2.7 billion watched FIFA's Club World Cup?

FIFA claimed 2.7 billion people tuned in to this summer’s Club World Cup, but what is the truth behind the numbers? In this episode of StreamTime Sports, co-hosts Nick Meacham and Chris Stone dig into the reality behind FIFA’s staggering stats, DAZN’s billion-dollar gamble, and YouTube’s live NFL broadcast. They also unpack which metrics matter most for streaming, what Apple’s next move in Formula One could mean, and why Pluto TV is betting big on handball.

 

Key Points:

• Can FIFA’s claim of 2.7 billion Club World Cup viewers be trusted?
• Has DAZN’s $1 billion investment in the tournament paid off?
• What did we learn from YouTube’s live NFL broadcast of Kansas City Chiefs vs. Los Angeles Chargers?
• Which metrics matter most for live streaming compared to linear?
• Does it make sense for Apple to acquire Formula One’s U.S. rights?
• What makes Pluto TV’s handball deal a smart play?

Episode Transcript

(00:04):
Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the next episode of
Stream Com Sports. My name is Chris Stone.
I'm the community lead, joined as always by our CEO, Nick
Meacham. Now, Nick, even the most
experienced of veterans can still make mistakes sometimes
when they're getting back in thegroove, just like Joe Burrow in
Week 1, taking a little bit of time to get warmed up in the
season. I'm the same way with my fantasy
teams. Nick.
We're recording this on Friday morning which meant there was

(00:26):
the Thursday night fantasy or Thursday night NFL games.
I woke up about 4:00 AM this morning Nick and my first
thought was oh shit I forgot to set my lineups.
I had no clue who was playing Thursday Night Football.
I had no idea how many rosters Ihave potentially ruined.
I did wake up this morning to see who's the Packers and the

(00:47):
Commanders and realised my lineups weren't that bad, but a
very Ricky mistake by myself going into Week 2 and forgetting
to set my Thursday lineups before going to bed.
This is the problem with fantasysports because I, I do really
enjoy them, but I, I don't have too many problems with the NFL
because it's a condensed season,relatively speaking, compared to
every other league. But the Premier League is the

(01:09):
one I always fall foul of where I miss one or two windows
because obviously sometimes the week starts at different times.
And then it's like, it's been like, yeah, then now I'm like,
I've now pushed myself way down the pecking order because I
missed. I missed subbing out a couple of
players and I just lose interestalso because the season is so
ridiculously long. It's of 4038 weeks or something

(01:32):
for the Premier League. Yeah, tricky.
I got a little bit draft happy, I should say this year with all
the ease of access of drafting teams.
So I have way too many now to worry about, but only really a
couple that I'm that are important to me.
The rest are just very easy to sign up to.
And so those ones I'm not reallypaying that much attention to,

(01:54):
just checking once a week to make sure that I've got people
starting in the right places. But my dynasty teams and and our
sports pro competition internal one.
Maybe we should do an industry one ourselves for, for the
stream time membership audience.Please let us know if you would
be interested in that. We might look at starting
something up next year. We could do something that we

(02:14):
can set it up. So Nick, I don't know how
familiar you are with memes or how familiar some of our
audience are with memes. I very much love memes.
But there's one meme that goes around Nick.
It's basically in the back of a school bus.
It's the same guy. One of them's looking out
towards a rainy cloud and he's very sad, and the other guys
looking out over the mountains in this beautiful sunset.
He has a very happy face. I don't know if you're familiar

(02:35):
with this meme, Nick. If not, I'll send it to you
afterwards. But basically it's sort of what
you're saying on the side that looks really happy, it says
drafting in 70 fantasy draughts,everyone loves a draft.
And then the guy that looks really sad is having to do
waivers and set 70 line UPS is very sad.
So yes, everyone loves a draft. It's good, really exciting.
But then the actual week to weekmanagement, it's like we're on

(02:58):
the team, right? Yeah, yeah, definitely.
When you start to get a little bit too draft happy.
I have not reached anywhere nearthe extremes of that chap
though, that's for sure. But probably the benefit of the
Premier League's current model is that you just pick one team
and you that's true, that's it for the but is there anyone else
that does a fantasy competition for Premier League or for
football? I have seen UEFA in the World

(03:20):
Cup do some, but I've not seen anyone run any licencing
unofficial. I mean, you might actually.
I know which one you're going tosay.
I would say don't give me down that rabbit.
Don't give me down that rabbit hole, Nick.
Are you still so raring? So raring that's.
Really, I, I am, I am still so raring on those who don't know
So rare as a Web 3 fantasy platform.
I think it started just around COVID lockdown.

(03:42):
Everything was jumping off like crazy.
I think they're like five years and now.
But yes, I'm still on So rare. The the game is slightly evolved
and change, but they've got licences with all the five top
leagues in Europe, lots of the, you know, Bundesliga 2
championship. They do things with FIFA when
the World Cup comes around. Yeah, still on there, still

(04:05):
loving it, still enjoying it. Anyone that's interested in Web
3 and fantasy wants to learn more, drop me a message.
It's all good stuff and it's certainly more financially
accessible now. Nick.
There was a time when in Boppe was selling for like £1,000,000,
kind of the way board apes were,but now you can get an imbabe
for something closer to like 100lbs so it's a little bit more

(04:27):
accessible than what it was whenI first joined the platform.
So what happens there? Are you bidding?
Are you in a league? Are you, is it a like a salary
cap style like the Premier League version of it where you
just have a sub amount of money to spend?
How does that work to pick your team?
So you can buy whatever players you can afford, whatever you
want to do. Some of the financially afford

(04:49):
not within their salary cap. It's basically how much correct,
Correct. Yeah.
Yes, yes, yes. But they, they do have certain
game modes where there's a cap. So for example, they average
your players score over 15 weeksand they might say you're going
to enter 5 players, you have a cap of 260 points.
So, you know, there are some competition modes where if you

