Cynopsis: Sports
04/06/12

Good morning. It’s Friday, April 06, 2012, and this is your first early morning Sports briefing.

The first Lifetime Achievement Award winner has been announced for the Cynopsis Sports Business Summit! Brigadier General Harvey W. Schiller, USAF Ret., Ph.D., who serves as Chairman of the Board and CEO of GlobalOptions Group will be honored at the event for his many accomplishments over the course of his career. Dr. Schiller previously served as President of the International Baseball Federation, Chairman and CEO of YankeeNets, President of Turner Sports, and President and Governor of NHL franchise the Atlanta Thrashers. In addition, he was Executive Director/Secretary General of the United States Olympic Committee and served as Commissioner of the Southeastern Conference. He will receive the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Summit on Tuesday April 24 in New York. Join us as we honor his work throughout the sports industry. Register now at this site: http://www.cynopsissportssummit.com/

On the Air

Mountain West Conference cable channel the Mtn is shutting down effective May 31, sources have confirmed. Employees were informed of the decision yesterday as the conference looks to merge with Conference USA and seek a new TV deal. Insiders with the channel said that CBS Sports Network and the conference are working on locking in a new deal instead, which will boost national distribution of the conference’s football and basketball games beyond the channel’s 13 million homes. The Mtn is jointly owned by CBS Sports Network and NBC Universal.

NBC Sports Group announced its broadcast plans that will put, for the first time in the 95-year history of the NHL, every Stanley Cup Playoff game on a nationally televised outlet. Overall, the channels will offer as many as 105 playoff games and possibly more than 262.5 hours of programming, which will span NBC, the NBC Sports Network, the NHL Network, and NBCUniversal’s business channel CNBC in primetime. The playoffs begin Wednesday, April 11. Overall, the NBC Sports Network will be the primary home of the Stanley Cup Playoffs, offering coverage of one or two games virtually every night of the first round. CNBC and the NHL Network will also provide live event coverage in primetime. NBC will present exclusive afternoon coverage during the weekends of April 14-15 and April 21-22. Game times will be announced following the end of the regular season.

Meanwhile, Nielsen reports that Sunday’s NHL on NBC game posted a 1.0/2 with 1.4 million viewers for the game between the Flyers and Penguins. That score is up 43% over last year and ranks as NBC’s highest-rated single NHL telecast since the Winter Classic on January 2.

The Daily Press reports that mid-major darling the Colonial Athletic Association, which recently signed a deal with NBC Sports Group, will not be invited to ESPN’s annual Bracketbusters games next year. The event seeks to match up non-major teams looking to boost RPIs ahead of the NCAA selection process.

Wednesday night’s one-two combo of Opening Night of Major League Baseball on ESPN with a key NBA doubleheader running on ESPN2 and ESPN boosted ratings for the platforms. The Opening Day game on ESPN, featuring the Cardinals and Marlins, averaged 2,416,000 viewers (P2+), for an increase of 4% compared to the Opening Night in 2011. Both games drew a 1.8 household rating. The subsequent NBA game that followed pitting the Lakers and Clippers, earned a 1.9 rating; to best the network’s season average for NBA games by 27% and delivering an average 2,421,000 viewers. On ESPN2, the early evening NBA contest between the Thunder and Heat delivered a 2.3 rating, to score as the network’s best rating for any programming so far this year.

With the NHL season in the homestretch, NHL Network U.S. and NHL.com are slating special programming over the weekend, including a preview show analyzing the first round of the 2012 Stanley Cup Playoffs. Tonight will feature the Hobey Baker Memorial Award Ceremony at 6p, honoring college hockey’s top player. Saturday marks the final day of the season and on Sunday, the channel will air the NHL Tonight Playoff Scheduling Show at 1p.

Spike TV is onboard with TNA Entertainment in a new multi-year deal that will keep the wrestling promotion on the channel. The deal was announced by Kevin Kay, Spike TV President and Dixie Carter, TNA Entertainment President. TNA wrestling debuted on Spike TV in July, 2005 and has grown from an average of 700,000 viewers at launch to nearly two million today.

Sunday’s games for the NBA on ABC continued the channel’s ratings upswing, with the early game between the Chicago Bulls and Oklahoma City Thunder earning a 1.9/5 with 2.9 million viewers, according to Nielsen. That’s up 46% over last year. Among Men 18-34, the game spiked 150% with a 2.0 vs. 0.8. That late game between the Heat and Celtics averaged a 2.7/6  with 4.2 million viewers for growth of 8% year-to-year.

