Good morning. It’s Thursday May 31, 2018 and this is your first early morning Sports briefing.

CBS Sports and the Missouri Valley Conference inked a multi-year extension to carry Missouri Valley Conference college men’s basketball games on CBS and CBS Sports Network through 2023-24, courtesy of a sub-license agreement with ESPN. As part of the agreement, CBS will again broadcast the State Farm MVC Men’s Basketball Championship game, which it has aired since 2006. CBS Sports Network will televise eight regular season games, as well as the Arch Madness Conference Tournament semifinals, as it has since 2016.

“The 2017-18 basketball season was an extraordinary one for the Missouri Valley Conference, and this extension is a continuation of the respect shown by CBS Sports for our league,” said MVC Commissioner Doug Elgin. “This agreement means that CBS Sports will televise the title game of Arch Madness through the 2024 event – a span which dates back to the first championship contest telecast in 2006. Our staff and schools are also thrilled to continue the cooperative process necessary to produce a CBS Sports Network schedule of regular-season men’s basketball games and our tournament semifinals – recognition worthy of our student-athletes and coaches.”

ON THE AIR

CBS Sports also announced its 2018 college football schedule broadcast windows and select games for its SEC on CBS package. This year’s slate kicks off on Sept. 1 with West Virginia/Tennessee at Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte, Other games include Georgia/South Carolina on Sept. 8; Auburn/LSU on Sept. 15; and Florida/Georgia on Oct. 27. There will be three consecutive Saturday doubleheaders late in the season and two Thanksgiving weekend games, putting multiple college football games on CBS in four of the final five regular-season weekends.

Around the dial, the new deal between the Professional Bowlers Association and FOX Sports has its 2019 Go Bowling! PBA Tour television schedule, featuring 30 telecasts and including a new PBA Playoffs series including five telecasts on FOX and 26 on FS1 starting Jan. 6 with the Hall of Fame Classic in Arlington. Overall 60 hours of coverage will run, nearly doubling last year’s schedule with 19 of the telecasts running live. Kicking off the new PBA on FOX partnership will be a bonus event, PBA Clash, on Sunday, Dec. 23 on FOX.

FOX Sports Films announced Q Ball as the newest documentary in its Magnify series. The film chronicles the lives of incarcerated basketball players at the San Quentin State Prison, produced by Golden State Warriors All-Star Kevin Durant’s Thirty Five Media, in conjunction with HEIST and Hunting Lane Films. The special will premiere in early 2019.

NBA TV revealed programming plans for the 2018 NBA Finals. Throughout the series, the network will feature 90-minute Live At The Finals presented by YouTubeTV pregame shows, newly-formatted postgame coverage and a slate of original programming nightly throughout the series. NBA TV's pregame coverage will be hosted by Matt Winer, Casey Stern and Jared Greenberg and will include two locations on site from both venues, one from the court and another at various points throughout the arena. Kristen Ledlow and David Aldridge will report throughout the series.

NBC Sports will debut Dark Horses, the story of the “most unlikely rivalry in Triple Crown history” on Saturday at 5p on NBC, showcasing the showdown between Easy Goer and Sunday Silence. The doc will be narrated by actress Ashley Judd.

NASCAR unveiled its locations and dates for its postseason awards, announcing that the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Awards will take place on Nov. 29 at Wynn las Vegas. Dec. 7 will then see the NASCAR Home Tracks Champions Awards at Charlotte Convention Center at the NASCAR Hall of Fame while the NASCAR Xfinity Series / NASCAR Camping World Truck Series Awards will take place on Dec. 8.

Turner and the NBA announced that Anthony Anderson will take the helm as host for the 2018 NBA Awards on TNT presented by Kia on June 25, with coverage beginning at 9p. This year’s event – presented live from historic Barker Hangar in Santa Monica, Calif. – will honor all of the league’s top performers from the 2017-18 NBA season including the exclusive unveiling of the Kia NBA MVP, Kia NBA Defensive Player of the Year, Kia NBA Rookie of the Year and Lifetime Achievement Award, among others.