(05:11):
wanted to put early and Holland and Bape and all the big hitters
in there, you can aren't usuallythe tournaments I enter because
those are usually what they refer to as the whales.
I tend to swim in the waters where they have the capped modes
where there's a little bit more strategy where you can't just
buy your way in, if that makes sense.
So they do have different tiers depending on like what level you

(05:32):
play at. And they have some competitions
where it's limited to Premier League players only.
Some of them are under 20 threesonly, some of them are what they
call challenger. So it's like they're the AC, the
Belgian Pro League. So they've got different mixes
and matches depending on what your flavour is, what your
budgets are. I just really like fantasy
sports. I've only ever found one of the

(05:54):
fantasy set of fantasy sports I really enjoyed and that was the
NRL in Australia because it had a nice mix of again, it's the
stats they can use. So like in the NFL, it's very
delineated with the the stats that you can use to measure
yards made and passed and touchdowns, etcetera, all very
lines with the sport pretty wellas well in in the NRL, it's

(06:19):
there's tackles, there's broken tackles, there's assists,
there's tries, there's a whole bunch of different stats that
you can get points on. What I don't like about say the
the Premier League is you could have an incredible game but
still not get any points. And that's that.
I think that that feels like that model just need something a
little bit extra to be to be a home run.
But anyway, we're not here to talk fantasy sports, although

(06:42):
probably on a future pod. Yeah, maybe.
Maybe on a future pod, but as you say Nick, we are going to
move on to other things today. There's going to be a little bit
of review, some stories that we've covered in the past and
we're finally getting numbers onthose.
The first one we're going to start with and we'll stick in
the world of football and socceris around the FIFA Club World
Cup, which was we know had the broadcasting rights with the

(07:04):
zone, although there are multiple different sublicenses
across different markets with that in there.
And we got numbers, Nick, and I would say in what may be
stereotypical FIFA fashion, the numbers they produced are big,
just like their expectations fortheir media rights were Big.
Lots of numbers that end or start with AB, not an M, So not,

(07:26):
we're not talking millions, we're talking billions in many
cases. What was it, Nick?
Something at least 1/3 of the world apparently engaged
something like that. You, you had all the numbers
written down your LinkedIn post,but do you want to perhaps go
through some of the numbers thatwere reported and then maybe
give a little bit of what you actually think about those
numbers? Yeah, OK, let's, let's, let's

(07:48):
just rattle off some numbers foryou.
So in their their data they share they've got 2.7 billion
viewers reported now and before we go any further on that one,
initially when you hear the numbers on views, if it was
views different ball game, but they're talking about fans, they
say 2.7 billion fans I think in the the article.

(08:09):
So for me that delineates definitively that it's unique
individuals that they're talkingabout there, right.
Revenues they've talked about over $2 billion was the numbers
flout floated around tickets they sold two and a half million
which averages out to 40,000 permatch.
There was 458,000 audience on average in listening to the

(08:33):
watching live in English and 597,000 in Spanish shows.
Again, the power of the Spanish speaking audience out there.
I mean, look, ultimately there was a bunch of other numbers
they said that they ran through on on their release.
But the main thing is then I went down a bit of a rabbit hole
to go, all right, well, how doesthis 2.7 billion fans view the

(08:57):
World Cup number compare to their other big competitions?
Right? Because that's ultimately how
most people would compare and think about FIFA because 2.7
billion is a pretty ridiculous number in by very stretch of the
main. So I went through a bit of a
rabbit hole. Do we want to go down the rabbit
hole now or do we want to? Yeah.
OK, So I went and looked at the numbers that they'd shared in
previous reports. So there's 5 billion people

(09:20):
engaged with the FIFA men's World Cup tournament in 2022.
I checked last last count there was about 8 billion people in
the world, 1 1/2 billion people watched the final and almost 6
billion social media engagementswith a 262 billion reach for the

(09:41):
men's World Cup, which equates to about each person in the
world being reached to 33 times.I'm back.
Stadium attendance was about 3.4million for that event.
I'm now going to the women's World Cup.
The women's World Cup 2023 was in Australia and New Zealand.
They say the 2 billion were engaged globally, so .7 lower

(10:03):
than the number they shared withregards to viewership of the
Club World Cup, which is interesting.
And to they say the 2 million was the amount of people that
went to matches live in Australia.
Although I found a report by infrastructure.gov dot AU, which
is basically the Australian government who said close that

(10:24):
was close to 1.3, which always really is gives you a little bit
of a an alarm bell how the numbers can be so so far apart.
But anyway, so you look at thesenumbers all together again,
there's some new ones. Maybe it's intentional, maybe
it's not. I think it's possibly
intentional, but in that one is 2 billion engaged with it, then
the other one was 2.7 billion fans viewed some form of media

(10:51):
and the other one was 5 billion engaged with the tournament in
some way. So they're just like slightly
different phraseologies which make it again more confusing.
But to give context of all thosenumbers I gave, here's what
they're suggesting is based on these numbers and based on the
minor assumption that number of fans and number of people

(11:12):
engages effectively the same type of statistic.
If you compare the Club World Cup with the women's World Cup,
it means the Club World Cup by their metrics was viewed by 35%
more people and was attended by 25% more fans.
And the men's World Cup obviously is the bigger
tournament, but the scale of theaudience and reach there was 54%

(11:36):
of the men's World Cup and achieve 73% of the live
attendance. Now, like I, I don't have any
way of like justifying my thoughts here, but I just can't
see a way how those numbers can back can be backed up properly.
And maybe they are they're true in some way.
And and ultimately this day and age, the consumption of sports

(11:57):
media is going up and up and up because the consumption of all
media is going up and up and up.So, and this report they
produced was done by Nielsen. In this instance, they've made a
point of stating that. So the number is backed up by
one of the most credible sourcesin the industry.

(12:19):
But I, I think we've come to a point now where like, how far do
you go? Do you say, can you really
seriously say that one tournament is being watched by 5
billion people you're engaged with in some way?
I, I don't know how many people don't have access to the
appropriate technology across the world, but I'm guessing it's
going to be close to the number that didn't.
So they're assuming that every single person in the world that

(12:40):
has access to a smartphone or ATV has basically watched it.
That's basically, I mean, where else do they go for the next
one? I'm very curious to see what
that number looks like in, in a couple of years time or next
year. So I, I, what I, I'll stop there
and I've got some further thoughts, but what's your
initial views on that, Chris? I only have anecdotal thoughts.

