Fox Sports produced six promos for its MLB coverage -- a funny take on baseball’s traditions. The campaign breaks this week across all News Corp. entertainment, news and sports networks. The spots were produced in-house by the Fox Sports Marketing Group, led by CMO Eric Markgraf and Senior VP & Creative Dir Robert Gottlieb. In the first spot, “Pantless Saturdays,” Fox announcers Joe Buck and Tim McCarver try to start a new tradition in the broadcast booth. In the second one, Buck and McCarver try to appeal to a younger demographic (John Ourand, THE DAILY).
OFFICIAL TICKET PROVIDER: Fox Sports Interactive Media has struck a deal with Ticketmaster-owned TicketsNow in which the reseller will be designated as the official ticket provider of FoxSports.com. TicketsNow will have links to its site integrated into several areas of FoxSports.com, including team, schedule and standings pages, as well as a ticket widget installed on the home page (
Eric Fisher, SportsBusiness Journal).
END OF THE STREAM: BUSINESS INSIDER's Russell Scibetti reported MLB has decided to end its "free livestreams" of games on Facebook. MLBAM President & CEO Bob Bowman said that the service was "successful in generating interest in baseball, but it was not a great conversion tool for generating MLB.tv subscribers." Bowman noted that "most people ended up clicking over to the MLB website to watch the games, rather than use the embedded player on Facebook, and this contributed to the decision to remove the live stream" (BUSINESSINSIDER.com, 4/19).
