GenDigital

Yet Another One Joins Online High School Sports Coverage

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery right? If that's the case than Fox Interactive Media must be madly in love with Hearst Argyle's High School Playbook, CSTV's MaxPreps and independent Takkle. This is almost getting kinda of boring at this point. Yes, according to reports, with the help of Fox Interactive Media, Fox's affiliate tv stations have launched localized versions of a new site, dubbed Fox Hilites (real original name by the way) that will feature...you guessed it, video highlights of local teams. We just took a quick run through of a few of the market sites (Orlando and Philadelphia) and unfortunately, did not have a great experience on either site. The video library was almost non-existent on the Orlando Fox Hilites site with the exception of some football clips, while the videos on the Philadelphia market site crashed two of our computers. In case you haven't noticed, this field has quickly become more crowded than Las Vegas during New Year's. It seems everyone with a national or regional media franchise that has local outposts wants to be in this game. Clearly there will have to be a shakeout because there is not enough eyeballs for each of these properties to be successful. As of today with the addition of the Fox affiliates, you know have operators including Hearst Argyle, Belo and Emmis joining CSTV's MaxPreps and indy Takkle. After perusing through each of the sites, you should quickly see that HS Playbook and MaxPreps stand head and heels above the others. Please, no need to anyone sites to this already way overcrowded niche...

SI Makes Capital Investment in Sports Social Networking Site Takkle

Certainly, one would not have to be a soothsayer to see this coming. After first announcing a content-related partnership late last year, Sports Illustrated, the most widely read magazine by teen and young adult men, deepened its relationship with Takkle, a sports-focused social networking site for high school students, with a capital investment. The amount SI invested was not specified. Earlier this summer, we were placing bets here internally to see which sports focused social networking site would be the next to be acquired right after Yahoo announced its acquisition of Rivals.com. Although it's not an outright acquisition, the capital infusion is a step in that general direction for Takkle. Joining Sports Illustrated in the investment round was Wasserman Media Group's investment arm and venture capital firm Greycroft Partners, among others. The investment from Sports Illustrated cements the existing content and technology relationship it has with Takkle and most likely blocks ESPN or Comcast for making a run for the site in the future.

In The Midst of Turmoil, Yahoo Snaps Up Rivals...Who's Next

To say the very least, it's been tough for Yahoo and its shrinking list of supporters over the past couple of weeks. After non-stop criticism from research analysts and shareholders, their CEO stepped down last week pushing the stock up 4% for the day. Now that the dust begins to settle word is out today that the company is losing their widely respected display ad chief, Wenda Millard, who is heading off to Martha Stewart to be their sales chief. Slick move if you care for my opinion. Unfortunately, as the news came out yesterday, Yahoo basically said she was let go rather than leaving on her own accord. Anyway, from what I hear, she certainly won't be the last sales team member to leave this summer. An old colleague of mine is running a group over there and she said that things are pretty lousy in terms of morale and what not. So, does it make a lot of sense for the troubled company to be acquiring hot start ups like sports community and information service Rivals.com? I guess business must go on regardless, right?  No purchase price was released so we can't comment on whether they landed a sweetheart deal or not. If anything, the acquisition continues to validate the market drawing power of the high school/college sports vertical. There are barely any independents left at this point, and perhaps the next great concept or application doesn't even exist yet. We'll see, but if I were one the Rivals.com staffers, I'd be a little bummed about heading into the hands of a company enveloped by negativity.

Media and High School Sports, It's All The Rage

If you been following any of our research or this blog over the past six months, you are already quite familiar with the commercialization of high school sports. We've detailed the current and past successes as well as future market opportunities for Internet media properties like CSTV's MaxPreps.com and Takkle.com. If you go all the way back to our 2007 Trends and Predictions report we made the call of the growing importance and value of niche social networking sites led by the sports category. Today's NY Times nicely sums up a lot of what we have been saying for the better part of a year. The parties that make up the high school sports engine, that is, the athletes themselves, their parents and coaches are a formidable force and one that marketers are increasingly trying to gain favor with. CSTV is aggressively building out its recently acquired MaxPreps franchise by offering a wide variety of on-demand offerings that will almost certainly provide us with a new crop of mini-celebs, many of whom probably aren't even old enough to drive to school. Given of all of this activity, you can bet that the worldwide leader in sports coverage, ESPN, has to have a few tricks up its sleeve so it to can join the next "it" thing: high school sports. 

Baseball Is Back But Does The Youth Market Care?

Perhaps nothing is more Americana than Major League Baseball's opening day. It has to rank right up there with the 4th of July, Thanksgiving, apple pie and all those other little goodies that make Americans, well Americans. When it comes to the youth market though, you might have to mix in action sports like surfing, snowboarding and skateboarding instead of baseball alongside some traditional Americana fare. Our recently completed monthly immersion with our panelists confirm our belief that we first talked about last year: the popularity of Major League Baseball is waning among teens and college students. It is hard to come up with just one simple answer to explain the shift. Professional and college football and basketball continue to surge in popularity, both in terms of television viewership and live attendance. The recently completed NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament was a huge social television viewing event for the market. This year's Super Bowl was watched by nearly three in four teens and college students. So, what's the deal with baseball. For lack of a better word, the sport in the mind's of today's youth seems almost antiquated. The drama (think showmanship, physical contact, etc.) derived from football, basketball and all of those intense action sports kinda comes to halt when this market thinks about and talks about professional baseball. The market cites the length of games and lack of overall excitement as being turn-offs. Sports critics and other media personalities who cover baseball have had a non-stop field day over the steroid scandal for the past two years, but somewhat surprising, this market doesn't even mention the controversy/scandal in their shortcomings of the sport. Really, we believe it is more of emblematic of a dramatic lifestyle and social shift among the market. They want action, they want interactivity, they want drama, they want contact, which is really just a nice word for violence. Remember that whole scene a couple of years ago with the Detroit Pistons and that massive fight that broke out in the stands among the players and fans? Viewership was up among the youth market after that whole brouhaha. Coincidence, I don't think so. At some point Major League Baseball will have to address these challenges and based on the feedback we received from our panelists, there are lots of challenges facing America's past time.

