ESPN’s big streaming swing & YouTube’s NFL game changer

In this episode of StreamTime Sports, Nick Meacham and Chris Stone break down a jam-packed week of developments in sports media. From ESPN’s long-anticipated streaming launch and Fox’s DTC entry, to YouTube’s first-ever globally streamed NFL game, they explore the major shifts reshaping media rights, monetisation, and fan engagement. Plus, they dive into EA Sports live-streaming MLS matches, the WNBA’s booming momentum, and Premiership Rugby’s £200M comeback deal with TNT Sports.

 

Talking Points:

• ESPN confirms a $30/month DTC bundle with Disney+, Hulu, and an AI-powered SportsCenter
• Fox Sports finally join the streaming wars - too late or just in time? 
• Could YouTube’s free global NFL stream redefine live sports broadcasting?
• Is the NBA helping or hindering the WNBA’s growth by bundling their media rights?
• Premiership Rugby secures a £200M deal with TNT Sports
• MLS and Apple continue diversifying distribution by live streaming via the EA Sports FC app

Episode Transcript

(00:09):
Hello everyone, Welcome back to the next episode of Stream TIME
Sports. My name is Krista.
I'm the community lead, joined as always by our CEO, Nick
Meacham. Now Nick, this weekend I went
for my first round of golf of the year.
I only started golfing last year, so I am still relatively,
you know, new to the sport, but I've woken up today feeling a
little, little sore. Golf, I think I've discovered,

(00:31):
uses some of those unique musclegroups you might not use in
anything else. Even if you're going to the gym
and you're bench pressing, you're squatting or something
like that. Just some of those smaller
muscles for that refined control.
So, you know, I, I don't care about the score because I knew I
was always going to be bad. But yeah, I'm feeling, you know,
for anyone thinks golf isn't a physical game, you know,
carrying a bag for 18 holes, I'ma little rough.

(00:53):
Yeah, well, I'll tell you what, when I when I used to go on
quite a few golf weekends with my friends and I would always
play really well round one. And then the round two, my back
was sore, my hip was sore and I felt like I was basically acting
like a 75 year old ready to put his feet up and never play the
the sport again after just one round of 18 holes.
Thought to one of our colleagues, John, I think he

(01:14):
might be this weekend who's actually playing in like 90
holes in five days or something crazy.
So that's something that I couldnever fathom doing.
And you know, obviously if you go to different countries,
there's different like etiquettearound playing golf.
So in the States it's really common.
And in where I was on the Gold Coast, there's a lot of resort
courses and you drive around golf buggies all the time that

(01:39):
you, you, if you're walking around sort of after 18 holes of
golf, driving a golf buggy for that 6 or 7 kilometres, then you
probably are need to do some training or get more active, I
would say. But for the carrying around a
bag on your back for that, for that stretch of time, it does
really creep up on you. So unfortunately, lifting
massive weights at the gym doesn't sort out the functional

(02:00):
stuff that you need as as much as anyone.
People, people might tell you. I've I've definitely learned
that the hard way. Well, The funny thing is my
father-in-law joined and it was 2 of my mates down here.
So they're about my age, you know, in their early 30s.
They're they're amateur golfers,right?
But like they're not bad either.But my father-in-law, you know,
coming up, I mean, he's got to be near 65 years old, still won

(02:21):
and beat the two young bulls. You know, they're trying to, you
know, hit everything. And, you know, they get a couple
good down the fairway, but something about just nice slow,
steady swing, just going to put it straight in the fairway every
time, you know, just walked awaythe winner.
Yeah, well, I mean, I used to work at a golf course and there
was a the most of the members were older.

(02:41):
So they was, it was quite a niceresort course and there was a
residential area. So people would drive their golf
carts up and play and most of them were 65 plus etcetera.
And they would just hit the balldown the middle and just go
drive sharp to the ball and hit it again up the middle.
And always be good for a a solidbogey every single time.
And, and, and get a couple puzzle on the way, never get

(03:03):
themselves in trouble and off you go.
The thing is when you try and when you're younger, you can hit
it further. But what happens when you hit
things further? You have more margin for error.
Things can go wrong just just asmuch as it can go.
This is go right, particularly with spin and so forth.
So those people have the nice little slow swings and just hit
the ball down the middle of the fairway.
I'm actually envious of them. I'm trying to get some lessons

(03:25):
and I was like, I just want to hit balls like that.
I weren't happy to lose 20-30 yards off my hit.
If you can just maybe hit straight like, no, this day you
got to swing faster, swing harder.
And ever since then it my, my margin variety has gotten worse
and worse and worse. So if I play a golf course with
lots of trees, I'm absolutely screwed.
If I play a course that's like quite open, it doesn't have
many, many, many well matured trees along the side of the the

(03:48):
fairway, then then I've got a good chance of actually shooting
a decent score. Because I've I'm I'm seen to
have a really good correlation between hitting on the other
fairway and hitting it back overonto the green for a for a nice
power of birdie rather than doing it straight down the
middle, which is not the optimalway and I've copped a lot of
grief over time because of it. Yeah, well, I'll, I'll keep you
updated how the summer goes. But, you know, my general goal

(04:11):
is to leave the golf course withas many balls as I started with.
So I don't tend to lose a lot ofgolf balls, but that's good.
When I do, I usually at least find one or two in the trees
when I go out searching for it. Yeah.
Well, hey, that's a, that's a good, that's a good scorecard if
you can come back with as many as you started with.
I remember playing a golf courseonce down in I think South

(04:32):
London and they have really longrough, but couple times a year
they'll cut the rough short. And we happened to time that
like the day after they cut the rough and the rough goes from
being, you know, a foot, a foot thick to basically being a
couple inches. And there were hundreds of golf
balls we found along the way that we were like just mopping

(04:53):
up along the way. As we finished our round, we
ended up with each of us like 30-40 balls each extra that we
like. Well, some of them weren't very
good, but we're like, hey, we'lltake what we can get.
So that was as profitable aroundas I have played in many, many
years. So if you're really smart and
you're really like saving some money, go find out when the golf
courses in your area when they're cutting their their
rough, maybe you'll have profit on some extra golf balls.