May saw ESPN’s primetime audience grow 31% , according to Nielsen, as the network averaged 2,043,000 viewers compared to 1,561,000 a year ago. Overall, the network’s audience rose 17%, from 618,000 to 720,000.

MP & Silva announced that the company is now tendering media rights for CONMEBOL’s Copa America 2019 edition until June 13. The sales tender process will be open to broadcasters, digital platforms and media companies that operate in the United States territory and internationally and divided into two packages: the right to exploit the media rights in the United States in the Spanish language; and the right to exploit the media rights in the United States in the English language.

FIGHT SPORTS secured exclusive rights to four boxing events taking place in June. Bouts include the June 9 return of former Heavyweight World Champion Tyson Fury and the WBA Featherweight World Championship rematch between Leo Santa Cruz and Abner Mares from the Staples Center in Los Angeles. On June 16, the broadcaster will showcase the IBF Welterweight World Championship showdown while June 23 will see the network broadcast WBO Middleweight World Champion Billy Joe Saunders Vs. Martin Murray from the O2 Arena in London.

The Esports Business Summit Has It All

October 1-3, 2018 | Caesars Palace, Las Vegas

Join Cynopsis Esports, Chief Marketer and Event Marketer for three days of networking, education and inspiration. Every sector of the esports ecosystem will be represented for this incredible opportunity to get ahead of the curve and profit from this rapidly expanding industry.

SPONSORSHIP & PROMOTION

Quicken Loans and the PGA TOUR announced a long-term agreement to create a new professional golf tournament in Detroit, beginning in 2019. Quicken Loans is partnering with Intersport to oversee the operation of the tournament, as well as create numerous related attractions and festivities that are planned to take place throughout the city of Detroit during the event with the Detroit Golf Club is expected to serve as the host venue. As part of the agreement with the PGA TOUR, Quicken Loans will retain title sponsorship of the Quicken Loans National taking place at TPC Potomac in the Washington, D.C., area in 2018.

Tennis Channel and the Empire State Building partnered to celebrate the opening week of the French Open by illuminating the building with the colors of the French flag. This is the first time this has been done at the Empire State Building in honor of the French Open. Tennis Channel's two-week French Open coverage includes more than 100 live hours and round-the-clock encore blocks throughout the night.

DIGITAL & STREAMING

The NBA announced today the launch of 360 Portals, a new augmented reality experience available in the NBA AR app that allows fans to live within memorable, behind-the-scenes moments from the 2018 NBA Playoffs and Finals. In addition to featuring several AR experiences from the NBA Playoffs, including team huddles, player introductions and postgame celebrations, 360 Portals will include special on-demand NBA Finals content that will be captured and made available throughout the series. Using Apple’s ARKit and Google’s ARCore technology, 360 Portals superimpose a virtual door which fans can walk through to immerse themselves in the NBA action.

Meanwhile, Twitter reports that the NBA is the most Tweeted about sports league so far in 2018 with over 100 million NBA-related Tweets and is launching its #NBATwitter brand campaign with a new ad spot depicting the” seemingly never-ending conversation on the platform around NBA related content.” Twitter will feature a series of new #NBATwitter spots and “mockumentaries” throughout the NBA Finals and into the offseason via @TwitterSports.

In addition, mobile trivia game show HQ Trivia announced plans to give away a record amount of money as the NBA Finals progress, with $100,000 added for each game the series goes, up to $700,000 if it goes to Game 7. The games will also have a themed component, with questions about the teams’ home cities, general sports trivia and of course, questions about the great game of basketball itself.

Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Carson Wentz, and his brother Zach entered a partnership deal with Outdoor Sportsman Group to create the network’s first digital original series: Wentz Bros Outdoors. The series will be available on OutdoorChannel.com starting June 5. The series will showcase the outdoor lifestyle activities of Wentz through short video vignettes of hunting, fishing and shooting experiences. The webisodes will air for 16 weeks.

NeuLion launched an e-book offering guidance on “delivering a successful product,” offering subscribers to the ‘Six Pillars of a Successful OTT Strategy’ insight. The e-book guides readers through the entire OTT model, from technical delivery to marketing strategy, offering insight and discussing potential pitfalls of the platform.

