April 16, 2025 • 42 mins
With only months to go until the inaugural tournament, can DAZN secure enough deals to justify its 1 billion dollar investment? On this episode of StreamTime Sports, co-hosts Nick Meacham and Chris Stone discuss the implications of reports that the BBC and ITV will not bid for the upcoming FIFA Club World Cup, as well as breaking down other major stories in sports media.
Key Points
- Why the BBC and ITV announced they are not bidding on the Club World Cup
- DAZN’s path to success for its massive investment
- The post-Messi strategy for Major League Soccer
- Apple’s evolving approach to sports media rights
- Reach vs Revenue – Comparing Grand Slam Track and the Diamond League’s media approach for athletics
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:10):
Hello everyone. Welcome back to the next episode
of Stream TIME Sports. My name is Kristen.
I'm the community lead, joined as always by our CEO, Nick
Meacham. So Nick, I am going to raise
this again. This will now be the third
season. I try to give it a few weeks to
just let the algorithm work itself back out a little bit.
But this is now the third seasonin a row, Nick, since the
baseball season has started, Cincinnati Reds.
(00:31):
I wake up every morning and the first thing I do because there's
162 games as I watch the Reds highlights from the night
before. And now for the third season in
a row, every morning I get on YouTube, on my home page,
there's a set of highlights produced by the Major League
Baseball. It's never the Cincinnati Reds.
And I'm just trying to figure out, Nick.
Some people like, oh, it's the algorithm trying to pull you
(00:53):
into a rabbit hole to consume more content.
And my thing is, Nick, either AIis not as smart as everyone
makes it out to be. It's not stealing your job, or
can I be so stubborn that I can break the AI that wants me to
watch content? So I'm just, I'm figuring out
what's going to happen first. I'm telling you, Nick, I'm not
watching a highlight of another baseball team.
You know what, I'm, I'm kind of with you that the algorithm
(01:13):
isn't as smart as people make itout to be because I keep going
on to, I keep getting served thesame stuff.
So I have the problem where I keep getting served iterations
of the same things all the time.Same as Spotify where I'm like,
they give me a new playlist to listen to and this 1st 15 songs,
the songs I've listened to before.
Can you give me something new I like?
I'm giving you the real trust here.
Go find some new music for me that aligns with what I like,
(01:36):
but not isn't something from the1990s, you know, trying to age
myself a little bit here. And the same goes with YouTube.
It just keeps serving me the same stuff.
And the problem is then you, you, what do you going to?
You're going to go discover whatyou want to watch next.
That's what their job is. The algorithm's supposed to make
that happen for you. And if you're watching all these
Cincinnati red videos, I that's unfathomable.
(01:57):
Do you can you watch them through?
Can you find them perhaps through the Cincinnati Reds own
channel? Does that does that exist that
maybe if you go through there, maybe it'll start feeding you
that? But that is a pretty that's
pretty mad that it's not hasn't worked that out.
You know what? That's a decent shot because it
is the channel that I watch it through is the Major League
Baseball channel. So maybe it just knows I watched
(02:20):
that Channel doesn't pick up that it's the Reds specifically
because there is a Bengals podcast and I'm one of those
people. Nick, I think you're one of
those people too. I I'll put use air quotes for
those listening to podcast. I watch podcasts via YouTube and
I watch the same Bengals podcastevery day now.
I wonder because that's the samechannel and that Channel is
always dedicated to the Bengals.I wonder, Nick, if maybe that's
(02:40):
The thing is a Major League Baseball's channel as opposed to
the Reds channel. But still, I'd like to think
you, like the algorithm should know like it's explicitly the
Reds every single time if it is on the, you know, a broader
league channel. Yeah, I'm, I'm sceptical and I
just don't quite understand how the YouTube stuff works.
I know everyone, everyone universally basically praises
(03:00):
Tik Tok's channels. I remember talking to a couple
of people that like I had to like people who are in their 40s
and 50s saying I had to delete TikTok.
It was becoming too much taking over my life.
I'm like, wow, OK, but don't hear the same, quite same thing
for YouTube. YouTube's just a, a form of
entertainment. I do remember speaking to a
YouTube executive a few years ago and now a one thing that's
(03:20):
stuck with me ever since is whenever you get an ad served,
skip that ad as soon as possible.
Because if you let it run for a few seconds, the next ads will
be longer and it'll be longer and it'll be longer because they
make more money out of it and they know that you're sort of
willing to watch a longer video,which make drives them more
revenue. So I don't know, it doesn't feel
as innovative as you think, but I'm sure there is some sort of
(03:45):
logic to the madness as to why they wouldn't.
But it makes no sense if a sports fan, if you think you're
just about a sports fan trying. It's a bit like the, the, it
goes back to the, the thing we've talked about a few times.
It's around subscription approaches.
My view, and I think we've discussed it, you've you've
brought it up to as well, is if you're trying to sell a
subscription service to say, Major League Baseball, but
(04:09):
you're a Reds fan. I don't really want to watch 90%
of the rest of the games. Just give me a subscription to
the teams channel and I'd still pay you just as much probably.
Like I don't think you're going to lose much, much revenue out
of that mix. And the same goes here.
Why can't they just make it, make it happen, Make it happen,
guys, come on. We're like we're we're an
obvious test case here. If we aren't, if we aren't happy
(04:32):
with, and we're pretty simple folk, I think if you kind of get
it right for us, then it must bemore complex.
That being said, that YouTube's now what with $550 billion, So
what do we know? Well, one of the interesting
things not to get too off piece,but I think it's it's all
connected, it's related. It's all about sports streaming.
So we're staying within our we're staying in our lane as the
expression goes, you're talking about YouTube and sort of, you
(04:53):
know, extended ads, things like that.
Well I've been managed to be hooked up with a media pass for
MLBTV. It's my parents birthday, it's
in the month of April so I thought it was a nice present.
I would get them a subscription to watch and the other folks of
the MLB help hook me up with that.
One of the things I know is MLBTV and Major League Baseball
(05:14):
is is as guilty as the NFL isn't.
Lots of commercials because there's always an ad break
between innings on MLBTV. There's no ads, it's just
content will resume. And I actually find it a less
satisfying experience with just a, a holding screen being held
up between the innings than I do.
I would rather be served ads. So like, it's weird because like
(05:34):
I just don't have a lot of experiences where I'm in that
position, but I was like, I actually would rather have ads
in this case. So like.
Yes, Chris, I'm so with you on this.