(05:16):
It's just great idea, Nick. I'm gonna have to think about
that. But Nick, moving on to business,
it was a busy couple of weeks since the last time you and I
have done a bit of a news wrap episode.
And some of these are ongoing stories which, you know, I've
mentioned before it. It is a nice sort of thing,
Nick, that we've been doing thisfor so long now that there's
this continuous stream of news stories as they come along.
And I think perhaps the biggest one is we're finally getting

(05:39):
more concrete information about the launch of ESPN's direct to
consumer streaming service. It feels like we've been talking
about this for some time. There were some curveballs in
there with venue sports and other things, but we finally
have, you know, fall of 2025. There's prices around it.
There's the select plan, which is 1199 a month, which is for

(06:00):
ESPN Plus content. So I think it kind of keeps the
status quo. But the new announcement for the
unlimited plan is, you know, $30.00 a month or three, $100
for the year, which includes allof ESP NS linear channels on
ESPN and ABC. There's different features being
added in there. You know, they're going to talk
about how to try to monetize things through e-commerce, their
ESPN, that sports book. The one I'm personally really

(06:20):
interested about, Nick, because I've always talked about this is
we've also talked about an AI personalized Sports Center.
You know, growing up, Sports Center was a great thing.
You woke up in the morning, you watched.
I probably watched it 2-3 times,even though it's the same
highlights before everybody got into big debatey, yelly shows
and just to be highlights. I'm very interested about this
personalized sports centre. But you know, Nick, ESPN is a

(06:42):
leader in the space. When they make moves, other, you
know, things tend to follow. So now that we're finally
getting more and more details confirmed, sort of what's your
take on this latest round of announcements that we have?
Well, it's good to see that it'sfinally here because by far ESPN
has the best array of rights in going globally for a sports

(07:02):
broadcaster, sports platform andfinally being able to see this
all come to life in one single destination is a really exciting
proposition. So I'm really excited to see how
that plays out. I'm intrigued to see how things
like the ESPN BET integration works because that's been
something that we've seen a number of other major platforms
try and failed basically with. If you think about Fubo TV, you

(07:25):
think about, I don't know that they would say it's a failure,
but I've not heard anything really coming out of the zone
around their design BET proposition.
And in fact, you know, the, the,the ultimately the idea that a,
a, a broadcaster platform can create a better fan bedding
experience than some of the major incumbents have been doing
it for such a long time. It's quite a bold shout.

(07:47):
But to see if that can actually be something that really does
move the bottom line for them will be interesting to see.
And just to see how big the uptake is.
Obviously this is the transitionplay for their cable business
and now they've finally got themselves ready to do so.
I'm just intrigued to say how strong the adoption really is.

(08:09):
I feel like it's it's well priced.
It's it's pretty good value if you're a sports fan, like how
could you not consider if you'rea cord cutter?
So it's difficult to say to think of any reason why people
would walk away from say, say, accepting and adopting this
subscription proposition versus all the other places that you
might go for your sports rights.The other bit of it all is

(08:30):
really what happens with ESPN Plus as it currently stands
today, because ESPN Plus has been a product they've had in
market for quite a long time, had some pretty major sets of
rights and some pretty lower tier rights available in that
plus product. But really the plus product
wasn't a plus product. It was more of a a niche
product. It was probably closer to their
Deportes offering than it was, you know, the the T1 sports

(08:55):
rights and they they kind of like brought those worlds closer
and closer together when they put more, more UFC content on
their PGA Tour stuff. And that's probably a little bit
a bit of a knock on them to say it was a bit more like the
deport testing. But I think you know what I
mean. It was there was a more a wider
array of rights that perhaps aren't the big ticket ones as
part of it more than just havingthe big tickets alone.
That's what happens with that isit is it just part of this

(09:17):
select plan? And then, OK, then that's just
going to be this not really worthwhile having in.
I could see it disappearing in ayear or two.
They just probably don't want to.
They have to have something to facilitate that plus group for a
while before they want to just turn the crank up the price
three times what it is today andthen see what happens with those
those subscribers. So yeah, I think I'd imagine the

(09:38):
ESPN plus product will probably disappear over time.
I can't imagine why it would stay in, at least in its current
constructs. So yeah, it's it's about time,
that's all, that's for sure. Yeah.
And I think to your point, you know, it's not necessarily
saying the niche sports, things like that.
It's more just like a real estate thing, right?
Like if there's a linear channel, there's only so many
things you can choose to programon there.
And yes, there's ESPN, there's ESPN 2 and a couple side

(09:59):
channels. But you know, American sports
are on a Saturday in the fall. You could have the PGA Tour, you
could have college football, youcould have all kinds of things
on there. I think it's as much about just
having a place distributed when you have so much content as
opposed to necessarily saying it's a tier one or a Tier 2.
Well, I'm just really intrigued to see if ESPN becomes that
premier destination where I could see a world where you're

(10:22):
talking to top tier fans and that's the not the only app they
go to, but it could be the only app they go to if in some
instances where they just put ESPESPN on watch whatever's
going on the sports on the sports, the linear channels that
they offer. And if they want to go deeper,
they will have those of those available as well.
So I'm intrigued to see if it can be that they've got enough

(10:44):
breadth there to be the single destination that people are
hoping for. But it's a really competitive
market with pretty major rights at their their competitors as
well. So I just wonder, I really hope
it's successful because it will give a lot of buoyancy back to
the streaming market in terms ofinvesting in rights, I think.
But if it goes with a bit of a, it fizzles out a little bit and

(11:05):
doesn't really break bridge the gap that they're probably
looking for between, you know, the current cable revenues and
where the trends are going. It could really put ESPN under a
lot of pressure for the next meteorite cycles coming up.
Well, you mentioned earlier justsort of what's going to happen
to ESPN Plus in that lower tier price point going from 1199 to

