SPONSORSHIP & PROMOTION
The PGA TOUR and ZOZO, Inc. locked in a six-year agreement that will launch the first annual, official PGA TOUR tournament in Japan. The ZOZO Championship will be co-sanctioned by the Japan Golf Tour Organization and debut at Accordia Golf Narashino Country Club the week of October 21. The event will feature a purse of $9.75 million and become part of the TOUR’s swing through Asia.
ONE Championship announced the launch of a brand new athleisure business, taking on the sportswear and gear space as another major business extension of the sports media property. As part of its athleisure business, ONE Championship will launch an official online store, offering global fans direct access to a range of urban lifestyle streetwear. ONE Championship is also set to collaborate exclusively with world-famous designers known within the urban lifestyle streetwear space to introduce limited edition designer collections.
The BIG EAST Conference is launching its new online store and its selection of Dyehard Fan Supply as the official merchandising partner for the Conference courtesy of a new multi-year agreement. Dyehard Fan Supply, an event and retail merchandise marketing and e-commerce company, will now exclusively manage sales of official BIG EAST Conference apparel and accessories sold online and on-site at all 22 BIG EAST Conference Championships, including the Men’s Basketball Tournament held at Madison Square Garden.
DIGITAL & STREAMING
For the first time, Showtime Networks is offering viewers the opportunity to purchase the WBC Heavyweight World Championship Deontay Wilder vs. Tyson Fury on SHOWTIME PPV directly through the SHOWTIME app. Subscribers and non-subscribers will be able to purchase and live stream the event for $74.99 or through cable, DBS, telco and streaming providers nationwide. The showdown will air on Dec. 1 at 9p from STAPLES Center in Los Angeles.
FOX Sports is pairing up with Sportradar in a move to beef up data-driven sports coverage. The deal will see Sportradar develop new research tools, data products and machine learning technology designed to enable FOX Sports broadcasters to bolster their in-game and digital content with real-time and historic sports data via API. “Sportradar is in a position to provide information to our networks with cutting edge technology that is easily accessible by the staff in our production trucks and studios,” said Brad Zager, EVP, Production and Operations, FOX Sports. This will allow our production teams and announcers to stay at the forefront of storytelling using new data and analytics.”
The Pac-12 Conference extended its strategic relationship with Amazon Web Services, Inc., selecting AWS as its standard for machine learning and media workloads. Pac-12 leverages AWS’s industry-leading services for a wide variety of production use cases, including its website, mobile applications, and live television networks. As a key part of its all-in migration, Pac-12 will move business-critical databases to Amazon Aurora to gain the speed and availability of a commercial database with the simplicity and cost effectiveness of open source.
FloSports announced a partnership with German sports and entertainment broadcaster airtango to provide live and on-demand internet coverage of Germany’s BARMER 2. Basketball Bundesliga in the US and Canada. The partnership includes internet broadcast rights of the regular season and playoff games of the BARMER 2 Basketball Bundesliga during the current season and the following 2019-2020 season.
ESPORTS
Riot Games made its changes to the League of Legends European Championship official, announcing the 10 franchised teams that will take part in the new season as well as a rebranding of the event. The league will now be known as the LEC instead of the EU LCS, complete with a new logo. Taking part in the league will be 10 teams who locked in agreements to buy a slot, blending new and old squads across Europe – Fnatic, Schalke 04, G2 Esports, Misfits Gaming, Origen, Excel Esports, Rogue, Sk Gaming, Splyce and Team Vitality. The LEC will formally kick off on Jan. 18.
PlayVS reeled in $30.5 million in a Series B funding round led by Elysian Park Ventures, the investment arm of the Los Angeles Dodgers. The American high school esports tournament organizer also partnered with Psyonix and Hi-Rez Studios in order to feature Rocket League and SMITE into its inaugural season alongside Riot Games’ League of Legends. Overall, five existing investors were involved in the funding round, alongside new investors: adidas, Samsung NEXT, Plexo Capital, Sean “Diddy” Combs, David Drummond, Rahul Mehta, Rich Dennis, Michael Dubin, Nat Turner, and Johnny Hou. The inaugural season of the initiative kicks off in February 2019.
Fullscreen announced the launch of Giving Tuesday Powered by Fullscreen, a philanthropic effort designed to unite YouTube Creators, their fans and charitable efforts on #GivingTuesday 2018. Fullscreen has partnered with Pledgeling to develop a user-friendly peer-to-peer donation platform for the campaign with the custom-built site at www.fullscreen.gives empowering YouTube Creators to integrate in their social media fundraiser videos, allowing for simple donations via Apple Pay and optimized to perform best on mobile.
ROSTER MOVES
The NBA G League announced that former WNBA player Allison Feaster will lead its professional path initiative while former NBA player Rod Strickland will serve as the professional path’s program manager. Strickland will focus on educating elite prospects about the comprehensive components of the NBA G League’s professional path. Feaster will oversee a group designed to identify eligible players and oversee the implementation of the professional path initiative.
Poker Central named Sampson (Sam) Simmons as president of the company. Simmons, one of Poker Central’s first employees at its inception in 2014, had been serving as vice president of content.
THE MAIN EVENT
Thanksgiving sees Bears/Lions on CBS at 12:30p, Redskins/Cowboys on FOX at 4:30p and Falcons/Saints on NBC at 8:15p.