I remember watching this is a a bit more of a doomy and gloomy
version. I think I don't know if I've
talked about this one before, but when when the Ukrainian war
(05:55):
broke out, I started watching CNN because I wanted like I
wanted to get. So I had had a connected TV.
I was a Samsung TV with fast channels and I put on the CNN
channel and fast like they're going to be reliable.
Give me lots of probably really deep inside as to what's going
on and following it as it was all breaking out and breaking
out and it drove me mad. The they had this same music and
(06:19):
these like holding couple of different holding slides.
I'm like, please just serve any sort of ads then I don't care.
Give me anything just not. And the other the other one that
grinds my gears is ESP NS ads. They have the same types of ads
for their own content all the time because they're I think
they might be serving in no ads sort of service of no, like
commercial partners because it'scable service.
(06:41):
I'm not sure, but I don't want to see the same ad over and over
again. So this served me lots of random
crappy ads. I'm I'm happier with that than
just watching a frozen screen until the the the the feed comes
back. It's mad.
Why can't they even have, you know, like static stats on the
on the screen, just a a holding slide with I don't know if
you've seen much. I know cricket's not your game,
(07:03):
Chris, but I'm sure it's similar.
Perhaps in baseball and cricket,you have a quite a detailed
scorecard that's often shown in between overs that they would
they used to show back in the day when I used to watch cricket
a lot more. I don't really watch it as much
these days. And so I have all the batsmen
listed, you know how they got out their scores and maybe like
the balls they faced and stuff. And they would show up pretty
much every over maybe who's bowling at the time.
(07:26):
And there was just a nice way tolike quick, quick scene set
before the first ball comes in. And it happens every over.
And those are breaks in nearly after every override.
So it's quite, quite frequent. How does that not exist?
How does that not like just a detailed scorecard, maybe a
couple of slides that are flips?Yeah, we could absolutely solve
everyone's problems in the industry and get way more fan
engaged with. They just listen to us.
(07:47):
Yeah, I mean, I watch enough sports, I can definitely do
that. And to your point, baseball's
like cricket. It's very statistically driven.
Like, I don't know if you've ever seen someone manually keep
scoring baseball. I don't think it really happens
anymore. Like the scorecard is.
I mean, it's you're drawing up all kinds of crazy things you
got to learn to do. It's like, yeah, even it'd be
very simple at all. This is a 643 double play.
This was this like, just a highlight of the inning before
(08:07):
of any statistics. You need to know like it can be
so easy, Nick. Yeah, tell me to just explain to
me that how that baseball scoring works because it's
actually something that's a similar, I call it a phenomenon,
a thing in cricket. So if you go to in the UK, I
don't know if you've ever been, have you been to many cricket
matches before? I think you've been a couple
with us since. Been to a few T 20s.
I've never been to a Test match.So there's quite you see the
(08:28):
traditional folk. I don't know, that's the right
way to describe some people play.
There's only this older establishment like to sit in the
corners of the longer form gamesand they've massive score
sheets. They're like huge, you know, if
you're watching live, you can see they're all non live.
It's bigger than the screen and they basically take all the
things off as they go. And that's sort of a way to keep
(08:51):
themselves entertained in between balls and deliveries and
so forth. And that's, it's definitely a
thing that people do. I'm, I'm not sure if it's too
much for the younger, younger fans, but it's definitely an
older thing. Is that similar?
Is that basically what you do for baseball?
100% it's not probably as large as yours because a Test match
you don't need as much of A page.
It's really kind of like in a notebook size, but you know, you
can that there's three boxes forballs, two boxes for strikes.
(09:13):
Obviously if they get to the third or fourth one, they get
that. You can keep track of outs.
Every position in baseball has anumber.
So like I said, the 643 double play would be the shortstops #6
the second baseman's number four, the first baseman's number
3. So it means it went to the
shortstop, the second baseman, to the first baseman.
You can put things like FC for fielder's choice.
You can put E for an error made by them.
(09:34):
So, yeah, like you can go and you can fill out the whole, the
whole sheet, things like that. So I definitely think it is
something more the baseball purist, traditionalist do.
But like, absolutely. Like it was something, it was a,
it was a rite of passage growingup.
But you know, as a team, you'd have to keep the books.
If you were not up to bat, you would do it while the coaches
were out on the field. Well, I think we're ageing
(09:55):
ourselves a little bit here and talking about how we would fix
we sounding out. We're about 75 years old telling
everyone how we're going to fix YouTube, that the old school
ways of scoring sports is is nowout of date.
And anyway, let's we probably ranted and raved around that
enough to we should get things get things moving.
We hope you're enjoying this episode of Stream Time Sports,
(10:16):
but we at Sports Pro are excitedto announce at the end of this
month we'll be welcoming over 1000 top executives from across
the industry to our flagship event, Sports Pro Live, held
here in London at the Kia Oval. Join us on the 29th and 30th of
April as we explore the future of the sports industry at Carl's
vital topics including sponsorship, media, tech and
women's sports. Head to our website
(10:36):
live.sportspro.com to check out the agendas, speakers, ticket
options and more. As a podcast listener, you can
also enjoy 15% off your conference pass with the code
POD 15 that is POD 1/5 at checkout.
We'll see you there fine. We'll get things moving and
we'll start off with the story that we have been covering.
We've been covering it from a few different angles, but it is
(10:58):
one that we know will continue to have breaking news and we'll
cover it throughout the summer and that's FIFA Club World Cup.
We've spoken previously about the bold ambitions of FIFA, you
know, trying to get a billion dollars for completely untested,
unproven product. They've hit that number with
their their partnership with theZone.
Whether or not we think that's maybe the best decision, you
(11:19):
know, that's still up for debate.
And one of the things we did talk about the time is we
anticipated a lot of sub licensing deals.
It wasn't exclusive for the Zone.
We've seen the UST and T Sports have, you know, gotten a sub
licensing deal with the Zone to be able to cover that in the US,
But in the UK, home of the Premier League, people get
upset. If you want to arguably the
most, you know, popular sports league in the world, potentially
(11:43):
at least definitely in the worldof soccer itself.
And the two biggest free to air broadcasters, BBC and ITV, have
basically come out and said we will not be bidding for the FIFA
Club World Cup, which for me I think is significant, Nick, in
the sense of new product reachesparamount.
You know, I think one of the most interesting statistics is,
(12:06):
you know, in America, it's something like what Nick?
Usually about 85 to 90 of the most watched sports events are
are watch TV events or sports and they're all free to air.
And I think historically the UK is usually only about like 10 or
15 of the most watched sports are free to air.
