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Fan Fact
According to a study published by Better, half of respondents (49%) believe that cheering on a team is good for their mental health, and a third of respondents (34%) said that watching sporting events inspired them to be more active.
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FanDuel is aiming to rebrand its TVG racing channel to FanDuel TV as part of a plan to create the first ‘watch and wager’ TV network in the US, including a potential big-name acquisition of former NFL Network host Kay Adams.
What's the deal?
The rebrand would see a slight shift away from horse racing on the flagship TVG channel. Instead, morning programming would focus on FanDuel talent and sports betting. The overnight slot would be filled with “tertiary” sports with watch & wager rights, such as Korean football, pickleball, and Chinese basketball. The planned switch comes alongside a strategic reshuffle at the company. Current CMO Mike Raffensperger had been appointed to the newly-created position of chief commercial officer. In that role, he will oversee FanDuel’s content and programming assets, including TVG.
The rebrand also continues FanDuel’s evolution into a sports media company. Back in May 2021, Raffensperger told Front Office Sports the sportsbooks already saw itself as a sports media company thanks to its deals with SportsGrid, McAfee, The Ringer, Turner Sports, and others. Competitors have also sought to boost their media output. DraftKings acquired sports-gambling network VSIN in 2021 and has invested in content platform Meadowlark Media. Just last month, DraftKings and Meadowlark rolled out four new podcast shows.
The bottom line:
FanDuel parent company Flutter acquired TVG for $50 million back in 2009. TVG is the number one horse racing broadcaster in the US, reaching 60+ million homes through its TVG and TVG2 television channels. The racing betting platform is live in more than 30 states.
Read: Legal Sports Report
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The National Football League now has its own streaming service. The NFL is launching NFL+ for $4.99 per month or $39.99 per year. A subscription will include all out-of-market preseason games, which was formerly only available with a subscription to NFL Game Pass for $99.99 per year. NFL+ will also include live mobile device access to local and prime-time regular season and postseason games, previously available for free on the Yahoo Sports app.
NFL+ marks the first time the NFL has operated its own streaming service, giving the league a new future platform to potentially show exclusive games. Major League Baseball and the National Basketball Association already both sell subscriptions to their own streaming services that include out-of-market games. NFL+ won’t initially include exclusive regular-season games but could eventually depending on how viewership habits evolve in the years to come, said Hans Schroeder, executive vice president, and chief operating officer of NFL Media. The league has locked up its local broadcast rights for the next seven to 11 years.
Read: CNBC
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Developing a new publishing strategy in the media landscape is daunting. Content reigns supreme, followed by the heft of an established brand. But there’s more to thriving in the digital age. Much, much more. No one knows that better than the senior management team at The Arena Group, a conglomerate of traditional and digital media businesses. The Arena Group, led by CEO Ross Levinsohn, produces legacy publications such as Sports Illustrated and Parade magazines and online platforms such as HubPages, The Spun, and TheStreet.
Over the past 18 months, Levinsohn led an overhaul of The Arena Group’s publishing strategy. This move included retooling the technology stack, sunsetting some platforms, and optimizing partnership economics by eliminating partner guarantees. “With the demise of the cookie looming on the digital side, and paper and transport costs increasing rapidly on the print side, we had to make a change,” Levinsohn says. “If our company was going to compete in this challenging landscape, we needed to get our technology, our go-to-market approach, and our positioning right.”
Read: CEO World
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The sports leagues leading the way in fan engagement are leap-frogging the traditional sports marketing playbook to meet today’s fans’ demand for 24/7 social content. They’re building their own real-time digital content feeds to deliver an intimate window into matchday events and all the action — as it happens.
Video clips, highlights, behind-the-scenes moments, and sideline experiences are what fans expect now - and content that is opening the wallets of sponsors and broadcast partners.
From our work with leagues big and small, we’ve developed the industry's definitive best practices playbook. Read our free, step-by-step guide to learn how to create your league’s own digital media feed to supply your partners and your fans with the in-person experience they’re seeking.
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Emboldened by their deep pockets and eager to boost viewership of their streaming-subscription services, Apple and Amazon have thrust themselves into negotiations for media rights held by the National Football League, Major League Baseball, Formula One racing, and college conferences. They are competing to replace DirecTV for the rights to N.F.L. Sunday Ticket, a package the league wants to sell for more than $2.5 billion annually, about $1 billion more than it currently costs, according to five people familiar with the process. Eager not to miss out, Google has also offered a bid from YouTube for the rights beginning in 2023.
The tech companies’ interest is a thrill for sports leagues and a terror for media companies that fear competition from rivals that collect tens of billions of dollars from dominant positions in other businesses. Last year, sports accounted for 95 of the 100 most viewed programs on television. “It’s hard when you’re competing with entities that aren’t playing by the same financial rules,” said Bob Iger, the former chief executive and chairman of the Walt Disney Company, which controls ESPN, referring to tech companies’ bankroll.
Read: The New York Times
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Former NCAA administrator Oliver Luck and longtime sports and media executive Bill Squadron are hoping to change that. The NIL Education and Information Center, a nonprofit the pair co-founded in 2020, has signed a new open-ended partnership with Arizona State University’s journalism school, with the aim of jointly creating an independent database to track NIL deals.
The group plans to collect info from as many schools, NIL collectives, athletes and platforms as possible—many of whom are already on board to share information, they say—to create the most comprehensive accounting of what college athletes are making in this new era of marketing rights. It will then report those findings more widely, giving people across media, academia, and college sports a better idea of the market. “Without data, everything becomes apocryphal,” Luck said in an interview. “It’s anecdotal, and naturally, people will focus on the most interesting claims. The $12 million quarterback, or whatever. But is that true? Is it not true? A lot of this is going to be mundane, but that’s also important, because that’s a data point.”
Read: Sportico
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- AGENCIES: Nike is splitting their $1 billion media account between PMG and Initiative.
- CONTENT: The producers of the hit Formula One show 'Drive to Survive' sent a crew to the Tour de France to turn their cameras on the world's most famous race.
- TECH: WWE and Snapchat teamed up to create the SummerSlam digital t-shirt for Bitmoji.
- ATHLETES: Charles Barkley has named his price for leaving Turner Sports and joining LIV Golf.
- MEDIA: Former NBCUniversal executive Jacob Selzer has joined digital brand Almost Friday Media as their Head Of Sports.
- GAMING: Esports brand FaZe Clan began trading on the Nasdaq after completing a SPAC merger in a deal valued at $725 million.
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- Actor: John Hamm
- Campaign: 2022 World Cup
- Brand: Fox Sports
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adidas signs 15 female athletes to NIL deals
The Details
To celebrate the 50th year of Title IX, adidas announced a series of brand initiatives and commitments aimed at creating a more equitable and inclusive future of sport. Commencing with the signing of 15 female student-athletes to name, image, and likeness (NIL) deals across seven collegiate sports, the brand is further underscoring its commitment to women and LGBTQI+ athletes in sport through an expanded partnership with Athlete Ally to grow chapter footprints on college campuses. In addition, adidas is partnering with Candace Parker to create a mentorship program that provides newly signed student-athletes with guidance as they navigate the NIL era.
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Emily Black
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5 min read
