It's not shock that TGL is bringing in younger viewers, as my SBJ colleague Austin Karp points out below. I've found the league to be a topic of conversation with many of my 30-something friends. I share that mostly for my self esteem because it feels nice to still be considered in a younger demographic. Happy Friday, everybody! - Ethan Joyce
In today's edition of Power Up:
- TGL bringing in young golf viewers
- Elevate hires first CIO
- ANC, LG Electronics ink new deal
Early data shows TGL topping comparable college hoops, drawing younger viewers
The TGL is averaging 869,000 viewers after three matches, a figure 50% better than the comparable college hoops programming on ESPN in the same windows in 2024. Tuesday’s Atlanta Drive-N.Y. GC match on Tuesday night averaged 682,000 viewers, which is easily its lowest figure yet, but well above the 456,000 for a Texas-Oklahoma men’s hoops game in that window last year (the TGL match peaked at 728,000 from 8:15-8:30pm ET). Perhaps just as important though is that TGL is bringing in young viewers, with a median age of 51 years old after three matches (much younger than the PGA Tour and LIV Golf, both at 63). Here is how the league compares to some other properties in median age on linear TV:
- NBA: 50
- TGL: 51
- NHL: 52
- EPL: 52
- F1: 53
- NFL: 54
- D-I men's hoops: 57
- NWSL: 57
- MLB: 60
- WNBA: 61
- PGA Tour: 63
- LIV Golf: 63
TGL is also scoring better with the coveted advertiser demo (adults 18-49) in terms of that segment comprising the overall audience on linear TV:
- TGL: 43% (percentage of audience in 18-49 demo)
- NBA: 42%
- NHL: 40%
- EPL: 40%
- F1: 38%
- NFL: 35%
- D-I men's hoops: 33%
- MLB: 30%
- NWSL: 28%
- WNBA: 25%
Elevate hires Jim Caruso as its first Chief Innovation Officer
Elevate has expanded its data and analytics capabilities, beginning with the hiring of Jim Caruso as its first Chief Innovation Officer. Caruso actually started at the agency two years ago, working quietly for two years on building a new software platform and not wanting an announcement until there was a product to show for his efforts.
That software is preparing for launch next month, and it will serve as a digital foundation for all parts of the business. Caruso calls it SwaS: software with a service.
“We still have all of these great services that we want to offer,” he told SBJ. “Now, we just want to supercharge their capabilities with technology and data.”
Prior to joining Elevate, Caruso was CEO/co-founder of Apollo Program, which made an audience data and insights tool later acquired by Stagwell, the global marketing firm. Caruso first incubated the idea that became Apollo Program while the Chief Product Officer at Anomaly where he worked in programmatic advertising.
Whereas most brand campaigns begin with an idea for a campaign and then a plan to target customers, Caruso believed that commingling those steps would be more effective.
“My vision was to flip all that on its head, go to the beginning of the process, which usually starts with creative and strategy,” he said, “and build a platform that could harness all of this data about consumers and put it in the hands of people way upstream when they were just building those briefs, making those decisions, using it to inform creative strategy and then, yes, of course, downstream media.”
Caruso now leads a team of a few dozen engineers, data scientists and product managers, noting that this is a significant investment from Elevate because the new platform “permeates everything we do.”
More specifics of the technology will be forthcoming closer to launch, but he emphasized that this was built from scratch starting with a strategy to collect or license as much first-, second- and third-party data as possible, then build applications for users to interact with the data easily and ultimately add an intelligence layer.
Discussing the decision he and Elevate made at production inception, Caruso said the best bet was to “build a modern application that had AI as the leading edge of how you're going to interact with this thing, and then build backwards from there. ... I would do it with the idea that everyone would be interacting with it through AI and using large language models, using interactive agents, and so on and so forth, to make all that data accessible.”
ANC to sell/service LG Electronics boards, beginning with some NFL, MLB venues
LG Electronics and ANC are now quietly operating under what the two companies are terming a marketing “alliance,” where the electronic giant’s scoreboards, ribbon boards and other venue hardware systems will be sold and serviced by ANC in what the two parties termed a "long-term deal.”
The two companies have been working on the “alliance” for a few years, and among their early joint projects, both sides said, were large pending installations in two NFL and MLB venues (deals done within the last six months). They would not yet specify those facilities, since they are under NDAs.
“We’ve got a lot of mutual targeted customers, and the combination of our products and ANC’s marketing and sales is a collaboration that will allow us to engage with some sports conglomerates we’ve both been pursuing for quite some time,” said Tom Bingham, LG's director/vertical market sales. “There are just huge tech requirements now for a connected [venue] experience -- everything from live ordering and sports betting to cashless environments and just providing bandwidth for all those watching on site. One of the most exciting things for us is that we’re now incorporating things beyond digital. We can also include HVAC and energy offerings across a venue for different solutions. ... There are lots of competitors, but very few who can put together and run a unified building.”
ANC President and CEO Jerry Cifarelli also noted, "Our thesis all along has been to transform venue technology upgrades from just capital expenses to revenue generators. Now we can combine their display installations with our industry expertise, marketing servicing and sales, which solidifies our mutual position in a market when there’s so much building going on or planned. It changes us both.”
Both sides also said they are targeting incremental business in minor-league sports facilities as well as non-sports, out-of-home advertising. Along with its hardware, LG’s various sports tie-ups -- even non-tech ones -- will also be serviced by ANC. "We’re charged with getting their brand and their technology out there," Cifarelli added.
