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LEAD-IN
ESPN, Fox Sports Give Wilder-Fury a One-Two Punch
Sports programmers put promo heft behind PPV heavyweight title fight
By R. Thomas Umstead thomas.umstead@futurenet.com @rtumstead30
Fox Sports and ESPN hope their unprecedented joint marketing and promotional efforts for Saturday’s Deontay Wilder-Tyson Fury heavyweight boxing rematch will deliver a major pay-per-view performance punch.
Fox Sports and Premier Boxing Champions promote Wilder, and ESPN and Top Rank represent Fury. Together, they’ve rolled out a massive marketing campaign for the Feb. 22 fight that started with spots in ESPN’s Jan. 13 LSU-Clemson College Football Playoff Championship Game telecast and included ads in Fox’s Feb. 2 Super Bowl LIV telecast.
“This has been a remarkable effort by many different stakeholders, both internally and externally,” said Matt Kenny, ESPN’s VP of programming for combat sports. “The Fox Sports team has been a great partner and it’s been very rewarding to see all the contributions from so many people.”
Fox Sports executive VP and head of programming and scheduling Bill Wanger said the magnitude of the fight brought both Fox Sports and ESPN together as promotional partners, and the ad push is reaching viewers. Fox Sports reported that its Wilder-Fury Super Bowl promo spot was seen by more than 105 million viewers.
Overall, Wanger said, Fox Sports has produced more than 10 hours of original programming around the fight, including a four-part docuseries dubbed Inside WilderFury II and a fight countdown show currently in rotation on ESPN and Fox Sports platforms.
ESPN has also created several originals around Wilder-Fury II, including Ring Science, which is streaming on ESPN+. “It’s really an unprecedented amount of promotion and level of cooperation among the two main media sports companies,” Wanger said.
The Wilder-Fury fight is the second between the two undefeated heavyweights; their 2018 bout ended in a controversial draw. That PPV event, distributed by Showtime, generated a reported 325,000 buys.
On fight night for Wilder-Fury II, a combined ESPN and Fox Sports on-air crew will describe the action. ESPN commentators Lennox Lewis and Andre Ward will join ESPN
blow-by-blow announcer Joe Tessitore for ringside commentary, while Fox Sports commentators Timothy Bradley and Shawn Porter, former welterweight champions, will join ESPN’s Max Kellerman and Fox Sports’s Brian Kenny for live analysis.
ESPN and Fox Sports hope their collaborative on-air and promotional efforts will drive enough PPV buys from hard-core boxing aficionados and casual sports fans to reach the industry-standard 1 million buy mark.
Pushing for 1M Buys
“I think a million buys is reasonable given everything that’s being put behind it,” said sports consultant Lee Berke. “You have two strong, popular fighters. It's a throwback in a sense in that heavyweights have not been that popular on PPV lately. You have two media powerhouses promoting the hell out of it. And it's scheduled during a lull in sports between the end of football and beginning of the NCAA college basketball tournament and baseball. I think it will do well.”
Wanger would not project how many buys the fight would generate, but said he’s excited about its PPV potential. “The buys will be what the buys are,” he said.
While the fight marks the first PPV boxing co-promotion for Fox Sports and ESPN, similar recent team-ups have proven successful. Showtime and the UFC combined resources in 2017 to promote the Floyd
Deontay Wilder (l.) and Tyson Fury at a Los Angeles press conference to promote their Feb. 22 pay-per-view fight, co-promoted by ESPN and Fox Sports. Mayweather-Conor McGregor fight, which drew 4.3 million PPV buys. That fight’s PPV performance was second only to the 4.6 million PPV buys generated by the 2015 Mayweather-Manny Pacquiao fight, co-promoted by HBO and Showtime.
This week, both ESPN and Fox Sports will ramp up marketing for the fight. On Wednesday FS1 and ESPN2 will simulcast the final fight press conference as well as Friday’s weigh-in. ESPN and Fox Sports studio shows will originate from Las Vegas, including FS1’s Speak for Yourself and ESPN’s First Take. “This will raise awareness for one of the most anticipated heavyweight fights in a number of decades,” Wanger said. “We’re pulling out the stops.”
