CYNOPSISSPORTS
12.12.16
Good morning. It’s Monday December 12, 2016 and this is your first early morning Sports briefing.
With the 2016 NASCAR season in the bag, a primary high point for NASCAR continues to be its digital strategy with the surge of NASCAR Digital in recent years propelling the sport as a driver of digital engagement innovation and opportunity. 2016 saw the organization notch 256 million social engagements across all its digital platforms, marking an uptick of 87% year-over-year with a massive spike in video content views and 14% growth in followers. Since taking control of its digital strategy in 2012, the division continues to spread its wings, taking on the platforms for race teams and speedways and now, sponsorship as well.
Cynopsis Sports spoke with Colin Smith, VP of NASCAR Digital Media, about the growth, its content strategy and Monster’s new deal.
Smith on history: If you take a step back and look at where we were when we got our rights back in 2012, 2013 turned out to be a crazy year for us, having to build the platform and do everything for ourselves for the first time. It was about trying to become independent and trying to launch a stable platform, but it took us almost an entire season to do that. So heading into 2014, the goal was to stabilize the experience, and sometimes you have to sacrifice the user experience to make that happen unfortunately. Now that we had insights to look back on, we were able to make those changes. 2015 became about finally taking that knowledge and experience and finally do what we thought we would be able to do in 2013, minus all of the operational challenges. That was a big success, so heading into 2016, it became about what we wanted to do from a revenue perspective and decide if we wanted a partner on this or not. We ended up deciding to do all of this ourselves, from a revenue perspective, including taking back the Turner deal for ad sales.
On current goals: How do we start to integrate our a little bit more with the industry? Can we create a digital services media group that supports the industry? The model makes a lot more sense if we have everybody together and if we can start aggregating the NASCAR experience into one holistic opportunity for brands, that’s just going to be a better pitch. So we started aggressively pitching that idea to teams and saw some traction, including rebuilding the Iowa Speedway platform and the Richard Childress Racing site this month and we have two other teams that are going to follow. The hope is that in two years we have all 18 teams on one centralized platform.
On content: I think our mantra is to always start with competition-based story-telling and break it out from there. That drives most of our strategy. I think where we are seeing change the most is the integration of social and all of the opportunities present. Up until recently, Facebook Live wasn’t even a thing, and now it is a big player. Of course, most of our content is driven by the race weekends, that’s where most of the drama, action and conflict take place and, for us, the challenge is how we drive that conversation Monday through Thursday. What’s been successful is to leverage social platforms to accomplish that because fans won’t necessarily come to NASCAR O&O platforms on a Wednesday but they will be on social platforms.
On room for improvement: We have to do a better job, as a league and as an industry, of telling all of our drivers’ stories. For example, William Byron, who was almost the trucks champion this year, got into the sport through iRacing. He was playing in his living room when he got his chance and did really well. That is an unbelievable story. There are so many different stories like that and we have to make sure to curate those stories and push them out there because they are compelling and connect audiences with the drivers.
On Monster Energy’s new deal: We are eager to start working directly with Monster Energy’s marketing and content teams. They have a proven way of identifying and creating unique content, and are pros at pushing that content across their massive social following. I think we will be able to learn a lot from each other, and I believe we’ll be able to build some things in the digital space together that haven’t yet been seen in the sport.
ON THE AIR
MLS Commissioner Don Garber delivered his annual State of the League address ahead of Saturday’s MLS Cup, noting that 2017 will see the use Video Assistant Referees shift from testing mode toward permanent adoption by the league. The initiative sees an additional referee stationed in a booth with technology that allows access to video from every available camera angle. “For the first part of the 2017 season, we will test video assistance for our referees,” he said. "And our goal will be to implement VAR – Video Assistant Referees – during the second half of the MLS season, after the MLS All-Star Game.” He also noted that David Beckham’s ownership group for a Miami franchise has a deadline to lock in a stadium site.
In ratings news, CBS Sports’ coverage of the Army/Navy Classic on Saturday delivered the game’s highest rating in 22 years, according to Nielsen. The Army upset scored an average overnight HH rating/share of 5.6/13, up 10% from last year’s numbers in metered markets.
Meanwhile, TNF handed its telecast partners with 17.8 million viewers across all platforms NBC, NFL Network, Twitter, NBC Sports Digital, and NFL Digital. NBC’s telecast averaged 17.4 million TV-only viewers marking the first time this season that consecutive TNF games averaged at least 17 million viewers. Meanwhile, the Average Minute Audience for the game via Twitter, NBC Sports Digital, and NFL Digital was 417,000 viewers.
Speaking of the NFL, the league continues to grow its presence in London, and will offer the city four games next season. Teams and stadiums will be announced Tuesday, according to reports.
In Olympic news, the International Cheer Union “expressed its appreciation” to the Executive Board of the International Olympic Committee for its decision earlier this week providing provisional recognition to the ICU. “The IOC’s actions have created a monumental milestone for cheerleading. We are truly honored to receive this recognition by the Executive Board of the IOC,” said Jeff Webb, President of the International Cheer Union. “This decision will greatly assist us as we strive to create opportunities for healthy participation and competition for millions of Cheer athletes worldwide.”
RIP to Darrell Ewalt, who served as Vice President and Executive Producer of Event Programming and Production at AXS TV. Ewalt passed away on Dec. 4 at the age of 58. “AXS TV is forever indebted to Darrell’s tireless service,” said Mark Cuban, CEO of AXS TV. “He left his imprint on every aspect of this company, both as a producer, engineer and as a person. We send his family our sincerest condolences during this difficult time.”