And they all tend to be when theWorld Cup is on or when the
Euros are on. And that's when it's on the BBC
or ITV, not Premier League gamesthat are on Sky.
(12:28):
So yeah, I think I imagine a deal will get sorted in the UK,
it may still even be BBC or ITV,but I do think being on free to
air for the inaugural Club WorldCup is surely something that
needs to happen. It's an interesting storyline,
mainly because they're actively being, they're actually coming
out and saying they're not willing to to bid and vie for
(12:51):
it. And I've been trying to Mull
over why they would even come out with that sort of messaging.
And my guess, and this is a guess, all the guess here, we
like to guess and speculate here, this is what we do, is
that they're being demanded to be paying a rights fee.
And for anything that's unproventhese days, those types of
(13:11):
platforms just aren't really willing to put any money,
serious money on the table. I do think there's probably a
challenge with also from, from BB CS perspective on how visible
another broadcaster will be in IE the zone because they'll be
probably doing the lion's share of the broadcast production and
have their brand. I'm guessing the deal would be
(13:33):
ingesting or taking the production direct kind of from
the zone rather than like addingthe expectation wouldn't be to
Add all its own overlay of production that the BBC touch,
let's say to it, you know, the the extra hosts and everything
on top. They would just be looking to
take the feed fairly directly. It would be the proposition and
they're probably not comfortablewith that.
I think I have heard and seen that being an issue previously
(13:55):
for the BBC when they've had other sort of sub licensing
deals come come to the fore. So I think that could play a bit
of a role role there. And I just think fundamental
when it's unproven, the we unproven, which is the cobweb
cup is even as an enticing it is.
I can't think of a situation where in the last decade where
BBC has acquired a set of rightsfor a fairly premium sports
(14:22):
property, particularly definitely without a media
rights price tag attached to it.So it's it's surprising that the
messaging has come out. I'm not really sure.
It might just be some good reporting.
That's basically asked the rightpeople the right questions and
they've actively said that. I haven't read the the articles
where it's come from originally,but that might be why why that
(14:42):
that sort of messages got came out in the mainstream media in
in the UK. But yeah, we'll have to we'll
have to wait and see who ends uppicking that up.
Obviously Channel 4 still a verycommercial organization with a
free to air reach available to it.
And there's obviously your more traditional players like Warner
Brothers Discovery and Sky Sports and a Life.
They could still still make a play for that mass reach side of
(15:03):
things. So we'll have to wait and see.
Two things that are interesting for me and we'll address them
separately. One of them is, are we maybe
getting to a point with which people are over saturated?
I know there's been a lot of talks, especially from the
players that the the competitionschedule is too, too much.
Well, I I also agree the answer is yes, but I am just they're
(15:25):
just they don't want this it there.
There's already a very long domestic season for all these
clubs. There's all of Uefa's
competitions. I know other there's other
similar cups in Germany and Spain and France, but you know,
the UK's also got the FA Cup andthe FL Cup.
Like there's just so much soccer.
Does anyone really want to watchthis?
(15:46):
And I think there's also a little bit of broadcast fatigue
being like, we already spend a lot of money on football.
Like I don't know if we need to spend more.
Well, let's, let's talk about the BBCI think it's worth
talking about because I think it's probably an issue that
other public service broadcasters do face in certain
markets. I'm not sure all of them.
Now BBC is fairly unique in its licensing approach where
everyone who lives in the UK andI think the, I think the law is
(16:08):
anyone who has ATV, which I'm not sure works anymore in this
day and age. But basically you have to pay a
licensing fee. So it's basically like an annual
subscription or an annual fee tohave the rights to access the
BBC suite of content. Now that's just over the years
become under way more scrutiny as a result of the pressures
that come from a consumer and pressure that comes to
(16:30):
government and so forth. And so therefore what that's led
to is a lot of scrutiny on the BBC itself on how they spend
their money, particularly on content.
They're very well known in making and creating lots of
great content themselves. But the own notion of paying a
premium for live sports doesn't really fit in a a bucket that
(16:51):
appeals and appeases it's bulk of audience who are having to
pay a premium. And and I think the message gets
pretty difficult to swallow for many consumers to say, hey, I'm
paying a licensing fee and that licensing fee's paying for a
portion of those live rights. I don't want to watch the Club
World Cup. Why am I having to pay?
(17:12):
I'm, I'm, but I'm funding those rights when it's so, so clear
and so visible when it's talked about what the rights values
are. So as a result, I think they've
had to really be strategic on where they're spending or not
spending their money. There's obviously some rules in
the UK, which I don't know if this exists in other markets,
but there's basically a rule that's managed by Ofcom and the,
and the, the Ministry of Sports Media and Culture, which is
(17:35):
there's different types of live sporting events, right?
So there's the crown jewel events they're called, which is
the FIFA World Cup, the UEFA, the Euro Championships,
Wimbledon, the Grand National, FA Cup in the Olympics.
And that is they have to be shown live and free to wear.
So then just becomes a who's going to to take those rights
(17:56):
and only bidding against each other.
Then there's another set which is purely for highlights must be
available free to air which I didn't even realise there was
one just for highlights alone. But that includes 6 Nations for
the UK matches, cricket, test matches, Ryder Cup and the
Commonwealth Games. And then there's different sub
subgroups under that. But that's the one that has this
(18:16):
crown jewels title, which I justlove the top factor it's got
crown jewels attached to, which is hilarious in in itself.
But because of that legacy of that framework, you, I guess it
basically limits where the otherproperties that we're sorry, the
other broadcasters we're talkingabout would would start to
invest further and further. Because where does the BBC make
(18:38):
its money if it's only making itfrom licensing fees primarily in
the UK? The rest of its funding that it
generates is from international work that it does.
So it's sells its sells its workto other studios
internationally. There might be some revenue that
generates through advertising through its international
channels, but it's not that significant in comparison to its
income it generates domesticallythrough government funding and
(19:00):
the licensing model. It's not going to be spending
money Willy nilly on meteorites,is my basic point.
It's always going to be the commercial organizations.
They're going to fund the bulk of sports rights in this market.
And on the flip side, if you're to zone, how concerning is this
Grant we're talking about one single market as a part of a
global deal. It's not like they don't have
other deals in place. You already said they've they've
(19:21):
secured one in the US, which youknow, just one of the biggest
markets out there. How much of their success is
going to be based on what they can successfully do from a sub
licensing perspective and if this becomes a a more common
trend? Well, you got to think, right?
Remember how late this deal was done?
It's only announced a few monthsago.
