Highlight Reel: The IPL is coming to America...(sort of) 🏏🇺🇸
This week's top stories feature Twickenham, Mumbai Indians, Chennai Super Kings, Kolkata Knight Riders, Delhi Capitals, Major League Cricket, LIV Golf, Ben Foster, Wrexham AFC, and the Kings League
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Happy Friday!
On Wednesday I published my second newsletter within JohnWallStreet, teaming up with Murray Barnett, we focused on broadcast exclusivity and the opportunities to share streaming rights with prominent YouTubers.
This week’s Highlight Reel takes a look at that story as well as four others that caught my attention 👇
Twickenham to transform into golf course this summer ⛳️
IPL franchise owners invest in America’s Major League Cricket 🏏
Golf Stream: LIV must harness tailwinds beyond linear TV deals 🏌️
Ben Foster comes out of retirement to join Ryan Reynolds’ Wrexham ⚽️
Kings League land linear TV deal for Nou Camp final 📺
Twickenham to transform into golf course this summer ⛳️
Last month we saw Spurs bring go-karting with F1 to UK stadia but it’s now Twickenham’s turn to break new ground…
The home of England Rugby is set to be the flagship venue for a new golf tour coming to the UK this summer.
Twickenham will host upwards of 7,000 golfers when the tour, which will also include five other stadia, arrives there between 8-11 June as it is transformed into a 9-hole golf course.
Uniquely, the tee boxes will be situated on constructed platforms situated around the stadium bowls with golfers hitting shots onto the related green situated on the pitch with a self-scoring system in place depending on how close to the hole they get.
IPL franchise owners invest in America’s Major League Cricket 🏏
Indian Premier League (IPL) franchises have recently invested in the upcoming Major League Cricket (MLC) T20 tournament in the USA.
This move continues the ‘multi-club model’ trend that has emerged among IPL franchises, who have also invested in domestic T20 leagues in the West Indies, South Africa and UAE.
Three IPL franchises (Mumbai Indians, Chennai Super Kings, Kolkata Knight Riders) will have direct named representation within the new American six-team league:
MI New York
Texas Super Kings
Los Angeles Knight Riders
Alongside Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, GMR Group, who own the IPL’s Delhi Capitals, will own the Seattle Orcas.
Golf Stream: LIV must harness tailwinds beyond linear TV deals 🏌️
Sports Pundit: Whilst LIV has backed its partnership with CW Network and will hope to secure deals with international broadcasters sooner rather than later, Murray Barnett (founder, 26West Sport) suggests the upstart golf tour should also be considering more targeted ways to reach a differentiated audience.
“Fragmentation means the right strategy for a number of different rightsholders going forward is to be visible in a number of different broadcast environments," Barnett said. "The difficulty will be explaining to the various broadcast partners, whether they are YouTube or traditional TV channels, that they're not cannibalizing each other and that they're actually going after different audiences.”
Murray went on to speak anecdotally.
“My son is fifteen. He's never going to sit down and watch live sport on a TV channel because he doesn't watch anything on a TV channel anymore. However, if it was streamed on YouTube, with the right kind of personality, he may be interested to do that.”
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Ben Foster comes out of retirement to join Ryan Reynolds’ Wrexham ⚽️
Former England and Manchester United goalkeeper Ben Foster has come out of retirement to join Wrexham until the end of the season.
The deal is a match made in football content heaven.
Since being taken over by Ryan Reynolds and Rob Mcelhenney, Wrexham has captivated a global audience through the ‘Welcome to Wrexham’ docuseries, which started streaming on Disney+ in August – and has been renewed for a second season.
Foster has turned to content creation in the later years of his playing career - generating over a million subscribers on his YouTube channel and landing an exclusive podcast deal with Spotify.
It’s expected he’ll create his own behind-the-scenes content at Wrexham and return to producing his popular ‘GoPro in the Goal’ videos which he first started doing with Watford in the Championship.
Kings League land linear TV deal for Nou Camp final 📺
Kings League, the competition chaired by the ex-Barça footballer Gerard Pique, has revolutionised the way of living and watching football. This Sunday (March 26) the final is set to take place at the Nou Camp in front of incredible 90,000 fans.
Despite rising to fame through streaming across Twitch (largely to the channels of its 12 famous influencer team owners), it is now set to also land on linear TV.
Catalan broadcaster TV-3 has reached an agreement with Kosmos for the rights to both produce a theme night, including a report about this new vision of football and, subsequently, provide a transmission of the final of the competition.
This further builds upon this week’s article about LIV Golf which focused on the ‘slightly archaic’ concept of broadcast exclusivity and the fragmentation of audience.
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Job Board
Senior Manager, New Partnerships - Formula 1 (London, UK)
Digital Executive - McLaren Racing (Woking, UK)
Partnerships Manager - City Football Group (Manchester, UK)
Director for Competitive Club Sports & Esports - Syracuse University (New York, US)
Manager, Business Development - National Women’s Soccer League (New York, US)
VP of Operations and Growth - Underdog Fantasy (New York, US)
Strategic Partnerships - WSC Sports (New York, US)
Do you have a job you’d like to promote to the amazing readers of this newsletter? Drop me a note at andy@sportspundit.org
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