Overwatch League Adding Toronto Franchise

The Overwatch League is poised to add an esports franchise in Toronto for the second OWL season starting on September 9.

Activision Blizzard, publisher of games such as Call of Duty and Starcraft, is undergoing final negotiations with a group led by Canadian entrepreneur Michael Kimel to sell a Toronto slot in the Overwatch League, league sources told ESPN.

Activision Blizzard Esports Leagues CEO Pete Vlastelica told German financial paper Handelsblatt in May that the plan was to sell six OWL slots across North America, Europe and Asia-Oceania. Deals are now in place, or near, for Atlanta, Guangzhou, Paris and Toronto. That leaves two more in the next three weeks.

The league is reportedly finalizing a deal for Paris with McCourt Global, Los Angeles-based parent company of Ligue 1 club Olympique de Marseille, headed by former Los Angeles Dodgers owner Frank McCourt.

The family of Stan Kroenke, owner of Premier League club Arsenal as well as the NFL Los Angeles Rams and NBA Dever Nuggets, already owns an OWL team.

Other Overwatch franchise owners already include New England Patriots (NFL) ownership The Kraft Group, New York Mets (MLB) sister company Sterling VC, and Philadelphia Flyers (NHL) parent Comcast Spectacor.

The new Toronto slot is expected to sell for $35 million, ESPN said. In the first season, the league sold its 12 franchises for $20 million each.

At the beginning of this month, the league confirmed selling franchises to Atlanta Esports Ventures, a group co-funded by Georgia-based conglomerate Cox Enterprises, and Guangzhou, China, to Guangzhou Long-Lions parent company Nenking Group.

“After thrilling fans with an amazing Grand Finals at the Barclays Center, we’re excited to follow that up by expanding the Overwatch League next season,” said Vlastelica. “We’re pleased to add the Atlanta and Guangzhou teams to the ownership group, and we look forward to bringing the league to even more fans across both regions in 2019.”

“We know Atlanta and Guangzhou have deeply engaged fan communities and we can’t wait to unveil their teams,” said Overwatch League Commissioner Nate Nanzer “As the league continues to grow, we’re looking forward to seeing more talented pros in action as more roster spots open up.”

“The esports phenomenon is only getting bigger and the Overwatch League is at the centre of the excitement,” said Dallas Clement, chief financial officer of Cox Enterprises. “Atlanta has some of the most passionate fans in the world—and now, we get to bring this energy to the Overwatch League. We are thrilled to help lead the evolution of esports by building a team in our hometown.”

“We are so excited to bring an Overwatch League team to Guangzhou,” said Zhong Naixiong, chairman of the Nenking Group. “The Nenking Group and the Long Lions have deep roots in this region, and we can’t wait to represent our city on the world stage and make our fans proud.”

Juventus Makes Pasta Partnership

Italian football champion Juventus has signed a deal with pasta brand De Cecco to become a global partner.

Giorgio Ricci, the club’s Co-Chief Revenue Officer, Global Partnership and Corporate Revenues, “We have an Italian DNA and we are among the representatives of Made in Italy abroad, so we are proud to welcome the De Cecco family to Juventus, which shares with us the will to continue to export ‘Italian excellence’ outside the national borders. This agreement once again shows the great attention to detail of Juventus in the association of partners with common objectives.”

“We have an Italian DNA and we are among the representatives of Made in Italy abroad, so we are proud to welcome the De Cecco family to Juventus, which shares with us the will to continue to export ‘Italian excellence’ outside the national borders. This agreement once again shows the great attention to detail of Juventus in the association of partners with common objectives”, said Giorgio Ricci, Co-Chief Revenue Officer – Global Partnership and Corporate Revenues.

Francesco Fattori, CEO of the De Cecco Group, said: “Our company is to the world of pasta and food what Juventus is in football: absolute excellence. We both have a history that is more than a hundred years of quality and success linked to our daily commitment to always give the best to our ‘fans’, when they are at table and on the field”

The club said De Cecco will benefit from television visibility guaranteed by matches broadcast all over the world, which will no doubt be enhanced by the arrival of Cristiano Ronaldo this season. De Cecco will also benefit from digital, PR and experiential assets.

Last week, Juventus reached a deal with China Merchants Bank as its new Official Bank in China until 2020.

It is China Merchants Bank’s first partnership with a football club. It will be able to create co-branded payment cards using the Juventus visual identity.

New European Championships Formula Boosts TV Audiences

The inaugural European Championships in Glasgow and Berlin scored impressive television audiences, with viewers in 10 key European markets tuning in for a total of over 567 million hours.

In total, 44 free-to-air broadcasters and partners across Europe and worldwide covered the seven-sport Championships from August 2-12.

The EBU and its Eurovision Media Services arm, Host Broadcaster of the multi-sport event, delivered about 10 hours of content per day across television, radio and digital platforms in innovative style.

