Bill Belichick and Tom Brady are reuniting for a Super Bowl, and Michael Strahan's presence won't spoil it, for once. Strahan's SMAC Entertainment is teaming up with Fox Sports Films, BZ Entertainment and NFL Films on a pre-Super Bowl special, "The Madden Cruiser: A Bayou Adventure With Bill Belichick." Airing at 12pm ET ahead of...
Major League Baseball's winter meetings have been over for a week, but the organization saved one of its biggest swings for today--promoting Uzma Rawn Dowler to its new chief marketing officer. A 10-year MLB veteran, Rawn begins her new role in January and will report to Noah Garden, MLB's deputy commissioner of business and media....
ESPN is assembling a new team. Today, the sports network announced the debut of the ESPN Squad, four animated characters that viewers see when watching ESPN's content. ESPN Squad was developed by ESPN Creative Studio and is designed to bring fun and entertainment to audiences, while introducing something unexpected to the ESPN ecosystem. The main...
Dick's Sporting Goods has a new executive to lead its retail media network. David Young has joined Dick's as a vice president to oversee the ad business. The retailer launched its retail media network, Dick's Media Network, in 2022. He brings more than 20 years of experience in managing media and ad networks, most recently...
Caitlin Clark had an effect on women's sports in 2024, but investment at every level of the game will push it into the future. The growth of women's sports in the United States has continued its upward trajectory since the Title IX education amendment of 1972 prohibiting federally funded schools from discriminating based on sex....
The aspirations around experiential events have exploded in recent years. Activations used to be confined to physical spaces, and now entire worlds can be built in digital realms like Fortnite. And even physical events have reached ambitious new heights. Now in its sixth year, ADWEEK's 2024 Experiential Award winners know how to dazzle with interactive...
The lifestyle media company Betches struck a strategic content partnership with the National Football League on Monday, the second such tie-up the NFL has penned in recent months as it looks to expand its core audience. Betches will gain access to key moments and tentpole events throughout the NFL calendar, including the Pro Bowl, Super...
For brands sponsoring college bowl games, it's no longer enough to turn your cheese cracker into a mascot or burn your toaster-pastry mascot alive and have teams eat it in front of fans: You need to be the Snoop Dogg of postseason play. There are 47 bowl games that comprise college football bowl season in...
Major League Baseball's chief marketing officer Karin Timpione is leaving her role at the end of this year, both she and MLB confirmed to ADWEEK. She has yet to announce her next move. Timpone made the initial announcement on her LinkedIn page. "Thanks [to] my league and club colleagues for many seasons of excitement --...
The NBA has spent the past few decades planting its flag in Christmas Day--much the same as the NFL has staked out Thanksgiving--returning this year with a remake of its seminal "Jingle Hoops" ad from 2013. The new 30-second commercial is more elaborate in its production style, versus the stripped-down and streamlined live-action original, with...
In the broadening sports media landscape, Disney Advertising is discovering that audiences booing opposing teams on Monday Night Football and saying "Boo-urns" over on Disney+ are often the same. Tonight's Monday Night Football matchup between the Dallas Cowboys and Cincinnati Bengals is getting the Funday Football treatment ESPN first deployed during the 2023 NFL season,...
In only its second year hosting the NFL Black Friday game, Amazon has had no problem staying on offense and moving forward. Drawing 13.51 million viewers to see the Kansas City Chiefs eke out a 19-17 win over the Las Vegas Raiders--and increasing its audience 41% from the roughly 9 million who watched the New...
When sports-first streamer Fubo closed its 2024-25 upfront season, revenue from upfront commitments was up over 40% compared to the previous year, which is an all-time high, according to the company. The platform saw the most growth across advertisers from automotive, pharmaceutical, and consumer packaged goods categories. According to Fubo, 40% of advertisers that made...
It's the end of an era for both Mercedes and Formula 1 star Lewis Hamilton as one of the most iconic partnerships in racing reaches the finish line. Ahead of Hamilton's final race for Mercedes in the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix on Sunday (Dec. 8), the auto brand is sending him off with a heartfelt...
After a record-breaking season, the WNBA's winning streak continues. A new report from data analytics firm Morning Consult, which tracks how consumers perceive thousands of brands each day, reveals no brand's reputation rose more throughout 2024 than the WNBA's. "It's rare that a sports league ever makes any type of ranking that we put out,"...
Disney+ is adding a new player to the roster, with ESPN now coming onto the streaming platform. As it did with its Hulu tile on Disney+ earlier in the year, Disney is now bringing an ESPN tile to the streaming service for its bundle subscribers in the U.S. Additionally, the company has revealed all Disney+...
As the 2026 World Cup approaches, The Home Depot is building toward a different kind of game day. This morning, FIFA announced The Home Depot as the "Official Home Improvement Retailer" for FIFA World Cup 2026 in Mexico, Canada, and the United States. With 2,345 stores across all three host nations, The Home Depot will...
NBA 2K and Genius Sports found the cheat code for drawing more fans to the 2024 Emirates NBA Cup: Turn it into a video game. As TNT Sports' networks and platforms show the tournament's quarterfinal and semifinal knockout rounds across its networks and platforms, NBA 2k and Genius Sports will use graphic overlays and in-game...
F1 Academy and its partners used the bright lights of this year's Las Vegas Grand Prix and its special events to introduce the sports and business worlds to the women driving its race series. In 2025, those F1 Academy drivers and their sponsors will have the Vegas street course and its Strip straightaway to themselves....
Amazon's Prime Video has its starting lineup of Black Friday NFL brand sponsors, and fans are about to be blitzed by shoppable deals. During ADWEEK's Mediaweek event a month ago, Amazon head of U.S. live sports and video sales, Danielle Carney, confirmed that the streamer sold out of ad inventory for its upcoming Black Friday...
