CBS Corp. Creates New Sports Properties Group

CBS Corp. has created the CBS Sports Properties Group, an extension of the company’s NCAA Marketing Group, in order to sell the CBS Sports brand and create brand extensions for its corporate clients and sponsors. CBS Senior VP/Sports Sales & Marketing Chris Simko will be Dir of the group but also retain his current title. The group will work with all CBS Corp. assets including CSTV, CBS Interactive and CBS SportsLine.com (CBS). The HOLLYWOOD REPORTER’s Paul Gough notes the NCAA Marketing Group was created in ’02 to manage the agreement between CBS and the NCAA that involved TV and multimedia rights, as well as “licensing across sports.” The new division “will extend that philosophy across the brand,” and “unlike the cross platform divisions that all of the networks have, this will focus on sports and help advertisers who might want to be able to use more or all of the assets that are part of CBS Sports.” That could include “using CBS talent in a commercial [or] having them make appearances on behalf of a client” (HOLLYWOOD REPORTER, 1/12).