SME3
Street & Smith articles
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What are 3 examples of secured bonds?
premium seat revenues, naming rights revenues, ticket revenues
What are bank loans with low interest commonly used for?
refinancing
ESPN group puts focus on mental health, offers resources for staffers to deal with challenges
-ESPN Trust co-chairs Melissa Rawlins, Jon McLeod and Anita Barbero are joined by administrative assistant Diana Grabsch at a group event in January -Dallas Cowboys QB Dak Prescott spoke candidly about anxiety and depression back in September -January of this year, ESPN set up an employee resource group dedicated to mental health -brainchild of Jon McLeod, an associate producer at ESPN, and Melissa Rawlins, an associate photographer -May 2019, the two worked together on a video for Mental Health Awareness month -Rawlins lead off the video by disclosing that she lives with anxiety and depression -video, which told Rawlins' mental health story, then was placed on an internal ESPN platform -ESPN Trust, an acronym for Talk, Recognize, Understand, Support and Triumph -named McLeod, Rawlins and HR executive Anita Barbero co-chairs of the group -ESPN has nine groups like the one started by McLeod and Rawlins, providing employee support with various other topics, including one that focuses on disabilities -invited Tom Burr, from the public policy staff of the National Alliance on Mental Illness, to speak to ESPN's staff -"That has been a huge initiative of ESPN Trust — having people feel comfortable with talking about the fact that it is OK to take a mental health day," Rawlins said. "It is OK to disclose that you're taking a mental health day." -created "Mental Health Road Show" where they talk to different ESPN departments about mental health topics -recently gave a presentation to Burke Magnus' programming group -"I can't reiterate how important it is to have leaders at a high level buy in to mental health and the focus of it," McLeod said. "Once they bought in, then everybody else below them buys in" -main goal is to provide support and resources to ESPN employees who seek it -make sure they use appropriate language when talking or writing about mental health -avoid describing someone's mental heath as an "issue" or a "problem"
Smart Strat: When mainstream leagues hit the pause button, esports were able to continue
-Jack Harari, the vice president of global partner development at Activision Blizzard Esports -wins this year have included increased viewership to new sponsors and additional media attention -part of that success is due to opportunity and part is a result of "smart strats" — the esports shorthand for clever strategies -few sports were able to be as resilient, and able to quickly restart their competitions in a different format, as esports, which quickly transitioned its in-person events to online-only games -ESPN signed League of Legends' North American series, called the League Championship Series (LCS), to a short-term deal, and also had an Esports Day on April 5 on which it aired 12 hours of games such as Madden NFL20, NBA 2K20, F1 esports and Rocket League -Fox and NBC aired more than a dozen virtual racing events -revenue is now expected to slightly contract this year, from $957.5 million in 2019 to $950.3 million in 2020 — due to pandemic according to research firm Newzoo -saw sizable increases in certain key performance indicators this year, such as viewership and social media growth -big in-person events such as the Grand Finals, the championship of the Overwatch League, which sold out a reduced capacity at Barclays Center in 2018 and Wells Fargo Center in 2019, was instead held without fans in South Korea earlier this month -home-and-away franchise model that Overwatch League started in 2018 and Call of Duty League began earlier this year suffered as in-person events were largely canceled across the world after the pandemic started -Activision Blizzard, the owner of both Overwatch League and Call of Duty League, telling teams they could delay making their franchise payments this year -Adam Rymer, CEO of Envy Gaming, which owns the 2020 Call of Duty League champion Dallas Empire, bringing on Post Malone [as an investor] -Newzoo noted that the negative impact on consumer-brand spending in the space from COVID-19 "could hurt the growth of both sponsorship and media-rights revenues in the future" -of all the metrics most likely to experience a bump amid and after the pandemic, video game usage and viewership were at the top -in the early days of the pandemic in late March, Verizon reported that it saw a 75% increase in video game usage during peak hours since Americans had started quarantining -Amazon-owned streaming platform Twitch says that in the second quarter, hours watched on the platform almost doubled versus the same period in 2019 -YouTube Gaming's live platform increased quarterly watch hours by 53% from the first quarter