(11:25):
basically tripling to to $30.00 a month.
I think it is worth mentioning that that $30.00 a month also
includes a bundle with Disney Plus and with Hulu.
So it's not necessarily that it's going to be exclusively
just the sports content. And you know, Disney Plus since
its launch, you know, a few years back is absolutely been
massive. It's not just, you know, the
kids cartoons anymore. I believe they actually bought

(11:46):
some stuff from Fox who will talk about next and some of
their original content where, you know, it's got the whole
Marvel Studios, all of Star Wars, lots of content on there.
So it almost feels like still even for $30.00 a month, if you
were going to, if I was in America where I could actually
get this package and I can get all of ESPN and I can get all
the stuff that sits within the Disney Plus and Hulu, like $30

(12:07):
still to me feels like a good deal.
Now the caveat is that's for thefirst year.
I don't know what the price is going to jump up to the second
year, but that does feel like a pretty good deal for all the
content that's in there. Oh yeah.
When you map it out like that, there is so much value in there.
And Disney, I think from memory,Disney Plus is right up there
globally is one of the leading subscription based platforms in
terms of number of subscribers, although they've taken a few

(12:29):
different ways to get to those numbers.
The price point is, is, is a bargain really fit for that
value there. The issue that I have, what I'm
intrigued to see is we're so focused on price around the
these types of bundles and thesetypes of subscription products
rather than the value that all comes together.
So I'll be interested to see howthey market this once the ESPN

(12:50):
is live. How heavily are they pushing
just the ESPN? Is that the primary messaging?
How much of it's Disney Plus andjust this bundle full access,
you get your best, the best of sports and entertainment all
together in one place and how that experience comes to life,
whether you're how seamless basically it'll be jumping from
platform to platform because I can't imagine you would have a

(13:11):
Disney plus button in ESPN, for example, and vice versa.
So I'm intrigued to see how all they they can approach that to
make sure they don't have too much friction involved in moving
subscribers from place to place because you'd like you said the
value is definitely there. And for some of those other
additional services, like you mentioned, the betting and the
e-commerce, the the the AI featured Sports Center, you

(13:35):
know, how much of those things really matter?
How much of them do you think are just a little bit, you know,
they're nice talking points? Or do you think that this is
going to be something because you and I think one of the
things we talked about is the lean in verse lean back
experience. Or are you anticipating this is
going to massively change people's consumption habits?
Or do you think, you know, just just put a put a thought out
there, Nick, Is it really going to be living?

(13:57):
No, I, I can't imagine it will be.
I think they'll make a really nice, they've waited a long time
to get this platform up and running right.
They haven't been a fast mover in launching this.
They've been patient probably because of the economics around
the cable bundle. Now, now that they are really
declining, now's the time to launch this product.
I think it'll be the primary focus will be just a really

(14:17):
seamless lean back experience, particularly on connected TV and
devices like that for, for the app for in in your hand.
I, I do think they want to make sure that is really all synced
up so the bedding part works really seamlessly without being
able to watch live in in the appif possible to make sure they
can bring those worlds as close together because that is their
USP versus all the other major bedding sites.

(14:40):
I still think it's, it's a, it'sa really tough challenge to
bring to that bedding part of the business into something
really profitable, sustainable, sustainable, because you might
generate, you might generate some pretty decent revenue maybe
from it. But that is you're only getting
a percentage of the, the turnover there on base of people
losing money on, on that proposition.
And I just think that's going tobe incremental at best.

(15:02):
I think some, there's different studies that have shown that
betting integration might, you know, be around 10%.
I think I saw a number somewherealong the line or that was
actually I think better people who are betting and streaming
sports. And I just don't think you're
going to massively bring people closer to the middle of that,
maybe maybe marginally, but I think it's they're playing.

(15:24):
I would just like to think see them forget that and just focus
on a really good streaming product with some of those other
features like AI highlights and those types of other things that
can really bring the platform tolife versus other, I don't want
to say gimmicks, but like other fan engagement tools, they might
have some incremental value at the time, but I don't think they
have. They're not going to be the

(15:45):
things that are the reason I'm subscribing to this platform
now. Yeah, that's that's probably a
good way to put it there. Now, you talked about ESPN not
being a fast mover, someone who's definitely not been a fast
mover in this space has been FoxSports, who for the most part is
sort of laid low and kind of letthe market do its thing.
But they've now come out now they've not released the same
amount of detail. ESPN has what they've at least

(16:07):
said that they're new FOX 1 direct to DTC.
And we'll have a conversation about names here in a second,
Nick. But they're going to launch
their streaming service and it will be out in time for the NFL
season, which is Fox Sports sortof crown jewel of their rights
package. But Fox Sports was someone that
was a part of the venue sports and that they didn't go ahead

(16:28):
given the the news with Fubo andthe injunction and all that
story that we covered in the past.
But now Fox is finally going to go and enter the the streaming
wars with everyone else. So Nick, you know, talking about
fast movers or slow movers, Fox has definitely been on the more
patient side of things. I mentioned before.
And you know, based on the article, I think they sold their
their studios to some of the other streaming services as part

(16:51):
of Disney plus for 71 billion. So even though they've not
launched their own streaming platform, they have been in the
background using their content to to get in other streaming
platforms. But now is the time they're
going to go and launch their ownD to C service, particularly
from a sports perspective. So, you know, talking about
being first to market, learning from others, however you want to
look at from that perspective. What do you take Nick on Fox

(17:14):
Sports finally jumping into the streaming wars.
Well, well, Fox, Yeah, Fox is going live, but it's not just
Fox Sports alone, but they this will be their their crown jewel
within that asset is the abilityto watch their live sports
product. No doubt also Fox News and alike
will be available on there, which is it's pretty synonymous
with being a place that a lot ofpeople, a different type of