(13:00):
Again, I'm I'm not Nielsen, I don't have access to the data.
And maybe people are just liars.And again, it's a small portion.
And The thing is like my circle is pretty much UK, America.
There's a hell of a lot of people that live in, you know,
Asia that I have no clue. But the amount of people I saw
spoke to people that are close that I know are sports fans that

(13:23):
are like, I literally didn't watch a single second.
Again, we're talking about dropping droppable water in, in
the ocean sort of thing. But if these are people that are
super hardcore sports fans, they're like, I didn't watch it.
There's a bit that's difficult. Like, and who knows, maybe you
know, India and China, they loved it and they were all over

(13:43):
it. But it, I don't know, it just it
feels, it feels high. Well, look, I'd say a couple of
things on that. So this 2.7 billion number that
they've shared, this is an engagement number.
Now, this is the problem we havein society and indeed with
social media, because what wouldhappen is, Chris, you may have
not have watched a live single second of live content, but I

(14:04):
bet you were served at some stage, some content.
You may have scrolled right past.
You may have scrolled past immediately that you count as a
metric there. And that's the tricky conundrum
we're in this now. Does that, does that mean is
that seriously valuable to, Oh well, I've reached 2.7 million
cumulative. Have you though?
Have you really, if the people that are actively moving away

(14:25):
from your content, does that count?
And apparently at the moment, this day and age, it does.
And that is the bit that is really difficult to digest.
And particularly because it's such a club.
It's a club based competition. I spoke to countless people
about this and like, if my team's not in the competition, I
do not care at all about this tobegin with.
Never cared before. I definitely don't Care now, but

(14:47):
what I would say, I would caveatwith all of this, it's like, I
think just the notion of saying those numbers is, is bad.
But I do think fundamentally there's a lot of very good
people at FIFA and I think they have done an incredible job at
getting the visibility and getting the content out.
And likewise at the Zone. I think they did.
I, I have, I've only heard positive reports out and we've
covered it. I think the net result I would

(15:09):
say is it's been a success for them from a visibility
perspective. If they were able to attribute
some of that billion dollar investment into that.
I think they've won out that their, their brand is now much
more known as a result of it. They have got some stats they've
shared on their own channels with regards to viewership
increases that they're really happy with from a design
perspective specifically. So I think the zone will, I'm

(15:33):
not sure if the billion dollar investment was worth it.
I, I, you know, there's, I've seen some of the, the, the, the
commercial deals that were done for rights.
And like, have you seen this coverage about there was a, a
case where it was between the zone and I think it was South
Korea. One of the broadcasters doesn't
remember. All right, so, so do I, I'll go,

(15:56):
I'm segwaying slightly, but I'llhopefully try and get us back on
on track. So there's basically there was
this case that's been decided and effectively what had
happened is a meteorites deal had been agreed between the zone
and between a South Korean broadcaster via WhatsApp.
And it was just all messages between Andrea Redrazzani, who's
named in it, who I've talked about before.

(16:19):
He's the ex founder of 11 sportsmedia, MP and Silver and is
still on the board and, and shareholder of the zone.
And he's been acting heavily involved in all these sorts of
media rights deals with legacy partners they've worked with
over the years. And so there's a, there's a
whole, I've looked at the whole filings, the rulings and
everything and you can see the whole WhatsApp conversation.

(16:41):
It's quite incredible to have a read through it all.
And basically they'd agreed a deal and then what had happened
was in writing. So basically it's like, all
right, we'll do this deal for 1.4 million U.S. dollars.
I can't remember the exact number, but it was about that
level. And, and then someone came in
and gazumped them and offered itthrough another channel, offered
way more money and basically went to court to go, well, what

(17:05):
was that agreement on WhatsApp? Was that sufficient to define a
deal or did that is it not enough for a deal and is it was
illegal for them to move on fromthem?
And basically, I think the zone,I think the zone lost that deal,
which which sets a massive precedent.
So basically a WhatsApp, you canagree a contract and it's it's
contractually blind binding. As soon as you say yes, we'll

(17:26):
accept it, even if you haven't received all the teasing
conceives in a major contract, which I think is is absolutely
mad. But anyway, I digress.
The reason I brought that up is funny.
Firstly, I wanted to talk about that at some stage because I
think it's just hilarious if youwant to go to a bit of a rabbit
hole and just see how interesting the dialogue is to
get that deal done. It's worth a little, worth a

(17:47):
little read through. But my point is that market
South Korea is a decent sized country, decent sized market.
The deal is worth about a million for the rights, roughly
million, million and a half. We're getting to a billion
return is going to always going to be a tricky ball game.
So we all know the legacy history of them getting that
deal and then the surge investments and everything else

(18:10):
behind it. So my point here with all of
this is that I still think the people at the Zone should be
happy with what they've delivered.
I've heard things from differentsources that it delivered better
than expected results for them in terms of engagement, sign ups
to the platform, etcetera. FIFA, the people who work at
FIFA should be really thrilled with what I think, what the the
end result was given all the negativity around it.

(18:32):
But I just think when you start seeing these numbers go around,
ultimately it just takes the edge of the credibility of
these, the performance of these initiatives.
And I don't know how to solve itthough.
I don't know how you get to a place where because everyone
does it, everyone does it. Like we're going to talk about
NFL and YouTube now they're evendoing it to some extent, like
everyone is trying to play this smoke and mirrors game with

(18:54):
numbers. It's not just FIFA, but it's
just it's something you now expect from them, which is a bit
of a disappointing situation, but it is very consistent, like
bigger is better in this industry and that's why our
social media is playing such an important role to tell these
stories about enormous audienceslike 200 and 6062 billion reach
for example. Yeah.
Well, you know, let's let's justsegue into it.

