Cynopsis: Sports
10.07.13

Good morning. It’s Monday, October 7, 2013, and this is your first early morning Sports briefing. 

With “going viral” now a mandate in media strategy, online sports video producer and syndicator CineSport hit the mother lode and created a media frenzy surrounding Kevin Durant’s comments about James Harden and Dwyane Wade. Cynopsis Sports spoke with CineSport’s Managing Editor and Host, Noah Coslov about the story and how social media fits into CineSport’s strategy.

Coslov on the Durant video: Like many media outlets, PR companies frequently approach us pitching their clients to get messages out across our network. In this case, a PR company reached out to CineSport making Kevin Durant available. Since I would only have five minutes with him, I chose my questions carefully. SI.com’s Top 10 NBA players came out that day and I thought it was natural to try to get Kevin’s take on the list. I expected a thoughtful response having interviewed him before and as soon as he said James Harden should replace Dwyane Wade in the Top 10, I knew we had a story.
 
On going viral: We pushed it out to our network of 100+ newspaper partners, which averages nearly 6 million unique monthly viewers, and to our Facebook page where it rolled almost 100,000 times. Once Wade heard about it, he immediately posted that hand-written note to his 2 million followers on Instagram and to his 4 million Twitter followers – ‘Note to self – Make him respect your place in history… again.'” Durant then tweeted “Show me don’t tweet me,” so that hit his 5 million followers, and it was a media firestorm from there. SportsCenter aired a portion of the interview and it was featured on Mike & Mike, PTI, First Take and Dan Patrick Show, and made for headlines on all the major sports sites that linked to the video on the Sun Sentinel and Palm Beach Post, which drove more views. From social media to our syndicated network to TV and radio, tens of millions of people were exposed to our story in about 48 hours.
 
On momentum: Driven largely by original content, CineSport is in the midst of substantially expanding its publisher network. We are creating more original video programming for and with sites that understand the editorial and financial value of unique video content. Working with reporters from A+ publishers including the Boston Globe, Philadelphia Inquirer and Daily News, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, South Florida Sun Sentinel, Los Angeles Times and many others, gives our network unprecedented scale and depth of sports coverage.
 
On social media: Social is front and center in our content distribution. Not only has there been a dramatic increase in consumption of information from social news feeds, but the major social platforms have made a significant move into video. With our ability to create topical original content in real-time, this plays right into our strengths.
 
On recent successes: As small company, we don’t always have the luxury of reflecting since we’re always pushing forward, but in the past year we built an incredibly strong foundation in three areas that we expect to see come together for a successful 2014. First, we have focused our efforts on content partnerships with sites that believe in investing time and effort in creating original video content, which has led to deep editorial integration of video into their overall content offering. Second, creating and expanding our VaMP video technology platform enabled sites in our network to rapidly deploy video regardless of the platform or device consumers are using to access the content. And finally, our recent strategic partnership with Van Wagner Sports and Entertainment has laid the foundation for us to create integrated, cross channel marketing partnerships with premium brands. These three building blocks – differentiated content, ease of distribution through blue chip sites with large audiences, and premium ad sales, will enable us to continue to scale our business for the future.

On the Air

TBS’ coverage of the 2013 MLB Postseason continues to pack heat, averaging 3,556,000 total viewers through nine games, for a 6% uptick over 2012 numbers for the same period. The corresponding 2.3 household rating, based on Nielsen Fast Nationals, is up 5%. The 2013 MLB Division Series so far is averaging a 2.1 score with 3,208,000 total viewers, up 11% and 7% over 2012 respectively. Through the first three days, TBS is on track for its highest-rated and most-viewed Division Series since 2010. The network will feature a tripleheader today, beginning with the Cardinals/Pirates at 3p, Rays/Red Sox at 6p and Braves/Dodgers at 9:30p.

On the college football front, ESPN reports that ABC’s coverage of the Ohio State/Northwestern game drew a 4.8 in overnight scores, up over the network’s equitable game a year ago, which drew a 3.0, according to Nielsen. ESPN’s highest-rated game of the day was Washington/Stanford, which delivered a 1.9 in the overnights.

Around the dial on NBC, the network’s coverage of Notre Dame and ASU garnered a 2.5 in the overnights and the best-ever score the famed Shamrock Series. That number is up 4% over last year’s Shamrock Series contest. In primetime, the game delivered a 2.4, to mark the best Saturday night overnight score since the Stanley Cup back on June 22.