of this year through the third quarter, and is up 131% from the third quarter of last year through the third quarter of this year, according to data intelligence firm Stream Hatchet, which works with Riot Games and agencies including UTA among others -overall, the global esports industry saw a 17% increase in live watched hours from the third quarter of 2019 to the third quarter of 2020, from 395.3 million to 463.7 million, according to Stream Hatchet -also a 16% increase in average minute audience -comes despite a roughly 33% decrease in esports events this year, from 184 to 124, since so many were canceled -industry saw a double-digit increase in hours watched despite working with less inventory -League of Legends Esports, which was already the most watched esport in the world, as its major regions — LCS in North America, LPL in China, LEC in Europe and LCK in South Korea — saw increases in viewership this year -revenue review projection in 2023: $1.3 billion -those top regional leagues, all from Riot Games, each saw viewership growth around 30% this year, far higher than the 20% that Riot Games typically forecasts -LCS having an average minute audience of 485,000 viewers for its Summer Split finals, up about 27% from last year, while the European league, the LEC, had a roughly 17% jump for its Summer Split, which is the second half of the season -attributed the growth to the fact that the leagues were able to pivot to online play so quickly at a time when most live sports were shut down -cited the NBA and NHL having successful "bubble" tournaments as inspirations for the idea to try to still hold this year's League of Legends World Championships -when the Chinese league, the LPL, shut down in late January as the pandemic started to plague that country, the Korean league, the LCK, saw a huge influx of Chinese viewership that resulted in a 42% jump in hours consumed versus the prior year -LoL is currently in the closing stages of its annual World Championship tournament, and Riot is seeking to top last year's global average minute audience of 21.8 million people -Activision Blizzard's major properties were tougher to judge because Call of Duty League was in its first year and both it and Overwatch League aired on YouTube after Overwatch switched over from Twitch this year -2020 Overwatch League Grand Finals, won for the second year in a row by the San Francisco Shock, earned a global average minute audience of 1.55 million, a 38% increase from 2019, but most of the viewership was in China -Call of Duty League Championship Finals, in which the Dallas Empire defeated the Atlanta Faze on Aug. 30, peaked on YouTube at more than 330,000 viewers including co-streams, making it the most watched CDL event of all time -ESL Pro League for Counter-Strike: Global Offensive also had a strong year -Epic Games' Fortnite took the year off from holding a World Cup -mobile gaming viewership saw notable viewership during 2020; the PUBG Mobile World League had an average minute audience of 324,000 in its first year, with YouTube as the main platform, meaning hundreds of thousands of people were watching a game being played by people on their phone -League of Legends moved its World Championships to Shanghai earlier this month -one thing that currently makes esports different from major stick-and-ball properties is that sponsorship is the biggest revenue stream in the competitive gaming space — safely ahead of the next bucket, media rights -of the total $950.3 million that Newzoo is projecting the esports industry to realize in revenue this year, $584.1 million of that, or more than 61%, is due to come from sponsorships -Riot Games added Mercedes-Benz and Spotify as global sponsors -Activision Blizzard signed IBM to be the official artificial intelligence, cloud and analytics sponsor of the Overwatch League and the presenting sponsor of the Grand Finals -DraftKings is now advertising on the new gaming network Venn -NRG Esports President Brett -Anheuser-Busch is one brand that has already started spending heavily in the esports space, sponsoring leagues, setting up exhibition tournaments with major streaming influencers and starting an official Twitch channel for its Bud Light account -Joe Barnes, Bud Light's director of sports marketing, said that he's budgeting to spend about the same amount in gaming in 2021 as was spent in 2020 -Twitch has seen several brands increase or renew their spends with the platform this year, including Capital One, Doritos, Jersey Mike's, Verizon, Honda and Warner Brothers -Riot Games has been able to keep current partners happy in part by adding new in-game advertising inventory including first-of-its-kind in-game signage with several partners, including newcomers Spotify and Mercedes-Benz, that has helped avoid the need for make-goods -for Envy, Rymer noted that the team was able to secure a renewal with major sponsor Jack in the Box, which he viewed as validation that the organization's effort to transition sponsors to online-only play is working
