If you run the NYC Marathon on Sunday, let me know. I’ll put you in my live tracking app and wave to you from my spot on 4th Avenue in Park Slope.
YouTube has resolved technical issues that affected “NFL Sunday Ticket” during the busy 1 p.m. window last Sunday, said Lori Conkling, global head of media and sports partnerships. said SBJ’s Ben Fischer THURSDAY. “It’s completely toned down,” she said on stage at the SBJ Media Innovators conference in New York.
This week’s SBJ Football newsletter also covers:
- YouTube and the NFL advocate the long term
- Rich Eisen on 20 years with the NFL Network
- Raiders COO Mike Newquist out after three months
- Texans and Modelo happy with influencer suite project
Lori Conkling, YouTube’s global head of media and sports partnerships, addressed a Morgan Stanley study that found YouTube is losing $1.2 billion a year and expected to more than double its current subscriber base of about 1.5 million to reach the break-even point. She and Lawton said YouTube and the NFL believe they can significantly expand the “Sunday Ticket” subscriber market over time.
“We’re very optimistic about this deal,” Conkling said at SBJ’s Media Innovators conference. “We wouldn’t have done it any other way.”
Using digital streaming instead of satellite technology means “Sunday Ticket” no longer relies on a DirecTV subscription. Additionally, they said, streaming allows for more product improvements and innovation over time. Finally, Conkling said, YouTube creators can be mobilized to bring NFL fandom to new demographics, complementing recent efforts such as Alternate Cast of ESPN’s ‘Toy Story’.
“As the product improves and develops throughout the transaction, that’s what will really be different than what we’ve seen before,” said Brent Lawton, vice president of strategy NFL media and business development.
Twenty years ago this Saturday, Rich Eisen emerged from behind a wall to deliver an opening monologue on the first episode of “NFL Total Access,” the moment that launched the NFL Network. It was a great day. His script was reviewed by 10 people and his first guest was the commissioner at the time, Paul Tagliabue.
But to fully reflect on the network’s legacy, Eisen returned to a memory from a few days earlier, when he was a guest on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” The host asked him: “What are you going to talk about when there are no games?”
“I said, ‘There’s a lot to say,’” Eisen said. “But Jimmy said, ‘You’ll be back on ESPN in the spring.’ It was a big laugh, and it was a joke, but I understood. At the time, a lot of people didn’t think the NFL was a year-round thing.
Eisen will call what is likely the biggest game the NFL Network has ever hosted: the Dolphins and Chiefs in Frankfurt, Germany, on Sunday morning. Speaking to me from Frankfurt, he said it was during the offseason that NFL Network shined.
“I truly believe this has been NFL Network’s greatest impact on our industry and the broader sports media landscape,” Eisen said. “We have proven that the NFL is a topic of conversation all year round. There is always football to discuss. There is always football on the minds of North American sports fans, or with me sitting here in Germany, the international sports fan.”
Raiders owner Mark Davis’ decision to fire head coach Josh McDaniels and general manager Dave Ziegler made headlines this week, but there’s a third high-profile person who is no longer with the team: senior vice president and chief operating officer Mike Newquist, who left the club and was removed from the team’s front office website earlier this week.
Newquist, who has previously worked with Cirque du Soleil and the UFC, was announced in the role on August 3. The Raiders’ business leadership has remained generally stable since the arrival of president Sandra Douglass Morgan in July 2022, but before that there had been significant turnover after long-time president Marc Badain abruptly resigned in 2021.
The Las Vegas Review-Journal reported On Thursday, the Raiders fired Newquist.
Earlier this year, the Texans sold their beer sponsor Modelo for an additional expense: the naming rights to a suite dedicated to VIP guests on game days. The Modelo H-Town Suite was born, and now each home game features around 20 guests in the suite, surrounded by Modelo branding, all encouraged to post their own photos and videos on their well-followed social feeds.
It’s the Texans’ first influencer program, President Greg Grissom said, and it checks several boxes at once: generates revenue on a suite that would otherwise have been reserved for guests, activates the five-year Modelo sponsorship and generates social impressions for Texans home games. after a few down years. It also helps connect Texans to Houston’s civic pride through the H-Town brand.
“This is part of the overall strategy to reconnect with Houston,” said Doug Vosik, senior vice president of marketing, communications and ticketing. Rapper and local legend Paul Wall is this year’s host of the suite, meaning he’s a permanent fixture at every game.
(L to R): Paul Wall, Monaleo, Lil Flip, Andre Johnson, Bun B and Slim Thug in the Modelo SuiteHouston Texans
- An independent agency alongside the NFL following its complaint that DirecTV misled viewers about how to get the “NFL Sunday Ticket” in early fall commercials. In a decision published Thursday, the National Advertising Division recommended that DirecTV’s ads for its Sports Central interface stop claiming that it offers “access to all games” and clearly state in future ads that additional subscriptions are required. DirecTV said it would comply.
- The Gen Z-Focused Sports Media Company Overtime inks major content deal with NFL For upcoming events, access Super Bowl LVIII, the NFL Pro Bowl Games, the 2024 NFL Scouting Combine, and the 2024 NFL Draft. Overtime personalities will produce content at these events with behind-the-scenes access, including interviews with players and field trips, helping the NFL reach a younger demographic on social media.
- Aramark Sports + Entertainment has expanded to nine Zippin stores at Empower Field at Mile High Stadium, adding IDmission integration to allow customers to purchase products – including alcohol – through a facial scan, reports SBJ’s Ethan Joyce.
- Amazon is counting on the enduring appeal of a 57-year-old Rolling Stones hit to boost viewership for the NFL’s first Black Friday game, using the band’s song “Paint it Black” in a promotional spot for the Dolphins-Jets game that it broadcasts without paywall on Prime Video, writes my colleague Terry Lefton.
- In this week’s SBJ Media column, my colleague John Ourand details how the broadcast of “Monday Night Football” on ABC hurt the NFL’s ad sales and examines the numbers Prime Video is getting for “Thursday Night Football” this season.
