Cynopsis: Sports
08/27/12

Good morning. It’s Monday, August 27, 2012, and this is your first early morning Sports briefing. 

Believe it or not, but five years have passed since BTN made its debut. Once struggling to get carriage, the network has now become a business model and revenue generator for the Big Ten Conference. As the network celebrates its anniversary this week, the channel now claims access to more than 90 million homes in the US and Canada and 20 countries internationally. BTN2Go has served as a touch point for fans around the world and quickly became another staple of the channel. In addition, the channel has provided hundreds of students the chance to participate in live sports production through Student U.

Cynopsis Sports spoke with BTN President Mark Silverman about the past five years, some of the surprises he discovered along the way and what we can expect from the channel when football returns this season.

Silverman on five years of BTN: The past five years have been remarkable, a journey for us. Over here, we reflect back a lot and what we are most proud of is how much better we’ve gotten from when we launched. We’ve become a quality network; we’ve grown with in quality ratings, advertising and subscribers. We are now truly a national network that is focused on delivering in a high quality manner to fans across the country.

On the biggest lessons learned along the way: The power of the Big Ten brand and how the brand resonates. The number of fans across the country shows you the national power of the brand. You don’t get to be in 52 million homes in the US if the Big Ten brand wasn’t throughout the country. There is a strong connection that people have to their schools, whether they are alums or not, and there’s a huge following for Big Ten programs, they are well ranked nationally in both football and basketball.

On how the channel has impacted the universities: You have BCS and bowl games wanting to get Big Ten schools their slots, it is because they travel. The conference has been around for over 100 years, it’s the largest conference in terms of number of students at these schools, the number of alums at these schools, and the success has been really strong throughout. So with BTN, they really are getting the benefits of marrying large-scale numbers with a successful platform. We offer a great mix of driving a product that goes beyond just a Michigan or Ohio State. Obviously, there may be some schools that aren’t as well-known across the country as these other schools, but they bring massive fan bases that are spread out and have been a big deal for a long time. We help service that.

On the upcoming college football season: For us, football obviously brings a big new season. We are launching with Urban Meyers first game, an Ohio guy coming home to lead his team. We think that is a great storyline and a great launch for this season for us. Our big new programming effort this year is our Football Journey. The Big Ten Basketball Journey has been nominated for a national Emmy award. When we first got nominated for that, we were with the type of company as Hard Knocks on HBO, and you’re talking about networks that are obviously much larger than ours and yet we’ve been nominated in that group. Now we are launching the debut of our Football Journey, and it’s similar to a Hard Knock-type of idea, but the difference is that these are students-athletes and we are able to talk to their home towns and families and see where they came from, what obstacles they’ve overcome. We look at how they train and what they do in the weight room, it’s really a show that has garnered a lot of success and attention for us. It helped establish some credibility for us in that we are not just like any of these other networks popping up. We’ve really focused on putting high-quality productions on our air. 

On the Air

Rob Riggle will become the new comedic prognosticator for FOX NFL Sunday, where he will replace Frank Caliendo in the weekly segments. Riggle now joins Terry Bradshaw, Curt Menefee, Howie Long, Jimmy Johnson, Michael Strahan, and Jay Glazer on the pregame show where, in addition to lampooning the game, its stars and his co-stars, he will take on Bradshaw, Long, Johnson and Strahan in the competition for the Lead Dog trophy for the most correct selections at season’s end.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit granted a stay on the FCC’s order last month mandating that Comcast make Tennis Channel available to the same number of subscribers as Golf Channel and NBC Sports Network by early September. Comcast claims that they discriminated against the network. In a statement, Tennis Channel said that while it was “disappointed” in the decision, network executives believe that the court will ultimately agree with the FCC.

Golf Channel’s coverage of the first two rounds for The Barclays surged in viewers, according to Nielsen. The network reports that preliminary viewership data showed that the event delivered a 1.4 household rating with 1,346,000 average viewers in round two to mark the highest-rated and most-watched early round for this event in 17 years. The tournament also scored as the highest-rated and most-watched early round of a PGA TOUR Playoff event on Golf Channel since Round Two of the 2009 TOUR Championship. Ratings and viewership for Round Two were up 117% over the same round in 2011, while Round One on Thursday drew a 0.9 household rating and 849,000 average viewers, to best the same coverage in 2011 by 35%.

