• The director of Colorado Parks and Wildlife, Dan Prenzlow, is on paid administrative leave after directing a racially charged “Back of the Bus” comment toward a Black employee.
• The Gallery Sportsman’s Club & Range just opened in Lakewood, and it combines a gun range with a … wait for it … full-service bar. Genius!
• The U.S. Department of Agriculture has declared Colorado a “primary natural disaster area” due to our decades-long drought. The move “qualifies farmers and ranchers for emergency loans to recover damages from the ongoing megadrought.”
  • Meanwhile, Denver appears likely to record less than a trace of snow in the month of April for the first time since 1992.
• Allegations of inappropriate behavior against actor Bill Murray have shut down production on the film “Being Mortal” starring Murray, Aziz Ansari and Seth Rogen. Murray has a long history of allegedly abusive behavior on-set.
• Two co-founders of the Black Lives Matter Global Foundation Network and BLM Los Angeles used $6 million in donations to buy a southern California mansion.
• Lawyers for the L.A. Times accused L.A. County Sheriff Alex Villanueva of “abusing his official position” when he publicly alleged that one of its reporters was under criminal investigation for her coverage of a police brutality incident. Villanueva quickly backtracked and claimed he didn’t make the allegation despite video of the press conference during which he said it.
• After a press conference this week by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), media briefly reported that radiation levels at the Chernobyl nuclear site were “abnormal.” That was concerning given the recent occupation of the facility by Russian military forces. However, media almost immediately corrected those reports to say that the official who provided the information actually said – with a heavy Argentinean accent – that conditions were “at normal.”
• Is the U.S. economy headed toward a major recession? Deutsche Bank says yes, while Goldman Sachs says maybe.
• A family of American tourists sparked bedlam at Israel’s Ben Gurion Airport when they went through security with an unexploded military shell they had found while touring the Golan Heights.
• Actor Jason Sudeikis is distancing himself from a process server who handed his ex-wife, actress Olivia Wilde, lawsuit papers while she was onstage at a CinemaCon event. A Sudeikis spokesperson said the “Ted Lasso” star actor “had no prior knowledge” that his ex-wife would be served there, and that “he would never condone her being served in such an inappropriate manner.”

So, who won the week?

• Vail Resorts announced that total skier visits were up 12.5% compared to last season.
• Peyton and Ashley Manning have established a scholarship endowment in Demaryius Thomas‘ name at the late Broncos wide receiver’s alma mater, Georgia Tech. Thomas passed away last December at age 33.
• Denver’s Willow Pill won season 14 of the VH1 reality series “RuPaul’s Drag Race.” 
• Music superstar Lizzo announced a concert in Denver this summer, and 9News noted that before making it big the Grammy award winner once lived in Aurora and worked at a local King Soopers.
• Interim president Todd Saliman was confirmed as the permanent president of the University of Colorado’s four-campus system.
• Even though Colorado law limits its liability, Denver Water said it will cover the cost of damage caused when its broken pipe flooded the Berkeley neighborhood.

Novitas Communications has acquired the CCO-CMO Roundtable from Westmeath Global Communications and 6×6 Careers. The roundtable is a quarterly, off-the-record gathering for senior marketing and communications professionals in Colorado, and membership is by invitation only.

Steve Barrett at PRWeek: “BCW calls it earned plus, Edelman dubs it earned creative, Weber Shandwick goes beyond public relations into marketing solutions, Ketchum talks about full-service marketing and communications, FleishmanHillard pitches full-service creative, Lippe Taylor proselytizes earned marketing. As PRWeek prepares to publish its seminal annual deep dive into the agency sector it seems everybody’s talking about this modern take on PR without actually calling it PR.”

“Peruse the websites of these august firms and you’ll struggle to find the phrase PR amid all the talk of ‘solutions,’ ‘synergizing,’ ‘holistic perspectives,’ ‘transformative outcomes,’ ‘pursuit of excellence’ and ‘human-centered thinking.’ But, however it is described, the Agency Business Report 2022 will show that whatever PR has morphed into is extraordinarily compelling and crucial for brands, corporations and organizations of all types. And … it has moved way beyond straight media relations.”