On Location shifts focus, creates digital experiences
-Pittsburgh Panthers teamed up with On Location, an Endeavor company, to create a TV-quality pregame show that heightened the fan engagement even though the fans couldn't be there -On Location Live began by delivering remote, virtual events like the spring tour at Iowa State and exclusive donor events at Oklahoma -wanted to create full blown pregame show from Heinz field -Pitt's in-house production team captures the content -On Location Live provides the livestream that Pitt can distribute to its social channels and its official athletic website, as well as providing a producer and an engineer -10 schools including Clemson and Notre Dame and a handful of professional organizations have utilized On Location Live's platform
TV still overwhelming favorite for live sports
-Streaming services account for only 4%-5% of viewership of "Thursday Night Football" -first story was about a reorganization at ESPN's parent company, Disney, that puts much more focus on streaming -second was about Amazon deepening its NFL relationship by picking up non-exclusive rights to a wild card playoff game this season -knee-jerk reaction to both stories was that they offered evidence that streaming's future is closer than ever for sports -sports properties have wanted to see big tech companies get more active in bidding for rights -attracted by big tech's younger demographics that would stream games -all properties want more bidders at the table to drive up the sale of their rights -current viewership numbers suggest that the streaming of live sports is not ready for prime time -streaming services account for around 2% of viewership for a sports audience -for "Thursday Night Football," that number grows to 4%-5% -last season, Amazon averaged 646,000 streams on a per-minute basis for its "TNF" telecasts -in-home linear TV viewing clocked in at around 15 million, meaning Amazon was reaching only 4% of the "TNF" audience -around half of the entertainment world viewing is happening via streaming -when you have a choice to watch sports either digitally or on linear TV, almost nobody is choosing the digital option -live sports still is one of the only programming genres that is not watched on demand -people want to watch sports as a shared experience on the best screen available in real time
NBA preserved $1.5B in revenue at Disney, but losses are steep
-logo of Finals presenting partner YouTube TV at center court -Walt Disney World script on each side of the court -$180 million to operate 100 days of basketball -the bulk of the money tied to national and local television revenue followed by league sponsorships -fulfilled contractual obligations with addition of virtual ads and other activations, notably the Michelob Ultra Courtside Club that drew 60,000 virtual fans who logged into the fan wall during the 172 games -virtual signage during TV broadcasts and hard signage around Disney courts -began Oct. 22 of last year and finally ended on Oct. 11 when the Los Angeles Lakers won Game 6 of the NBA Finals to secure their record-tying 17th title -need to complete audits for all 30 teams to calculate next season's salary cap -major decline expected given that 40% of total league revenue comes from its gate -bubble losses do not include specific team losses, will be significant as well -most significant metric from the bubble is zero positive COVID-19 tests or any disruption of play while at Disney -NBA postseason TV ratings from Disney dropped 37% -record low viewership for the Finals as forced to play postseason in crowded fall season during an election year instead of its typical spring dates -mirrored other sports properties' declines (MLB Division Series (-40%), NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs (-38%), U.S. Open tennis (-45%), Kentucky Derby (-43%), college football (-30%) and U.S. Open golf (-42%)) -drove fan engagement during the season with average digital audience for nationally televised games up 34% compared to the 2019 postseason -set a record for total video views with the 172 games beginning on July 30 generating more than 6.9 billion video views on NBA social channels
Selling Season: As NBA aims to find new revenue, teams will have more inventory to offer