(17:35):
audience loves to consume content in the in the state.
So no doubt they're targeting a group there that this will
appeal to. Obviously they've been very
comfortable waiting. And I think if you were to
reflect on how everyone's approached the market, you'd
have to put Fox right up there with being best in class and
being patient because so many people have lost so much money
along the way. But the question is, can they

(17:57):
grab market share now that they have been patient?
Others have lost billions to getgoing, but when they're now
trying to come into a market where with what Peacock has done
and achieved and scaled up in terms of its rights and all the
other ESPN's and all the others that exist in the market, can
they grab market share from someof those?
There will be definitely a core Fox audience that will sign up

(18:19):
to something like this, but they've been very happy to wait
for this while the cable bundle's been delivering huge
carriage fees. And no doubt because they
haven't pulled a trigger on someof these things, they've been
able to keep those premiums at areally high level, whilst others
have probably found it difficultbecause they've been creating
competitors for that very content.
So I think you have to commend Fox's patience before jumping

(18:41):
into this space. It'd be interesting to know if
they would have ever really launched this product with the
venue sports if if butts and wins of when that was
potentially coming to market. But they may have talked about
it, but I didn't hear about thatbeing a definitive move they
were going to make. But it just aligns very much
with what ESP NS doing. And Fox are doing the same
carriage the the cable bundles going down those those

(19:03):
guaranteed revenues are dipping.So they have to fill that void
and this is a natural step for them.
Well, I I just want to go back to the name Nick just for fun.
So ESPN just wanted to ESPN plusthe new streaming ESPN they've
announced is just going to be called ESPN.
I think there's some time for. It's just going to be ESPN.
And then I saw last week that 8 Max is now going back to HBO Max

(19:28):
because apparently, you know, yeah.
And now you know, Fox, it's justgoing to be Fox Sports, you
know, 1D to CI mean, I don't know if they'll have a different
name, but just just for fun, Nick, you know, we're sports
pro. We did sports pro plus, you
know, like what's in a name, Nick?
Sometimes these streaming services, it's it's Max, it's
plus. Just you know, what are your
thoughts? What's all in the name?

(19:49):
What's all in a good? That's a really good question.
I'd say that there's something in keeping your name as as it
was, I think from an IP perspective, and that's exactly
what ESP NS trying to do. They're just staying with, hey,
this is the single destination, the flagship of ESPN to go
download the ESPN app and you look at all the other platforms
that exist from like Facebook's perspective and and Twitter and

(20:12):
sorry, XI need to call that TikTok, etcetera.
They just call it one single destination.
It's all wrapped together and optimised experience and that
makes a load of sense. All these other names.
I mean I. I gave up a long time following
Warner Brothers Discovery's approach with some of these name
changes and things that they've done.
They obviously do not value IP at all when it comes to channels

(20:33):
and brand. The jury will be out whether
this this approach is, is basically the right one for them
to take, but I can't. I can't get my head around how
they haven't thought about that before.
They've launched these new brands and then you've got to go
sell that to markets who don't care about the story behind it
all. They just know a brand.

(20:54):
They kind of know what it does on.
It's on the tin. And I think that they'll just
lose. They have to be losing people
along the way. But they've been so focused on
getting efficient, cutting down their debts, and these types of
moves obviously have helped thisfor some reason.
But I can't work it out at all. I do think it was the right
decision in some instances with like TNT Sports or not being BT

(21:15):
Sport anymore because of the BT relationship and taking those
rights on, it wouldn't make muchsense for that.
But to jump between Max and HBO Max and then ATNT you, you start
losing people. And I even think with Fox 1, I
mean, Fox 1 sounds great, rolls off the tongue, but there's also
Fox Sports 1 and Fox Sports 2 and I think just gets a little

(21:35):
bit clunky when you start getting too crafty with names.
So good luck to them all. And if anyone is some sort of
brand expert can tell us which is the right of way to do it,
I'm all ears. And who knows, maybe we'll
rebrand our Plus membership product to Super Plus or
something. So who knows?
Or Square. Yeah, stream Time 1.

(21:57):
I like that. So next story, Nick moving on is
YouTube and they have now won the rights to stream a week one
game, the Brazil game, and this will not be a part of the NFL
YouTube package won't be on YouTube TV.
This is a true, genuine live streaming of the game on

(22:18):
YouTube's main channel, and it is a global deal.
It's going to be Week 1 and it'sgoing to be the LA Chargers
versus Kansas City Chiefs. So a good rivalry game, you
know, AFC West opponents. So, you know, it's, it's a good
match up. But Nick, I what I suppose is
interesting from this is anyone that's listening to the stream
top podcast for they know that we are big fans of what YouTube

(22:41):
is doing. We we are aware that they almost
have taken a different geographical approach.
I know where they are. You know, Rob Pilgrim talked
about, you know, YouTube TV. They don't see that it coming
over to Europe because of, you know, any different sorts of
types of factors and they're going to rely more on things
like prime channels. But YouTube does seemingly doing
more and more of this. What are your takeaways from

(23:01):
having this game and what it means, in particular doing it
from YouTube's main sort of, youknow, destination as opposed to
being on one of their more select or bespoke packages?
Yeah. I was really interested to see
this because it is taking a different approaches.
As you said, it's going for the traditional YouTube approach.

(23:21):
It's going to drive, try to drive engagement and then
revenue through a traditional, more or less traditional means,
which is advertising and advertising alone.
Now there will be other ways to amplify that and drive perhaps
in the US marketing towards their Sunday Ticket proposition
so they can try and market people from that platform, from

(23:42):
the live game to their premium, premium product.
But it's a global deal, right? They're going to be driving
advertising revenue across the world for these rights.
And you know, the suggestion is,and reports are that they're
probably going to be this deal probably worth well over 100
million U.S. dollars for one game.
Let's keep that in perspective. Now that's that's benchmarked

(24:03):
off where Peacock spent similar for for a premium Sunday game
last year, the year before, I think it was.
So they this, but this is a global deal, whereas that one
was at only US centred. So they've got to do a lot of
work to do to try and drive the returns on that.
But if anyone can maximize the value of streaming globally, it
is YouTube. So I hope they share the numbers

(24:25):
of how this performs in the future.
That will be a huge litmus test.And no doubt they will share it
if it's really successful for them.
To what's the extent is always up for question because if they
share too much, that makes it difficult for them to negotiate
down the line if it's a big success.
But the question is, can a matchlike this really generate that
sort of level of income if it's streamed at a global scale?