• It’s going to be hot, dry and windy today, so much so that meteorologists say that the wildfire danger in Colorado today is higher than it has been in a decade.
• The pandemic has caused a lot of collateral damage. In Colorado, that includes a 30% increase in both alcohol-related deaths and syphilis.
• Denver Public Schools board member Tay Anderson had his defamation suit against BLM 5280 and Mary Katherine Brooks-Fleming dismissed by a judge, and he could be liable for their attorneys fees.
• D’Evelyn Jr./Sr. High School named a man convicted of domestic violence as the sole finalist for its principal position. He quickly withdrew from consideration when media coverage caused a public backlash.
• The Vail town council said it was “ready to go to war with Vail Resorts” over a proposed affordable housing project in the town and then voted to condemn the land to prevent construction.
• With several key players injured, no one expected the Denver Nuggets to make a deep playoff run, but what has emerged has been a worst-case scenario: down 3-0 to the Golden State Warriors and at risk of being swept out of the playoffs in embarrassing fashion.
•  The conservation group American Rivers has ranked the Colorado River as one of the country’s most endangered waterways. The group says the river and its reservoirs are at record lows.
• Hyundai and its subsidiary Kia account for five of the six most-stolen brands of cars in the Denver metro area.
• The world’s No. 2 men’s tennis player, Russia’s Daniil Medvedev, and the world’s No. 4 women’s player, Belarus’ Aryna Sabalenka, will not be allowed to compete in Wimbledon this year due to Russia’s attack on Ukraine, the tournament’s organizers announced this week.
• Former Denver Bronco Von Miller is facing a “revenge porn” lawsuit alleging he distributed a sexually explicit photo of a former girlfriend to “two well-known celebrities.”
• A Kentucky business that was asked by an employee with extreme anxiety not to throw him a birthday party did just that and now has been ordered to pay him $450,000.
• It was a tough week for streaming services and shows:
  • Jon Stewart’s Apple TV+ show, “The Problem with Jon Stewart,” saw its audience drop 78% from its first to its fifth episode. The show now averages about 40,000 viewers, which is less than 5% of John Oliver’s similar HBO show.
  • Netflix lost 200,000 subscribers in the first quarter of 2022 and expects to lose another 2 million in the second quarter. Its stock has dropped nearly 70% over the past four months.
  • CNN is pulling the plug on its CNN+ streaming service just weeks after its launch.
  • The director of “The Chosen,” an online series about Jesus, has apologized for a marketing ploy that intentionally defaced billboards for the show. Supporters of the series blamed “everyone from Starbucks to ‘Democratic Satanists'” for the apparent vandalism.
• Lucky Charms … they’re magically litigious? The cereal manufacturer likely will soon be the target of a class-action lawsuit after dozens of consumers reported becoming ill after eating the breakfast cereal.

So, who won the week?

• Colorado Rockies pitcher Kyle Freeland signed a five-year, $64.5 million extension this week. Freeland is a Colorado native who played high school baseball at Thomas Jefferson in Denver.
• Meanwhile, it’s almost May and the Colorado Rockies find themselves second in the division and third in the entire National League.
• A beloved therapy dog, Spencer, has been named the official dog of the Boston Marathon.

“Warner Bros. Discovery has suspended all external marketing spend for CNN+ and has laid off CNN’s longtime chief financial officer as it weighs what to do with the subscription streaming service moving forward,” Axios reports.

Arianna MacNeill at the Boston Globe: “A new study from Harvard Business School suggests that when it comes to hybrid work, just one to two days in the office, on a flexible schedule, creates the best outcomes for employees and businesses alike. … The study found that not only were the workers creating more work products, they also showed ‘greater satisfaction,’ and ‘less isolation,'” according to Prithwiraj Choudhury, an associate professor of business administration at Harvard Business School.

Journalists responded to 3.37% of pitches sent by PR professionals in Q1 2022, according to a study from Propel. That is a single-digit decline from the 3.53% of pitches journalists responded to in 2021.

Propel recommends sending emails with subject lines no longer than five words and keeping the pitch between 50 and 79 words. And, while I’m not a journalist, I’m pretty sure they would recommend making sure the beat they cover is relevant to your pitch and to stop following up with variations of, “Just wanted to make sure you got my previous email.”

Syracuse University has finally extricated itself from one of the worst stadium naming rights agreements ever made. As bad as it was, the question is whether it was worse than the current Colorado Rockies’ deal.

The sports business publication Sportico reported, “Syracuse University’s iconic Carrier Dome is no more. The school has reached a settlement with Carrier Global Corp. to end the company’s perpetual naming rights deal for the football and basketball venue. … Thus ends one of the longest running and most sponsor-friendly naming rights agreements in sports history. Carrier gave the school a $2.75 million gift back in 1979 during construction of the building, securing naming rights for the lifetime of the venue. Forty-three years later, the Carrier Dome is among the most recognizable buildings in college basketball and college football. … The dome would likely command upwards of $3.25 million per year on the open market.”