Along with traditional PPV carriage through In Demand, DirecTV and Dish Network, both Fox Sports PPV — which includes foxsports.com and the Fox Sports App — and ESPN+ PPV will stream the fight, which retails for a suggested $79.99, said representatives from both parties.
ESPN’s Kenny said he would not rule out future marketing partnerships with Fox Sports on major PPV boxing events. “ESPN is laser-focused on serving sports fans and should a collaborative approach with a partner like Fox Sports help stage, promote and produce the biggest fights, we are certainly open to exploring those opportunities,” he said. ●
THE WATCHMAN
Senior content producer Michael Malone’s look at the programming scene
WATCH THIS …
Hunters
By Michael Malone michael.malone@futurenet.com @BCMikeMalone
Pacino In for Nazi Hunt on Amazon If you really need another sign that the golden era of TV is here, how about Al Pacino signing on to be in a series? Yes, Pacino stars in Hunters, which premieres on Amazon Feb. 21. David Weil created the show and Jordan Peele executive produces. Hunters follows a band of Nazi hunters living in 1977 New York (see Programming, page 20). They’ve discovered that hundreds of high-ranking Nazis are living in the area and conspiring to create a Fourth Reich in the U.S., and set out to bring the Nazis to justice.
“Al’s agent read the script, and said, ‘I think there’s something in this character that Al will really respond to,’ ” said Weil.
There were four meetings. Pacino eyeballed all 10 scripts, weighed in on the character, and the story, and he was in. “It was an incredible process,” said Weil. “It’s an absolute dream.”
The idea for the series came from Weil’s talks with his grandmother Sara, a Holocaust survivor. Amidst the tragedy, bits of her stories “sounded like the stuff of comic books and superheroes,” he said.
Weil was eager to put those tales of heroism on screen. “As we move into the next generation, it falls on us to tell their story,” he said.
Weil also liked the idea of showing Jewish people as more than nebbishes. “I wanted Jews to be portrayed with strength and might and power,” he said.
‘Saul’ Signs Off on Jimmy McGill Season five of Better Call Saul starts up on AMC February 23. The season sees Jimmy McGill, played by Bob Odenkirk, transitioning to Saul Goodman. Better Call Saul inches closer to its forebear, Breaking Bad.
6 Broadcastingcable.com “There’s a lot for Breaking Bad fans to enjoy — it’s racing toward that timeline,” said Melissa Bernstein, executive producer. “You’ll see Jimmy embracing that new identity, and see new business opportunities from exploiting that identity.” Plenty of Saul viewers never watched Breaking Bad, said Bernstein, who said women seem to be drawn to the relationship between Jimmy and Rhea Seehorn’s Kim Wexler.
Both series are character studies, according to Bernstein, and McGill is a bit more relatable than Breaking Bad protagonist Walter White. “Jimmy offers a little more room for people to connect,” she said. “Jimmy is a naturally optimistic person, naturally upbeat and fun to be around.”
Walter White? “More grim,” she said. Bernstein promised a closer look at Kim this season. “Viewers will understand more about her back story,” she said.
Season five pays a visit to Omaha, where McGill’s “Gene Takavic” ran that Cinnabon. But it remains shot in Albuquerque. “The folks in Albuquerque are amazingly supportive,” said Bernstein. “I think they feel like they’re part of our team, and we feel like that too.” ●
Better Call Saul Hot Ones: The Game Show
Hot Ones: The Game Show begins on truTV Tuesday. Inspired by an online talk show, Sean Evans hosts this “battle of wits and gastrointestinal fortitude," truTV said. Contestants answer trivia and chow down wings slathered in serious sauces. Wednesday, it’s Year of the Rabbit on IFC. Rabbit is a detective with a taste for booze,
Year of the Rabbit
and his partner is by the books. Joined by the daughter of the police chief, the trio faces down street gangs, shady politicians and other unsavories. Matt Berry plays Rabbit. Friday, it’s season two of Gold Rush: Dave Turin’s Lost Mine. Turin goes on the hunt in
Dave Turin's Lost Mine
the lost mines of Montana. “With more than 3,500 abandoned mines in the Treasure State, Dave believes one of them could be a jackpot in gold,” said Discovery. Friday, Babies premieres on Netflix. This docuseries explores the first year of a person’s life. Fifteen families share their stories.
