Cynopsis: Sports
11.25.13

Good morning. It’s Monday, November 25, 2013, and this is your first early morning Sports briefing. 

This Friday will see the 2013 NHL Thanksgiving Showdown on NBC’s docket, with the Original Six match-up of the New York Rangers and Boston Bruins on Friday, November 29 at 1p. With a multi-platform push in the cards, NBC Sports Group, in partnership with the NHL, tapped the services of none other than Hollywood director Bobby Farrelly (Dumb and Dumber, There’s Something About Mary, Kingpin, etc.) for the campaign, which includes three 30-second TV commercials and an extended version running online. The spots feature hockey greats Cam Neely and Mike Richter getting involved in a family feud between fans of the Rangers and Bruins.

Cynopsis Sports spoke with Farrelly (who was in the midst of producing Dumb and Dumber To) and Brian Jennings, NHL Chief Marketing Officer, about the promotional strategy, the reunion with Sea Bass aka Cam Neely, and the Farrelly brothers’ use of athletes in their movies.

Farrelly on working with the NHL: For me, this was special and I wanted to do it because the Bruins are my team and I’m from Boston. I love the players and Cam Neely has been a good friend of mine. When I found out the Bruins and Rangers were going to be playing this game, I jumped at the opportunity to help promote it.

Jennings on the partnership: We obviously knew about Bobby and had been a big fan of his work. We knew he had a good relationship with Cam and thought it was a good convergence where a lot of things came together. We wanted Cam and Mike Richter to appear and make a cameo; we knew the script would be a fun way to accentuate this broadcast window on the day after Thanksgiving. Plus the fact that Bobby’s unique sense of humor and understanding of the game and his vision of how he would cast it in such a special way was too good to pass up. We were fortunate that the schedules worked out the way they did.

Farrelly: We had to shoot it sort of fast because I was prepping to get down to Atlanta for Dumb and Dumber To, but we had a good time. To have Neely and Richter there really buoyed everyone up. We got to play street hockey

Farrelly on Cam and Sea Bass: When my brother and I were originally talking about how to cast this Sea Bass character, we kept telling our casting director that we were looking for a Cam Neely-type. Cam was, of course, an all-star player at the time and he was a big, naturally strong dude that you wouldn’t want to mess with. So we kept stressing over and over, ‘How about a Cam Neely type?’ and they kept bringing in these people to us that weren’t quite right. Then we thought, maybe Cam would do it. He was reluctant at first because he took his hockey so seriously, but he thought he’d give it a try. He was terrific. It took him a little while to commit to it but he was great. That Sea Bass role was 20 years ago, and I still hear people all the time asking me if he will be in Dumb and Dumber To.

On using athletes in cameos: It is probably because we were such big sports fans growing up, we loved the sports teams and we loved the athletes. When we did it on the first one, we got to thinking that we should get certain athletes to play some of these parts and it sort of became a tradition. It is something that is fun for us and we get to meet guys that we wouldn’t ordinarily meet and its fun for the crew. They love having Cam or Brett Favre come on to the set. It energized the production and it is always helpful to us.

Jennings on tracking: It is tracking really well. I know NBC is happy, Discover as the title sponsor of the game is happy. So when we look at it from the business metrics. It hit all the things we were looking to do, which was to create awareness. It certainly won’t be the last time we work with Bobby or obviously Cam, who will be on the float with Mike Richter at the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade on Thursday.

On the Air

The LPGA is ramping up its game, announcing a bulked up 2014 schedule. The slate will feature 33 events, 32 of them official tournaments, as well as the new international team event, the International Crown. That is up from 28 tournaments held this year and from 23 LPGA events in 2011. In addition, prize money will grow by more than $7 million, swelling to an all-time high of over $56 million, while 2014 television coverage will spike to top 350 hours, and best the previous record set in this year of 320. The 2014 schedule tees off with the season-opening Pure Silk Bahamas LPGA Classic from January 23-26.

Two upsets helped drive college football ratings on Saturday with CBS reporting that its SEC on CBS Nielsen score was up 100% for LSU’s win over Texas A&M. The game drew an overnight household rating/share of 4.8/10, doubling last year’s 2.4/5 in the same window. Around the dial, ABC’s coverage of Baylor’s first loss of the season to Big 12 rival Oklahoma State generated a 4.0 rating for the network.

ESPN’s penultimate season of NASCAR coverage drove growth in year-to-year comparisons. Autoweek compared the two seasons, writing that telecasts of the final 17 races of the 2013 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series season averages a 2.0 household score, up from a 2.9 in 2012 with an average of 4.8 million viewers. For the 10-race Chase, the slate drew a 2.8 household rating, according to Nielsen, up from a 2.7 a year ago with 4.5 million viewers.

With Manny Pacquiao seemingly back in form, HBO will offer fans the replay of Saturday’s bout against Brandon Rios. The telecast will take place on Saturday, Nov. 30 at 10:15p.