-the baseline apron area near the basket is among the locations now allowed to be sold to sponsors, though that one will only apply for games on regional television -teams now will be able to sell the previously off-limit baseline apron areas near the baskets as new high-profile sponsorship inventory -league will allow teams to sell three global sponsorships as part of its International Team Marketing Program that previously was limited to two global deals -international marketing program is entering the second year of a three-year pilot program -previously, the league controlled all international sponsorship inventory but the program allows teams to include global advertising and marketing rights outside the U.S. and Canada; activation at retail locations globally outside the U.S. and Canada; and rights to post nongame team content on the sponsors' own digital and social media sites -easing restrictions on hard alcohol, casino and sports betting team sponsorships that would allow for greater TV visible in-arena signage in those categories -the NBA will now let teams create nongame live digital content for second-screen use to complement game broadcasts -example, a team could stream its in-arena halftime shows live during games on their team website or team app to complement game programming -other ideas include providing live nongame digital content during quarter game breaks such as interviews with former players -NBA Commissioner Adam Silver has said that attendance accounts for about 40% of the league's total revenue -aggressive in creating ways to increase elling opportunities — the league featured virtual ads on broadcasts, rolled out a virtual fan wall sponsored by Michelob Ultra, and added signage on the Finals court to add value to sponsors -NBA recently allowed teams to sell large belly patches on practice jerseys and the league is discussing ways to allow more patch advertising on apparel, including putting ads on shooting shirts as well as allowing a second jersey patch on game jerseys
Massive Ball Corp., KSE deal has rare qualities
-the naming rights deal for Ball Arena, formerly known as the Pepsi Center, is for 10 years -deal packaging arena naming rights with marketing rights for five teams -blockbuster deal with Kroenke Sports & Entertainment that got the packaging giant the following: naming rights to the Denver arena that houses the NBA's Nuggets, the NHL's Avalanche and the NLL's Mammoth; marketing rights both at SoFi Stadium and with the Los Angeles Rams; and rights to top Premier League club Arsenal FC -venue and team deals in Denver are for 10 years; the others are for five -Ball Corp. is an $11 billion company headquartered in Broomfield, Colo., just outside the Mile High City -a rare deal: an arrangement that actually includes shared risk and reward -began 16 months ago at a chance social encounter with some KSE executives -Ball's aluminum cups looking to convince consumers that they are an environmentally friendly alternative to the plastic cups most often used to sell beer and soft drinks at venues -introduced at University of Colorado football games last year, and what's now the Ball Arena became the first pro sports venue to use the cups last fall -featured at the Super Bowl in February and the Waste Management Open -plans were to also have the cups at the Kentucky Derby, University of North Carolina basketball games, and other high-profile events -Ball's agency of record, The Strategic Agency handled negotiations, and will perform activation -company's president, Peter Stern, was flying to Denver on March 11, as the sports world shut down -recalled many meetings with masks on, some with human resources mandating seating plans, and others that required government approval to access what had been called the Pepsi Center since it opened in 1999 -conceived with the whole Kroenke portfolio from the start, because they included important local rights and the global reach of the NBA and EPL
New startup College Emojis using emojis and AR filters to give fandom a personal face
-to pay tuition at Ohio University RaShaun Brown used to throw parties ($10,000 after one Halloween party) -College Emojis founded with his close friends Chase Goodson and Kari Curry -August 2019 company launched an emoji keyboard with college sports logos for iPhone -lasted 3 weeks before ios13 was released -forced to diversify offerings -still the potential for licensing the product to individual colleges or bigger rights holders for use in their apps -branched into creating augmented reality (AR) filters that can be monetized by the company and its clients through sponsorship -earning low six figures in revenue -goal to become a million-dollar business -pivots that followed the Apple update are emblematic of the minority-owned company's collective desire to sidestep any potential obstacles -entrepreneurial spirit began at Ohio U., where they created an emoji keyboard for Black fraternities and sororities -after graduation Brown got a job at Texas A&M in ticket sales and development for the 12th Man Foundation -obtaining image rights was the main barrier complicating entry into the college sports emoji/sticker world -market dominated by virtual stickers, image files that don't seamlessly integrate into text messages like the more premium emojis do -Brown sent social media messages to 2Thumbz Inc. and Sportsmanias, two of the leading companies in the space, leading to relationships, then strategic partnerships -2Thumbz can access image rights for more than 300 colleges, licensed from rights holders