Took quite a lot of time for theFIFA to finally find someone
(19:43):
that would basically back the project to the level it wanted
and and who knows the real reasons for maybe does zone
think it's value is as they've paid for it Lot speculate that
with all the money coming from Saudi Arabia and other
investments and the fact that the World Cups basically set to
be in the Kingdom in in the future.
(20:03):
There's a lot of people speculating as to how and why
this this decision was made. But let's this on good faith.
Say that zone thought. This was worth the amount of
money they're putting on the table.
They've only got a few months then to maximise it's value of
the of the rights they have. And there's no way they'd be
able to do that purely through using their own channels wholly
and solely. So for what I'm what I'm hearing
(20:25):
is though, they're basically working frantically, working
frantically, basically like a good old fashioned media rights
agency going market to market and think about how many markets
there are in the world selling to each and every country's set
of broadcasters to try and maximise the revenue opportunity
and the reach of it. Like there's no doubt there's a
mandate from FIFA as well to make sure it's the Club World
(20:48):
Cup is in as many places as possible.
And there's also a mandate, no doubt from the zone to make sure
they make maximise the revenue opportunity.
So you know, there's probably, Idon't know, they, they've got
this set up in the design offices, but there's probably
like a billion dollar price tag and they're cutting it, chopping
it down every deal they've done.And then at the end, hopefully
they go past that zero point andthey can have some nice profit
at, at, at the other end of it. But it's a, it's a grind.
(21:11):
They've got to go out of 200 markets.
What I'm hearing is that all of them, the, the, the top senior
people are going out to market and literally going out one by
one to the broadcaster, selling these rights and trying to get
deals done right across the world.
So a lot of work to be done before this tournament kicks
off, but they're they're well onthe way with some really good
deals. And no doubt, you know, doing a
(21:33):
deal with like TNT and also Warner Brothers Discovery in the
US is a great starting point. But expect to see just a host of
new announcements coming coming flooding over the next couple of
months as they finalise those deals before the the big event.
I said it's a story that we willcontinue to follow and we'll
follow the fall out of it as well.
So this won't be the last time that we speak about it.
(21:54):
But, you know, switching from one Soccer League to another and
another one, I guess you could say, who had a trying to think
of the word to do this sort of aa tone setting type of deal is
the MLS. There's quite a lot of news with
the the international deal that they did with Apple and they're
trying to expand and you know, some of the Club World Cup that
(22:14):
even though they have the deal with Apple, it's not fully
exclusive to some degree. You know, they have partners in
the US to be able to show their games, but they're now also
putting together a Sunday night soccer package and they're
looking to expand those deals internationally to, you know,
not just exclusively live on their their on the Apple
platform. So Nick, you know, I think the
(22:37):
idea that MLS probably big enough to drive everybody to
single Apple platform, we knew was never quite going to be the
case. That's why they have some of
these other deals. But it now looks like, and we
also know they've done some stuff with one football and now
they're also now looking to expand their Sunday night soccer
package or they've got things inGermany, Israel, South Korea,
the Middle East, Southeast Asia,this Sunday night soccer
package. So be curious just to get your
(22:59):
thoughts on this sort of expanded opportunity.
It almost to a degree sounds like the NFL where they just
carve out little packages of what exists to try to sell that
as its own stand alone product. You know, what are your
takeaways from this? Yeah, I'm just really interested
to, I think I said that a lot, really interested.
But I'm, I wonder what Apple thought and actually what the
(23:21):
plan has always been. So has it all?
Was it originally we're just going to hyper payable and gate
this and hope we drive everyone to watch the MLS through Apple
channels right across the globe?Was that always a plan or were
they trying to be patient? So how are we going to launch
with this, make it seem like this is the only way to get
access to the MLS, drive as manysubscribers as we can early on
(23:44):
with the hype of the messy trainand then start to relax and try
and get more distribution, more reach and and again, a bit
that's kind of like the disown situation, like trying to
maximize the value of those those rights a little bit
further. I'm going to give them the
benefit of the doubt, at least the MLS, the benefit of the
doubt to say they probably had this always in their back, the
(24:06):
back of their minds as a as a step for them.
Whether it was always planned out is what I'm not too sure
about. But one thing I am pretty
confident in saying is that the messy movement with the MLS,
it's going to come to an end pretty soon.
You know he's going to leave or retire or whatever the case may
be. Has he announced his retirement?
I can't remember if he's announced.
The only big major news I know is that Kevin de Bruyner will be
(24:28):
stepping away from Man City and it's rumored he will be going to
join Messi at Inner Miami. There's apparently some sort of
discover player discoverability clause in the MLS where you can,
you know, rank your top five. I don't know how in the world a
team with Lionel Messi somehow has top rights in this.
I don't know what the discoverability, just player
discover processes. I try to look it up.
(24:50):
I don't get it. I just don't understand how a
team with Lionel Messi some it'slike being fantasy football.
How's the team with Lionel Messihave the number one spot on the
waiver wire. Like I don't get it.
But no, I'm not aware that Messi's said publicly his
retirement yet. Yeah, I'm, I'm curious again.
I remember debating this when the Messi deal was first done is
who would be the ideal follow upact.
(25:13):
Yeah, because even with Messi, as great as he is and he is
probably the exception, you want.
I mean, ideally America loves a star you know, more than as well
as they want. You want someone who's a media
personality, a media darling, like basically a Beckham.
I'm not a near a Beckham, but inthe top echelon.
And I remember trying to debate,was I debating with you or
(25:35):
debating with someone else? Maybe it was like Tom Bassam or
someone who sounds like editor trying to work out who would be
the the next big star you would bring from other markets that
have that inertia, that movementthat could be the face of the
league for the year. Because even though messy is, he
doesn't talk much in the media because he's his English isn't
at the level, but he's comfortable.
So anyway, so my point basicallyback to it all is that this
(25:59):
window now, while he's still there, he's still driving
audiences. There is a bit of momentum
behind it. The World Cup's coming.
They had to go to market now. They had to go do these deals
now because the risk is that in a in a year or two, the market
might not be there if the ratings do flop a little bit or
flat line a little bit for them.So I'm not surprised at going
(26:19):
out to market. It was almost inevitable.
I think everyone in the industrywho's been around sports media
expected it to happen at some stage.
You know, The thing is that Apple as a platform, as a
product, as a brand isn't strongin every country in the world.
In some markets it's massive, but some markets it's all about
Android. Where I lived in my days in
Jamaica, it wasn't even there was no Apple store there.
(26:40):
There was next to nobody could even buy an iPhone.