Pac-12 Networks locked in an exclusive multi-year agreement with FOX International Sports Channels to distribute Pac-12 Networks sports programming around the world. The new agreement calls for FIC Sports to distribute more than 750 hours of Pac-12 sporting events across 20 sports, including football, basketball, soccer, volleyball, gymnastics, wrestling, baseball, softball, golf, cross country, track and field and swimming and diving.

NASCAR officials made it clear that there will be no early outs from its TV deal. NBC and FOX were interested in starting their new long-term deals a year early and wanted to take over the ESPN and TNT portions of the contract next year, an idea that the two networks were reportedly open to. However, NASCAR had a different vision. “While we were humbled by the desire of NBC and Fox to start 12 months early, we now consider this matter closed and look forward to finishing our current agreement,” NASCAR Vice President of Broadcasting Steve Herbst said in a statement.

The College Football Playoff has the first members of its selection committee, according to the AP and ESPN. Names are set to include former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice; Archie Manning; USC Athletic Director Pat Haden; former Big East commissioner Mike Tranghese, former Nebraska Athletic Director and coach Tom Osborne, Tyrone Willingham, athletic directors Barry Alvarez, Jeff Long, Oliver Luck and Dan Radakovich; former sportswriter Steve Wieberg; former NCAA executive vice president Tom Jernstedt; and Retired Lt. Gen. Michael Gould. The committee is charged with selecting the four teams that advance to the College Football Playoff starting with the 2014 regular season, as well as ranking and slotting at-large teams in the noncontract New Year’s Day bowls.

NESN kicked off the NHL season on a high note, announcing that Thursday night’s Bruins season opening win over the Tampa Bay Lightning scored as the second highest rated regular season game in network history with a 9.0 average household rating in the Boston DMA and a 15 share. The channel’s post-game coverage generated a 5.0/9 to mark the third highest rating for a Bruins regular season post-game show in NESN history.

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Sponsorship & Promotion

ESPN Deportes is once again shoring up support for Breast Cancer Awareness Month. The network will see Adriana Monsalve, Carolina Guillen and Carolina Padron host special editions of SportsCenter to drive up awareness with a week-long push that wraps up with special reports from Estadio Azteca for Mexico vs. Panama. SportsCenter Semana de La Mujer (Ladies Week) returns for a fourth year starting today with a takeover of SportsCenter nightly broadcasts at 10p and 12a.

Sean Penn will sponsor a slate of runners from Haiti at the New York City Marathon next month, according to the AP. “We’ve got five Haitian runners, 10 runners total, running for the team representing Haiti and our organization J/P HRO coming to the New York City Marathon – the marathon. So we’re really looking forward to it,” Penn said.

Digital & Technology

Golf Channel drew its highest-ever weekday golf stream in network history from its coverage of the Presidents Cup, with 4.2 million minutes watched on Thursday. Friday’s live stream then bested Thursday to become the highest single-day authenticated stream for Golf Channel in live starts with 114K.

The return of the NHL season saw the opening Capitals/Blackhawks game set records in digital consumption for NBC Sports Group. Viewers combined to watch 942,000 total minutes via NBC Sports Live Extra. That is the most ever for a regular-season game that required “TV Everywhere,” and even surpassed 87% of last season’s “TV Everywhere” playoff games.

The Main Event

Braves/Dodgers on TBS at 9:30p.

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ON THIS DAY in 1992: The Tampa Bay Lightning become the NHL’s first expansion franchise to win its opening game.

In The Know: Besides #23, what other number did Michael Jordan wear regularly for the Bulls? (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: Actor/Athlete Chuck Connors is often credited as the first professional basketball player to break a backboard. What basketball team did he play for? Answer: Connors broke the backboard as a member of the Boston Celtics. Kudos: Jim Seifert-Sao Paulo; Keith Marder-Halstead Property/NY; John Miller-NBC Sports Group/Stamford; George Finkel-MegaSport Productions/Myrtle Beach; Larry Kahn-Golf Channel/Orlando; Les Stipp-GSD&M/Chicago; Bill Robertson-Tunheim Partners/Minneapolis; Rick Pike-InterMedia Advertising/Woodland Hills; David Westberg-SAG-AFTRA Los Angeles local/LA; Tom Moore-Kalt Productions/LA.

Later — Chris
Chris Pursell for Cynopsis | Sports
10.07.13

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