(19:14):
You know, we talked about the NFL last pod.
We talked about the day that we were recording.
It was going to be the the live stream of the YouTube game
between the Los Angeles Chargersand the Kansas City Chiefs.
Love to see the Chargers win. Let's go, you know, anything to,
you know, hurt the hurt the Chiefs.
But those numbers, they come out, Nick, you know, top line

(19:35):
summaries. Some.
Yeah, good numbers, not great numbers.
I think there was some interesting things that came
out. Some people seem to be
surprised. Maybe we shouldn't be surprised.
In particular, the domestic versus international viewership
thinking that game would be freeto air and easily accessible by

(19:55):
YouTube did not seem to necessarily equate to more
international audiences. Like I said, we can debate
whether or not that was unfounded to expect those
numbers to be different and. I don't know, Nick.
Did I see they didn't pass any numbers about what I show speed
did, did they? And this is, this is the really
interesting thing. So I went down and made a rabbit

(20:16):
hole to find them. So yeah, I mean, for, yeah, for
context, those numbers were, if you want to talk about them,
basically no, no numbers I couldfind on any of those alternative
broadcasts at all. And they never even mentioned
them in any of the updates, which I find very baffling.
Yeah. Well, I think what I saw stat
wise is they were saying there was on average 17.3 million
viewers. For context, that is more than

(20:36):
the 14.2 million that was on Peacock last last year for the
same game in Brazil. And for further context, it did
not pass the number one streaming game, which was last
Christmas's NFL game, which is on Netflix, which was just over
24,000,000. So it's not the lowest by far,
but it also did not reach the Netflix level.
Again, I think there's arguments.

(20:57):
I mean, it's Christmas, everybody's at home, whereas
this was on a Friday night. You know, I don't think it's
purely an apples to apples. There could be logic and reason
behind that. But the other point I made of
that 17.3, it's put at 16.2 million was in the US with only
1.1 million and the rest of the world, which again, I think we
can talk about whether or not that was there was an

(21:20):
expectation of that should have been higher.
Maybe it was overstated, maybe the time zone played it an issue
in that, but I'm not sure I've seen people surprised at how low
the international number was. And to your point, I haven't
seen anything about what what happened on Isha speeds,
concurrent stream or anybody else's.
There's, there's loads in this, there's loads in this.
So I want to take some time to sort of go through it because I

(21:42):
think there's some questions that come out of it.
And there's also for things for the rest of the world to think
about, particularly the rest of the industry to consider.
But firstly, let's start with aninternational number.
Like I've looked at it since I posted something about this and
we had a bit of a breakdown on that.
So important to note that Canadais was not available.
It was not available in Canada on YouTube.

(22:03):
So they lost they lost that audience.
And in Brazil itself, which is apretty big, you know, couple 100
million population, I think if I'm, if I'm correct, they have
cars ATV available there. And I did check their feed and
there they have, I'm guessing it's because I have a defined
rights deal in place for those rights.
They still had the game available to watch on Casa TV

(22:25):
channels and that was a 9.4 million alone.
But they don't mention that number at all these numbers
because that's not part of this official YouTube NFL
relationship. It's a separate rights deal
altogether. So that this little 9.3 million
number sitting on the side there, which is, is pretty
significant, I think. But is is lost in the
conversation because, you know, it's not something that that the

(22:47):
NFL or YouTube is really talkingabout.
And I think that's rightly so. But because obviously the Calzo
TV number would probably happen anyway.
But my point is that you wouldn't see any Brazil tuning
into the NF LS broadcast if theycan get access to the Calzo TV
one. Now one of the things I think's
really interesting to to think about this is they're using an
AMA. So average minute audience,

(23:08):
which is what's consistently what Netflix and Peacock and
other streamers are using. But my theory here is then
there'll be some people that will debate this, but YouTube's
now risen to to sit as #1 as a streaming platform now,
particularly in the US. But my theory here is still that
YouTube's audience still moves around the platform just way

(23:32):
more than they would on any of the others.
My thinking here is that the Netflix audience, for example,
those 26 and a half million, those people probably stayed on
the platform for the bulk of thetime, watched it end to end in
theory. But with YouTube, I think that
that audience would have been way more in and out.
So you would have potentially had, I don't know, two to three

(23:55):
the times the amount of people going onto the platform to see
the YouTube feed of content, butthen just maybe moving on to
something else. So the what would you call the
deviation of audience would probably be much more up and
down than it would be for those platforms.
And I think that's pretty significant to think about if my
theory there is true. And I can't think of a reason
why it wouldn't be like who no one typically sits on one piece

(24:18):
of content on YouTube for four hours, right?
Like that's not that the platform ways.
People will tell you that peoplego onto YouTube to watch long
form and and so forth. And they do to some extent.
But a four hour stand alone sit and watch is not the same as you
would expect a Netflix or Peacock.
Especially when you think when we talk about football, the
reason it makes as much money asit does.
Lots of stops and starts, so or the halftime break or things

(24:41):
like that. Like if I know that there's
going to be a delay in the game for whatever reason, like, yeah,
at your point, I might jump off and go do something else in the
meanwhile. Exactly.
I mean, that's that is inevitable.
And it's also interesting that YouTube did their own type of
broadcast production here. I heard some people say they got
a little bit too youtuby with it, but I didn't see enough to

(25:01):
to determine that because basically I was able to find
access. Yeah, I'd even be able to find
access to it anyway. So I just think this, well, the
jury is still out is to know thesignificance.
The numbers are I think underwhelming.
YouTube will tell you they brokea rope, broke a record in
concurrent views and and they delivered it fairly seamlessly.
There's been next to no feedbacknegatively on the actual

(25:22):
delivery of the stream itself, but I just think I would love to
see more detail. I would love to see, OK, what
sort of demographics are we talking?
How long were people actually staying on the broadcast?
There's just so little detail listed there.
And in fact, as I said before, you couldn't find any of these

(25:43):
alternative feeds and they made,no, they've made no mention in
the releases afterwards, yet they made a big deal of them
beforehand. I'm just a bit lost as to what's
going on there. Yeah.
And I, I think what would be interesting is what if this was
on a what? This is the Thanksgiving Day
game. What if this was the Christmas
Day game? What if it was just a regularly
scheduled Sunday game? Because again, I do think there