You was all Android all the way.Now, granted it's a developing
market, but it's one of many developing countries where the
MLS would be appealing to people.
If there's you know, there was some, for example, there was
some Jamaican players who are playing in the MLS.
There are people who would absolutely love to watch him,
but they would they wouldn't even understand the concept of
(27:01):
why would I need to go sign up to Apple TV when many people
don't probably even have a smartTV in that market.
You know that there's a lot of question Marks and holes.
It's a very leaky bucket, I think is really how I would
describe that approach. But now with expanding these
these linear partnerships acrossthe world, that will definitely
mitigate some of those losses and keep the MLS brand alive and
(27:23):
being talked about a lot more than it would be otherwise.
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So one of the, the last story we're going to cover here, Nick
and you, you brought this up andI, I think it's interesting for
a couple different reasons. And we're actually going to talk
about the world of track and athletics.
And within the US, there was a statement recently made by the
Diamond League chief executive, Peter Stansty.
(28:30):
Stansty, I'll do my best. I'm not good with names.
We learned that in the last episode as well.
But we've got multiple athleticscompetitions taking place with
Grand Slam track and Diamond League.
And you know, I think one of thethings that's interesting here,
Nick, we spoke about the Major League volleyball about a couple
(28:51):
months back saying that they want to launch, but there's
already another volleyball league.
You know, I don't think this is quite the same level as PGA Tour
and live golf sort of thing, butstarting to see some of these
other leagues popping up. And I think with track and
field, where it's a bit different is historically, like
I know World Athletics host different events, but it's
(29:11):
really about the Olympics. And it's what do you do in those
four years in between to build that up?
And I think having more events is good for the athletes, you
know, more opportunities, more exposure.
But at the same time, Nick, be curious, you know, with track
and field, is it a, you know, Pete says competition is a good
(29:31):
thing if done correctly and schedules aren't overlapping
each other because it sounds like there's a bit of
cannibalization going on. But do you think that's actually
the case for a sport of this level?
Is competition in fact a good thing?
So I mean, combination is a goodthing, but I think the, the, the
tricky part here is at the moment, there's a few sports
(29:52):
right there are all built around, to your point, like
around the Olympic movement. Like that is the not only like
the proverbial crown jewel of athletics, but it's, it's
basically everything you can. There's a bunch of people that
come and go as world champs and their stardom.
It depending on the market they are from or the country they're
from, can wane pretty quickly ifthey don't get that Olympic
crown to back up the, the years and years potentially of leading
(30:14):
a, a sport, the competition side.
I think it takes you back to almost like how would I, how
would I put this? I think what the key interesting
part of this is, you know, getting away from the media bit
and going more towards can they create events that have wow
factor and excitement. Because actually, if you go to
an athletics event, I've been toa couple over the years, they
(30:36):
can be exciting for the right events, but if they don't have
the right stardom, they don't have the right names, they don't
have the right pace, they can bequite lackluster at experience
if you're not, you know, sure, there's exceptions if you're at
the Olympics and there's 90,000 people cheering and roaring for
something going on, but that's an exception rather than the
rule. And actually, if you watch these
(30:57):
types of events on broadcast, which I have over the years,
they're OK to watch. But there's if you don't know
the athletes, you don't follow their stories or you don't know
of the competitive, say, storiesbetween some of the stars like
they do like a Noah Laws has sort of generated his own brand
and a name, which I think does help massively for something
(31:18):
like the 100 metres to make it more of an interest.
Again, the sport can really struggle to cut through.
So I think this Grand Slam approach is trying to basically
bring to life again, the live event experience that you add a
little bit of star, you know, Stardust, a little bit of
production, some money to incentivize the athletes and you
(31:39):
have a nice mix. I would go and watch a a bunch
of those types of things. If it was a like a nice short
period of time, you know, a 2 hour stint, a window of stuff
where it was all happening and there was a lot on the line.
If you go to the Olympics, normally you'll get a bunch of
heats, a bunch of non essential,non medal winning events going
on. And then there's a few that will
(31:59):
happen and they're they're they're the ones that get
everyone excited about. But you know what I mean?
Like there's, there's if you have an event that's
concentrated, well put together,well scheduled, everything
matters. You have these 10 pole moments
of pressure and intensity. I could see why that would be
really interesting and I could see why it'd be there for a good
product for digital media versustrying to lean into the legacy
model. But you would be looking at more
(32:21):
of an approach in my view of, OK, you pick your hand, pick
your athletes for all competitions you want.
You wouldn't be following the, let's say the, the more
authentic or the, the, the, the right, the what's the right?
Well, how would I put it? The more authentic approach,
which is you have a bunch of heads to get into the finals and
then you have a winner. So therefore you have
(32:42):
potentially 3040 representativestrying to make the 100 metre
final in these in these environments, if you can just
limit it to just the best of thebest, I think there's got to be
huge appetite for it. So I agree with you in terms of
where track and field is and sort of where it's competing
against. I think the part that's actually
worth us maybe diving a little bit more into because it's not
just limited to track and field.This is going to be an argument
(33:04):
that all sports are going to have is when you start looking
into their media approach. So Diamond League is found on
Flow Sports, which is a, a paid streaming service.
We spoke about Flow last week with their their investment from
Dream Sports and you know, it's approximately $3030 a month or
$150.00 for an annual subscription.
And this is apparently been called out by athletes such as
(33:24):
Gabby Thomas saying like, hey, being on a paywall is not good
for us. Whereas if we look at Grand Slam
track, which I forgot to mentionis Co founded by Michael
Johnson, famous US Olympian, their broadcast deals on ABC
Peacock streaming service, whichis significantly lower price
point, but it's also on The CW, which is a free to air channel.
So they have taken different approaches within how they go
(33:46):
about distributing their content.
But I thought what was really interesting, really true, was
Stephanie's comment from DiamondLeague, which is, yes, I would
love free to air, but the reality is we're looking at 32
to 33 hours of competition that's available.
The reality is free to air broadcasters.
There's only so much real estateif we want to think about it in
that sense. And you've got to convince
someone of that 32 hours you have that it's better than the
(34:09):
32 hours of something else they can put on that linear channel.
And does that actually drive as much revenue?
Because obviously you still needthat revenue to grow it.
And there's that whole argument of reach first revenue.
And these two organizations havetaken different paths.
But I also think it's interesting his point being
like, yeah, I would love to be on Free to Air, but that doesn't
mean someone is going to be willing to provide me a home to
(34:30):
do so. That was me.