Golf Channel also announced the debut of new series Chasing the Dream. The nine-part show will premiere on Tuesday, Oct. 2, and chronicle “the stories of two men from opposite sides of the country and opposite sides of life as they attempt to realize their dream of competing on the PGA TOUR.” Professional golfers Chris Anderson and Robbie Biershenk will be featured as the cameras showcase the personal and professional journeys of the two players.

The legend is coming back. The Dodgers announced that Vin Scully will return for his record 64th season in 2013. “The new ownership of the Dodgers has revitalized the city, the team, the fans and myself,” Scully said in a statement. “I am so convinced of their great purpose and leadership that I eagerly look forward to joining them in pursuit of the next Dodgers championship.” He currently calls Dodger television broadcasts on PRIME TICKET and KCAL 9 as well as the first three innings of each game on AM 570 FOX Sports L.A.

CBS scored with its coverage of the Texans/Saints NFL preseason game, drawing 5.84 million viewers and a 1.8 among adults 18-49, according to Nielsen’s fast nationals for Saturday. ABC, meanwhile, delivered 6.10 million viewers overall for its NASCAR race with a 1.6 among adults 18-49.

Rogers Media acquired the television business of Score Media, which includes theScore Television Network, closed captioning service provider Voice2Visual, and theScore Fighting Series (SFS). Meanwhile, Score announced that its digital businesses will now be spun out into a new corporation that will now include theScore.com and its mobile applications ScoreMobile, ScoreMobileFC and Sportstap.

A CYNOPSIS MESSAGE

Sponsorship & Promotion

The San Francisco 49ers became the first NFL team to take part in the “It Gets Better” campaign, designed to help LGBT youths. Members of the team appeared in the newest video for the campaign, featuring Donte Whitner, Ricky Jean-Francois, Ahmad Brooks, and Isaac Sopoaga. The video is now posted on the 49ers’ Facebook and YouTube accounts.

Digital Fields

MLB.TV announced that it will offer the service for $10 in celebration of its tenth anniversary, with the deal ending today. The online streaming platform was launched ten years ago, and has since showcased more than 25,000 live games to serve as “the most widely distributed – accessible on thousands of computers, mobile phones, tablets and connected devices with one subscription – and successful live video subscription product in digital media.”

For the first time ever, licensed Brazilian teams will be part of the video game Pro Evolution Soccer 2013. Konami Digital Entertainment announced a new licensing agreement will bring 20 teams from the country to the game.

The Main Event

US Open coverage begins on Tennis Channel at 1p.

A CYNOPSIS MESSAGE

ON THIS DAY in 1982: Rickey Henderson steals his 119th base of the season to break Lou Brock’s record.

Answer to Our Last Sports Trivia Question: In the movie Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Cameron Frye wears the jersey of what legendary athlete? Gordie Howe. Kudos: David Danowski-Fox Sports Cable Networks/NY; Michael Neuman-Scout Sports and Entertainment/NY; Trudy Ginsburg-NBC Sports/NY; Bill Hirsh-WWE/NY; Tim McGhee-MSP Sports/Summit; Rick Rosenfelt-New York Jets, LLC/Florham Park; Simon Bassett-CBC/Toronto; Allison Wright-Viacom Media Networks/Detroit; Kevin Micklo-Initiative Media/Chicago; Andy Lee-ESPN Audio/Chicago; John Ward-NBC Sports Group/Chicago; Steve Orr-Disney-ABC Domestic Television/Dallas; Greg Moloznik-GLM Media/Scottsdale; Nick Monroe-Monroe Photography/San Diego; Gary MacKinney-FilmTrack Inc./LA; Paul Gygli-NBCUniversal Television Distribution/Universal City; Roman Saienni-FOX Sports/LA.

In The Know: In 1981, John Madden was elevated to CBS’ top NFL broadcast team where he was paired with what announcer? (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
08.27.12

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