Meanwhile, Denverites may recall that Coors got a sweetheart deal when it received the permanent naming rights to the Rockies’ stadium when it invested $30 million in the ownership group back in 1991. Coors later sold that ownership stake in 2013 for an estimated $75 million, but that transaction did not affect the naming rights agreement. So, Coors actually made $45 million “buying” the permanent naming rights to Coors Field.

My back-of-the-envelope calculations say that Syracuse left about $45-50 million on the table with its deal, while the Rockies have missed out on about $35 million. However, Syracuse’s deal has now expired while the Rockies’ continues. With naming rights valued at about $4 million per year (the Pepsi Center’s deal is for $3.4 million annually while Empower Field is $6 million per year), the Rockies will officially become the worse deal in 2025.

• The Colorado Association of Realtors predicts that the average single-family home price in Denver may reach $1 million by June.
  • That probably seems like a bargain to new Broncos QB Russell Wilson, who along with his wife Ciara just dropped $25 million on a new house in Cherry Hills.
• Meanwhile, Denver was ranked as one of the five least affordable cities in the country, behind only San Francisco, San Diego, Los Angeles and Miami. That clicking sound you hear is millions of local millennial and Gen-Z renters Googling “trendy, affordable cities.”
• The organizers of the Cherry Creek Sneak, one of the metro area’s oldest and largest running events, announced this will be its final year. Event director Pat Downing said registration numbers “fell off a cliff” following the pandemic.
• The EPA is attempting to reclassify nine Front Range counties between Fort Collins and Castle Rock as “severe” violators of federal ozone standards.
• The Colorado Rockies’ commitment to owning fourth place in its five-team division is impressive. An analysis of the values of MLB teams was released this week, and the Rockies placed fourth in the NL West at $1.4 billion, ahead of only the Arizona Diamondbacks.
  • And, this week, Thrillist ranked the food at all 30 MLB ballparks, and the Rockies once again placed fourth, this time behind the L.A. Dodgers. The publication noted the stadium’s Rocky Mountain Oysters, plentiful microbrews and the Helton burger as the best options available.
• CNN launched its CNN+ streaming service to great fanfare several weeks ago, and it is already flopping. The network planned to invest approximately $1 billion in the service over the next four years, but low adoption rates – reportedly fewer than 10,000 viewers per day – have caused CNN to significantly lower both its investment and subscriber projections.
• NFL quarterback Cam Newton has a history of making ill-advised comments, and he stayed on-brand this week when he complained in an interview about women “who can’t cook” and who “don’t know when to be quiet.”
• Amazon announced it is adding a 5% “fuel and inflation surcharge” for third-party sellers who use the site. For those keeping track, the online retailer reported profits of $33.4 billion in 2021.
• It was not a good week for male actors. Cuba Gooding, Jr. pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of forcibly touching a woman at a New York City nightclub in 2018 and “Game of Thrones” actor Joseph Gatt was arrested for allegedly engaging in sexually explicit communications with a minor.
  • Meanwhile, Frank Langella was dropped from the Netflix show “The Fall of the House of Usher” after allegations of on-set sexual harassment and “Saturday Night Live” cast member Molly Shannon revealed that she was sexually harassed by the late “Diff’rent Strokes” actor Gary Coleman.

So, who won the week?

• The University of Denver Pioneers won the NCAA ice hockey championship, tying the record for most all-time ice hockey championships with the University of Michigan at nine.
• DIA ranked as the third-busiest U.S. airport in 2021, and was one of only four in the world to serve more than 50 million passengers.
• Jerry Schemmel returned to the 850 KOA Rockies broadcast after a two-year absence. Schemmel was laid off in 2020 as part of 900 jobs cut by iHeartMedia.
• University of Colorado interim President Todd Saliman was named the sole finalist for the permanent position.
• Shortly after NFL legend Tom Brady announced his retirement in February, an anonymous bidder won an auction for the football that Brady threw for his final touchdown pass. Twenty-four hours later, Brady unretired. This week, the auction house announced that it has voided the auction and the “winner” doesn’t have to pay the $518,000 bid afterall.