NBA TV’s upcoming NBA Fan Night presented by Sprint will showcase the Lakers/Wizards tomorrow night at 7p. The game selection was based on fan voting via NBA.com, the NBA Facebook page, NBA TV’s Facebook page, Yahoo.com, NBA.com mobile web, mobile NBA Game Time App, the NBA Game Time from Sprint App and Twitter.
 
U.S. Men’s National Team and LA Galaxy forward Landon Donovan is taking on microphone duties, and will join FOX Sports’ lead soccer studio team – Rob Stone, Eric Wynalda, Warren Barton and Brian McBride – as a guest analyst for Match Day 5 of the UEFA Champions League tomorrow and Wednesday. Coverage on both days kicks off at 2p on FOX Sports 1. 

ESPN announced that the 2015 college football season will kick off with the Texas A&M Aggies and the Arizona State Sun Devils in the AdvoCare Texas Kickoff at Reliant Stadium in Houston, Texas. LSU and Wisconsin were already booked to play in the second installment of the kickoff-weekend game on Saturday, Aug. 30, 2014. The game marks the third year of a four-year agreement between Lone Star Sports & Entertainment and ESPN Regional Television (ERT), a subsidiary of ESPN, to bring a top college football game to Reliant Stadium during the Labor Day weekend to start the college football season.

Houston Astros owner Jim Crane is suing former Astros owner Drayton McLane Jr., as well as Comcast Corp. and NBC Universal Media for fraud, misrepresentation and conspiracy, claiming that the numbers he received for Comcast SportsNet, where he has a stake of over 40%, were overvalued. The lawsuit alleges that the companies falsely represented the subscription fees that providers would pay. In response, Comcast/NBCUniversal officials released a statement declaring, “Comcast/NBCUniversal vehemently rejects any claim of wrongdoing asserted by the Astros. This litigation outside the bankruptcy proceedings is a desperate act, committed during a period in which Mr. Crane and his team of sophisticated advisors have been granted by the Bankruptcy Court an opportunity to explore and effectuate solutions to the Network’s serious business problems. Instead, it appears that Mr. Crane is suffering from an extreme case of buyer’s remorse, and aiming to blame the Network’s challenges on anything but his own actions.”

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Sponsorship & Promotion

The NBA launched its first-ever social media photo mosaic today, dubbed NBA Give BIG. The initiative is designed to “celebrate and inspire charitable efforts around the world with their fans during the holiday season.” Fans will use #NBAGiveBIG on Twitter and Instagram to share photos, videos and stories from their seasonal community projects from Nov. 25 through Dec. 31. All 30 NBA teams and all 17 NBA Development League (NBA D-League) teams will also host charitable events throughout the holiday season, including meal service, food drives and toy drives. At retail, the league is working with all Dick’s Sporting Goods locations nationwide and Spalding to donate basketballs to NBA Cares community partners.

The NHL is launching a new national campaign for its official online store shop.NHL.com. The marketing push will see the league’s first foray into animation designed to promote the array of merchandise available at the site. In the 30-second animated TV spot, “NHL Workshop,” NHL licensed products come to life and use teamwork to fulfill holiday gift orders at a North Pole-like Shop.NHL.com workshop.

Digital & Technology

ESPN on Xbox One officially launched with the release of Xbox One over the weekend. Fans using the platform will be able to access favorite teams and sports instantly through the Favorites channel immediately after launching the app.  Additionally, fans can browse through content via sport-specific video channels within the guide. ESPN on Xbox One also utilizes the console’s newest Snap Mode feature, allowing users to multitask by snapping video on-demand clips from ESPN.com onto the right side of the television screen. 
 
NBC Sports Digital launched a Twitter account for NBC Sports Live Extra, @LiveExtra to offer users scheduling, live-event, full-event replay and VOD alerts, and assists with authentication issues.

The Main Event

49ers/Redskins on ESPN at 8:40p.

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ON THIS DAY in 1949: Ted Williams wins the AL MVP.

In The Know: Rivalry Week! What two teams compete for the Keg of Nails? (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.)

Answer to Our Last Sports Trivia Question: Phil Rizzuto was also known by what nickname? Answer: The Scooter. Kudos: Rick Rosenfelt-ESPN New York/NY; Sheila Mills-Showtime/NY; John McCauley-Screenvision/NY; Gina Stallone-iTVX/NY; Deborah Kapetanakis-Universal McCann/NY; Bob Scanlon-Velocity Network/Silver Spring; John Collins-Media Storm, LLC/Norwalk; Jerry A. Kapner-Kapner Group/Montclair; Chuck Gordon-Clear Channel Media/Mobile; Pam Tierney-Actress/VoiceOver/Chicago; Bill Robertson-Tunheim Partners/Minneapolis; Greg Moloznik-GLM Media/Scottsdale; John Sutton-Charter Digital Media/LA; Don Surath-KPIX-TV  KBCW-TV/San Francisco; Jeff Friedman-Shine America/LA; Neal Stevens-Stevens & Associates/Beverly Hills.

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Later — Chris
Chris Pursell for Cynopsis | Sports
11.25.13

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