Profound I. Was gonna say that's me putting
words in his mouth but like that's sort of what I get from
that comment. But it but it that that is the
conundrum of, of sports and where it's gone through.
And we've seen over time, ultimately those that have
chased the the biggest check hascome with the sacrifice of, of
audience engagement and and massawareness.
(34:54):
The tricky bit I think when you're looking at athletics is
there's different pockets like every sport of, of audiences.
There's people who are obsessed,who live and breathe athletics,
who you know, you could see you could define different groups.
I could say there's the if you go to actually there, you
wouldn't believe this, but the biggest event in Jamaica every
year was the high school collegeAthletics Championships.
(35:17):
Bigger than any football match, bigger than anything else
because I don't know there's so there's so much riding on
basically these athletes gettingthrough.
I guess I'm not too too sure andeveryone's family is going to
watch them. I'm not too sure, but there are
pockets. My point is there are pockets
globally and domestically where fans want to be super served
athletics related content and that's where a premium
(35:38):
proposition is valuable. The problem is if you put all
your eggs in that basket and that I think is the ultimate
problem here. And Dominley probably didn't
have much of A choice, you know,whether it's flow sports or
anyone else coming to the table,we're willing to pay you for
these rights, but we'll take them all because we don't want
to lose audiences to a free to air platform where you want to
(35:58):
have say the finals of the 100 metres made available to get
mass reach. Like that's it's a supply and
demand conundrum that they've got on that front.
And then people will be complaining about the checks
that they're getting for winningraces and if they go down the
full reach play. And that's why.
And it is a good question. I think the modern day question
now is actually do you just accept, And I think we've talked
(36:20):
about this before, like, but do you, if you accept no meteorites
check upfront, but just the biggest possible reach made
available, whatever the method. And then it's up to the athletes
and it's up to everyone else to maximise that awareness, that
visibility through their own methods and channels.
Because now they can do that a lot more than they ever could
through creating their own mediabusinesses, just through social
(36:42):
media, going out and selling partnerships and visibility.
We could give them more freedom than say the Olympics do in
terms of brand visibility. Because obviously that's one of
the challenges for the Olympics is you might compete with the
Olympics, but you can't show anyof the brands you really are
attached to because of all the heavy policing on IP there.
(37:02):
Maybe that would be enough. And maybe you allow some of the
athletes to have some of the thelive and near live rights
available to give them more visibility, more audience
growth, and let them make money that way from it.
It's a conundrum. It's tricky because no one
would, no one in this world I'veever heard say, yes, let's
accept less money wilfully and happily and leave it to the
(37:24):
athletes to make the money. And they and athletes are like,
yeah, that sounds like a great, great idea.
But I think we'll get there at one at some stage down the line
once the the the monetization machine, you know, like social
media and YouTube and those platforms continues to become
more and more robust and trusted.
Agreed. And I think the what you're
seeing with the Kings and Queensleague, what you're seeing with
(37:46):
the bowlers league, it won't happen in a in a formal spark to
start off. But you would think that these
types of leagues that are more driven by star power and
influence in terms of follower numbers on TikTok, Instagram, if
those sorts of disruptor leaguescan show that you don't need the
broadcast you and you can reallyrely on the individual talent to
(38:07):
drive that. Like, I feel like that's almost
sort of the test bed and you seeif that maybe actually trickles
into the more mainstream media. Yeah, I I think they are the
test bed. They're what everyone's hoping
is unlocking this new approach, this new way of doing things.
The the jury is still well and truly out on those types of
approaches because they're, they're trying a shortcut and
(38:28):
that's using creators and and entertainment first over true
sport. And so therefore will true
sports be able to unlock an entertainment like approach to
it. And that's where I do think you
almost, you almost need to have two different propositions.
I think the Diamond League trying to sort of, it can't be a
(38:48):
half half hearted version of theGlan.
Is it grand? Slam track.
Yeah, it can't be 1/2 hearted version of that.
It has to be all in, you know, because it can lose it's
identity because Diamond League is supposed to be service
serving the the the world of athletics, you know, not just
the best of the best. I mean, that is a bit of it, but
(39:08):
like it's, but it's supposed to be making sure it's accessible
to if you're the best runner from somewhere, I don't know, in
in Africa, you've got a genuine chance.
It's because you're fast to be able to compete in that event.
And I'm bet, I bet you the glam slam track and these other
competitions, you can be one of the better runners and
potentially A viable option. But if you don't have the star
(39:30):
power, the US centric audience where the media world's driven,
you're not going to get that chance to race in it.
And that's why they both need toexist.
They both need to find their place, but if they try and be a
bit of too much of each other then that's where they lose
their their value in the eyes ofthe audiences.
Yes, well, like I said, it's just interesting just given the
(39:51):
way that the two organizations have taken their different media
approaches, whether they end up some sort of joint coming
together, you know, it's something we'll follow.
But I think it's just it was theIT was those comments made like,
hey, would love to be free to air, but it doesn't fit for us
that I just. I thought made it an interesting
debate to have because that is achoice other organizations will
(40:11):
have to make. So it is, I think the challenge
you, your point is, is a is a really important one.
I think the the challenge, we'veseen every disruptor come to
market, Things like the ISL, theInternational Swimming League
was a really exciting proposition.
Disruptive, more money for athletes, more innovative
approach. I haven't heard that talked
(40:31):
about. I don't even know if it exists
anymore. Had a pretty eccentric person
who was running it. Anything that's disruptor like
can disrupt the approach that's being taken.
But for it to be viable, the only one I can think of at the
moment is the golf situation with live golf kicking on and
this conundrum about whether or not they're going to end up
(40:53):
joining up or not with PGA Tour.But that's a whole another ball
game. So yeah, we'll have to wait and
see if it works out, but I thinkit clearly needs some
disruption, that's for sure. The whole, the whole athletic
space. Yeah, it'll it'll be
interesting, like you said, withlive golf as well, like you
mentioned there, Nick, where that'll go, whether that becomes
a precedent or if it ends up just being kind of a one off
situation. But Nick, it's been it's been a
(41:13):
fun episode diving into some different things this week.
Lots of you know, I know you keep using the word interesting,
but it's very true. And I think more, I think what
I've noticed in some recent episodes, Nick, is we're
following up on stories. They're not just one offs.
You know, the Club World Cup is something we've been we've been
talking about for a little bit, the MLS Apple deal, something
we've been falling a little bit.So I've noticed there's some of
these thematics that we we keep following these stories as they
(41:35):
evolve and more information comes out and to see the
directions they went compared towhere we started.