such as Fermata and CLC -revenue share deal with 2Thumbz saved College Emojis from the cost-prohibitive task of obtaining licenses itself -Sportsmanias has six years of success with emojis and AR focusing mostly on professional sports. Its founder and CEO, Vicente Fernandez, said Brown was the primary reason he agreed to work with an unproven startup -Brown, Goodson and Curry kept their day jobs — Goodson works in sales and Curry is an athletic trainer at a high school -original emoji keyboard, designed by a coder in Pakistan, downloaded 10,000 times in the first three weeks following its official August 2019 debut -Emergency brainstorming sessions salvaged the keyboard by shifting its college logo emojis to stickers, and Brown and Goodson decided to pitch the original college emoji keyboard to companies involved in mobile messaging, like Facebook, to see if they would adopt the keyboard specifically for their platforms -2Thumbz executive vice president Andrew Fox said the emoji keyboard needs "anything that drives ubiquity" -investors viewing AR's emergence as the next computing frontier -MarketsandMarkets report estimates the AR market will grow from $10.7 billion in 2019 to $72.7 billion by 2024 -Amy LaMeyer, who is managing partner of the Women in XR Fund, told an audience in 2019, "It's like the dawn of the Internet, it's like the switch to mobile" -College Emojis' AR filters — created by an 18-year-old in London — provide value through sponsor monetization and access to valuable consumer data -concept interested Ohio State Sports Properties, which signed a deal -because of low overhead — it has no office space and the co-founders still maintain their day jobs — and a few new unannounced deals with major players in the college space coming down the pipe, Brown said the company is cash-flow positive despite the emoji setback and no outside investment -speeding up the already breakneck pace of digital development and burying inflexible companies
Sportsbooks: On a roll
-two years after online sports betting opened in New Jersey, teams and sportsbooks are sorting out an emerging sponsor market across the U.S., and learning one size doesn't fit all -six weeks after betting opened in Colorado, the Broncos announced the first sports betting deal signed by an NFL team, locking down FanDuel Sportsbook -a day later, they announced another with little-known U.K.-based operator Betfred -three weeks after that, they raised the curtain on a third deal, with BetMGM -market that opened with four authorized sportsbook sites and already has grown to 15, with still more to come -allowed the Broncos to not only be the first NFL team in the country to secure a deal, but also be the first of five Denver teams to close one -a category that can rain cash in a market like Denver, one chock full of fans eager to wager and fed by fierce competition between sportsbooks, most of which are building brands from scratch -also can punish those with unreasonable expectations, like in states with high tax rates cutting into sportsbook budgets, or little competition among books to drive bidding -fans make bets on the first day of legal sports betting at Capital One Arena in Washington, D.C. William Hill has deals with both the Capitals and Wizards and is building a new two-story sportsbook on site -22 TEAMS, 33 SPORTSBOOK DEALS across the NFL, NBA, MLB and NHL, counting only teams in states that have legalized sports betting -two years after the launch of New Jersey's first online sportsbook, a sponsorship market that started out white hot, with the NHL's Devils taking in nearly $5 million from the category in 2018-19, seems to be settling into an equilibrium -deals typically range from $350,000 to $500,000 annually for nonexclusive agreements and up to $4 million annually for exclusivity in a larger, competitive market -outliers, such as the exclusive deals that have William Hill operating a brick and mortar sportsbook at Capital One Arena in Washington, D.C., and DraftKings opening a flagship location adjacent to Wrigley Field -in aggregate, teams typically generate $1 million to $3 million from the category -Chicago is the largest of the pro sports DMAs with commercial sportsbooks up and running, followed by Philadelphia, Washington, Denver, Pittsburgh and Indianapolis -order after that generally shakes out based on handle, the amount of money bet on each sport -NFL historically has generated the highest handle, followed by the NBA and MLB and then NHL, so sponsor pricing generally has followed that order as well -all three of the Broncos deals include digital marketing, a crucial piece in a business that generally lives in fans' palms -FanDuel's is largely about getting Broncos fans to sign up with a brand they know, with a smattering of stadium, TV and radio advertising to drive home the connection and lots of home-team promotions -BetMGM's deal hinges on plans for a stadium lounge that will operate similarly