(24:48):
And the final bit I'm really intrigued to see is how they
bring the creator side into it for two reasons.
One, it's in Brazil. We've seen cars ATV success,
we've covered it and the pod which is being basically built
on leveraging YouTube as a platform for reach and
advertising and sponsored content.
And that approach exists in Brazil.

(25:09):
It's, it's somewhat coincidentalthat's in Brazil.
I don't know if that's how much that's going to mean that Brazil
will be saying the number 2 audience outside the US as a
result of that. It might, it might be the case,
but can they really, really drive those returns for a
premium product through basic advertising alone?
Because we haven't seen much of that definitely from the likes

(25:30):
of YouTube and indeed for premium sports rights like like
the NFL generally outside of your your traditional players
like Fox and ABC. So I really hope it works
because it could be opening the blood gates for more people to
look towards YouTube as a destination to do global deals
and also people knocking on YouTube's over to try and do

(25:50):
more meteorites deals inevitablyif this works as well.
So exciting to see if this playsout as well as I hope well.
I. Almost want to go a little bit
deeper on there, Nick. Let's let's put on our rose
tinted glasses and let's say it is a success.
Because we just talked into glasses because of my eye here
at the moment. That would would have been a
nice look for me. Yeah, well, you know what Nick,
fortunately, most people are going to consume this vibe

(26:11):
podcast and you look as beautiful as ever, so you don't
have to worry about it. But let's thank you.
Like I said, we've got these rose tinted glasses on.
Let's say this goes as successfully as it could do.
We've just talked about Fox and ESPN.
Those are going to be your subscription based services.
And, you know, we've talked about, we've had our friends on
it transmit talking about the future of advertising, say this
goes really well. Obviously things aren't just

(26:32):
going to shift overnight. There's long term deals in play.
Like it's not like one game is going to be a large enough case
study to just overturn the wholemodel.
But say it goes as well as YouTube hopes.
How could that start to fundamentally change the the
dynamic of what we've seen? You know, I even think here in
the UK, when people are just crying and complaining and
understandably so, having to subscribe to Sky Sports, TNT
Sports, Amazon to get only 48% of live games and pay £100 for

(26:57):
it. What could it mean if this goes
as well as, you know, YouTube might hope?
This might be too dramatic, but I do think it could completely
change the game because we've said for a long time, the whole
industry I think is really awareof this.
The challenge of the economics of sports today is that it's
been funded for the last 1020 years on pay TV platforms,
paying premiums to get live sports behind a paywall and

(27:19):
making people, forcing people tosubscribe to those platforms.
But if you democratize access, which YouTube is the best in the
world are doing and are able to maximise that to the value of
which you can drive enough return on advertising dollars
through their channels and through their different avenues
and means. And they will probably find
other ways to do special partnerships around the live
event experience to drive even further premiums out of

(27:42):
advertising partners. And that works.
And it's pretty close to and even just break even for them
that would be transformative forthe industry if they if they
share that inside or at least transformative for someone like
YouTube, say, hey, we can grab even more market share and it's
not going to cost us a massive lot.
Might be a massive loss leader. That is really, really

(28:03):
significant. If that's going to happen and
will I think get the whole industry much more excited,
pretty more excited like I am already today about the role
that advertising can play in enabling that.
If we can drive more premiums out of sport.
There is this, there is this tension or this still huge gap
between the programmatic world of really a race to the bottom
of a premium CPMS and AD clicks and so forth to drive revenues

(28:26):
through the automated approach and this very one to one world
of advertising that still existsat the premium end.
And if they can be the ones thatkind of enable that middle
ground where there is actually adecent return coming from those,
those live premium experiences through advertising related
initiatives, Oh, it would be an absolute game changer.

(28:47):
It's, as you said, rose tinted glasses.
That's the that's the blue sky, That's the the Holy Grail.
If it works. And then YouTube will just win
again. They will just basically be,
hey, we can do this for them. And this is on the most premium
set of content that exists. We can do it for anyone.
If you can, if you've got live sports to share, you know,
they've got tools and issues andAI tools where they'll be able

(29:08):
to drop their own ad breaks in throughout the whole experience
or in an automatic mated fashion.
I'm like, that's, that's the that's the Holy Grail.
That's where it could get to. Whether it gets there.
I'm I'd be shocked if it got there after the first one
because I'm there's no doubt a bit of a learning exercise.
Now remember YouTube's This is probably going to be one of the

(29:28):
I guess the most concurrently live.
Streamed. Yeah, live streaming events
they've had on YouTube for some time.
No idea to what scale, no idea how it's going to couldn't, it
couldn't work out the numbers. But if you think about what
Prime Video has been doing already in terms of some of
their numbers during the teens of millions happening and that's

(29:48):
behind the Prime paywall, you must be looking at some near
records outside of what's happened in India.
That's my guess. So they've got the tech, the
tech challenge to resolve. If anyone can do it, they can.
But they've also got this revenue gap, an opportunity that
I'm really excited to see if they can fill the void.
Well, as someone that would loveto personally see it, please

(30:08):
everyone TuneIn to to make it work so I can get more sports on
YouTube. I would love that.
But Nick moving on to the next one.
We saw the tip off of the WNBA season.
Our features editor, Sam Karp isdoing a series of content around
the launch of the new WNBA season.
So please do go check that out. I know he's put a bunch of work
in there there there's multiple pieces.
I even saw our friends at Ampereanalysis shared over some

(30:30):
information, but they have recently as part of the Nbas
media rights deal, the WNBA rights were packaged in to be a
part of that. So my understanding is that
those two deals are there was a part that was carved out
specifically going to the WNBA. Now, I think kind of the
interesting question here, Nick,is there are some that would
argue that that has limited the value of the WNBA rights.