The top average audience across the 10 countries totalled 20 million viewers on the closing Sunday August.

In Norway, NRK achieved an 80% market share for the conclusion of the 1500m and 400m hurdles.

In Germany, ARD/ZDF reported over 43 million viewers watched at least one broadcast from the Championships. The finals of the athletics in Berlin drew 5+ million viewers on ARD for the finals on the Sunday, while the women’s 4x100m relay reached a five-minute peak 6+ million on ZDF.

In the UK, BBC reported a peak audience of 6.4 million with an overall reach of 20 million. BBC also received 2.9 million online programme requests.

In comparison to previous individual European Championships, some of the smaller sports saw their viewing figures soar. In Germany, triathlon, rowing and golf saw large audiences across the event, while Poland tripled the audience for rowing compared to the 2017 European Rowing Championships.

ARD Sports Co-ordinator Axel Balkausky said: “We have reached more viewers than we thought possible. The market shares of the individual sports have almost doubled compared to single transmissions.”

Ron Chakraborty, BBC Lead Executive, said: “The European Championships created a lot of buzz. You couldn’t really miss it across the BBC. As a result, it has created far more press and publicity and put a much bigger spotlight on the events than had we just been sharing individual sports.”

Stefan Kürten, Director EBU Sport, said: “The EBU and its Members are the leading broadcast partners for the success of multi-sports events in Europe.

“Together with our Members and other stakeholders – including the participating sports federations, host cities and ECM – we have been fully committed to the concept of the European Championships from the outset as we were convinced that a further loss of relevance for European Olympic sports had to be avoided.

“Only the combined power of Europe’s public service broadcasters, driven by the EBU, could have brought this innovative event from vision to reality and we are delighted by its success.”

Betting Brands Grab Premier League Shirt Exposure “While They Still Can”

Betting brands account for nearly half the shirt sponsors of Premier League clubs this season, easily the biggest product category. There are nine different betting brands sponsoring teams.

However, this preeminence of betting brands is unlikely to be a long-term phenomenon, according to a leading sponsorship expert.

The proportion of betting brands as shirt sponsors, at the same level last season, has expanded steadily since 2002, when Fulham signed Betfair as the first betting brand for its shirt.

“Betting companies are doing all they can to gain exposure because time is limited for them to market themselves the way they have been doing,” Nigel Currie of NC Partnership told iSportconnect.

“There are calls for regulation and there will probably be restrictions coming along. It’s like what happened to tobacco companies back in the day.”

Fulham, promoted to the Premiership this season, is now sponsored by Dafabet. Also promoted, Wolverhampton has betting brand W88 as its shirt sponsor.

They make up for the loss of two betting brands worn by relegated clubs, Stoke City (Bet365) and Swansea (Letou).

“The Premier League is a fantastic vehicle for the betting companies,” said Currie, a long-time member of the iSportconnect community. “It’s such a competitive business and there are so many betting companies, they are an obvious target for the clubs.”

If restrictions on betting sponsorship do come in, Currie foresees the sponsorship picture holding up well regardless.

“If you go back to tobacco, everybody thought losing that sector for sponsorship would be a disaster. But new companies and new brands and new sectors arrived to fill the gap.”

“I think the same thing will happen more or less. There is always a new sector around the corner.”

Burnley, which replaced Dafabet with betting brand LaBa360 this season, finished seventh in the league in 2017-18, the highest finish for a betting-sponsored team.

Other Premiership clubs wearing betting sponsors this season are M88 Bournemouth (M88), Crystal Palace (ManBetX), Everton (Sport Pesa), Huddersfield (Ope Sports), Newcastle Fan88 and West Ham (Betway).

The dominance of betting sponsors resembles the situation in 1995, when 10 Premier League clubs had technology brands as shirt sponsors. Now there are none.

Since the creation of the league, technology has been the single biggest source of main sponsors, according to the Financial Times.

For Fans In America, Televised European Soccer Can Be A Luxury

Plenty of live European soccer is available to fans in the USA on TV and streaming platforms, but matches are scattered over many outlets and the cost of access can be daunting, according to the New York Times, which has published a fine wrap-up on of what U.S. fans need to do to watch European action this season.

What follows is a synthesis of reporter Kevin Draper’s research into the viewing picture.

Most important matches will be available with only a basic cable subscription, but getting them will mean paying for a higher-tier sports package and subscribing to at least two or three streaming services.

Premier League rights in the United States are owned by NBC Sports, which mainly shows the games on cable channel NBCSN. A few big matches a year are on NBC itself, and sometimes they’re shifted to CNBC and USA.

NBC broadcasts 150 EPL matches (at least four involving each club) exclusively on its NBC Sports Gold streaming service. NBC Sports Gold’s Premier League Pass costs $49.99.