So I'm actually kind of enjoyingthat.
Yeah, I think it's good if we can continue to add more layers
and depths to the stories as they develop, and then we learn
and hopefully people listening learn as well, and that's all
part of the fun. Yeah, absolutely.
Well, everyone, I appreciate youjoining us and we'll catch you
on the next episode. Now before you go, if you liked
(41:57):
what you heard today, be sure torate and review and just let me
know what you think on social. You can find me on most social
platforms at Sports Pro Nick. And 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. 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.
(42:18):
Thanks. Stream timers until next time.
Hello everyone. Welcome back to the next episode
of Stream TIME Sports. My name is Kristen.
I'm the community lead, joined as always by our CEO, Nick
Meacham. So Nick, I am going to raise
this again. This will now be the third
season. I try to give it a few weeks to
just let the algorithm work itself back out a little bit.
But this is now the third seasonin a row, Nick, since the
baseball season has started, Cincinnati Reds.
(00:31):
I wake up every morning and the first thing I do because there's
162 games as I watch the Reds highlights from the night
before. And now for the third season in
a row, every morning I get on YouTube, on my home page,
there's a set of highlights produced by the Major League
Baseball. It's never the Cincinnati Reds.
And I'm just trying to figure out, Nick.
Some people like, oh, it's the algorithm trying to pull you
(00:53):
into a rabbit hole to consume more content.
And my thing is, Nick, either AIis not as smart as everyone
makes it out to be. It's not stealing your job, or
can I be so stubborn that I can break the AI that wants me to
watch content? So I'm just, I'm figuring out
what's going to happen first. I'm telling you, Nick, I'm not
watching a highlight of another baseball team.
You know what, I'm, I'm kind of with you that the algorithm
(01:13):
isn't as smart as people make itout to be because I keep going
on to, I keep getting served thesame stuff.
So I have the problem where I keep getting served iterations
of the same things all the time.Same as Spotify where I'm like,
they give me a new playlist to listen to and this 1st 15 songs,
the songs I've listened to before.
Can you give me something new I like?
I'm giving you the real trust here.
Go find some new music for me that aligns with what I like,
(01:36):
but not isn't something from the1990s, you know, trying to age
myself a little bit here. And the same goes with YouTube.
It just keeps serving me the same stuff.
And the problem is then you, you, what do you going to?
You're going to go discover whatyou want to watch next.
That's what their job is. The algorithm's supposed to make
that happen for you. And if you're watching all these
Cincinnati red videos, I that's unfathomable.
(01:57):
Do you can you watch them through?
Can you find them perhaps through the Cincinnati Reds own
channel? Does that does that exist that
maybe if you go through there, maybe it'll start feeding you
that? But that is a pretty that's
pretty mad that it's not hasn't worked that out.
You know what? That's a decent shot because it
is the channel that I watch it through is the Major League
Baseball channel. So maybe it just knows I watched
(02:20):
that Channel doesn't pick up that it's the Reds specifically
because there is a Bengals podcast and I'm one of those
people. Nick, I think you're one of
those people too. I I'll put use air quotes for
those listening to podcast. I watch podcasts via YouTube and
I watch the same Bengals podcastevery day now.
I wonder because that's the samechannel and that Channel is
always dedicated to the Bengals.I wonder, Nick, if maybe that's
(02:40):
The thing is a Major League Baseball's channel as opposed to
the Reds channel. But still, I'd like to think
you, like the algorithm should know like it's explicitly the
Reds every single time if it is on the, you know, a broader
league channel. Yeah, I'm, I'm sceptical and I
just don't quite understand how the YouTube stuff works.
I know everyone, everyone universally basically praises
(03:00):
Tik Tok's channels. I remember talking to a couple
of people that like I had to like people who are in their 40s
and 50s saying I had to delete TikTok.
It was becoming too much taking over my life.
I'm like, wow, OK, but don't hear the same, quite same thing
for YouTube. YouTube's just a, a form of
entertainment. I do remember speaking to a
YouTube executive a few years ago and now a one thing that's
(03:20):
stuck with me ever since is whenever you get an ad served,
skip that ad as soon as possible.
Because if you let it run for a few seconds, the next ads will
be longer and it'll be longer and it'll be longer because they
make more money out of it and they know that you're sort of
willing to watch a longer video,which make drives them more
revenue. So I don't know, it doesn't feel
as innovative as you think, but I'm sure there is some sort of
(03:45):
logic to the madness as to why they wouldn't.
But it makes no sense if a sports fan, if you think you're
just about a sports fan trying. It's a bit like the, the, it
goes back to the, the thing we've talked about a few times.
It's around subscription approaches.
My view, and I think we've discussed it, you've you've
brought it up to as well, is if you're trying to sell a
subscription service to say, Major League Baseball, but
(04:09):
you're a Reds fan. I don't really want to watch 90%
of the rest of the games. Just give me a subscription to
the teams channel and I'd still pay you just as much probably.
Like I don't think you're going to lose much, much revenue out
of that mix. And the same goes here.
Why can't they just make it, make it happen, Make it happen,
guys, come on. We're like we're we're an
obvious test case here. If we aren't, if we aren't happy
(04:32):
with, and we're pretty simple folk, I think if you kind of get
it right for us, then it must bemore complex.
That being said, that YouTube's now what with $550 billion, So
what do we know? Well, one of the interesting
things not to get too off piece,but I think it's it's all
connected, it's related. It's all about sports streaming.
So we're staying within our we're staying in our lane as the
expression goes, you're talking about YouTube and sort of, you
(04:53):
know, extended ads, things like that.
Well I've been managed to be hooked up with a media pass for
MLBTV. It's my parents birthday, it's
in the month of April so I thought it was a nice present.
I would get them a subscription to watch and the other folks of
the MLB help hook me up with that.
One of the things I know is MLBTV and Major League Baseball
(05:14):
is is as guilty as the NFL isn't.
Lots of commercials because there's always an ad break
between innings on MLBTV. There's no ads, it's just
content will resume. And I actually find it a less
satisfying experience with just a, a holding screen being held
up between the innings than I do.
I would rather be served ads. So like, it's weird because like
(05:34):
I just don't have a lot of experiences where I'm in that
position, but I was like, I actually would rather have ads
in this case. So like.
Yes, Chris, I'm so with you on this.
I remember watching this is a a bit more of a doomy and gloomy
version. I think I don't know if I've
talked about this one before, but when when the Ukrainian war
(05:55):
broke out, I started watching CNN because I wanted like I
wanted to get. So I had had a connected TV.
