Hashtag Sports Newsletter

Newsletter | Latest Edition

Written by Team Hashtag | December 7, 2022

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Fan Fact

According to Tubular, 10 of the top 20 most-viewed U.S. sports videos across Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter from March 16-23 were about the World Baseball Classic.

Top Story

Cavinder twins partner with Jake Paul's Betr

Today, Betr Holdings has announced an exclusive partnership with Twins Haley and Hanna Cavinder, who will join the company as equity partners, content creators, and creative directors.

What's the deal?

Haley and Hanna will be featured as on-camera talent and tasked with creating female-centric sports content on the Betr platform. They will also make regular appearances on Betr Media’s flagship franchise BS w/ Jake Paul as well as on other Betr Media content across all platforms.

The twins will also be bringing their podcast Twin Talk to Betr Media after launching it on iHeartRadio in December 2022.

“Betr gives us the ability to accelerate the growth of The Cavinder Twins brand in a focused and truly authentic manner," the twins said in a release. "We love sports, thrive on competition, and enjoy creating and bringing ideas to life. Betr truly makes The Cavinder Twins and our brand that much better and bigger.”

The bottom line:

After helping the University of Miami women's team make a March Madness run to the Elite Eight, the twins announced that they would forgo their remaining NCAA eligibility to pursue life after basketball.  Last week, the twins revealed they will be training with WWE in Orlando, a move that follows their NIL deal with the WWE Next in Line program which prepares athletes and other celebrities for careers in the ring.  Aligning with Jake Paul's personal brand and a challenger sports media and betting brand like Betr is a smart move by the Cavinder twins and their team at Everett Sports Marketing as they aim to build on their meteoric rise as early trailblazers of the NIL era.

Read: Forbes

MEDIA

How NBC Sports is growing its NIL Business

A year after launching, NBC Sports’ name, image, and likeness platform is getting a tech upgrade.

NBC Sports Athlete Direct will now be powered by MOGL, an NIL marketplace that connects brands and athletes. The partnership will allow NBC Sports to broaden its NIL offerings to advertisers, who will be able to source more athletes, NBC says. 

Damon Phillips, senior VP of strategic initiatives at NBC Sports Group, said the group was impressed by MOGL’s ability to keep up with compliance laws, directly communicate with athletes around campaign deliverables and pay participants on time and at scale.

“We are trying to build a two-sided marketplace,” Phillips said. “MOGL will let us scale up on the supply side. Now we can offer advertisers another tool, whether it’s a local, regional, or national campaign.”

Read: Ad Age

TV

USFL, XFL cannibalize each other’s audiences

As expected, the USFL and XFL split the already-limited spring football audience in their first head-to-head.

Week one of the USFL season averaged 784,000 viewers across FOX, NBC, and FS1, down 50% from last year’s inaugural weekend (1.57M) and easily the least-watched opening weekend of a spring football league in the flurry of launches the past five years. That comes with an important caveat; the USFL is the first of the leagues to reach a second season.

Beyond the expected loss of novelty from year one to year two, the USFL this year contends with competition from the XFL. While the USFL delivered the top spring football audience of the weekend with Michigan-Houston on Sunday, its season-opening Saturday doubleheader was outdrawn by ABC’s Vegas-Houston XFL game earlier in the day with 878,000 viewers.

Read: Sports Media Watch

PARTNER CONTENT

Sports and live events production made easy

Tellyo is your complete cloud production platform, and we enable sports teams, federations, and right-holders to produce and distribute video content quickly and efficiently!

Cloud production is more cost-effective and scalable than traditional workflows, and Tellyo’s suite of cloud solutions is packed full of powerful features that help your content teams to come together remotely, collaborate, and produce live content.

From multi-camera ingest and an 8 ME production switcher to graphics templates, slow-motion replay, 64-channels of audio, and full production intercom capability, we’ve got everything you need to produce any live event, of any size, from anywhere in the world.

AGENCIES

NFL hires Horizon Media as new global media agency

The league has hired Horizon Media for strategy, planning, activation, and measurement.

The NFL previously had multiple agencies handle media strategy and the management of its digital inventory. Moving forward Horizon will take on all of those duties. AdAge reported that the NFL spent the majority of its US$30 million paid media budget on digital properties.

Horizon launched its sports and experiences division last year and already works with the NBA's marketing and production arm to help support its global expansion plans.

Read: SportsPro

DOCUMENTARIES

‘Minnesota Mean’ roller derby documentary makes debut

Documentarian Dawn Mikkelson, known for her work on ”Finding Her Beat,” “Risking Light” and “The Red Tail,” is exploring the lives of six of the Minnesota RollerGirls in her upcoming documentary, “Minnesota Mean.”

‘Minnesota Mean’ is a riveting human drama about the pounding heart of roller derby: powerful, self-sufficient women from all walks of life and identity (straight, gay, trans, etc.),” the doc’s logline reads. “It’s a vital and relevant story of triumph, loss, strength, determination, and a search for balance between individuality and community.”

The documentary follows a year-in-the-lives of six core members of one of the most competitive roller derby teams in the world, the Minnesota RollerGirls. The roller derby athletes are seen training for the Women’s Flat Track Roller Derby, all in an effort to win the competition's top prize, the Hydra.

Read: Variety

What Else Is Trending?
  • LEAGUES: USL Championship has landed more investments from pro athletes in league clubs More Investments From Pro Athletes.
  • ATHLETES: Derrick Rose is launching a Chess Festival in Las Vegas During NBA Summer League.
  • RETAIL: WWE taps Fanatics to sell merchandise at live events like WrestleMania, SummerSlam.
  • MARKETS: SeatGeek has filed for an IPO with the SEC after previously ending an attempted SPAC merger to go public in 2022.
RAD AD

DEAL OF THE WEEK

Topgolf to Become Global Medaled Event in Special Olympics

Beginning in 2024, Topgolf will be an officially sanctioned event with Special Olympics, the first time a brand has become a medaled event. That means Special Olympics athletes will be able to compete in Topgolf as an individual or with a team through Special Olympics Unified Sports which joins people with and without intellectual disabilities on the same team for training and competition.

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