SBJ Media: Turner Sports Doubling Down On Digital
My family will celebrate an important milestone tomorrow as my 17-year-old daughter graduates from high school here in D.C.
CHIEF DIGITAL OFFICER ROLE PART OF BIG MOVES FOR TURNER
- Turner Sports President Lenny Daniels will start looking to hire a Chief Digital Officer to oversee the company’s direct-to-consumer (DTC) businesses like NBA League Pass, March Madness Live, B/R Live and ELeague. Daniels wants to find a senior exec who can develop a unified digital strategy around all of those services. Daniels’ decision to hire a chief digital officer is a clear sign that Turner Sports plans to invest more to build out its DTC business. He outlined his plans for the hire via an internal memo sent to employees this morning. Senior VP & GM/Digital Mark Johnson and Senior VP/NCAA Digital and GM for B/R Live Hania Poole “will continue in their roles as we collectively build towards the future,” Daniels wrote in the memo.
- Turner Sports has been among the most active media companies in the digital arena. More than a decade ago, it picked up the PGA Tour and NASCAR digital rights at a time when few TV companies invested in digital. It still operates the NBA’s digital businesses and the NCAA’s March Madness Live. It launched its own B/R Live DTC service last spring, and since then, it has streamed such events as the Tiger-Phil match on Black Friday and many of this past season's UEFA Champions League matches.
- The purpose of Daniels’ memo was to outline staff changes in his group. He added Senior VP/Talent Services & Special Projects Tara August and VP/Sports Production Tech Chris Brown to his senior leadership team. He also promoted Tina Shah to Exec VP & GM, a position where she will handle Turner’s league relationships with the NBA, NCAA, MLB and UEFA.
NOISE AROUND RUIZ-JOSHUA GOOD NEWS FOR DAZN
- My first thought after Andy Ruiz Jr.’s stunning knockout of Anthony Joshua was that the result was terrible for DAZN. A little more than a year ago, DAZN paid $1 billion over eight years for programming from Matchroom Boxing. Having Joshua lose so early in that deal couldn’t be good for DAZN, could it? I called DAZN this afternoon to see how its execs were feeling. They said they were overjoyed by the fight, and I believe them. “Saturday was yet another example of how the heavyweight division can capture the world’s attention,” said DAZN Exec Chair John Skipper. “In truth, we couldn’t have purchased that type of brand awareness for DAZN. And now, we’re perfectly set up for a compelling rematch late in 2019.”
- Bill Simmons echoed Skipper’s view on his podcast yesterday. “I actually think it was the greatest moment in DAZN history. They are going to get the rematch, and odds are that [Joshua] is going to take this rematch a little more seriously. It’s a great fight. It’s now a can’t-miss fight.” Ruiz should help that brand recognition this week as he hits a press tour that includes an appearance on Jimmy Kimmel tonight, ESPN and Fox Sports. He also will appear on Simmons’ podcast this week. Back in April, DAZN bought a three-month sponsorship of Simmons’ Ringer podcast that was expected to lead to having Simmons host DAZN talent on his podcast.
- DAZN did not provide the number of people who watched the fight. But it provided social media stats that show how popular the fight was. The 6.7 million YouTube views of the fight’s highlights is the most-watched boxing video on the platform this year. By comparison, the Deontay Wilder knockout of Dominic Breazeale last month has 1.8 million views. The Ruiz-Joshua highlight video also had more than 6 million views on Twitter and 1.1 million views on Facebook. I didn’t see any social media complaints on Saturday night about technical problems, which has to be considered a big win for the streaming service.
SVP & RUSSILLO GET BACK IN THE SADDLE
- Scott Van Pelt and Ryen Russillo today dropped the first episode of their new ESPN podcast, which will tape monthly up until September before going bi-weekly. SBJ’s Thomas Leary caught up with the former longtime radio partners to see why the time was right to get the band back together.
- After Van Pelt left their radio program for the midnight “SportsCenter,” the two still found themselves talking sports on the phone on an almost daily basis. To hear Russillo tell it, Van Pelt would be busy trying to take care of his kids while his former co-host vented about the Bucks’ bench rotation. Van Pelt: “Ryen and I are both colossal grudge-holders. We always knew what we had was something special. We knew we connected to an audience.”
- Both credit the higher-ups at ESPN for making the reunion happen. Van Pelt: “The appetite was there from the powers that be.” There was also the draw of a loyal fan base. Content-wise, listeners can expect a less formulaic version of the radio show. Russillo: “It’s never been easier to be on-air, because you don't have to worry about any of the technical stuff anymore. It’ll probably be less opportunity for Scott to rightfully get annoyed with me.”
- After Van Pelt left their radio program for the midnight “SportsCenter,” the two still found themselves talking sports on the phone on an almost daily basis. To hear Russillo tell it, Van Pelt would be busy trying to take care of his kids while his former co-host vented about the Bucks’ bench rotation. Van Pelt: “Ryen and I are both colossal grudge-holders. We always knew what we had was something special. We knew we connected to an audience.”
THIS WEEK IN SBJ
- David Levy’s Turner career was marked by some of the biggest sports deals in the company’s history. He plans to take the summer off as he ponders his next move, but don't think he's ready to enjoy retirement. That’s not his style.
SPEED READS
- I spent my lunch watching the Twitter mob take on the Washington Post's Dan Steinberg after he tweeted the results from today’s "Jeopardy." The game show had aired in a handful of U.S. markets, but many were upset that Steinberg gave out the results to a TV show they were preparing to watch. (My favorite response came from The Post’s Scott Allen: "We need a @PostVideo of @dcsportsbog reading mean tweets about spoiling Jeopardy while eating PB&J drenched in soy sauce.") Steinberg deleted his tweets, but Darren Rovell also tweeted the results, leading to an interesting journalistic back-and-forth about whether the results of a game show have enough news value to give away the ending. No spoilers from me on this, but I will point out “Jeopardy” champion James Holzhauer’s tweet this afternoon, "Knew I shouldn’t have invited @Drake to the @Jeopardy taping.""
- It was nice to see this tweet from the L.A. Times’ Meg James this afternoon: “Something we haven't witnessed in decades: A dozen new hires arrived at the @latimes this morning, including @thefilmgoer and @dearabbie. Welcome all! During the dark days of Tribune/Tronc, there were no Monday morning orientations. #WeAreBack #JournalismMatters #MyDayInLA.”
- Showtime wants to keep competing with the likes of ESPN, Netflix and HBO in the sports documentary space, and the premium cable network’s latest target is popular Patriots wideout Julian Edelman. Showtime’s documentary division in recent years has also taken a look at the likes of Kobe Bryant, Ron Artest, DeMarcus Cousins, Victor Cruz, Ben Simmons and Lawrence Phillips.
Enjoying this newsletter? We've got more! Check out SBJ College with Michael Smith on Tuesdays and Thursdays for insights into all the latest news around the world of college sports.
Something on the Media beat catch your eye? Tell us about it. Reach out to either me (jourand@sportsbusinessjournal.com) or Austin Karp (akarp@sportsbusinessdaily.com) and we'll share the best of it. Also contributing to this newsletter is Thomas Leary (tleary@sportsbusinessdaily.com).
