SBJ Media: Upfront madness

At the end of Fox’s upfront advertising presentation in Manhattan late Monday afternoon, Rob Gronkowski, Carli Lloyd, Derek Jeter, Alex Rodriguez and Michael Strahan threw footballs, soccer balls and baseballs to a liquored-up group of ad sales execs.

The chaotic moment symbolized Fox’s approach to the upfronts. Sports have always taken a backseat during the upfront selling season. Networks don’t have to explain the NFL or Women’s World Cup to their ad sales audiences. They already know all about sports on TV. But networks do have to build excitement around their new entertainment or reality show slates.

As the Writers Guild picketed outside, Fox trotted out its biggest sports stars. It had Strahan open the event with Gordon Ramsay; Strahan also introduced Jeter to big cheers from the New York audience. Gronk introduced ad sales chief Marianne Gambelli. Erin Andrews interviewed Lloyd on stage to hype the Women’s World Cup.

The sports-heavy atmosphere presented a stark difference to NBC’s upfront presentation, which was opened by former NBC Sports boss Mark Lazarus, who was a last-minute upfront replacement for Linda Yaccarino, who left NBC last week to run Twitter. Lazarus' former boss Jeff Shell also left the company earlier this month following a sexual harassment complaint.

Lazarus opened with a joke by asking what was more surprising -- having a foul-mouthed teddy bear open the upfront (meaning “Ted” voiced by Seth MacFarlane) or him onstage. Lazarus went on to heap praise on Yaccarino.

NBC’s upfront steered clear of its sports offerings until about 35 minutes into the show, when two Big Ten football coaches (Penn State’s James Franklin and Rutgers’ Greg Schiano) and Iowa women’s hoops coach Lisa Bluder came onstage to talk about NBC’s deal with the conference that kicks in this fall.

“With ‘Sunday Night Football,' NBCUniversal will own prime-time football in a way that no other media partner can,” Franklin said. “Combined with ‘Saturday Night Live,’ it helps to set the table for live weekend entertainment, making must-see appointment viewing for huge audiences.”

Franklin announced that NBC will open its schedule with West Virginia-Penn State on Sept. 2. That same day, Fox will carry Deion Sanders’ first game when Colorado visits TCU.

Q: Why did the NFL sell a playoff game to Peacock?

A: I have $110 million reasons for you. That’s the price tag that the Wall Street Journal put on the Wild Card game for one year, which my sources confirmed. Eight years ago, ESPN paid around $100 million for a Wild Card game. But the NFL’s reasoning goes beyond this one-off deal. The league is committed to broadcast TV, but it wants to make sure that its content is as popular on streaming as it is on linear airwaves. That's a reason why Amazon ended up with such a strong schedule. That’s also why it sold one of its marquee games to Peacock.

Q: Why is this game important to Peacock?

A: Streamers have become more cost conscious than they have in the past. But streaming companies still want exclusive content to convince people to subscribe. And they are willing to pay for the most popular content in the country -- NFL playoff games -- to try and grow their subscriber base.

Q: Who else wanted the game?

A: The NFL shipped this game around to all of the usual suspects -- current partners and new ones. At one point, I had heard that Amazon was close to getting the game for Prime before the NFL sold it to Peacock.

Q: What does "exclusive" mean?

A: As per all NFL deals with cable networks and streamers, the game will be available on broadcast TV in the markets of the teams competing in the game.

Q: When is it?

A: Peacock will carry its exclusive game Jan. 13 at 8pm ET, immediately following a Wild Card game on NBC that will simulcast on Peacock. The added game puts NBC in rarified air: It will be the first media company to carry three NFL playoff games in one weekend. (It also has a Sunday night Wild Card). Just a few weeks earlier, Peacock will carry its first exclusive regular-season NFL game -- a Bills-Chargers matchup on Dec. 23.

Four months after Cosm bought C360 -- the company behind PylonCam -- for an undisclosed sum, C360 CEO Carlos Silva has left the company. Silva has spent the last 100 days integrating his team into Cosm, which bought the company as part of an unsolicited bid.

Silva started with C360 last July. “In the long term to be its own company, C360 was going to be a much longer play. Folding it into a bigger company that they're a key technological component of was the right way to do it.”

As far as his next move, Silva said he does not know exactly what he will pursue, but said he will look to become an adviser in the near term. “I’ve been in sports and media my whole career, so I suspect that's exactly where I'll stay,” he said.

• The series-clinching Lakers-Warriors Game 6 on Friday night drew 8.64 million viewers on ESPN, marking the most-watched NBA Conference Semifinals game in 12 years, dating back to Lakers-Mavericks Game 4 on ABC in 2011 on a Sunday afternoon (8.89 million).

• My colleagues Ben Fischer and Austin Karp talked to key execs at each NFL media rightsholder for some perspective on the 2023 schedule release.

• The remarkable growth in media rights is one of the most obvious successes that mark Gary Bettman’s 30 years atop the NHL and has helped place the league on far more stable financial ground than where the NHL was when he arrived, writes SBJ's Ted Keith.

• SBJ's Bill King reflected on sports betting five years after the fall of PASPA, noting things are still taking shape on the media side. The betting business went poorly for Fox Sports. Branding an RSN hasn’t helped Bally. On the flip side, FanDuel, DraftKings and Penn Entertainment all say they’re bullish on their media plays.

• An early leader in the clubhouse for most-watched college hoops game next season has to be Michigan State-Arizona in the inaugural Acrisure Invitational, which will air on Fox on Thanksgiving Day  following Packers-Lions.

• Congrats to industry vet Len DeLuca, who was named 2023 Adjunct Faculty Teacher of the Year for Seton Hall and the Stillman School of Business. DeLuca teaches a graduate and undergrad course in sports marketing and oversees the Stillman sports internship program. He also teaches sports management at the NYU Stern School of Business.

• One more Mike Soltys story. This one is from Alex Putterman, who spent time in Bristol after Soltys learned that he had been laid off.