to a retail sportsbook, with a bar, tables, TVs and odds displays, as well "ambassadors" to help new bettors sign up and play -Betfred also has plans for a lounge, though its will be through a tailgate party set up on the adjacent lawn -Denver's six reported sportsbook deals are the the most of any market -Rockies have a deal with DraftKings -Stan Kroenke-owned Nuggets and Avalanche locked down an exclusive deal with PointsBet, an Australian bookmaker that has made Denver its U.S. headquarters -PointsBet has established itself among the bigger believers in team deals, signing with the Chicago Bears, Indianapolis Colts, Indiana Pacers and Detroit Tigers -BetMGM also has six, going heavy on the NFL with the Broncos, Detroit Lions, Las Vegas Raiders, New York Jets and Tennessee Titans, along with the Vegas Golden Knights -DraftKings has the Cubs, Colorado Rockies, Indiana Pacers, New York Giants and Philadelphia Eagles and 76ers -William Hill has the Capitals and Wizards in D.C, plus the Colts, Devils and Golden Knights -a nation that wagered more than $2.5 billion on sports in September -The Golden Knights have sportsbook deals with both BetMGM and William Hill -BetMGM also has a deal with the Raiders -sponsorship is seen as conveying trust and credibility -only FanDuel and DraftKings have high brand awareness going into a new betting market -BetMGM piggybacks off its resort properties to gain national exposure on occasion but its primary objective is to drive sign-ups to an app with which few fans are familiar -brand's NFL team sponsorships come with IP rights, signs and digital advertising -in Denver, a key component of BetMGM's sponsorship of the Broncos is the betting lounge -PointsBet will track the ROI of its sponsorships with eyes toward metrics in three areas: awareness of both the brand and the sponsorship; expression of purchase preference and an associated willingness to refer friends; and, most importantly, acquisition and retention of customers that can be tied directly to the sponsorship -FanDuel Sportsbook's ads on local TV, VOD and OTT are earning more media impressions than competitors in Chicago, Denver, Indianapolis, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, the five largest media markets in states that have opened up to sports betting -BetMGM found that users were 50% more likely to click through from an ad that included a Jets logo than an otherwise identical ad without the logo
Dani Rylan Kearney, National Women's Hockey League
-while watching the 2014 Winter Olympics had an epiphany about someone starting a U.S. pro women's hockey league - the Canadian women's hockey team had just defeated Team USA 3-2 in a dramatic shootout -launched a four-team U.S.-based league in 2015 -as commissioner, navigated it through a player boycott in mid-2019 and expansion, including into Toronto -a year ago, league began the first year of a three-year livestreaming deal with Twitch -agreement where players receive 50% of all revenue from league-level sponsorship -step down due to restructuring of governance model, which includes a focus on independently owned teams -will remain active as president of the ownership and investor group that owns four of the six league teams — the Buffalo Beauts, Connecticut Whale, Metropolitan Riveters and Minnesota Whitecaps
Numbers, fees, revenues of club seats?
1,200 - 10,000, $2,000 - $10,000+, $2.4M - $80M
Numbers, fees, revenues of luxury suites?
80 - 400+, $40,000 - $1,000,000, $3.2M - $150M
What are the 6 greatest threats to sponsorship in order?
Lack of measurement, clutter, cost, activation, ROI, category exclusivity
Name 4 NCAA teams with the highest ticket revenues ($5M+)
Michigan, Ohio State, Texas, Auburn
Order professional leagues in terms of ticket revenues
NFL, NHL, NBA, MLB
What is the key to revenue growth?
build inventory & look for emptiness
What are the 2 keys to sponsorship?
creativity, segment appeal
What is the newest/most critical cost concern?
facility operating costs
What are 3 approaches for the "new game"?
foreign investment, treatment as entertainment destination, funding growth through entitlements
What are 5 drivers of brand value?
passionate local fan base, strong home market base with history, strong merchandising program, large media market, WINNING
What are the 5 stages of growth for sports retailing?
promotion, customer demand, need for funds, control of products, lack of success with team stores
What are the 3 basic types of sponsorship?
proprietary, exclusive, event-specific
What is the key to food & beverage revenue?
sales per attendee
What is a new way to maximize sponsor impact?
social networking,
What is one of the biggest recent sponsorship innovations?
stadium-vision
What is the biggest increased operations cost?
staff costs
What is the biggest way sponsorships involved customers?
symbolism & creating identity
What is one way sponsorships can create identification?
through positive associations