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SPONSORSHIP & PROMOTION
The potential Collective Bargaining Agreement between the NBA and its players has reportedly hit a major hiccup, with ESPN’s Marc Stein reporting that the two sides are battling over licensing and player likeness revenue. Stein writes that the labor accord is now in jeopardy as “The NFL’s union, for example, has control over licensing/player likenesses. The NBA’s union has been known to covet the same for some time.” Both sides can opt out of the current CBA on Thursday, although it will remain in place until July 1.
The NHL and the Los Angeles Kings introduced a rendering of the NHL Centennial-themed float that will make its debut in the 128th Rose Parade presented by Honda on Jan. 2. Titled “A Century of Greatness (1917-2017),” the float will celebrate the official launch of the NHL’s year-long Centennial festivities, which will commence on New Year’s Day. The NHL and the Kings also announced that Kings President of Business Operations Luc Robitaille, broadcaster Bob Miller and team mascot Bailey will ride aboard the float (a floral 55-foot long hockey rink with dual goal nets and lamps), flanked by youth hockey players.
Firestone Tires locked in its first licensing deal with the collegiate sports space, announcing an agreement with the University of Alabama. The partnership will see the limited edition release of the new Firestone Destination A/T: University of Alabama tire, on sale now throughout the state.
Adidas inked a multiyear partnership extension with Cubs’ 2016 National League MVP, Kris Bryant, who will continue to play a leading role in brand marketing campaigns and collaborations on future baseball cleats and accessories.
USA Luge signed a two-year sponsorship with World Financial Group, that extends the arrangement with the governing body beyond the fall of 2018. The deal allows the company to use all USA Luge logos and marks on its promotional materials.
Meanwhile, Pepsi will become the official soft drink of the Professional Women’s Bowling Association Tour and the title sponsor of the PWBA Tour stop in Lincoln next year. Pepsi will again be showcased as a tour sponsor during PWBA Tour telecasts on CBS Sports Network.
DIGITAL & STREAMING
Italian Serie A club AS Roma unveiled its first-ever Arabic language website: asroma.com/ar. The website, launched with the support of Omnigon, follows a poll on social media that invited fans to vote in favor of the language they believed was best suited for the Club’s new official website. Paul Rogers, head of digital at AS Roma, said, “We are thrilled to unveil our new Arabic-language website created in this language to give our fans what they want. Our decision to allow fans to choose the language of the site aligns with our strategy to engage with them at every level of our digital development. This particular voter campaign proved to be one of our most successful on social media to date, and the fact that 84% of fans voted in favor of an Arabic-language website is a testament to the huge appetite for Roma content amongst those in the Middle East and North Africa.”
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ESPORTS
More NBA ties to esports. Milwaukee Bucks co-owner Wesley Edens, is purchasing Cloud9 Challenger’s League Championship Series spot as well as the contracts of four of the team’s players for roughly $2.5 million, according to ESPN. Once the deal is cleared, Edens and his group will obtain the contract rights Cloud9 players An "BalIs" Van Le, Hai "Hai" Lam, Johnny "Altec" Ru, and Daerek "LemonNation" Hart. The spot in the League Championship Series originally went up for sale in August following the 2017 Spring Promotion Tournament.
Blizzard Entertainment locked in plans for the 2017 StarCraft II World Championship Series, unveiling changes to the format and new events for the season. Partnerships will include AfreecaTV’s Global StarCraft II League for WCS South Korea, Dreamhack in the non-South Korean WCS Circuit and ESL for WCS South Korea and the major global event. The company also announced that a portion of the proceeds earned from an in-game purchasable "War Chest" would increase the prize pool, currently set at $2 million.
You know you want to play! Join us on April 12 in NYC for the Cynopsis World eSports Summit and Spring Owner’s Meetings. Leagues, teams, brands, publishers, data, networking and more! Don’t miss out.
ROSTER MOVES
The PGA TOUR announced that Jared Rice, formerly the VP of Sales and Marketing for THE PLAYERS Championship, has been named the executive director of THE PLAYERS. “It is an honor to have the opportunity to continue growing our flagship event,” Rice said. “I have great passion for THE PLAYERS and its leading role in the Northeast Florida community. As our team advances our primary goal of elevating the events’ stature on the world’s stage, we look forward to continuing to work with the dedicated volunteers, sponsors and charities that make THE PLAYERS such an impactful showcase of our region.”
THE MAIN EVENT
Ravens/Patriots on ESPN at 8:30p.
A CYNOPSIS MESSAGE
==== THE RESULTS ARE IN FOR THE 2016 CYNOPSIS SPORTS LEADERBOARD ====
CONGRATULATIONS
ESPN & Straight Talk Wireless
for your work on NBA Finals Periscope
The Leaderboard celebrates the organizations that utilized their social media platforms to promote product offerings to sports fans throughout 2016. Check out the full list of winners here.
ON THIS DAY in 1951: The Yankees’ Joe DiMaggio announces his retirement at age 37.
In The Know: (Courtesy of Glenn Demby) Who was the only player to win the Heisman Trophy as a player for a losing team? (Email Chris-Sports@cynopsis.com with your answer and be sure to include your name, company and city.)
Answer to Our Last Sports Trivia Question: Who won the first-ever MLS Cup? Answer: DC United. Kudos: Michael Ritz-BucStar Consulting/NY; Lewis Blaustein-GreenSportsBlogger/NY; Brian Traynor-WME/IMG/NY; Dave Lucas-Newschannel 8/Arlington; Jason Rocco-GSM/DC; Andy Pittman-TAMU/College Station; Michael Jaquet-US Ski and Snowboard Assoc./Park City; Tom Moore-Kalt Productions/LA; David Westberg-SAG-AFTRA Federal Credit Union/Burbank.
Later — Chris
Chris Pursell for Cynopsis | Sports @VegasandVine
12.12.16
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