(26:06):
is something to be said about the fact that game would have
kicked off. Unless you are a Chiefs fan or a
Chargers fan that happens to live in Europe or Asia, you're
probably not waking up to do that.
Whereas I think the Christmas game that would have been one
PM, 4:00 PM local time, it's sixPM, 9:00 PM in the UK, far more

(26:27):
accessible. So I would be curious to know
how much that impacted, particularly from the
international side. Like you said, like Canada's not
a small market to to lose out on.
So I don't think all hope is lost.
I think there's still more testing to be done and I think
numbers could have been improvedfor fairly simple reasons.
And I do think it is important to state, Nick, like I simply

(26:47):
just not screwing it up. It's important as well.
Like we've seen other instances trying to do a live stream and
it doesn't go well. Like as as hard as it is to
build trust, you can lose it very quickly.
So I think there is something tobe said about just getting it
done right. Yeah, I, I already completely
and I think that's probably one of the reasons $100 million
investment in these in these rights is a relative drop in the
ocean for YouTube. So maybe for themselves as well

(27:10):
as as much about testing their capabilities of delivering a
speed and, and, and scale such as this through their own
channels. But I obviously naturally was
most interested what they would do with it commercially and what
audiences they would get. And that stuff still is clouded
in a bit of uncertainty. Now.
I, I do think your point's pretty really important that

(27:32):
like internationally, which has been the biggest surprise I
think for some people is that was only 1.1 million.
And look, yeah, it's the time zone is the timing and the time
zone is a big problem, is a big thing.
You know, if they run it as an early game or as a lunchtime
game, like let's say they pickedone of the London Games in the
UK and then play that one at a much better time zone, you would

(27:52):
see those those numbers skyrocket, I think by 234X
easily would be my guess, particularly because it would be
accessible to Asia as well. So lots, lots.
I guess I feel a little bit not let down, but I feel a little
bit not really. I was getting pretty pumped like
thinking this is going to be they're going to come and show

(28:13):
all these numbers and these numbers are going to blow
everyone away because you'll have the collection of these all
these alternative broadcasts on top of the base broadcast.
But it's like, maybe I'm I'm sure it's intentional.
Maybe YouTube wanted to be compared against those other
streamers. Maybe it was intentional that
they wanted to go, we're going to talk just average minute
audience and be compared to the other streamers because they

(28:34):
want other rights owners to think like that and talk about
us like that and not talk about us like we're still this
glorified social media platform,which obviously they're not.
But you, you, you might get my point.
So, ah, yeah, I'm still left a bit UN UN.
What would I say? Unhappy is not the right word.
A bit like a bit unsure what we really learned from this

(28:58):
experience, though. I'm sure YouTube learned a
truckload about platform, about what sort of revenue they could
generate, what audiences they can move, etcetera.
Let's just say I'd be surprised if there weren't more movies in
the future. That's just my that's just my
good feeling. The shoes really lot of.
Money on the on the measurement I should say is I wrote it on
the the post of it as well that that there was a bit of also

(29:20):
coverage in the news prior to the game and a lot of
unhappiness from various media outlets because Nielsen did a
special custom analysis for the YouTube game and didn't compare
it to its standard TV rating. So maybe that is one of the
reasons they've used A2 traditional AMA in this
instance, because they basicallyhave taken a bit of a shortcut
there with with how the numbers have been measured and the NFL

(29:45):
pushed back on that. They argue that there's millions
of viewers being systematically undercounted by Nielsen's
approach in this instance. So Nielsen couple a lot of
grief, but they are still the the the benchmark for this
industry. And until someone comes up with
a better approach, I guess that's what we've got to rely
on. Yeah, well, like I said, I'm
sure we'll find out and learn more.

(30:10):
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(30:52):
Try Lucid Link free today at lucidlink.com and make remote
collaboration feel local. Next story Nick when it came up
a couple days ago and is off theback of more news.
It's not necessarily directly streaming related.
The first bit of news, which is long time chairman of Tottenham
Hotspur Daniel Levy has stepped down.

(31:14):
That has led to lots of speculation about the club might
be up for sale and other ramifications of when a long
term chairman steps down. But one thing that has happened,
Nick, and you can correct me if I pronounce this wrong, but they
have agreed to receive 90 million upfront from MC Mccary,
Mccory, McCrory, McCrory. McCrory, McCrory.

(31:34):
Yeah, yeah. Pronunciation is not really my
thing, but they are going to receive a 90 million exchange or
90 million upfront in exchange for future broadcasting rights
income. Then there is some nuance and
some of what that means. So, Nick, I don't think this is
the first time we've seen this. I think most famously we've seen
this with Barcelona as they've been trying to pull various

(31:55):
levers to try to meet financial ramifications to being able to
register players. But I can't think of this
happening taking place in the Premier League yet.
But you know, Nick, I think we've talked a little bit
sometimes about private equity and its role in sports.

(32:15):
Has it worked? You know, I think some of the
stuff we we've talked about Lee Goon, whether or not the the
private equity they receive, people are necessarily thrilled
about. There's been stuff with rugby as
well, but now we're seeing it with Tottenham.
Maybe the argument is the Premier League, it really is too
big to fail. But there's also, you know, pros
and cons for Tottenham about getting the money up front of

(32:36):
what does long term, but it is specifically in regards to their
media income moving forward. So that's why we're going to
wrap it into stream time becausethat's what we talk about, Nick.
We talk about sports media. So with this particular story,
Nick, just what kind of stands out to you about it?
Well, yeah, it's just the fact that it's such a short term,
it's basically just a bank loan and the bank loan and the

(32:58):
guarantee is the media rights revenue that they set to receive
in the coming 12 months. They've basically taken a short
term loan to pay off their transfer bill, which is massive
debt. I think it was like €150 million
or roughly was the number that they'd spent is what I've read
somewhere. I haven't seen that validated.
And so they've just taken a short term loan to pay off this

(33:19):
this debt, they've got it outstanding.
And the reason I think it's justinteresting is, yeah, I don't
think I've seen too many examples of this getting out
publicly that a Premier League club has used it for such a
short term nature. We have seen a couple of
examples of where meteorites have been used as the guarantor
for certain types of investment deals and getting longer term
loans, though Barcelona is a great example.

