Cynopsis: Sports
10/03/12

Good morning. It’s Wednesday, October 3, 2012, and this is your first early morning Sports briefing. 

MLB made it official yesterday, announcing media rights agreements with FOX Sports Media Group and Turner Sports that will run through 2021. The deals, combined with the previously announced agreement with ESPN, are estimated to rake in a combined $12.4 billion for the league beginning with the 2014 season. As expected, FOX keeps the World Series and All-Star Game while the League Championship Series and Division Series will be shared across FOX Sports Media Group, TBS and MLB Network. The deals also include TV Everywhere rights to stream televised games and other MLB-related programming online and via mobile devices. TBS is set to retain rights to air one LCS, two Division Series and one of the Wild Card games. TBS will also air afternoon games with new co-exist rights on the final 13 Sundays of the regular season.
Other notable elements to the deals include:

• FOX receives rights to 52 national regular-season windows, two per Saturday, and double the 26 included in the current rights agreement.
• Increased footage and highlights rights for Turner websites and applications, including Bleacher Report, which Turner Sports acquired in August 2012, and its Team Stream app.
• Interactive television rights, including rights to create companion and ancillary products related to the TBS broadcast of regular and postseason games.
• In addition to two Division Series games, MLB Network also has acquired the rights to telecast both the MLB All-Star Game Selection Show and the SiriusXM All-Star Futures Game.
• FSMG will air a weekly 30-minute show created by MLB Productions.
• Beginning in 2014, subscribers of MLB Extra Innings and MLB.TV have the opportunity to watch Saturday MLB on FOX games subject to certain geographic black outs that protect games assigned to local FOX affiliates.

• FOX Deportes has the right to carry all games televised by FSMG, including the All-Star Game.

On the Air

The Atlantic 10 Conference also formalized its future by inking new deals with the NBC Sports Group, ESPN and CBS Sports Network. On NBC’s end, the league entered a nine-year agreement to nationally televise men’s and women’s basketball games on the NBC Sports Network, as well as select local games on NBC Sports Regional Networks. The deal begins in 2013 and also allows for games to be live streamed on the NBC Sports Live Extra app. NBC Sports Network will also carry six games this season with one non-conference game and five conference contests. Then, starting in 2013, the channel will offer 25 regular-season men’s games, three regular-season women’s games, and the quarterfinals of the men’s and women’s championships.

CBS Sports Network’s extension with the Atlantic 10 will feature at least 25 regular-season men’s games and eight women’s games annually, as well as the men’s and women’s semi-finals of the Atlantic 10 Championship.

ESPN’s part of the deal will bring 14 men’s and two women’s regular season basketball games annually to the company, starting in 2013 and running through the 2021-22 season. Six of the men’s games will appear on ESPNU and the company retains rights to the men’s and women’s conference championship games.

ESPN’s MNF coverage featuring a Bears win over the Cowboys handed the channel with a 10.5 household rating an average of 16,616,000 viewers to mark the third-largest audience among viewers for any program on cable television in 2012, according to Nielsen. In Chicago, the game drew a 17.3 rating on ESPN and a 15.2 rating on WGN-CW, for a combined 32.5 rating in the market. In Dallas, the game delivered a 13.8 rating on ESPN and a 12.3 rating on KTXA-IND, for a combined 26.1 rating in the market.

NBC Sports announced that with this past weekend’s SNF games in the books, the channel is now off to its best start in its seven-year history. Viewership through the first five games has hit 23.3 million with an average household rating of 14.2/23 for five games.

The WNBA’s Atlanta Dream announced that Ashley G. Preisinger, a 17-year Atlanta-based business executive, will serve as the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) for the two-time defending Eastern Conference Champion. In her role as Dream CEO, Preisinger will oversee all aspects of the team including sales, finance and basketball operations. She previously served at Homrich Berg, an independent wealth management firm.

ESPN and ESPN2 are set to offer extensive coverage of MLB’s final regular-season night Wednesday, Oct. 3, featuring two games that will impact the AL East pennant chase games as well as Detroit Tigers’ slugger Miguel Cabrera’s pursuit of the Triple Crown. Coverage is slated for 7p with the Red Sox/Yankees on ESPN while the Orioles/Rays will appear on ESPN2. In addition, ESPN and ESPN2 will both offer live look-ins to Cabrera’s at-bats and in-progress updates on the NL Wild Card chase if necessary.

MSG will offer 70 games during the New York Knicks 2012-13 regular season, including the Knicks’ home opener against the Heat from Madison Square Garden on Friday, November 2 at 8p. The schedule also includes all six of the Knicks’ preseason games starting Thursday, October 11 at 7p, when the team takes on Washington. Games on MSG will be preceded by the 30-minute pregame show Visa Knicks Game Night and followed by the Ford Knicks Postgame Show.