Turner Sports has acquired the English-language rights to the Champions League. Among the changes this season.

During the group stage, two live matches will be shown in afternoon slots on Tuesday and Wednesday on TNT, meaning only four games per week. Turner will show its other 12 group stage matches each week on Bleacher Report Live, Turner’s new subscription streaming service. This costs $79.99 a year, but single games are available for $2.99.

Spanish-language Univision will carry 97 Champions League games on its linear networks — Univision, UDN, UniMas and Galavision — and dozens more across its other platforms.

In the round of 16 next spring, half the Champions League matches will be on TNT, with the rest on B/R Live. Starting with the quarterfinals, every match will air on TNT.

Turner also owns Europa League rights, but only match plans to show the final on television. All other Europa League games will be on B/R Live.

The F.A. Cup was on Fox Sports last season, but the rights have not been sold yet for this season.

The League Cup final will be on ESPN. All other League Cup matches will be on ESPN+, a new subscription streaming service costing $4.99 per month.

So, if an American fan wants to watch all the above from the English and European cup tournaments, it could cost about $750 a year.

La Liga matches from Spain will be on beIN Sports, and sometimes on its streaming subscription service beIN SPORTS CONNECT.

Ligue 1 games from France are also on beIN Sports.

Forty Serie A games (one per week) from Italy will be shown on either ESPN or ESPN2. Every other Serie A match will be streamed on ESPN+.

Five Bundesliga matches from Germany will be on the Fox network, 75 or so will air on FS1 and another 100 on FS2 and Fox Soccer Plus. All of Fox’s televised matches are available on the Fox Soccer app.

For Spanish speakers, the channel line-up is as follows:

  • Premier League – Telemundo and Universo
  • Champions League and Europa League – Univision,
  • FA Cup – Fox Deportes
  • La Liga and Copa del Rey – beIN Sports
  • Serie A – ESPN Deportes
  • Bundesliga – Fox Deportes
  • Ligue 1 – beIN Sports

Eurovision Media Services Remains Athletics Host Broadcaster For Long Run

The EBU and European Athletics have renewed their agreement for worldwide media rights through 2027. Their partnership began in 1981.

The agreement covers the worldwide television and radio rights for European Athletics’ major events from 2020 to 2023 and from 2024 to 2027, including the Paris 2020 European Athletics Championships, and the flagship championships in 2022, 2024 and 2026.

Eurovision Media Services (EMS), the business arm of the EBU, will act as a Host Broadcaster for key events, including the European Athletics Championships from Paris 2020 through to 2026 through its production subsidiary Eurovision Production Coordination. The events will be distributed to rights-holding broadcasters over the Eurovision Global Network.

The 2022 and 2026 editions of the European Athletics Championships will again be part of a multi-sport championships in the new seven-sport model begun this year in Berlin and Glasgow.

Other events included in the agreement are the European Athletics Indoor Championships, including the 2021 edition in Torun, Poland, the biennial European Athletics Team Championships, the annual European Cross- Country Championships, as well as the European Athletics U23, U20 and U18 Championships.

European Athletics President Svein Arne Hansen said, “Athletics is a hugely popular sport and it is vitally important for its future that it continues to be showcased and promoted on the biggest platform of all, which is free-to-air television. We believe our long-standing and valued partnership with the EBU ensures that this will remain the case.”

Christian Milz, CEO of European Athletics, said, “Alongside the bedrock of our sport continuing to appear on the major television channels, we believe there is a huge untapped potential on social and digital channels for both traditional and new formats of athletics that we will look to develop in partnership with the EBU in order to reach new audiences.”

Stefan Kürten, EBU Director of Sport, who has been a guest speaker at several iSportconnect events, said, “The EBU is delighted to renew this long-standing relationship with European Athletics, demonstrating our ongoing commitment to the sport and enabling us to continue to offer our unrivalled network of free-to-air broadcasters and partners the very best sporting action.”

“This agreement utilises the full range of EBU services and will also see the EBU and European Athletics build on innovative solutions for a greater digital presence. We have seen our partnership develop and grow over the years and look forward to continuing this exciting relationship to bring athletics alive for the millions of fans worldwide.”

Perfect Timing: Tag Heuer’s Flourishing Relationship With LaLiga

The new Spanish football season kicks off this Friday, August 17. In recent years, Spain’s top flight has established itself as the best football league in the world, with both of Europe’s top club competitions won by Spanish teams this past season. Real Madrid won the Champions League and Atlético Madrid the Europa League, and Barcelona won the domestic title. Tag Heuer has been a key partner of LaLiga since 2016. iSportconnect spoke to Blanca Panzano, General Manager of Tag Heuer Spain, about the company’s flourishing relationship with the league.