ESPORTS

In this week’s edition of Cynopsis Esports & Gaming…

Audiences set to claim one in ten worldwide by 2022
OWL prepares to grow
High School Esports League gets a shot of NRG
Tempest Esports Awards storm the scene
Esports fans and their auto affinities
ESL adds Mixer
StriveWire shuts off
PUBG targets Fortnite

THE MAIN EVENT

Cavaliers/Warriors on ABC at 9p.

The 2018 Cynopsis Measurement & Data Conference

8/2/18 – 10:30am – 3:30pm – NYC

Sponsored by TV Time

Consistent measurement in the video world, regardless of device, remains the single most difficult puzzle in today’s media landscape, and is far from being solved. That’s why Cynopsis is presenting the second Measurement & Data Conference, to help advance the conversation by having leading thinkers and doers examine the thorniest points in the discussion so we can all move forward - successfully.

VIEW SPEAKERS SPONSORSHIPS REGISTER

ON THIS DAY in 2008: Usain Bolt sets a world record in the men’s 100 meter race.

In the Know: How many pins do you have to knock down to bowl a 300 game? (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: Which actor/comedian actually voiced the George Steinbrenner character on Seinfeld? Answer: Larry David. Kudos: Brad Stern-OPERR Technologies/NY; Eric Newman-ENEW FILMS/NY; Evan Noonan-CBS Sports Digital/NY; Nicole Correnti-Fuse Media/NY; Chris McCloskey-NBC Sports/Stamford; David Sabino-ESPN/Bristol; David Scherzer-Sizzle Sports Media/New Jersey; Peter Lasser-Lasser Productions/Atlanta; Mark Lehman-Atlanta Braves/Atlanta; Matt Fumagalli-Levy/Chicago; Kyle Krebs-KXAS-TV/Dallas-Fort Worth; Ron Salcedo-Zimmerman/Nashville; Creed Heilskov-ImOn Communications/Cedar Rapids; Don Surath-CBS 360/San Francisco; Bruce Trotter-Cox/LA; Rich Greene-Casa Del Verde Entertainment/LA; John Baghdassarian-Olympusat/LA

Later - Chris

JOB OF THE DAY

E! News (Freelance)
NBCU
LA

Produce daily news stories, breaking news stories, as well as feature stories for future airdates. Minimum 4 years experience in a news production environment.

To apply, please send resumes to enewsproductions@nbcuni.com

JOB OPENING: SR MGR COMMUNICATIONS/Smithsonian Channel/NYC: Execute strategies to support prgrmng, ratings, sales & branding goals. Increase brand awareness & drive tune-in. Mng special events & mng publicity for linear & digital/OTT content. 7+ yrs of comm exp in entertainment/media. Full info/apply HERE (6/7)

JOB OPENING: E! News (Freelance)/NBCU/LA: Produce daily news stories, breaking news stories, as well as feature stories for future airdates. Minimum 4 years experience in a news production environment. To apply, please send resumes to enewsproductions@nbcuni.com(6/7)

JOB OPENING: HUMAN RESOURCE ASSOC/John Gore Org/NYC: Well-organized person to aid HR team in day to day ops. Asst mgrs w/recruiting exp incl maintaining internal/external job boards, placing candidates, background checks. Previous exp working in a role that req’s high level of confidentiality. Full info/apply HERE (6/6)

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JOB OPENING: PROJECT MGR/Showtime/NYC: Mng dig.initiatives & workflow for Digital Media – in particular, supporting social and display media efforts including mngng all aspects of creative execution process, facilitation of design team’s work, leading creative reviews & delivery to sites for media placement. Apply HERE (6/5)

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JOB OPENING:DIGITAL PRODUCER, THE STEVE WILKOS SHOW/NBCU/Stamford CT: Oversee daily website, app and digital initiatives and content including video, photos, promotional items, sales, marketing and public relations campaigns. Min of 2-4 yrs exp in online, digital or mktg/post prod. Full info/apply HERE (6/5)

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