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2/6/2012 12:00:00 AM
The Sport Review
Mobile phone company O2 has signed a fresh four-year deal to extend its sponsorship of the English Rugby Football Union (RFU). O2 have sponsored the RFU since 1995 and the new partnership will run beyond the 2015 Rugby World Cup. The move is a vote of confidence in England Rugby by the mobile firm following a difficult few months for the national team in the wake of a disappointing World Cup campaign.
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2/6/2012 12:00:00 AM
Multichannel News
In the latest shot in its license fee battle with Time Warner Cable, MSG Networks and the Buffalo Sabres will make the National Hockey League team's Feb. 11 game against the Tampa Bay Lightning available on local stations in the club's home market and Rochester, N.Y. MSG's coverage of the Feb. 11 Sabres-Lightning game will be simulcast on NBC affiliates WRGZ-TV, channel 2 in Buffalo and WHEC-TV, channel 10 in Rochester.
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2/6/2012 12:00:00 AM
Ad Age
New York Giants quarterback Eli Manning not only passed his more celebrated brother in Super Bowl titles with a victory Sunday night over the New England Patriots, but he's also poised to catch up to Peyton Manning on the sports-marketing food chain.
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2/3/2012 12:00:00 AM
SportBusiness
Manchester City has agreed a partnership with American company Mass Relevance that will see it become the first Barclays Premier League club to harness Twitter to enhance fans’ match day experience. The agreement with the Austin-based social curation technology firm will see the introduction of new social initiatives for City fans attending and watching matches during the remainder of this season.
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2/3/2012 12:00:00 AM
Brand Republic
England rugby fans are being encouraged to participate in this year's Six Nations Tournament with the launch of an interactive app called the RBS Six Nations Live Challenge, which will be available for Saturday's opening game against Scotland. Conceived by Synergy, Engine's sponsorship agency, and delivered by sibling agency Jam, the app promises to "revolutionise and enhance the live match experience".
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2/3/2012 12:00:00 AM
Tech Crunch
Most popular mobile sports apps are trying to feed you scores and news, or show you fantasy numbers. OnSports, by HitPost, is in a smaller class of apps that’s focused on users running the discussion themselves. And now, ahead of the Super Bowl this Sunday, viral growth and featured spots on the Android Market and the iTunes App Store are helping it step up against larger competitors.
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2/2/2012 12:00:00 AM
Multichannel News
In Demand and the UFC for the first time will make a pay-per-view event available to cable operators in 3D. Saturday's UFC 143 event between Nick Diaz and Carlos Condit will be offered in 3D to consumers with a 3D-ready TV set and a compatible HD settop box, according to In Demand executives.
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2/2/2012 12:00:00 AM
PSFK
Anheuser Busch play on the heart-strings in a flash-mob style ad for Budweiser which they plan to show in Canada during this weekend’s Super Bowl game. Ad agency Anomaly orchestrated a rent-a-crowd, cheerleaders and sportscasters to turn a local game of Ice Hockey into the tournament of the season.
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2/2/2012 12:00:00 AM
Adweek
In the early 1970s, long before there were high-tech carbon-fiber tennis racquets and nitrogen-pressured tennis balls to help, Roscoe Tanner pioneered the sudden-death serve. He could send the ball screaming over the net at 153 mph (a record that would stand for nearly three decades), terrifying opponents in matches the world over. But Converse noticed something else about Tanner.
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2/1/2012 12:00:00 AM
Mashable
Want to help the New York Giants get pumped up for Super Bowl XLVI and learn more about their pregame preparations? You can do that on Thursday evening as the team is hosting a set of Google+ Hangouts with players including star wide receiver Victor Cruz. The hour-long sessions are part of the Giants’ Social Media Night campaign, in which the team will facilitate a series of conversations between fans and players.
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2/1/2012 12:00:00 AM
SportBusiness
The England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) completed a busy day of rights deals on Tuesday by renewing its agreement with Channel 5 for highlights coverage of international cricket from 2014-17. The UK commercial broadcaster will continue to screen its highlights programme in early evening peak viewing time as part of a new four-year free-to-air deal with the ECB.
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2/1/2012 12:00:00 AM
Broadcaster
CTV announced today that it will launch its new Believe promotional campaign in support of its broadcast of the London 2012 Olympic Games during its exclusive coverage of Super Bowl XLVI this Sunday. Featuring the voices of Canadian actors Ellen Page and Gordon Pinsent on CTV and TSN, the campaign begins just after the six-month countdown to London 2012 was marked on January 27.
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1/31/2012 12:00:00 AM
SportsBusiness Daily
The NFL for the first time will use a 60-second ad during the Super Bowl XLVI broadcast "to address player safety, its most critical and sobering problem,” according to Judy Battista of the N.Y. TIMES. NFL CMO Mark Waller said of the decision, “It is your biggest stage, you’ve got a massive audience, a massive casual audience, and this topic is probably one of most important topics for casual fans, particularly mothers.”
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1/31/2012 12:00:00 AM
ClickZ
NBA TV, the official cable channel of the National Basketball Association, is letting Facebook and Yahoo viewers help decide what game is broadcast in the primetime slot for one night per week. In previous years, the channel posted a poll only at NBA.com to facilitate the idea, but has broadened the effort to the highly trafficked sites.
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1/31/2012 12:00:00 AM
Adweek
The original premise of ESPN's "This Is SportsCenter" ads, launched in 1995, was that the network's Bristol, Conn., offices were the center of the sports universe—a fantasy world where athletes and mascots lived and worked together with anchors and journalists. The conceit arrived fully formed. Aside from the specific athletes and plot lines, Wieden + Kennedy New York has changed next to nothing in the almost 400 spots since.
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1/30/2012 12:00:00 AM
Broadcasting & Cable
NASCAR and Turner Sports have revamped and extended their long-standing digital partnership in a new deal that will run through 2016 and provide NASCAR with greater operational control of its digital properties. As part of the new agreement, NASCAR will take over managing the business, editorial, technical operations of its interactive, social media and digital platforms in 2013.
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1/30/2012 12:00:00 AM
PSFK
NBA star Stephen Curry has come up with a creative way to interact with his fans across platforms, with a contest that utilizes Twitter and Facebook and invites people to submit video clips of their best basketball trick shots. The Golden State Warriors point guard asked fans to tweet him their best shots with the hashtag #SC30.
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1/30/2012 12:00:00 AM
AllFacebook
ESPN Arcade game "ESPN Return Man" has dodged, cut, and feinted its way onto Facebook, marking the sports cable network’s first action-based game on the social network." ESPN Return Man" puts players in the cleats of a football kickoff returner, with the ultimate goal being to avoid all of the would-be tacklers and score a touchdown.
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1/27/2012 12:00:00 AM
Incentive Travel
Manchester City Football Club has become the first Premier League team to create virtual avatars of their superstars Mario Balotelli, Sergio Aguero, Edin Dzeko and Samir Nasri. The move is part of a new International digital marketing campaign, City Fan Cam. During Sunday’s blockbuster clash with Spurs, the Club captured a 360 degree, 5 billion pixel, ultra high resolution picture of inside the Etihad Stadium.
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1/27/2012 12:00:00 AM
SportBusiness
Al-Jazeera has secured another major domestic Ligue 1 media rights package, ensuring it will be the dominant force in French football broadcasting. The French Football League (LFP) announced on Thursday that the Qatar-based satellite broadcaster had acquired rights for an additional six live Ligue 1 games per round on pay-per-view, as well as a weekly football magazine programme.
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