(33:41):
Part of the CVC deal with a Ligais also relative is related to
media rights revenues from memory as well.
But it just it really shocks me and surprising me that we're
still in in this phase that these these clubs, these
massive, massive clubs still need to take short term loans
like this. It just it doesn't feel right.
I'm sure it's fine. I think it makes probably a lot

(34:02):
of sense actually and probably some just some smart financing
to not pay lofty interest rates from getting a massive overdraft
for a period of time. But we have to take short term
loans just to pay off a transfer.
And this is all happening at thesame time.
Their chairman's now leaving, leaving the club or stepping
down immediately. It's just not really good optics

(34:22):
I think for for the club and indeed for the league who is
under intense scrutiny as to howit's being managed financially
to begin with. Because it's being managed with
the mindset of we don't need to be profitable because our values
are just going to keep growing and growing.
But if we're getting to a point now where we have to start
taking short term loans to pay the bills, at what point is that
the value growth curve just really going to start going in

(34:44):
decline? So it's just not good for
optics, I think for the league if anything.
Well, I think it's also because those that don't follow the
Premier League, they have PSR, which is profitability and
sustainability sort of regulations and make sure that
clubs don't go bankrupt because it's not necessarily kind of the
true franchise model you see in the States.
And you we've seen football clubs in the UK basically go

(35:07):
bust because they were just spending more money than they
actually had. And PSR, depending on who you
ask and who's impacted by it, will tell you it's about the
long term sustainability of clubs.
Some will say it limits some clubs, but none the less, these
are the types of things that perhaps they're going to have to
get creative about. You know, Todd Bowley and
Chelsea, they've been criticisedfor selling a hotel to write off

(35:28):
some of Chelsea's debts. Man, U gotten some Flack about
selling their women's team to clear the books.
There's a lot of things taking place.
And to be honest, Nick, I'd be shocked if we didn't see more of
this, if this is a way to potentially navigate the waters
that PSR have created. Yeah.
I would say actually that this because it's so short term, I

(35:50):
actually have less of a problem with it in isolation than the
longer term. Are we going to get a few 100
million and it's going to be paid back over the next couple
of hundred, a couple of couple of 100 years, a couple of years.
Because again, I just think you'll take, it's basically you
are taking an active bet on yourclub's future right then and

(36:11):
there. And if you get it wrong, then
you leave them in a massive holefor years to come.
Barcelona is the best example ofthat by absolute mile.
But you think about it like the in context again, we'll go back
to American sports and their useof draft picks and so forth.
You see the same sort of thing, right?
We're a club will decide, right?We're going all in.
We're going to spend our draft picks to pick up this star

(36:32):
player, but they have to pay a massive salary.
And if they get it wrong, they haven't.
That means within the coming years, no, no young talent
prospects coming through and then they've got to start
building for up another way all over again.
And it just feels like that that's almost like the Premier
League's version of this a little bit is like we're taking
a short term bet to get these extra new players in to try and
see if we can spark the club into performance.

(36:55):
And hopefully we're not putting it in too much jeopardy for the
long term. But I just think now they've
done it, yeah, you could see a couple more clubs do it and then
it could just go from a small 6 month window like this is to a
year or two years and three years, and then we'll see a few
more clubs in trouble, I think. Yeah, and we won't say way too
far, Nick, because we could talkabout the NFL allowing private

(37:16):
equity and, you know, minority stake ownership.
You know, I think the whole private equity thing, whether I
agree with it or not, probably just going to be more common in
general. But that that's a whole can of
worms, Nick, that we can probably save me to an entire
podcast on as opposed to trying to give our answer in, you know,
30 seconds. Well, the, the, the, the, the
interesting thing that you have to consider with private equity,

(37:38):
and I think it's some people whodon't follow finance wouldn't be
too aware of this. And I'm not definitely not an
expert, but I've just had a lot of conversation with people over
time. Is the one that you have to know
is that when with private equitydeals, when private an investor
comes that's got a host of different investors paying money
into this private equity fund ishow the the fund actually makes

(38:01):
its money. It isn't just from whether
there's a in that's a return at the end of the campaign, they
also get fun. They also get a return basically
on the transactions themselves. So what you can see happen, I've
heard of some instances of this,I've been given some examples.
Whereas basically you'll see an organisation that's, I'm sorry,

(38:23):
a private equity investor buy a property, let's say it's a
sports property in this instance.
And the only person they're going to be able to sell it to
is another private equity investor because they will only
be the ones willing to do that deal.
Basically on on the notion that both sides will get some sort of
transaction return off the back of doing that deal.
Even if most people be like, I can't see how they got to that

(38:45):
number, but it's in everyone's best interest to keep commerce,
keep the private equity economy ticking over.
Everyone gets a little bit of extra money as a result of it.
So it makes it very tricky to determine whether some of these
investments are sound investments or again, just
another version of kicking the can down the road a little bit.
Well, next story we'll talk about Nick is 1.
We, we have followed there's, there's just still smoke at this

(39:08):
point that we've, we've not located the source of the fire.
But speaking about Formula One, we have talked about their deal
is coming up to an expiry with ESPN.
It's worth noting that current deal is worth 85,000,000 per
year. They reports have said they're
looking to try to essentially double that number, looking at
getting, you know, upwards to 150 million a year.

(39:31):
We've heard different rumours, different sources, Netflix, NBC.
But what we have heard or recently heard was the talks are
advanced for their new US broadcaster.
Not specified who those advancedtalks are with, but rumours seem
to say that that might be Apple.So, Nick, it's been a while

(39:54):
since we talked about F1, but itis something we knew was coming
up because that expiry date and it sounded like ESPN.
Was unlikely to match their demands and there were questions
about whether their demands weretoo high.
The next set of questions are should they chase the big
paycheck and go with a Netflix or an Apple who may not have the

(40:16):
media capabilities that ESPN does to promote Formula One or
take a cheaper price for someonethey can talk about them long
term. So I guess, Nick, we're a little
bit closer. It seems like the winds are
blowing towards Apple. What do you what do you make of
that? Well, I don't think do we ever
talk much about the Formula One movie at all.

