SPONSORSHIP & PROMOTION
In licensing news, World Rugby appointed IMG to manage the global licensing and merchandising rights for the next two Rugby World Cups and its other tournaments with events that include the Rugby World Cup 2019 and 2023, as well as the Women’s Rugby World Cup, World Rugby U20 Championship and the World Rugby brand. A transnational team led from IMG’s offices in London, Paris and Tokyo will develop an extensive licensing programme that captures the excitement of the tournament’s first Asian edition and supports the continued growth and promotion of the game.
Meanwhile, MLB reports that New York Yankees rookie outfielder Aaron Judge finished his first Major League campaign with the most popular player jersey of the 2017 season, marking the second time a rookie has finished an MLB season with the most popular jersey. Rounding out the top five were: Cubs’ Kris Bryant, Cubs’ Anthony Rizzo, Dodgers’ Clayton Kershaw and the Nationals’ Bryce Harper.
Following the horror here in Las Vegas, UFC president Dana White said that the organization will donate $1 million to families affected by Sunday’s mass shooting on the Strip. Meanwhile, the NFL and Oakland Raiders announced support to the Las Vegas community to support the victims’ families and survivors of the tragedy in Las Vegas with the NFL Foundation matching the Oakland Raiders’ $50,000 contribution to the Las Vegas Victims’ Fund. The NFL Foundation will contribute an additional $50,000 to the American Red Cross to assist with blood drives and other relief efforts in Las Vegas.
DIGITAL & STREAMING
Olympic heroes and social influencers now have another arena to battle in with the launch of the new original series Global Games that will run on Olympic Channel. Filmed in Greece, the series will feature challenges such as chicken fight boxing, sumo volleyball and short track speed bubble racing. Eight episodes will run with a lineup in the first season that includes Lolo Jones (USA), Mikael Kingsbury (CAN), Asafa Powell (JAM) and Linlin Sun (CHN). Global Games was produced exclusively for the Olympic Channel by Whistle Sports, with hosts Mike Lockyer Spice Adams.
The Chernin Group is launching a sports analysis and media company titled The Action Network that will feature separate divisions in Sports Insights, FantasyLabs and SportsAction. According to the company, the new entity “will cater to the $170 billion+ underserved sports wagering and fantasy markets.”
Complex Networks’ new original docuseries Why We Fight, executive produced by Ronda Rousey, will debut on Oct. 18 with a lineup of eight, 45-minute episodes. The series follows a “talented and troubled young fighter, Zac Wohlman, on his pilgrimage across the globe”. The series is distributed on Complex’s digital channel, available via go90.
Topps announced that its Topps NOW cards, available for only 24 hours exclusively on Topps.com and then never offered again, has now hit 1 million cards sold. The Topps NOW card featuring Judge’s record-breaking 50th home run as a rookie sold 16,138 copies, which broke the Topps NOW single-card record by nearly 5,000 cards.
ESPORTS
Esports staple Ninjas in Pyjamas will reportedly receive an investment in the “double digit” range from Felix Granander, son of late Swedish media mogul Jan Stenbeck. TEO writes that Granander will purchase a fifteen percent stake in the Swedish esport organization.
Riot is bringing the 2017 All-Star Event to the NA LCS Studio in Los Angeles on December 7-10. The event will see a team tournament with fan-voted rosters of pros from the top eight regional leagues based on their performance at the 2017 World Championship. In addition to the main event, each dream team will also send two representatives from their team for a 1v1 tournament.
Nielsen released a new report dubbed The Esports Playbook with a deck of stats breaking down the industry and its fans. The report states that esports fans follow an average of 5.7 different games and 2.6 genres, and noted that “Esports fans are watching TV (for clarity, any TV rather than esports-specific content) – but they are also doing a lot of other things, including, unsurprisingly, playing video games. In fact, the average esports fan spends nearly double the time playing video games than watching TV on a TV screen. Esports fans are avid streamers who also watch linear TV and are consuming content via all sorts of different screens. Interestingly, female esports fans are watching 15% more TV on average than their male counterparts.”
ROSTER MOVES
Fanatics appointed Steve Davis as President, Fanatics International. Davis joins after serving as the CEO of fast-fashion retailer Rue La La and he will be charged with leading the rapid growth of Fanatics’ international division.
STATS announced the opening of a new office in Limerick, Ireland which will serve as its regional headquarters overseeing European, Middle Eastern and African (EMEA) operations and named Grainne Barry to run the new office and drive growth and development in Ireland and greater EMEA.
THE MAIN EVENT
Rockies/Diamondbacks on TBS at 8p.
