SBJ Media: Fox's "Big" Plan For College Football

Saturday night was the perfect Maryland summer night for me. I went to a party in Leonardtown, Md., that had steamed crabs, great barbecue and cold beer.

"BIG" IS BETTER FOR FOX COLLEGE FOOTBALL THIS FALL

Fox's new "Big Noon Kickoff" show will feature (l-r) Meyer, Leinart, Quinn, Bush and Stone

• Fox is going "Big" this college football season -- putting a lot of marketing muscle behind its new college football pregame show. However, the network isn’t going so big that it will compete with ESPN’s “College GameDay” -- at least not yet, execs say. Fox will brand its four-hour block of college football this fall as "Big Noon" -- starting with the “Big Noon Kickoff” pregame show at 11:00am ET and its “Big Noon Saturday” game that kicks off in the 12:00pm window. Fox will debut a 30-second commercial this week to highlight its scheduling strategy of putting its best game in that early Saturday window. “It seems like the push has been to put everything on in primetime where you have all these quality games competing against each other,” said Fox Sports President of National Networks Mark Silverman. “We noticed that the early time periods were relatively weak in comparison.”
  
  
• It’s no accident that Fox using the word "Big" for branding. All of the games in that early Saturday window will be from either the Big Ten or Big 12. “The idea is that when people wake up Saturday morning, they’ll want to go to Fox,” Silverman said.
  
  
• When it launches in the fall, Fox’s college football pregame show will invite obvious comparisons to ESPN's “GameDay,” the juggernaut pregame show that has set the college football agenda for years. Silverman said he will not focus on ratings comparisons between the two, especially in the first year of Fox’s new strategy. Silverman: “Our focus is really on developing the chemistry and camaraderie with the group to produce a compelling show. We’ll worry about 'GameDay' down the road, once we feel like the show is in a good place.” Rather than comparing its offering with an established show like “GameDay,” Silverman said he wants to see consistent ratings growth and high-quality shows.
  
  
• The show, which will star Urban Meyer, Reggie Bush, Matt Leinart, Brady Quinn and Rob Stone, will spend most of the first year in the studio -- a contrast to “GameDay,” which visits a different campus each week. In the back half of the season, Fox will take the show on the road a handful of times. “I feel like you can rush to get on the road when the show’s not ready,” Silverman said. “We’ve got to build some expertise. We’ve got to build up the reps. When you go on the road, there’s a lot more variables. Everything is turned up a notch.”
  
  
  

MEDIA, TECH PART OF AFL PUSH FOR INVESTMENT

• The Arena Football League quietly started to look for investors in the spring as part of an effort to raise more than $15 million in capital, and part of the league’s selling point is its media and tech strategy. It’s not known how much of an ownership stake in the league is up for grabs, but the AFL hopes to complete its capital raise by September. This season, which kicked off in April with six teams in Midwest and East Coast cities, marked the first time that the league has operated under a single entity system – where Monumental Sports & Entertainment and Trifecta Sports & Entertainment own the league and operate the teams. The AFL believes this single-entity system makes it more attractive to potential investors. The search for capital comes as competition has increased within the arena football space, with the six-team National Arena League also playing in major markets on the East Coast.
  
  
• The league's media strategy includes national streaming via ESPN3 and local TV on NBC Sports RSNs in D.C. and Philadelphia, plus local broadcasters in Columbus (The CW) and Albany (My4 Network). ESPN2 also will carry ArenaBowl XXXII on Aug. 11. In its meetings with potential investors, AFL execs also tout its sports gambling apps, which they believe work best in arenas with high-speed connectivity. DraftKings unveiled a daily fantasy game for AFL this season for the first time. The league uses Sportradar to provide real-time statistics, while VSiN has rolled out AFL programming.

THIS WEEK IN SBJ

• While ESPN isn't paying a rights fee, the network will televise games during the second half of the NWSL season to try and capitalize on the popularity of the Women’s World Cup.
  
  
• Brad Zager pretended to be a college student when he first started working at Fox Sports. The new executive producer’s story about how he got started in sports TV is one of my favorite stories of 2019.
  
  
• Fox's effort to mic up players at the MLB All-Star Game was its most comprehensive use of the technology -- by far.
  
  
• A dearth of big-name players "doesn't make or break" the Home Run Derby, according to ESPN's Norby Williamson.

SPEED READS

• Digital sports media outlets last month saw a rise in both total unique visitors and average minutes per visitor compared to June 2018, according to new data from comScore. The sports category had 185.4 million unique visitors last month, up from 181.6 million last June. Meanwhile, the sports category saw 97.4 average minutes per visitor last month, up from 97.3 last June. ESPN was once again the leader with 85.6 million unique visitors, up from 73.3 million.
  
  
• I was flipping through channels this weekend and saw Formula E had its finale on Fox. I was curious about where the series is as a TV property, so I asked SBJ motorsports writer Adam Stern for his thoughts. He said that the group quadrupled its marketing budget this year. "The racing, with quiet electric cars, can be exciting, but it takes some getting used to for many traditionalist motorsports fans who have long treasured the loud, growling rumbles from cars in F1, IndyCar and NASCAR. Having just finished its fifth season, Formula E's next big step as a property is growing TV viewership."
  
  
• During its Wimbledon coverage on Friday, ESPN showed a crowd shot that focused on CBS golf analyst Nick Faldo. The shot included a graphic that identified Sir Nick as a six-time major champion. But spotted in the foreground of the shot was ESPN royalty -- a nattily attired Burke Magnus. I emailed Magnus to see how quickly it took him to reprimand the graphics producer for identifying a CBS analyst instead of one of ESPN’s top execs. Magnus: “Clearly a massive error by the ESPN graphics team (wink!). What a Championships they had this year. Just spectacular."
  
  

ESPN's Burke Magnus was seated just below Nick Faldo during Wimbledon last week

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