CBS's CSTV Unit Snaps Up High School Sports Site MaxPreps.com

CBS's CSTV (College Sports Television Network) has announced plans to acquire fast growing MaxPreps, a leading high school sports online network. We've been following MaxPreps ever since they upgraded their offerings to include video programming and highlights. Terms of the deal were not released. In our November Insights Report we detailed the market and market opportunity for organized high school sports, which also includes parents and coaches. At the time of the report's release, we estimated that there were 6.5 million high school students nationally who participated in varsity and junior varsity sports. What's more, as you've probably seen from some of the videos circulating around YouTube and on some of the cable news nets, the people (parents and coaches) around organized youth sports are extremely passionate to say the least. MaxPreps gives CSTV an instant head start within the high school market ahead of competitors like category leader ESPN and Fox. CSTV can also help the MaxPreps platform blossom into other sports besides football and basketball which are its bread and butter sports, especially given the fact that CSTV features a number of "niche" sports like lacrosse and wrestling that don't have the same participation numbers that football and basketball has, but speaking from personal experience, have just as much passion if not more among the participants and their supporters.   

March Madness Will Be Huge With Youth Market

Take away college football and the NFL and college basketball becomes the most popular sport young people watch on television. In fact, over the past two years, the growing popularity of men's college basketball has increased to a point where it recently eclipsed professional basketball as the number three sport watched on television among all young people nationwide. Nothing is bigger in men's college basketball than the national championship tournament, which occurs every March, the tournament commonly referred to as March Madness. As part of our regular monthly survey with our proprietary panelists, we went ahead and asked them a series of questions relating to the tournament, which gets underway next Thursday, March 15th.

March Madness '07:

- Plan to watch some of most of the games on television: 32% (46% of males/17% of females)

- Plan to watch as many games as my schedule permits: 25% (37% of males/13% of females)

- Plan to watch some of most of the games with at least two friends: 57% (59% of males/54% of females)

- Plan to watch some of the games online: 14% (21% of males/6% of females)

- Plan to fill out a bracket sheet using an online sports site: 28% (40% of males/15% of females)

- Plan to fill out a bracket sheet and enter a pool online: 24% (36% of males/13% of females

Super Bowl: The Single Biggest Television Event of the Year

To supplement our monthly Insights Report which comes out tomorrow, we administered an online survey with a portion of our proprietary panelists earlier this week regarding the Super Bowl. For all of the hype and frenzy around the Super Bowl, this part is no joke: an overwhelming majority of teens and college kids plan to tune into the television event of the year. What's more, many will be sitting alongside friends and family at informal social gatherings, and believe it or not, looking forward to watching the commercials too. Here are some of the results of the survey we conducted on Monday:

- Plan to watch the Super Bowl: 73%

- Watching the Super Bowl with at least two friends or family members: 61%

- Looking forward to watching the Super Bowl commericals: 43%

- Have already seen a preview of a Super Bowl commerical(s): 9%

- Not rooting for either the Bears or the Colts, just looking at the afternoon/evening as a time to hang out with friends and family and have a good time: 58%

ESPNU Launches Standalone Site

ESPNU, the fast growing college sports focused network extension of ESPN, the number one cable television network among teen and college males has launched a new standalone web site. The new site features expanded multimedia offerings including video clips from the ESPNU Recruiting Insider in addition to several podcasts from network personalities. The launch probably couldn't have happened at a better time. There have been a number of media properties pop up over the past few years bridging the gap between high school sports and collegiate sports the most recognizable being MaxPreps.com. In fact, as a possible acquisition target, I think MaxPreps as a would fit nicely under the ESPN franchise. High school recruiting has always been a big part of college sports with top schools perpetually vying it out with one another for the best of the best. Now, it seems as if a new "fan base" has evolved in the niche space, be it coaches, parents, or really the kids themselves, have all been active in following the action of recruiting.

NBC Has Its Own Version of Fantasy Football

Beginning this Friday, NBC will release a specialized version of a fantasy football league based on games that only air on Sunday nights on the network. As I've said a couple of times of the past weeks, fantasy sports is getting big, especially among college aged men. We expect nearly one in four college men to participate in at least one fantasy football league this fall, up from about one in ten less than three years ago, not bad, right? Back to NBC...The network's version of fantasy football is 100% free, unlike most leagues. Because NBC's version only draws players and games from the Sunday night games, it could potentially be somewhat of a unique draw or compliment for players who participate in more traditional leagues and have a "break" come Sunday evenings. Because the NBC league is free, the prizes aren't all that great. The grand prize is a trip to New York and a visit to the NBC football studio. I would have suggested a nominal $5,000 or $10,000 prize, but regardless, this seems to be pretty well thought out and should do pretty well for the network.