• An RTD bus became slightly stuck in a small sinkhole in Boulder this week, but you would have thought the consequences were catastrophic based on 9News’ click-baity tweets about the issue: “A bus was swallowed up by a sinkhole” and “Bus engulfed by sinkhole.”
• The City of Aurora fired police chief Vanessa Wilson, raising concerns in the community that the dysfunction that she inherited in the department will continue or even get worse.
• Deranged-billionaire-mad-scientist-frenemy Elon Musk has acquired a 9.2% stake in Twitter and joined its board, assuring future headaches for the leaders of the social media platform.
• Attorneys General in six states have sent a letter to the NFL expressing “grave concerns” about the way female employees are being treated.
• A bill in Tennessee would eliminate a minimum age requirement for marriage, which is presumably an unintended consequence but it is Tennessee, so who knows?
• Four members of the Secret Service have been put on leave following the FBI’s arrest of two men now charged with impersonating federal law enforcement in a scheme to get closer to the Secret Service detail protecting First Lady Dr. Jill Biden.
• A study has found that Instagram “systemically fails” to protect high-profile women from abuse.
• In a move that is being described by some as a “blame-the-victim” approach, The New York Times is encouraging reporters to “step away” from Twitter to avoid online abuse.

So, who won the week?

• Lydia Prado of the nonprofit Lifespan Local was named the 9News Leader of the Year.
• The Colorado Rockies may be an inept dumpster fire that owns fourth place in our five-team division, but one day a year optimism reigns: Opening Day. Everyone is a Rockies fan today.
• If you are a fan of road rage, good news! A new state law that allows bicyclists to roll through stop signs will no doubt further anger a subset of drivers convinced that bikes are the root of all road evils.

• Facebook may have rebranded as Meta, but some things never change. The Washington Post outed the company this week as being responsible for a behind-the-scenes smear campaign against competitor TikTok. The details are wide-ranging, but the bottom line is that Facebook/Meta remains evil.
• The City of Denver seems to have some ambivalence about “the Mayor of Pickleball.” Denver Parks & Rec filed a complaint with the Denver Police Department, and DPD arrested the 71-year-old man on charges of vandalism causing damage in excess of $10,000. The Denver District Attorney’s Office, however, is refusing to file charges and is encouraging mediation to resolve the issue.
  • Speaking of the Denver Police Department, Chief Paul Pazen has been mentioned as a potential candidate for Denver mayor, but you have to think last week’s $14 million federal jury judgement against the DPD for its handling of the George Floyd protests, combined with a recent brutal report alleging he was “paralyzed” about how to respond to the protests, has ended those ambitions.
  • Perhaps more embarrassing than the $14 million judgement itself was the Denver Police union’s response. President Nick Rogers, literally wearing camouflage cargo shorts and a beard bundled up in rubber bands, held a “press conference” alleging that downtown Denver would have been destroyed like Kyiv, Ukraine, if not for the heroic actions of officers.
• The Will Smith-Chris Rock “Slap Heard ‘Round the World” was an embarrassing situation on all fronts, and there were three clear losers: Smith never should have gone on stage to confront Rock; Rock never should have made a joke about someone’s medical condition; and the Academy never should have allowed a comedian to mock one of its members live from the stage.
  • How bad was Slapgate for Smith? O.J. Simpson released a video saying that he thought Smith was wrong to have hit Rock.
  • Smith issued an apology on Monday, and if you were under the impression that Rock also issued an apology, you were duped.
• Verizon customers are getting spam text messages from an unlikely source – themselves.
• Hate groups remain prevalent in Colorado, according to a study by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
• If you had any doubts that wildfire season in Colorado has expanded to year-round, the December and now March fires in Boulder County and Estes Park should put that to rest. Can’t say I’m excited about what July will bring.
• The actor Bruce Willis has retired after being diagnosed with aphasia, a disease that impacts cognitive abilities.
• The St. Peter’s Peacocks were the Cinderella of the NCAA March Madness basketball tournament, but one week after losing to the University of North Carolina in the Elite Eight, Seton Hall hired the team’s head coach away.
• Denver’s street sweeping program resumes today, and it is expected to generate about $7.7 million in tickets for Denver drivers who fail to move their parked cars from city streets on designated days.

So, who won the week?

• Colorado Springs was named ninth on a list of “best-performing” cities nationally, ahead of Denver which ranked 14th. The report noted that Colorado Springs is now a top destination for tech workers and recent college graduates.
• The public may be able to ride RTD for free in August under legislation working its way through the statehouse. The proposed pilot program attempts to address air emissions during Denver’s hot, often-smoggy summer.
• Young women are starting to out-earn their male counterparts in certain markets, reversing a trend that has existed since, I don’t know, caveman days. Women in San Diego now earn 105% of their male peers and those in New York City and Washington, D.C., earn 102%.
  • Locally, women in the Denver-Aurora-Lakewood geography earn 95% of their male counterparts, and women in Fort Collins earn 96%.
• The US Men’s National Soccer Team qualified for the 2022 World Cup, rebounding from their failure to qualify for the 2018 tournament.