(40:37):
We, I think we referenced it when we were talking about the
rumours of where Formula One might end up next and we sort of
said they've had success with Apple off the back of the movie.
So it would suggest that, but I don't think we talked too much
about the movie specifically. Well, I thought it's just to go
good to go back to that for a second because I think it's all
linked, right? Because Apple was involved so
heavily with that and the fact that the there was much made of

(41:02):
the fact that they have basically sold an incredible
amount of sponsorship for the actual movie itself, which was a
huge bank roller for it. Any guesses how much that movie
is made approximately so far? In terms of just profit or just
OK? I'll give you a tip.
I'll give you a total revenue opening weekend.
It did 144 million in its opening weekend.

(41:25):
So I was going to say 250 million is my guess.
The reports here are that it's at 600 million worldwide.
Blew me out the water. Yeah, crazy numbers.
When you think about how how significant that is and if that
number is accurate that any numbers that have come here
through a quick search. But then you with all these
numbers we're talking about herewith regards to these media

(41:48):
rights. Well that is the value of the
media rights for the whole cycle.
If they get the deal they want in for a four year cycle and
it's all wrapped into this one Formula One movie.
So just interesting. I think compare that with
everything else that's going on.I have to say that just
generally going back to this story coming up again through
different sources, I just think that basically Liberty Media's

(42:09):
and maybe F Ones media sales teams are working very hard to
use the media to try and generate more competition and
interest in these rights becausethere's no way it just keeps
coming up this often a similar version of the same story.
Unless they're pushing it hard. Not not I don't I'm not buying

(42:30):
the smoke and fire analogy here.I think it's that they are
pushing it hard to get that message out there, particularly
after talking to some media experts.
Just they just think that the valuation they're after is is
just mad. Now what they can do with Apple
is not only is that traditional meteorites deal, which I'm still
sceptical of its value unless they wrap the F1 TV product in

(42:52):
it is also that is Apple ready to roll it all together as part
of basically her sponsorship deal like F1's the best in the
business of doing big tech sponsorship arrangements and
agreements, right? Are are they able to wrap this
into something much more than just a full blown meteor rights

(43:12):
deal including perhaps Formula 1/2 as in the sequel to the
Formula One movie wrapped in together?
I just I think this could end upbeing if Apple do are seriously
going to be in this but the dealwill end up being much more
comprehensive and not look at all like a meteorites deal is my

(43:32):
my guess. I can't see anyone bid out
bidding them except maybe the big spenders are paramount now
within your ownership. After what they spent with UFC
it would make a logical they want to make another big splash.
This is a very cheap splash in comparison.
No, that that's a good shout. I hadn't thought about that, but
I like it. Man, they're gonna keep talking

(43:52):
about Netflix, they're gonna keep talking about Apple,
they're gonna keep talking abouteveryone.
But ultimately those rights, they the, even the numbers that
are being shared in the industryand both from what I've heard
and what they're sharing, they're not big numbers, but
because it's Formula One, because their business model,
because they're global basically, and their business
model isn't just built around media rights, it still feels

(44:13):
like a really significant deal for them to lock down and get
the right media partner whateverthey do.
But this makes me think of Nick is like, I'm almost a little bit
jealous because in the UK we've talked about this, it's Sky
Sports, it's it's TNT and designer trying.
And there's some other things like we don't get Paramount
versus ESPN versus NBC versus Fox Sports versus Netflix versus

(44:35):
YouTube. Like just feel like we don't get
these heavyweight fights. Like this is enjoyable talking
about who's going to get it. Well, The thing is, we've had
them. They're just that that Sky
knocked everyone out along the way.
Basically. They've come and they've gone.
There's been a lot of contenders.
Have I told you the story about how when BT Sport popped out of
nowhere in the market and certain executives at Sky were

(44:59):
very clear to us, they did not want to be in the same room with
them. And it was very, it was just
just after they'd launched and and mopped up the Champions
League, right. They were not too happy about BT
Sport arriving on the scene and were not too keen to be at the
same event involved from a speaking perspective at that
time, which are. But after that, they obviously
they made life hard for each other and then got a lot closer

(45:22):
together. And now the market tension is
now not what it used to be. But then if you go back to the
legacy of others that have come and gone, So Tanzer and ESPN in
the UK, they've all tried to have a crack at Sky and they've
all lost. There you go, come for the
champ, better not miss. Well, who's next though?
Who? Who?
OK, let's let's play a bit of hypothetical.

(45:42):
Who should have a crack at the UK next?
A serious crack. Well, I'll be honest with you,
like I just love free to air butI know it's not coming from BBC
or Channel 4. ITV.
I want free to air stuff. The only one I can think of
that's free to air is YouTube, but we've talked about them
quite a bit. But I don't see them getting in
the the Premier League game because I feel like if you're

(46:04):
going to come for it, like it's got to be the Premier League.
Like it's just so much ahead of everything else from a priority
perspective. It's sort of like, you know,
zones have done some nice thingsin the UK, but they don't have
the Premier League. So like I don't think they're
considered that heavily over here.
And I just, I feel like if you don't have the Premier League,
you can't be taken seriously. And I just don't know who's

(46:26):
coming in for that. I, I, I don't know either to be
honest. And I, I think because Sky's
business is so built up in this,the bundle approach, the telco
layer 2 at the cable offering aswell as the pay TV part and
they've done all these deals, they've been so smart at getting
all these domestic deals. Well, they basically own
football in the UK. It'd be very difficult for them
to RIP that out of Sky. The Premier League and Sky, as

