ICE Announces New Television Deal with WFL
Jan 16, 2015 4:28:42 GMT -5
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Post by BlueLick on Jan 16, 2015 4:28:42 GMT -5
WOMEN'S FOOTBALL LEAGUE NEW DEAL WITH ICE PHEDERATION
ICE CEO Jessica Lowndes on Saturday morning in Boston officially announced that she has cut ties with the NFL as they will no longer be a television partner with the league starting after the last game airs this Sunday. Everything which includes their sports coverage, announcers, hosts, staff, and other personnel will transfer over immediately to the WFL next weekend. ICE's Wide World of Sports own football league just signed a new 3-yr deal that will last through the 2015-16 season and includes the rest of this season. Since the product is ICE owned it did not cost ICE any money to sign this deal. ICE's Wide World of Sports President Steve Walters told the media that the WFL will be moving their games to Sunday afternoons starting on Sunday November 3, 2013. The games will be spread out throughout the afternoon as the games will air over as a tripleheader and will start at 12pm which is a full hour before the NFL games start. The games will be split into three ways with the 12pm start games being dubbed as early games, then the middle games at 2:40pm are dubbed as afternoon games, and then the evening games will be bleed over into primetime and be known as the WFL Overrun at 7pm are dubbed as the Game of the Week which will be the best game of the entire weekend's slate of games. The Day will wrap-up the afternoon coverage at 7:30pm and all of these games will air on ICE. Most of the games before this week aired over on PDN in primetime and PDN will air the weekly primetime game on Sunday and Monday nights this season. PDN will focus more on the upcoming Winter Athletic Games Time Trials which starts in a few weeks to replace those hours over the weekend.
Unlike the NFL we won't force viewers in the West Coast or international time zones to watch games at an inaccessible time as games featuring West Coast teams home or away will not be able to play until 2:40pm at the earliest and Australian teams won't play until 5:10pm at the earliest.
WFL is a 16 team outdoor league this season featuring female talent and coaches. Several television actors play on many of these teams such as the main star Zoey Stamkos who plays quarterback for the Toronto Icegals. The game is setup just like the NFL so viewers are familiar there with the style of play. The games are 30-45 minutes shorter than the usual NFL games as they will be around the same time as most NBA and NHL games take over 4 quarters of action. Every team will play in either a football or baseball venue in their respective cities. The league is expected to expand its size by doubling its amount of teams to 32 teams next season and will include 4-5 more international teams in places like London, Brazil, Japan, Souths Africa, Russia, Spain, Italy, Germany, and a second team in Australia to rival Sydney as early candidates. The game will be more on a global perspective than the NFL is which is exclusively American for the most part and ICE really wanted to get away from that image since their network has a huge global reach that's why ICE is getting away from partnering with American pro sports league and creating their own which also allows them to use females in the spotlight and their own actors to play and market the game that way.
ICE is rebranding their network's image and slogan into "They're Simply the Best" or for daytime it's "They're Simply Daytime's Best" due to this decision to put the WFL games on Sunday afternoons in daytime. The brand represents the growth of the young ICE actresses who are dominating daytime most days during the week and how this is becoming the new era that represents their success.
The season is over during the 16th week of the regular season on Sunday December 15, 2013 and then the playoffs start right after that the following weekend and that will be a 3-week process with the Conference Championship Games taking place on Sunday January 5, 2014 and the first ever WFL Chick Bowl which is WFL's version of the Super Bowl on Sunday January 12, 2014 will be played at the home of the winning team instead of on a neutral field. A draft will also be held in the off-season in the spring or summer. The new season kicks off on Sunday September 7, 2014.
ICE was already in transition of a female takeover in the announcing booth as they will be transferring their announcers from their NFL coverage over to the WFL for these games like Danielle Panabaker and Aimee Teegarden who were doing the play-by-play this season and Alyssa Milano who was doing commentary with Jerry Rice, they unfortunately won't be able to keep Jerry Rice as NITRO Officials told ICE that he will join the RTN announcing team. ICE will be adding in more new announcers for these games and they will be scheduled before the week 10 games take place.
ICE sold over their afternoon package for free which included the rights to the NFC Championship Game this season and one of the two Super Bowls in 2015 and 2016 over to RTN and NITRO and the NFL gave TEN a new third afternoon package which includes extra playoff games. Those two networks will air NFL action starting the same weekend as the WFL starts with ROD.
Games will be sold to other networks as soon as pilot season starts as ICE is not ruling out partnering up with other networks to air games these games this season. They will sell an actual long-term contract starting next season. ICE did want to give the other studios a chance to see how the ratings would be against the NFL before deciding if they wanted to partner up. The networks can start airing the games the Sunday following when the deal is done. ICE did state that networks didn't have to air the full tripleheader since there's not that many teams right now.
New draft pick Mia Lasanti whose been training for the Athletic Games signed with the Detroit Fury to play receiver starting on November 3rd when the Fury play the Dallas Cowgirls in Ford Field at 2:40pm. More Starlets are expected to sign with the league as about 25 of them are currently playing now, Jessica Lowndes thinks there will be about 70 of them next season playing in the league. Mia's schedule will be based around the WFL as the league's season will be over by the time the actual Athletic Games starts in mid-January after this season in non-Olympic years the Athletic Games will take place in February and late January in 2018.
The ICE Phederation is expected to create an alternative to MLB Baseball as a new pro softball league will be out in the spring and it will be the first of its kind a co-ed or co-gender sports league with males and females involved much like in BOTNS. A new basketball and hockey league are to follow in the next couple of seasons.
WFL WEEK 10
Sunday November 3, 2013
- Early Games -
Miami Sharks @ New York Hitters - Yankee Stadium - 12:03 PM - ICE
Quebec Nordiques @ Tampa Sol - Raymond James Stadium - 12:03 PM - ICE
Lake Erie Harmonies @ Minnesota Americans - Metrodome - 12:03 PM - ICE
- Afternoon Games -
Dallas Cowgirls @ Detroit Fury - Ford Field - 2:40 PM - ICE
Seattle Jewel @ BC Grizzlies - BC Place - 2:40 PM - ICE
- Game of the Week -
Chicago Enforcers @ Toronto Icegals - Rogers Centre - 5:10 PM - ICE (National WFL Overrun Game)
Arizona Desert @ California Quakes - Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum - 5:10 PM - ICE
WFL Sunday Night Football
Colorado Boulders @ Australia Aussies - ANZ Stadium - 10:07 PM - PDN
WFL WEEK 11
Sunday November 10, 2013
- Early Games -
Dallas Cowgirls @ Miami Sharks - Marlins Park - 12:03 PM - ICE
Tampa Sol @ Minnesota Americans - Metrodome - 12:03 PM - ICE
- Afternoon Games -
Chicago Enforcers @ Detroit Fury - Ford Field - 2:40 PM - ICE
New York Hitters @ Quebec Nordiques - Olympic Stadium - 2:40 PM - ICE
Arizona Desert @ Lake Erie Harmonies - FirstEnergy Stadium - 2:40 PM - ICE
- Game of the Week -
BC Grizzlies @ Toronto Icegals - Rogers Centre - 5:10 PM - ICE (National WFL Overrun Game)
California Quakes @ Colorado Boulders - Sports Authority Field - 5:10 PM - ICE
Monday November 11, 2013
WFL Monday Night Football
Australia Aussies @ Seattle Jewel - Safeco Field - 9:07 PM - PDN
