Cynopsis: Sports
06/08/11

Good morning. It’s Wednesday, June 8, 2011, and this is your first early morning Sports briefing.

The International Olympic Committee decided to go with its longtime partner NBC, announcing that it chose the bid by the Comcast-owned company over rival suitors ABC/ESPN and Fox. The decision delivered the company with U.S. media rights to the 2014, 2016, 2018 and 2020 Olympic Games for $4.38 billion, with the Games leveraging not only NBC, but boosting content as well as distribution fees for platforms such as Versus and Golf Channel as well. The decision keeps NBC as America’s Olympic Network, where the company has broadcast a total of 12 Olympic Games.

“It is a great thrill to know that NBC’s unsurpassed Olympic heritage and unprecedented partnership with the IOC will continue through 2020,” said Mark Lazarus, Chairman, NBC Sports Group. “The Olympics are a significant part of NBC and the IOC again recognized NBCUniversal’s unmatched ability to promote, market, program and produce the Olympic Games. London, Sochi, Rio and the 2018 and 2020 Games will benefit from our ability to galvanize all the resources of the newly-formed NBC Sports Group to bring the Games to more homes and more platforms than ever.”

“We are delighted to have reached an agreement with our longstanding partner NBC,” said IOC President Jacques Rogge. “We received three excellent bids and would like to thank each broadcaster for their presentations. In the end we were most impressed with NBC, which not only has a track record for broadcasting the Games that speaks for itself, but also has a clear and innovative vision of where it wants to take the broadcast of the Games between now and 2020. We look forward to continuing to build on our already strong relationship beginning in London next year.”

“We made a disciplined bid that would have brought tremendous value to the Olympics and would have been profitable for our company,” said ESPN in a statement. “To go any further would not have made good business sense for us. We wish to congratulate the IOC on a fair and transparent process, and we offer our best wishes to Comcast/NBC. We put our best foot forward with a compelling offer that included the enthusiastic participation of all of The Walt Disney Company’s considerable assets.”

On the Air

With the conclusion of Fox’s 2011 coverage of NASCAR Sprint Cup series races in Kansas last weekend, the network will finish the season with a multi-season high in viewership. Fox is averaging 8.6 million viewers per race for the first 13 races of the network broadcasts, for a bump of 9% over 2010 to mark the largest one-year audience increase in the 11-year history of the sport on the channel. The complete 2011 NASCAR season on FOX averaged a 5.0/11 household rating/share, with the season’s biggest increase coming among Men 18-34, which saw a 20% jump year-to-year with a 1.8.

ESPN and BTN have added more Big Ten football games to their lineup of telecasts, with ESPN picking up an additional seven games for Saturday afternoon telecasts across ABC, ESPN and ESPN2 during the 2011 season. New conference games to be aired by the company include:

• Sept. 3 Akron @Ohio St./Western Michigan @Michigan
• Sept 10 Florida Atlantic @ Michigan St./Oregon St. @ Wisconsin/Alabama @ Penn St.
• Sept. 17 Pitt @ Iowa/Washington @ Nebraska

Meanwhile, the newly rebranded BTN will air 15 Big Ten games during the first three weekends of the 2011 college football season, including the network’s first-ever college football tripleheaders on Sept. 10 and 17. Eight of the conference’s 12 teams will play their home openers on the channel during first two weekends of September. More televised games will be announced as the season progresses.

Conference USA has announced its own 2011 television schedule for football, which marks the beginning of a new long-term agreement between Conference USA and Fox Sports Media Group for national television rights to Conference USA events, including a minimum of 20 regular-season football games. Conference USA football will also be featured on CBS Sports Network, which will also showcase also minimum of 20 C-USA football games. Among the team set to be featured the most will be Tulsa, with nine games between the two broadcasters, Houston with eight, and SMU with ten.

Saturday’s season 13 finale of The Ultimate Fighter on Spike TV delivered the channel with a 1.32 household rating, with a 1.74 among M18-49, and a 1.95 in M18-34, according to Nielsen. The episode drew an average audience of 1.8 million viewers.

ESPN is reporting that a group led by Apollo Global Management co-founder Joshua Harris is close to acquiring NBA franchise the Philadelphia 76ers from Comcast, reporting that the deal may be “imminent.” Harris co-founded Apollo in 1990 and is now reported to be worth $1.5 billion.

In a likely PPV monster, Floyd Mayweather Jr. announced Tuesday his plans to challenge WBC welterweight champion Victor Ortiz on Sept. 17, despite fighting only twice since 2007. Mayweather revealed the news through Twitter, where he has more than 1.25 million followers to his account. No venue has been announced for the fight.