World Fishing Network announced that Carlos Baez has been named Vice President, Content Distribution. Baez was previously Senior Director of Affiliate Sales for the company.

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Sponsorship & Promotion

Quicken Loans is broadening its partnership with Stewart-Haas Racing and Ryan Newman, announcing that the company will serve as Newman’s primary sponsor for 18 Sprint Cup races next year. When not the primary sponsor, the company will be an associate sponsor on Newman’s Chevrolet. In addition, Quicken Loans will remain as an associate sponsor on the No. 14 Chevrolet driven by reigning Sprint Cup champion Tony Stewart throughout the 2013 season.

Pac-12 Networks is utilizing the services of WorldLink to oversee direct response ad sales for the recently launched channels.

The Sports Media Marketing Summit announced a slew of participants for this year’s gathering, which will be held at Capitale in New York on November 13. Participants are set to include: Lisa Baird, Chief Marketing Officer, USOC; Sharon Byers, SVP, Sports & Entertainment Marketing, Coca-Cola North America; Melissa Rosenthal Brenner, Vice President, Marketing National Basketball Association; Lenny Daniels, Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, Turner Sports; Stephen Espinosa, Executive Vice President and General Manager, Sports and Events Programming, Showtime Networks; Bryan Jennings, Executive Vice President VP, Marketing, NHL; and John Miller, Chief Marketing Officer, NBC Sports Group.

Digital Fields

With no end in sight to the NHL lockout, the Kontinental Hockey League inked a deal to have its games broadcast in the US via ESPN3, according to the AP. The Russian-based league stated that five games will run on the platform next week with the first game featuring Dynamo Moscow/Ak bars Kazan being streamed today.

USA Today Sports is rolling out a new content syndication module-USA TODAY Sports Pulse-this week that will span more than 100 local Gannett properties and also made available for syndication beyond Gannett. The module will aggregate, “on an ongoing, real-time basis, the best and most timely sports content from across all properties within the USA TODAY Sports Media Groupincluding breaking news, commentary, video, digital images and social activity” and incorporate content from USA Today as well as Sports on Earth, The Big Lead sites and MMAjunkie.com.

ESPN announced that Pablo S. Torre will join ESPN The Magazine and ESPN.com as a senior writer beginning October 10. Torre joins the company from Sports Illustrated and has regularly contributed to The Sports Reporters and other ESPN platforms. He will now be working with ESPN’s enterprise and investigative reporting team in addition to covering the NBA and college basketball.

Super Bowl MVP Drew Brees is tackling a new venture, teaming with Swink.tv to launch a new online service designed to share video highlights of youth athletics. The site allows teams to upload their game film to the site, which then encodes, cuts and tags each play with searchable sport specific information within 48 hours. The video can then be downloaded and shared via email, Facebook, Twitter or YouTube. Swink.tv launches with youth football, baseball, basketball and lacrosse, with youth soccer and hockey to be added by Fall of 2013. Each week Brees will select the Swink.tv ‘Play of the Week’.

CraveOnline announced today the video launch of Prospect Watch, a custom destination featured on MMA site Sherdog. The launch will sponsored by NOS Energy Drink, and introduce MMA fans to top male and female prospects picked by Sherdog editors, as well as look at these individual fighters, their backgrounds and why they are contenders.

WWE.com was the recipient of the 2012 OMMA Award for Web Excellence in the TV Entertainment category. The award recognizes the re-launch of the company’s site and the quality of its content.

The Main Event

Baseball wraps up the season with a double dose of mystery in the AL East. ESPN will offer Red Sox/Yankees while ESPN2 features Orioles/Rays at 7p.

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ON THIS DAY in 1970: MLB umpires go on strike.

Answer to Our Last Sports Trivia Question: What NBA player carried the nickname Grandmama? Larry Johnson. Kudos: Marc Ernay-1010 WINS/NY; Matt Altman-WWE/NY; Chris Connaughton-SEASON Sports/NY; Ben Osborne-SLAM/NY; Mark Pihonak- Sikorsky Aircraft/Stratford; Brian Carroll-LPGA/Daytona Beach; Tim McGhee-MSP Sports/Summit; Kristen Saine-NASCAR/Charlotte; JC Sullivan/Puerto Vallarta; Simon Bassett-CBC Sports/Toronto; Paul Tarrants-Nashville Predators/Nashville; Steve McNair-CBS Radio/Houston; Jamie Raybon-KTXA Television/Dallas; Greg Moloznik-GLM Media/Scottsdale; Larry Johnson-Gravity Collection/Denver; Jerry Silbowitz-Size Sports & Entertainment/Beverly Hills; Miguel Velasco-Fox Cable Networks/LA; Mark Petix-Pac-12 Enterprises/San Francisco; Willie Price-American Forces Network/Riverside.

In The Know: From what school was Drew Brees drafted? (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.)

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Later — Chris
Chris Pursell for Cynopsis | Sports
10.03.12

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