Strong Sevens Ratings Boost NBC Rugby Hopes

NBC Sports is looking ahead eagerly to covering the Rugby World Cup in Japan next year after revealing that its U.S. coverage of the 2018 Rugby World Cup Sevens from AT&T Park in San Francisco last month reached nearly 9 million viewers across five telecasts on NBC and NBCSN. The exposure on the main network averaged a total audience of 1.365 million viewers for what is believed to be the most-watched live rugby telecast on record in the U.S.

Live coverage of the championship final July 22 in which New Zealand defeated England averaged 370,000 viewers. Streaming coverage across NBC Sports’ digital platforms delivered 1.7 million live minutes and 36,000 unique users.

NBC Sports / NBCSN President Jon Miller said: “We’re proud of how well received our coverage was in San Francisco and look forward to presenting the Rugby World Cup in Japan in 2019 and rugby sevens at the Olympics from Tokyo in 2020.”

NBC Sports’ coverage of the Rugby World Cup Sevens is part of a multi-year agreement with World Rugby, which includes media rights on all platforms and in all languages to the Rugby World Cups in 2019 and 2023; the Women’s Rugby World Cup in 2021; the Rugby World Cup Sevens in 2022; and the annual World Rugby U20 Championships through 2023. NBC Sports’ robust rugby portfolio also includes exclusive Olympic rugby coverage through 2032, the Six Nations Championship, and Premiership Rugby.

Overall, NBC Sports presented more than 30 hours of live Rugby World Cup Sevens coverage across NBC, NBCSN, NBCSports.com and the NBC Sports app, Olympic Channel: Home of Team USA, and NBC Sports Gold. 

FIBA Scores Record Digital Audience

A junior basketball game this week between the Philippines and China generated a record online audience for a FIBA youth game of 1.5 million streaming views.

The 25th FIBA Under-18 Asian Championship group phase game (the Filipino team won) on August 8 in Nonthaburi, Thailand, racked up the impressive total on a combination of platforms, including FIBA’s Facebook, YouTube and Sina accounts in addition to viewers of the Sports5 Philippines Facebook page and Tencent and other sites.

Nicolas Chapart, FIBA Head of Digital, reacted enthusiastically to the result. “It’s a record for us for any youth game,” he said. “Last year, the biggest streaming audience for a FIBA youth game was 800,000. So it’s a big advance.”

He added: “We don’t necessarily try to bring people to one place for streaming. Our strategy is to distribute widely, in order to reach them where they are. They might watch live on Facebook or YouTube or a national federation page.”

FIBA boasts an aggregated digital audience of 16-17 million viewers. 

As of August 8, FIBA had 386,085 Twitter followers, 5.461 million Facebook fans, 470,764 YouTube subscribers for its own channel and 601,751 Instagram followers. The digital total actually aggregates a much wider range of social media partners and pages.

“Our is to grow that total to 20 million by the end of the year,” Chapart said

Asia looms very large in the digital picture. “The Asia markets love basketball and they are digitally savvy,” he said.

CBS Sports Tees Up New Tech For PGA Championship

American broadcaster CBS is making its biggest technology push to date in covering the PGA Championship now in progress at Bellerive Country Club in suburban St. Louis, Missouri.

The network will deploy 110 cameras and 175 microphones spanning 41 miles of multi-strand fibre (equalling 492 miles of actual fibre connectivity). For the first time, the production team will deploy a remote-controlled wireless Rover Cam.

On the challenging 15th hole, CBS Sports will operate a4D replay system that has an array of cameras covering 270 degrees of the tee box that allows for three-dimensional manipulation of the video. It marks the first time this technology will be used by an American broadcaster on a golf broadcast.

“The 4D Replay will be a more dimensional look at a golfers’ swing and help our announcers analyse it better,” said Ken Aagaard, Exec VP, Innovation and New Technology, CBS Sports. “The cameras will be low, so the viewer will be looking at the swing from a different angle. Combined with our Swing Vision technology, it will be a useful visual tool for our viewers, especially on one of the last holes of the tournament.”

Hawkeye Green Technology will let viewers experience the undulation of the green and see the line of the putts throughout the tournament. “Green reader technology is going to make the putts on the green come alive,” he said. “Through animations and how the greens are mapped ahead of time, we will have an accurate depiction of where the ball needs to be putt, along with the speed, for it to go in. The technology makes everything a bit easier to understand and it’s more visual than ever before.”

“The last two to three years, CBS Sports has really moved the needle from a technical coverage standpoint,” Aagaard said. “The viewer is now seeing and understanding data, like shot apex, that they might have not have known about just a few years ago.”

“Tracer tech is now everywhere throughout our broadcasts. The whole experience of watching golf is more interesting because we’re always coming up with something new. With this PGA Championship, we are bringing it all together to create a pretty cool visual for viewers.”