MSG Networks, in partnership with The New York Racing Association is set to air live coverage of the Belmont Draw at 11a this morning on the channel. On Thursday at 6:30p, MSG Plus will showcase the Belmont Stakes Preview Show. The Belmont Draw will be hosted by horse racing analyst Jason Blewitt.

NBA TV will be running a special 30-minute homage to the career of 15-time NBA All-Star Shaquille O’Neal tonight at 7:30p. The special, dubbed NBA TV Presents: Looking Back at Shaq will feature NBA TV’s Larry Smith hosting the tribute  with and analyst and former O’Neal teammate, Dennis Scott discussing his career.

Chad Ochocinco is back on the football field, appearing in September’s season three premiere of Spike’s college football comedy series “Blue Mountain State.” Ochocinco will appear as himself, portraying a former captain of the BMS football team.

Sportsman Channel will premiere Major League Bowhunter on June 30 at 9:30p, featuring hosts Chipper Jones of the Atlanta Braves; Buckventures host Jeff Danker and former St. Louis Cardinals’ pitcher Matt Duff, who are all
obsessed” with bowhunting for big whitetail.

Sponsorship & Promotion

The Mountain West Conference is undergoing a rebrand, designed to work with the membership changes the NCAA conference is undergoing. The Mountain West Conference Board of Directors and Commissioner Craig Thompson unveiled the league’s new brand direction and conference identity to unveil a new logo nicknamed “The Rock” and the tagline “This is our time.” In addition to the logo and theme, Thompson outlined “the most comprehensive branding effort in the history of the Conference,” noting that there will now be more content on the conference website as well as on social media and had tapped the services of Loma Media to utilize an NFL Films-style look and feel to the Conference’s television, radio and print campaigns and will produce motion media content for all platforms on a monthly basis.

NASCAR has named David Higdon as Managing Director of the organization’s newly formed Integrated Marketing Communications department. Higdon joins NASCAR from the LPGA Tour where he oversaw corporate communications; stakeholder and media relations; player promotion; TV and digital media content; and served on the World Golf Hall of Fame Advisory Board.

The Canadian Olympic Committee has revealed new looks for all of its competition wear and merchandise, with the goal of inspiring Canadians’ national pride for their elite athletes. The new designs include a Canadian Olympic Team mark, with the symbolic maple leaf as its centerpiece which sits atop the Olympic rings and is encircled by a red oval border. The marks will initially be utilized at the Nanjing 2014 Youth Olympic Games as well as the Toronto 2015 Pan American Games.

Tecate has been named the “2011 Official Beer Sponsor” of the International Boxing Hall of Fame. The beer will be featured at various events planned by the IBHOF throughout the year.

Digital Fields

SPEED is leveraging its growing web presence to strengthen its relationships with race tracks, with the launch of SPEED Inside Deals, a micro-site that will offer fans specially priced ticket packages, as well as pit passes and access to driver and SPEED on-air personality meet-and-greets. SPEED.com saw 1.24 million unique visitors last month, for a growth rate of around 20% year-to-year.

YouTube is getting ready for a fight, telling users that fans can watch the UFC 131 prelims, already set to stream on Facebook, on an official page set up on the platform. The UFC 131 prelims will begin at 6p on Saturday, featuring five fights from the undercard in Vancouver.

The Main Event

The Boston Bruins looks to even up the series in game four of the Stanley Cup Finals at 8p on Versus.

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  A CYNOPSIS MESSAGE

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ON THIS DAY in 1966 – NFL & AFL officially announced their plans to become the NFC & AFC in the year 1970.

Answer to Yesterday’s Sports Trivia Question: What was the last horse to win all three Triple Crown races? Affirmed won the Triple Crown in 1978. Kudos: Michael Novara – ESPN/NY; Rick Rosenfelt – New York Jets/Florham Park; David Stern – BARD Entertainment/NY; Brian Traynor – Home Team Sports, FSN/NY; Lucie Prann – The Richards Group/Dallas, TX; Roman Saienni – Fox Sports/LA; Miriam Aardahl – OMD/LA; Paul Gygli – NBCUniversal Television Distribution/LA; Richard Levine – AT&T Operations, Inc./LA

In The Know:  Who is the current UFC Middleweight Champion?  (Email Chris-Sports@cynopsis.com 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 8, 2011

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Agree or disagree?  Email your comments to chris -sports@cynopsis.com for inclusion under Emails to the Editor …

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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