(46:50):
we've talked about before, are the best, best of buddies for
various reasons add to this point.
But I would love to just see someone throw an absolute cat
amongst the pigeons and come up with a big massive offer to blow
Sky away and then throw throw the market into disarray for a
while. But I still think Sky will hold
on for a while. But then when you see what's
happened in Sky in Germany with Sky Deutschland selling, you

(47:13):
know, Comcast ain't afraid to move on because the markets
market dynamics have changed. So who knows, maybe someone will
come and buy buy Sky. Who knows, Like maybe because I
know who was upset at the time, Sky was upset when Chelsea
wanted to put Paramount Plus on the front of their jersey
sponsor. So I know Paramount, maybe they

(47:35):
have international plans one day.
You just talked about they got some new, new deep pockets, you
know, maybe that maybe that's where it is.
Maybe I mean just Segway Chelseaon Chelsea's shirt front of
shirt deals, they had Paramount Plus and that was it on Infinite
Athlete. Is that still on there?
I don't know all. The only thing I know is isn't,
I mean, FIFA's going to catch a stray here.

(47:57):
The only thing I know it's on the front of their jersey is
that absolutely ugly, like champions logo.
Like I get it, like memory of being the world champions, but
my gosh, it is an eyesore on that jersey.
It's that that I know we tend tobe objective, Nick, but that is
my subjective opinion about the State of Chelsea's jerseys at
the moment. Yeah, I haven't seen, I haven't
paid much attention to how they look, but I don't think anyone,

(48:19):
the fact that let's not let's not go down the rabbit hole
there with the Colonial Cup, Let's let's move on because
we've we've given them enough airtime.
Yeah. The last story we'll wrap up on
today, Nick, we're going, we're going to your end.
We're going, we're going to Sweden and we're going to talk
about a deal there that maybe maybe other people won't pay
attention to. But it is a big deal in Sweden.
And you're going to tell us why it's a big deal and what it
means. And I think it's also
interesting because of who they've chosen to partner with

(48:42):
just kind of based on their their business model is doing
something slightly a little bit different.
And that is the Pluto TV in Sweden has secured exclusive
Swedish broadcast rights to the European Handball Championships
in European league. It may not be a big deal for us,
but apparently in Sweden this isa massive deal.
And then like I said as well, Pluto TV is not one of your

(49:03):
traditional, you know, big, big businesses traditional.
So like that it goes about it inits own way.
So, Nick, tell me why this is a great story.
I mean you, you built it up quite a lot here.
I don't know if it's a massive deal, but it's, it's a deal that
is interesting I think for a couple of reasons. 1 is that the

(49:24):
Swedish market I'm still coming to grips with a little bit.
But basically there are, it's very established in a very
traditional kind of model of thebig.
It's the bundles from the various big players basically is
what governs where most of the rights are sitting currently.
So most of the major sporting events will be on most one of
the major pay providers. So your via plays and your

(49:45):
Telly's etc. Or that might be with one of the
major free to air broadcasters like SVT or TV four.
And for handball's like one of these sneaky big sports here, it
gets a lot of coverage when it'syou know, when it's the the
European Championships and the World Championships.
And I just think Pluto coming toplay here, a fast platform, you

(50:10):
know, a fully ad supported available on basically all
streaming. So all smart TV's these days,
picking up a pretty decent set of media rights with some major,
which houses some major Swedish players in the competition.
It's a club tournament, club competition.
It's just something to pay attention to more for the wider

(50:31):
industry. Is Pluto now finally going to
start picking up some more rights again and playing that
free and AD supported card to make the most of those rights
investments? Because otherwise it was just
staying with the incumbents in markets like this.
And that's why there wasn't, again, not a huge amount of
competitive tension in in Swedenoutside of like Disney Plus

(50:52):
doing a couple of small minor deals, but they were very minor.
So I think it's just something for us to pay attention to more
than anything is, is Pluto TV going to start making a few more
strategic investments across sports rights in other European
markets as they try and build their struggle hold of the fast
ecosystem? Well, you mentioned because

(51:15):
you've been to a couple different events in Sweden that
Sweden actually has a very high propensity for streaming and
smart TV. So something like fast maybe
more accessible in other markets.
Because I think think to your point, I can remember the Sports
for New York event two years ago, we were kind of
highlighting fast as something we thought could be, you know,
an impactful game changer, partly because we believe in how

(51:36):
impactful the advertising model is.
But it feels like it's maybe notpicked up as much steam or kept
some of that momentum we thought.
So to your point, seeing it picked back up, you know, not
that it, you know, don't call tocome back.
Been doing it for years, I believe is the quote.
Like, it's not that, you know, the fast model has just died
off, but, you know, maybe, as you say, just something to pay

(51:58):
attention to in the background. Yeah, I think it's something to
pay attention to because it is aset of live sports rights going
on to a more general, general platform.
They're creating a handball channel, I think, as well as
part of that look, I mean, and Ihave seen.
A couple of announcements. Of other FAST channels being
launched again, as we're gettingseeing a bit more of that come
to the fore. I think what ultimately has

(52:19):
happened over time is within theFAST space is that those that
have launched platforms have done so with a pretty low key
sets of rights. I haven't really tested anything
of it with any significance. It was actually an interesting
experience when I finally unpacked we, you know, in our
house, we finally unpacked our UKTV and I had to reset it to to

(52:43):
get all the Swedish channels andstuff on it and to see how many
more TV, more sports apps were available than I had understood
on my Samsung TV. And there's such a weird mix of
people with fast channels on there.
You're talking fast channels andOTT platforms generally, like
from Tier 2 Spanish clubs through to Red Bull to everyone

(53:04):
else in between. So I'm just curious to see
again, is it another basically, is another player going to be
able to find a way to make fast viable for the investment of
live sports rights? It's another signal.
There's another small signal that more opportunity is being
made available or sorry more there's more interest and
consideration about using alternatives outside those

(53:27):
traditional partnerships. If you can't get the deal you
want to. Not YouTube but in this instance
looking at fast and Pluto is oneof the best in the business of
it. Absolutely.
Well, it is something we'll continue to follow, continue to
cover, and thank you once again,everybody, for joining us for
another episode of Stream Com Sports.