Cynopsis: Sports
06/06/11
Good morning. It’s Monday, June 6, 2011, and this is your first early morning Sports briefing.
On the heels of the most watched NBA playoffs in cable history topped with a fruitful partnership that spiked ratings for the NCAA men’s basketball tournament, Turner Sports is on a roll. The network’s 40-game coverage of the NBA Playoffs set ratings and viewership records for cable television and soared over TNT’s coverage last year, with final household ratings averaging a3.5 (for a 25% rise), 5,534,000 total viewers ( up 29%) and3,999,000 households ( up 26%).
Now the network is readying its turn at the wheel of this year’s NASCAR season with the Pocono 500 on Saturday with the sport’s ratings once again on the climb. Cynopsis Sports spoke with Turner Sports Executive VP and COO Lenny Daniels about the elements that led to their success this season as well as why Turner decided to opt out of bidding for the Olympics.
On the success of Turner Sports in 2010: Turner Sports is probably in one of the best places its ever been, that’s for sure. You can’t underestimate the strength of the ad market coming back and the strength of big brands and good leads and teams doing well. We do believe that Turner Sports int eh way we market, and how we do sports and the way we promote and produce the games is second to none and I think that helps everything.
On the growth of the NBA this year: It’s awesome to look at the league overall and how its growing. They’ve been on top of their game for a long time. You can feed off of that, and grow the sport from the bottom up. The big markets were all in play and that has a big impact on the ratings overall.
On TNT’s upcoming coverage of NASCAR: It’s hard to predict how NASCAR will do for the next of the year. Everything is cyclical in sports and NASCAR went through the same thing all sports go through, and now they are coming back. They were never down, they still pull a very high rating, and now it’s coming back to levels we were expecting before. There’s no reason to think that success won’t continue as it moves on to TNT and then ESPN to be perfectly honest.
On why Turner didn’t bid for the Olympics: At the end of the day, any sports rights acquisition is all about models and money and strategy. We look at a lot of points: Is it good for the consumer? Is it good for the advertiser? Is it good for our distributors? If we can put all of those together and create a model that works, then we do it. This is just something that we felt, at this time, we would not pursue.
Olympic bids are set to be submitted today and tomorrow with Comcast, ESPN and Fox all looking to pin down rights to the 2014 and 2016 Olympic Games. Estimated have left media pundits all over the map with guesses that range from $4 to $5 billion in this round of the Games, in spite of difficulties making the Games profitable for their broadcast hosts. he International Olympic Committee will hold its auction for the U.S. TV rights to the 2014 and 2016 Olympic Games at its headquarters in Lausanne. At stake are not only the rights to games, but also the audiences, sponsors as well as a boost to cable carriage fees for the winning company.
The Wall Street Journal reports that NBCU will send an array of executives that include Comcast CEO Brian Roberts, Comcast CFO Michael Angelakis and NBC Universal CEO Steve Burke to its Tuesday presentation. ESPN will be represented by Disney CEO Robert Iger and ESPN chief George Bodenheimer will lead the ESPN contingent. Fox, meanwhile, is sending Fox Sports Chairman David Hill and executives Randy Freer and Larry Jones for their bid.
Game 2 of The NBA Finals Game 2 on ABC, which featured Dallas rallying to beat Miami, delivered a 10.5 overnight rating for the channel. The second outing was unable to beat last year’s 10.9 score between the Celtics and Lakers, although the average for the two games played so far remains up 3% versus the first two games of 2010. ABC’s pregame show Buick Regal NBA Countdown drew a 3.5 rating, up 25 percent from 2010 for the second contest.
Any remaining worries that a lack of local fan interest and support for the newly-relocated Winnipeg NHL franchise can now be tossed out the window. The team, which moved from Atlanta, needed all of 17 minutes to sell and process all of the 13,000 available season tickets for the city’s new team, after tickets officially went on sale. New team owner True North Sports and Entertainment had stated that said it wanted to sell 13,000 season tickets for its 15,000-seat arena before NHL owners met June 21 to approve the deal. Mission accomplished.
The Southeastern Conference is set to divvy up a record $220 million this year to the league’s 12 universities. According to Commissioner Mike Silve, conference revenues for the 2010-2011 fiscal year, which ends on Aug. 31, will be up 5.3% compared to year ago numbers and will equal $18.3 million per school. Overall, the conference earned about $113.0 million from football on TV, $31.1 million from basketball TV, $31.3 million from bowl games, $15.3 million from the SEC Football Championship, $5.0 million from the SEC Men’s Basketball Tournament and $24.3 million from the NCAA Championships.
Over at the Big 12, which recently closed a meaty TV deal of its own, lower-revenue schools such as Kansas, Iowa St., Baylor and Kansas St., just found themselves with another raise. At conference meetings last week, schools voted unanimously to raise the amount of TV revenue earned by its universities from 57% to 76%, adding millions to the pockets of the schools.
Univision launched its slate of Spanish-language coverage for the 2011 Copa Oro yesterday, with games slated to appear on the Univision, TeleFutura and Galavision Networks as well as online. The action continues throughout the month with the final match of Copa Oro airing on Univision Network on Saturday, June 25 live from Pasadena. Live online streaming of all 2011 Copa Oro matches will also be available in the U.S. and Puerto Rico on Univision’s website and will feature a Facebook plug-in with real-time commentary from fans. Sprint customers will receive live mobile streaming of the games.
DirecTV has gone proactive to assure subscribers of its NFL Sunday Ticket package that the lockout isn’t going to be costing them money. The company told customers that they won’t be charged until NFL owners and players are able to strike a new deal and the lockout is over.