(30:55):
Some might argue that being combined with the DNBA has
helped secure a higher rights because that's now sort of, you
know, put into the same package deal.
I think it's also interesting for people that don't know if
you don't, the NBA essentially sort of subsidized and helps
runs the WNBA. So it's not completely and
independently the way some others are.

(31:15):
But you know from your take Nick, with the WNBA, do you
think that relationship with theNBA has hindered or helped in
their their newest set of agreement rights?
Oh, it's a tricky 1. I can see both sides of the
coin. And there'll be, there's always
a lot of debate around this and everyone will quickly tell you
they should leave the WNBA to dotheir thing and negotiate their

(31:37):
own deals. And I do get that.
But I also think that the NBA can easily put a little bit of
pressure on those major carriagepartners and say, hey, just just
give give us a little bit more. It doesn't have to be a lot more
because the relative returns that WNBA can drive in isolation
will be marginal, but on the scale of those NBA deals, they

(32:00):
can squeeze an extra couple of percent out.
That is a real needle mover still for what the WNBA can can
deliver from a revenue perspective from any of those
meteorites partners they'd be looking to do a deal with.
So my, my gut feel is they wouldn't do it unless it was the
right approach. The only hesitation I have of
saying that is, is this the NBA trying to keep too much control
on the WNBA? You're not letting it get out of

(32:23):
let letting it get in the way. Or perhaps of the NBA because
they can dictate to the to thoseESPN types and those partners
about the types of coverage and so forth they get.
Because I imagine looking at some of the data I've seen over
the years, I don't have a lot ofnumbers to hand, but the WNBA
has actually performed really well, particularly last year
with Caitlin Clark joining the league with huge growth and some

(32:43):
of the meaningful games outdid the NBA in some instances,
right, In terms of visibility and and just ratings overall in
those instances. Now we have to put things in
perspective, right? The NBA season, 82 game season
plus playoffs, you're talking it's a massive slog.
There's a lot of content going on.
The WNBA season is much shorter and the Caitlin Clark effect,

(33:06):
will that continue for the yearsto come after the success they
had last year? I think it's only we've only
just started the season, so we'll have to see how that pays
out. But you'll definitely hear more
of that along the way. So I think the NBA wouldn't get
in the road. I think unless they felt it
worthwhile, I can't see why the NBA would basically let down the

(33:26):
WNBA's growth because they were trying to hold on to control of
basketball within the country. There's all.
They're already competing with the NCAA as it is.
It's a smaller competition and relatively the the revenues that
the WNBA are doing now are stillreally low key in comparison to
the NBA itself. So my conclusion is this is the
best thing for them at the moment.

(33:46):
They're able to negotiate a bit harder for the WNBA than the
WNBA can do in isolation, but that's from outside in.
Who knows what happens behind closed doors?
And typically like this represents a massive growth for
the WNBA. They're going to be bringing in
$200 million a year. From my understanding, that's a
250% increase from what they were previously doing.

(34:07):
So it is a significant deal. And to your point, Nick, like I
think there will be a time the WNBA can probably go independent
with these negotiations. But at this moment, given how
much talk there was going into this set of NBA deal, how big it
was going to be, you know, sort of the last of the American
deals that they need to be signed, it was a great time to

(34:27):
hop on that. But there is, you know, hope
moving forward. And, you know, I'll, you know,
speak for myself, make just my personal anecdotal story.
When I got on Twitter, it was completely blown up on Sunday
morning talking about Caitlin Clark versus Angel Reese.
I think it's great to have a rivalry.
Everyone loves a rivalry in sports.
You know, Tiger and Phil, you know, MJ had it with the Detroit

(34:48):
Pistons and you know, he had, you know, the multiple series
against the Jazz. It's always great to have these
rivalries in sports. So I do think it is interesting
some of the the data that came from Ampere analysis, which I
thought was interesting as they were comparing some of the
domestic fandom between sports or like a willingness to pay
between the WNBA with NASCAR andthe NHL and they're on par with

(35:10):
those sports in terms of where that fandom is.
I think one of the interesting points that Ampere put out
though, is those sports have been established for decades and
that despite the fact that fandoms on par, there's still a
degree with which you kind of need that longer term proof of
concept that it's going to work there.
But there's lots of reasons to be optimistic with some of the
young talent that's coming through the growth of fandom.

(35:32):
There is a moment to to break free.
And I'd also say, I think they showed the statistics.
I think the next closest sports leagues in WSL and it's around
50 million. So it's four times bigger than
the next domestic women's sportsleague in the world.
Like it's far and away the most popular, most lucrative domestic
women's sports league in the world.
So there are things to be positive about for them.

(35:53):
Oh, completely. And I just think you've got to
reflect on what we think the future of sports and sports
revenues and the business of sports looks like and his media
rights, the Holy Grail for thesesort of challenger sports that
are coming through. Or can they drive real value by
just building fandom through other channels?
Does it have to be the media rights check that is the great
saviour for them or the great growth mechanism?