NBC Sports is offering live coverage of the Road to the Kentucky Derby on Saturday with three key races: the Santa Anita Derby, the Resorts World Casino New York City Wood Memorial, and the Central Bank Ashland Stakes for fillies. Tom Hammond hosts NBC Sports’ coverage this Saturday from Santa Anita Park where will be joined by analysts Gary Stevens and Randy Moss. Bob Neumeier will host coverage of the Wood Memorial from Aqueduct Racetrack in Jamaica, N.Y., and Mike Battaglia will host coverage of the Ashland Stakes from Keeneland Race Course in Lexington, Ky.

HRTV is offering its own spin on the road to the Triple Crown on Saturday, when HRTV’s Richard Migliore and Carolyn Conley report live on the Grade 1, $1 million Wood Memorial from Aqueduct Racetrack in New York. In addition, the channel offers news for the 75th running of the Santa Anita Derby.

California and Nevada officials are officially teaming up in an attempt to bring the Winter Games back to the Lake Tahoe area in 2022, according to the AP, and have merged assets to create an exploratory committee to start the process. If the bid is successful, the games would return to the United States for the first time since Salt Lake City hosted the Winter Olympics in 2002.

The BCS has reportedly narrowed its primary options to four for changes to the college football post-season in an effort to determine a national champion, according to USA Today. Changes range a plus one system utilizing the current bowl setup to a full-fledged, four-team playoff at neutral sites. BCS’ leaders are meeting April 24-26 in Hollywood, FL. The report also states that the BCS is mulling a committee that would select matchups for as many as 16 bowl games in order to make them as attractive as possible.

Tennis Channel airs exclusive coverage of the U.S. Davis Cup team’s quarterfinal competition against France in Monaco this weekend, with two singles matches on Friday, April 6, at 6a, followed by the doubles match Saturday, April 7, at 8a. Coverage wraps up with the remaining singles play Sunday, April 8, at 5a.

Comcast SportsNet Mid-Atlantic is launching a new weekly Baltimore Ravens off-season program, dubbed Ravens Nest that will launch on Sunday at 9:30p. The 18-week series will run through the beginning of NFL training camp in early August and will be hosted by Brent Harris.

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Sponsorship & Promotion

ESPN announced that musicians Nas and Gary Clark Jr. are collaborating to provide the music for ESPN’s three-day presentation of the 2012 NFL Draft from April 26-28. The broadcast will feature a pair of new Nas songs  Train and The Don  as well as Clark’s Bright Lights to transition in and out of commercial breaks and in highlight packages of this year’s NFL Draft prospects. Nas is also adding lyrics to Bright Lights that “embody the vibe of the athlete and rising to the top, in this case, realizing the dream of playing professional football.”

Comcast Media Center announced that NHL Network is using the company’s Advertising Distribution Network to deliver promotional spot advertising to its affiliates.

Digital Fields

NBC Sports reports that its digital properties ProFootballTalk.com, Pro Football Talk Live and Rotoworld all scored new March traffic records on NBCSports.com. ProFootballTalk.com with Mike Florio served its best month ever, bringing in 8.3 million uniques, with 27.2 million visits, and 91.9 million page views, according to Omniture. Online video series Pro Football Talk Live also had its best month ever with more than 500,000 minutes watched and more than 36,000 viewers tuning into the live start. On the fantasy side of the business, Rotoworld saw 21 consecutive months of 20%-or-more growth in year-over-year page views and 15 percent-or-more growth in year-over-year unique visitors. With March 2012 drawing 3.8 million uniques, for an 85% hike over March 2011.

Sirius XM Radio entered a multi-year agreement with MLB Advanced Media to stream live radio broadcasts of every Major League Baseball game on smartphones, mobile devices and online for SiriusXM subscribers nationwide. The agreement also makes SiriusXM the Official Internet Radio Partner of MLB.com. Through the deal,  SiriusXM subscribers can listen to live broadcasts of every MLB game through the Sirius XM Internet Radio App and online for all regular season games, the All-Star Game and every Postseason game. Spring Training games will be available starting next year.

The Main Event

Masters coverage on ESPN today at 3p with CBS taking the ball on Saturday at 3:30p and Sunday at 2p.

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A CYNOPSIS MESSAGE

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ON THIS DAY in 1992: The first game played in Camden Yards as the Orioles beat the Indians 2-0.

Answer to Our Last Sports Trivia Question: What player holds the record for best overall score at the Masters? Tiger Woods. Kudos: Bob Melvin-NBC Sports Group/NY; Matthew Meachem-Tribune Media Services/Queensbury; Greg Conner-Outdoor Channel/NY; Paul Brewer-Turner Digital/NY; Juan Delgado-Telemundo Media/Hialeah; Bill Robertson-Tunheim Partners/Bloomington; Tom Moore-Kalt Productions/LA.

In The Know: What number did Cal Ripkin Jr. wear for the Orioles? (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
04.06.12

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