Last February’s record deal between the NHL and Molson Coors/Miller Coors is on some thin ice following a court ruling last week. Rival beer company Labatt’s, which is owned by Anheuser-Busch, sued following the announcement of the $375 million sponsorship agreement, claiming they already had an exclusive agreement in place and that the NHL made a good faith agreement with them to renew their sponsorship with the league until 2014. The Ontario Superior Court agreed in its decision, and struck down the deal.
The Boston Red Sox are the latest team lined up to produce an online video for the “It Gets Better Project,” aimed at helping gay youth. The announcement stems from a petition started by a 12-year-old New Hampshire boy that garnered nearly 10,000 signatures in a matter of days. The Red Sox join the San Francisco Giants and the Chicago Cubs as teams participating in the campaign.
With MLB’s All-Star Game set to take place in a month in Phoenix, city officials have unveiled promotional wraps that will cover the light rail trains leading up to the festivities. The wraps will include images of high profile players, including: New York Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter, Milwaukee Brewers outfielder Ryan Braun, Colorado Rockies shortstop Troy Tulowitzki, St. Louis Cardinals first baseman Albert Pujols, Minnesota Twins catcher Joe Mauer, Texas Rangers outfielder Josh Hamilton, Seattle Mariners outfielder Ichiro Suzuki and Arizona Diamondbacks outfielder Justin Upton.
For the ninth straight event, the UFC has taken to Facebook to stream six free preliminary card fights, telling fans on Friday that the bouts would be featured on the site ahead of Saturday’s live finale of Season 13 of “The Ultimate Fighter” on Spike TV.
Sprint has created a new way for race fans to access NASCAR Sprint Cup Seriescontent by creating ID Packs for the sport, which will turn Sprint ID-capable devices into a race accessory, providing instant access to their favorite drivers, live race radio broadcasts, news, and videos. The pack includes a NASCAR Sprint Cup Mobile Widget, NASCAR on SPEED, and VOD as well as a Countdown and Weather Widget.
Electronic Arts is heading into this week’s E3 Expo armed with a bevy of league-licensed games in its lineup. The company will present titles from the NFL, NCAA and FIFA as part of its product lineup. Games will be for platforms that range from Facebook to tradition consoles and are set to include: EA SPORTS PGA TOUR Golf Challenge, FIFA Soccer 12, FIFA Superstars, Madden NFL 12, Madden NFL Superstars, NCAA Football 12, NHL 12, and World Series Superstars.
Off the Air
NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman on the state of the league: When we came back from the work stoppage, we were projecting revenues for the return-to-play season of around $2 billion. We said if we could get to $3 billion by the last year of the basic term, which is the 2010-11 season, the growth rate would have been great. It’s too early to tell with exact precision, but if we’re not exactly at $3 billion, we’re certainly within chipping distance of it.
Big Ten Network President Mark Silverman on the rebranding of the network: Fans, viewers, media and our colleagues have already naturally gravitated toward the BTN name in recent years. It makes sense to adopt it. These changes are a logical step in our evolution, and give us an umbrella under which we can launch other businesses across digital platforms during our next phase of growth and development.
Former tennis champion Chris Evert on joining ESPN as an analyst: I’ve been away from TV for 10 years because my priority was raising my three boys, and now that they are older it is the right time to join the exceptional tennis team at ESPN. I have many friends there and enjoy watching their coverage so I look forward to getting back behind the microphone.
NBA star Shaquille O’Neal to his Twitter followers on retirement: We did it, 19 years, baby. I wanna thank you very much. That’s why I’m telling you first. I’m about to retire. Love ya, talk to you soon.
The Main Event
Game 3 of the Stanley Cup Finals featuring Vancouver Canucks @ Boston Bruins at 8p on Versus.
A CYNOPSIS MESSAGE
Primetime Emmy® Awards Special Editions
Before the Ballots: Comedy
Publishing Monday, June 13
To promote your Comedy Program, contact Mike Farina | 203.218.6480
ON THIS DAY in 1987 – The New York Yankees played their 13,000 game.
Answer to Yesterday’s Sports Trivia Question: How many NBA championships did Shaq win over the course of his career? 4, three with the Lakers, one with Miami. Kudos: Brendan McGovern – YouTube/NY; Evan Harris, CBS Sports Network/NY; Matt Lederer – Comcast/Philadelphia; Synda Kollman – Charter Marketing Group/Boca Raton; Greg Busch – ESPN Freelancer/St. Louis; Kevin Micklo – Cramer-Krasselt/Chicago; Mike Patterson – Turner SI Digital/Chicago; Larry Morton – Network Consultant/Houston; Miriam Aardahl – OMD/LA; Jordan Cohen – USC Athletics/Galen Center/LA; Adam Deverell – Cox Reps/LA; Patrick Reynolds – Reynolds Media Consulting/LA
In The Know: What was the last team, other than Texas or Oklahoma, to win the Big 12 Football Championship? (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 Cyn opsis | Sports
June 6, 2011
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- In My Opinion …
- Sure you can knock his movies… or his music… or his TV shows, but no one can knock the trailblazing way Shaquille O’Neal could promote and play with his fans. His announcement on Wednesday to retire as a player from the NBA via Twitter was par for the course for the perennial All-Star. Whether it was by constantly connecting with his 3.8 million Twitter followers, landing sly endorsement deals, or promoting his latest project, Shaq’s engagement with fans will leave a legacy that lasts far longer than his feuds on the court. I look forward to following his next venture, be it behind the microphone, as a team owner or wherever (ok, maybe not the movies). .
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