(36:14):
Because many will struggle to see that in a lot of other
markets. US is a bit of an exception
still to date, but if they can keep growing their influence and
visibility on social. I have a similar experience
going on my various social channels and I kept seeing the
Caitlin Clarke, Angel Reese story pop up everywhere.
That exposure is driving fandom and interest in the sport and

(36:36):
will blow away a lot of the coverage.
I even saw around the NBA playoffs that are happening.
They're right in the thick of like Game 7 and I don't know who
won game seven last night, but Ido know that there's a lot of
coverage around Caitlin Clarke and and foul and Angel Reese,
which I think's a bit redundant,but it got loads of loads of
coverage and people buying into it as a result of that.
So shows the power of personalities that get the get

(36:59):
the headlines and that you have to tell those stories around the
game. And they have got really some
good tailwind behind them and ingrowing fandom.
And I think that can be a reallysignificant growth from revenue
driver for them, not just not just through meteorites perhaps
in other means as well. And for what it's worth, that
was never a flagrant foul. You know, I, I get the
basketball seems to be getting asofter sport these days, but

(37:21):
like growing up watching the badboy Pistons and things like
that. I, I'm not saying we want people
getting in fights and all that, but like that was about a soft
of a flagrant fouls. I can remember seeing.
And yet here we are. It's generated prop hundreds of
millions of views across all thedifferent channels.
It doesn't take much, but as soon as there's a little bit of

(37:41):
debate on topics if things can explode.
Yeah, absolutely. Well moving, you know, for our
one story of the day that's going to move ourselves across
the pond back over to the UK is we saw a new deal between TNT
and Premiership Rugby for a fiveyear deal.
I'm coming at 200 million, so 40million a year.
And Nick, I think this is a bit important just from context

(38:04):
people, I don't think people understand how close Premiership
Rugby was to potentially not surviving COVID.
They had a couple teams that went under, things were looking
a bit rough. So to be able to come back and
secure the deal this magnitude now granted it kind of brings it
back to the levels it was at preCOVID, but I think that in
context to understand sort of where it was going through after
COVID, this is a big deal for them in terms of moving forward

(38:26):
momentum. I think some of the statistics
are our technology undersea McCaskill through in there, you
know, they've seen 11% increase viewership year on year.
It's up 24% if you look the yearbefore that.
It is something that's growing and I think for the sport, it's
a massive lifeline to, you know,be able to plan forward from
what it sounds like, so much forPremiership Rugby was trying to

(38:48):
survive on a year on year basis.This now gives you a bit of a
runway. And I think as well back to, you
know, some of the money that CVCput into rugby before COVID.
And I'm sure they're hoping that, you know, this will help,
you know, a little bit of a return investment on there.
But for you, Nick, you know, thinking about this and perhaps
this time just Premiership Rugbycould be TNT because I believe
they're going to either put on their linear channels or stream

(39:10):
every single rugby game, you know, giving TNT more stuff,
more content to attract subscribers.
What are some of your key takeaways from this story, Nick?
Yeah, I think definitely would say anyone who's interested in
what's going on this do follow Steve McCaskill.
He's got his ear to the ground on what's happening on the rugby
side. Also.
He's a big rugby fan, but he's he's, he's very attuned to this

(39:33):
stuff and he's written out a good little write up about this
particular deal. Look, it's the deal that they
needed. They needed to get a deal, had
the growth because quite frankly, every rugby league club
that's rugby union team since CVCS money came in, has is in has
been in dire straits along the way.
If not, are in dire straits currently financially because of

(39:54):
the way that money's been used and and spent along the way.
So this at least gives them a bit of a reprieve to know, OK,
we can least we've got a rosier outlook ahead of us from a
financial perspective. Given there's some growth here,
I'd be curious to see how much competition there was coming
from their other competitors in the market because it is a

(40:14):
pretty significant investment. Now we're talking about all 93
games of the season live made available on the platform.
There's also the women's competition.
They'll have at least one game on the platform.
Feels that that's a bit of a throw in little deal there one
game, but you know, maybe that helps them get a little bit of
extra exposure and allows the the women's competition to still

(40:35):
do its own deals along the way. I think it feels like they're
giving a lot more weight to get this growth, but that feels as
long as the explosion visibilityis there, then that's probably a
win for for them. I do think that rugby is one of
the sports, particularly in the UK that has a, has a quite a
defined demographic that followsit, an audience group and that

(40:57):
probably is more highly affluentthan a typical football fan
group. And therefore they are probably
more likely to drive subscriptions to some of these
platforms. So that's probably why it's been
a, an ongoing long term investment by TNT Sport and BT
Sport when they came into marketthat I think has really paid off
for them to be supporting and really targeting rugby.

(41:17):
I, I think the opportunity for Premiership Rugby generally is
massive. Still, they still could become
the Premier League of rugby if they get things right.
But the money they spend along the way has not bared those
fruits and now we're in this limbo place where we no one
really knows what the future holds for them.
Is is the future a Premier League or is it more like a

(41:39):
League One or League 2 if you'regoing to compare it to the
football competition? So I'm still the juries out
there, but at least this gives them some financial surety and
visibility to get make sure thatthey continue to make sure that
they're delivering good exposureto the clubs as who are part of
the league. One of the other interesting
statistics that Steve included in here was that they saw a 40%

(42:00):
increase in viewership when the games, the rugby games followed
a Premier League match. And I find this a bit
interesting, Nick, in the sense I remember speaking to Melissa
Walton once at Sale GP and they were talking about their media
deals. And she said, quite honestly,
we're not necessarily looking atwho we're competing against in
the time slot. We're looking at who is either
immediately in front of us or immediately after us.

(42:21):
You know, she sort of recognizedthat Sale GP is not necessarily
going to be the top tier thing, but can we be on either side of
a a premier tier one thing to hope that someone might tune in
15 minutes early or they might TuneIn an extra 15 minutes and
you grab that extra bit of attention and, you know, might
just be from a Warner Brothers TNT perspective that, you know,
we just don't want people to leave the platform.

