second time a hashtag has been painted on a college football field.

The Main Event

Round two of the Flyers/Penguins on NBC Sports Network at 7:30p.

A CYNOPSIS MESSAGE

ON THIS DAY in 1980: The US officially boycotts the Summer Olympics in Moscow.

Answer to Our Last Sports Trivia Question: What person’s silhouette is featured in the NBA logo?
Jerry West. Kudos: Bob Melvin-NBC Sports Group/NY; Michael Brown-IMG Worldwide/NY; Blayke Scheer-YES Network/NY; Keith Marder-Halstead Property/NY; Doug Jacobs-Integrated Sports Media/Hoboken; Bill Hirsh-NJ Devils/Newark; Christopher Doyle-CBC Sports/Toronto; Adam Zimmerman-CSE/Atlanta; Greg Finch-Time Warner Cable Media/Dallas; Jay Goslee-Comcast Spotlight/Nashville; Kevin Micklo-Initiative Media/Chicago; Candice O’Connor-GreenLeaf Media Services/Flower Mound; Dave Sikula-WalmartLabs/San Bruno; Amy Bender-NBC Universal Sports/LA; Stephen Hill-BET Networks/LA; Lila Brown-Ella Bee Media Group/North Hollywood.

In The Know: Who holds the NCAA Division I record for most rushing yards in a season? (Email [email protected] with your answer and be sure to include your name, company, city and time zone. Unofficial rules: Only the second four correct answers from each time zone will be mentioned; and once you’ve been mentioned in any of the Cynopsis editions, you can’t be mentioned again that calendar week.)

Later — Chris
Chris Pursell for Cynopsis | Sports
04.13.12

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