(42:42):
We don't want them to turn off and switch to another channel.
So I just be curious for your thoughts like whether these, you
know, not necessarily the tier one sports, you know, keeping in
mind who they might be scheduledaround, not necessarily
scheduled against. Yeah, I think it's not probably
talked about enough these days about the art, art of scheduling
and programming. And that was actually one of the
great skills that many broadcasters had to have before

(43:05):
we got to ADTC and on demand world where how do you schedule
the content, right. Just thinking about you've got a
finite amount of money availableand you've got a finite amount
of time available. How do you make sure you get the
balance right to achieve the things that we're talking about
here in terms of driving mass audience and keeping them on the
platform as long as possible? And then you've got the rights

(43:26):
holder side that you've just talked about.
And how do you make sure you canride the coattails of some of
these more premium sports to getmore visibility and maybe Dr.
fandom longer term to your sportas well?
So you get higher ratings and you can get long term fans of
your sport. It's a really interesting thing
we don't hear as much about. But I think as we go and see
more of the US linear channels going bringing their linear

(43:46):
offering to D to C and indeed these are the platforms like TNT
Sports and have more focusing ontheir linear proposition that
starts to play more of a role over again.
So I'm, yeah, I mean, I'm, it's good to hear it being talked
about because it hasn't been something that we've discussed
for probably ever and is a real skill set that is probably not
not been his value for the previous years in this new one

(44:07):
demand era. Yeah, it is an interesting
point, Nick. But yeah, I just, I thought it
was interesting, thought it was an interesting statistic.
It just made me think of a conversation I had at one time
and some people probably maybe don't give enough time to think
about. But the last story we're going
to cover today, Nick, I includedbecause I thought I was
interesting. I'm glad to hear you also
thought it was interesting as well.

(44:28):
I don't necessarily know how bigthis current news story is going
to be. I don't know how needle moving
this particular thing is, but I'm really interested to see
what it can mean in the future down down the path.
And what we're going to talk about is EA Sports.
You know, their FC mobile app isnow going to be streaming MLS
matches live. And I guess the reason I find

(44:48):
this interesting is I guess if you are in the space, it won't
surprise you if you're not like EAS FC, which is no longer FIFA.
We covered the story. I think it was a silly idea
talking about what's in a name, Nick.
FIFA probably should have been happy to make $30 million a year
letting EA use their name. But the the EA, you know, video
game franchise with football, soccer, depending on where

(45:08):
you're at in the world, being able to live stream MLS matches
from their app, I think is incredibly interesting given the
crossover you're going to have with interest.
Now, we've talked about the MLS and their approach with Apple.
That was an exclusive global deal.
But over the couple years that they've started that you've seen
MLS kind of opening things up. I think they did some stuff with
one football as well. But I think this was just

(45:31):
particularly interesting becauseof the EA tie in.
And like I said, I don't know how big, you know, the MLS is
not the Premier League or La Liga or Champions League.
Could this approach with EA becoming some type of streaming
partner? I I think is interesting Nick,
as to what it could lead to. Well, I think if nothing more
it, it allows discoverability. So people are playing these

(45:52):
games. We we've known for a while right
there people who play FIFA love the game, but are they going on
and then watching and really buying into the leagues, the
leagues that exist in their, youknow, their countries or in the
World Cup and so forth because of the game?
And this is the first chance we've really seen that I can
that I can think of where we cansee if they can really transfer

(46:16):
gamers to consumers of the sportitself.
I don't expect all of a sudden people in the game to now for
now, go and watch hours through the game.
It's a mobile game experience, right.
So it's not a lean back one theybut they released come across
that and then they're obviously one of the things they are
offering is within that is a month's free subscription to the

(46:39):
Apple TV product, which will allow people access it through
access that way. So I think it's just another one
of those things that aid discoverability.
We've talked about it before where MLS is now and Apple to
some extent have now released the shackles a little bit to try
and make sure they're visible inmore places.
And this feels like a really smart strategic move to maximise

(47:00):
the, the, the huge audience and engagement a platform like EA
Sports FC has. So it's a really great marketing
initiative. I, I'd be surprised if the
people watch a full game througha mobile game.
And I'd be interested to see thetechnology component there of
what that experience is really like.
I have to go download the app actually and and check it out

(47:21):
and see what it looks like because it's sounds like it's a
complicated proposition. We have seen other games try
this. Remember Fortnite's done a bunch
of stuff with with other sports,other live live entertainment
experiences. I can't think they've done
anything live sports wise about viewing within the game.
But it's a very different type of environment to just what
they're offering here, which is basically real estate in the EA

(47:43):
Sports FC mobile app where you click a link to their portal,
their TV channel and watch the game live there.
So I'm not sure if it's if it's something massive.
I just like bridging those worlds together.
I'd love to see if it can actually deliver the results
thereafter. I'm just not sure it's going to
be a huge needle mover for them.But I like this type of movie.
It's just a bit bit more innovative and could lead to

(48:05):
some incremental wins. Yeah, like I said, I don't think
it's ever going to be game changing, but just reminds me
some of the stuff thinking aboutwhat live score would do with
being able to do some of the streaming from a betting
perspective. Or you know, DraftKings trying
to set up their own streaming channels where again, I don't
think it's going to be the main people go to consume things.
I think the rights holders wouldn't give away some massive
exclusivity towards that. But it's just like you said,

(48:27):
incremental gains. And I just, I think it's a, an
interesting, even if you start thinking about these Web 3
metaverses, I'm really going offpiece now, Nick, but like you
start, you know, bringing more value to those experiences where
they're not just so linear in their kind of experience.
I, I, I'm intrigued to see it. I, I believe it's only the

(48:48):
mobile game and I would like to have seen this deal encompass
the, what do you call it, console, the console game as
well to see if they could bring that to life.
If it's only mobile, then it is limiting their audience
possibilities just because of from a, from a watch time
perspective as well. So yeah, I'd like to see more of
these types of things happen andsee if they can actually move

(49:09):
the needle. I think it's going to be
trickier than they probably would want it to be to shift
someone as a as a consumer of EASports to the MLS product, but
hopefully it works for them. Yeah, and we'll keep following
it nonetheless. Well everyone, I hope you
enjoyed this episode of Stream TIME Sports and we will catch
you on the next episode. Thanks everyone.
Now before you go, if you liked what you heard today, be sure to

(49:31):
rate and review and just let me know what you think on social.
You can find me on most social platforms.
A sports pro, Nick. Now please do spread the word of
the podcast. There's no better way of
marketing than word of mouth, whether that be in person or on
social media. And if you don't like what
you've heard or you think we should be doing more or less of
something, then reach out and let me know as I'd love to hear
from you. Thanks.
Stream timers until next time.