I was a Samsung TV with fast channels and I put on the CNN
channel and fast like they're going to be reliable.
Give me lots of probably really deep inside as to what's going
on and following it as it was all breaking out and breaking
out and it drove me mad. The they had this same music and
(06:19):
these like holding couple of different holding slides.
I'm like, please just serve any sort of ads then I don't care.
Give me anything just not. And the other the other one that
grinds my gears is ESP NS ads. They have the same types of ads
for their own content all the time because they're I think
they might be serving in no ads sort of service of no, like
commercial partners because it'scable service.
(06:41):
I'm not sure, but I don't want to see the same ad over and over
again. So this served me lots of random
crappy ads. I'm I'm happier with that than
just watching a frozen screen until the the the the feed comes
back. It's mad.
Why can't they even have, you know, like static stats on the
on the screen, just a a holding slide with I don't know if
you've seen much. I know cricket's not your game,
(07:03):
Chris, but I'm sure it's similar.
Perhaps in baseball and cricket,you have a quite a detailed
scorecard that's often shown in between overs that they would
they used to show back in the day when I used to watch cricket
a lot more. I don't really watch it as much
these days. And so I have all the batsmen
listed, you know how they got out their scores and maybe like
the balls they faced and stuff. And they would show up pretty
much every over maybe who's bowling at the time.
(07:26):
And there was just a nice way tolike quick, quick scene set
before the first ball comes in. And it happens every over.
And those are breaks in nearly after every override.
So it's quite, quite frequent. How does that not exist?
How does that not like just a detailed scorecard, maybe a
couple of slides that are flips?Yeah, we could absolutely solve
everyone's problems in the industry and get way more fan
engaged with. They just listen to us.
(07:47):
Yeah, I mean, I watch enough sports, I can definitely do
that. And to your point, baseball's
like cricket. It's very statistically driven.
Like, I don't know if you've ever seen someone manually keep
scoring baseball. I don't think it really happens
anymore. Like the scorecard is.
I mean, it's you're drawing up all kinds of crazy things you
got to learn to do. It's like, yeah, even it'd be
very simple at all. This is a 643 double play.
This was this like, just a highlight of the inning before
(08:07):
of any statistics. You need to know like it can be
so easy, Nick. Yeah, tell me to just explain to
me that how that baseball scoring works because it's
actually something that's a similar, I call it a phenomenon,
a thing in cricket. So if you go to in the UK, I
don't know if you've ever been, have you been to many cricket
matches before? I think you've been a couple
with us since. Been to a few T 20s.
I've never been to a Test match.So there's quite you see the
(08:28):
traditional folk. I don't know, that's the right
way to describe some people play.
There's only this older establishment like to sit in the
corners of the longer form gamesand they've massive score
sheets. They're like huge, you know, if
you're watching live, you can see they're all non live.
It's bigger than the screen and they basically take all the
things off as they go. And that's sort of a way to keep
(08:51):
themselves entertained in between balls and deliveries and
so forth. And that's, it's definitely a
thing that people do. I'm, I'm not sure if it's too
much for the younger, younger fans, but it's definitely an
older thing. Is that similar?
Is that basically what you do for baseball?
100% it's not probably as large as yours because a Test match
you don't need as much of A page.
It's really kind of like in a notebook size, but you know, you
can that there's three boxes forballs, two boxes for strikes.
(09:13):
Obviously if they get to the third or fourth one, they get
that. You can keep track of outs.
Every position in baseball has anumber.
So like I said, the 643 double play would be the shortstops #6
the second baseman's number four, the first baseman's number
3. So it means it went to the
shortstop, the second baseman, to the first baseman.
You can put things like FC for fielder's choice.
You can put E for an error made by them.
(09:34):
So, yeah, like you can go and you can fill out the whole, the
whole sheet, things like that. So I definitely think it is
something more the baseball purist, traditionalist do.
But like, absolutely. Like it was something, it was a,
it was a rite of passage growingup.
But you know, as a team, you'd have to keep the books.
If you were not up to bat, you would do it while the coaches
were out on the field. Well, I think we're ageing
(09:55):
ourselves a little bit here and talking about how we would fix
we sounding out. We're about 75 years old telling
everyone how we're going to fix YouTube, that the old school
ways of scoring sports is is nowout of date.
And anyway, let's we probably ranted and raved around that
enough to we should get things get things moving.
We hope you're enjoying this episode of Stream Time Sports,
(10:16):
but we at Sports Pro are excitedto announce at the end of this
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We'll see you there fine. We'll get things moving and
we'll start off with the story that we have been covering.
We've been covering it from a few different angles, but it is
(10:58):
one that we know will continue to have breaking news and we'll
cover it throughout the summer and that's FIFA Club World Cup.
We've spoken previously about the bold ambitions of FIFA, you
know, trying to get a billion dollars for completely untested,
unproven product. They've hit that number with
their their partnership with theZone.
Whether or not we think that's maybe the best decision, you
(11:19):
know, that's still up for debate.
And one of the things we did talk about the time is we
anticipated a lot of sub licensing deals.
It wasn't exclusive for the Zone.
We've seen the UST and T Sports have, you know, gotten a sub
licensing deal with the Zone to be able to cover that in the US,
But in the UK, home of the Premier League, people get
upset. If you want to arguably the
most, you know, popular sports league in the world, potentially
(11:43):
at least definitely in the worldof soccer itself.
And the two biggest free to air broadcasters, BBC and ITV, have
basically come out and said we will not be bidding for the FIFA
Club World Cup, which for me I think is significant, Nick, in
the sense of new product reachesparamount.
You know, I think one of the most interesting statistics is,
(12:06):
you know, in America, it's something like what Nick?
Usually about 85 to 90 of the most watched sports events are
are watch TV events or sports and they're all free to air.
And I think historically the UK is usually only about like 10 or
15 of the most watched sports are free to air.
And they all tend to be when theWorld Cup is on or when the
Euros are on. And that's when it's on the BBC
or ITV, not Premier League gamesthat are on Sky.
(12:28):
So yeah, I think I imagine a deal will get sorted in the UK,
it may still even be BBC or ITV,but I do think being on free to
air for the inaugural Club WorldCup is surely something that
needs to happen. It's an interesting storyline,
mainly because they're actively being, they're actually coming
out and saying they're not willing to to bid and vie for
(12:51):
it. And I've been trying to Mull
over why they would even come out with that sort of messaging.
And my guess, and this is a guess, all the guess here, we
like to guess and speculate here, this is what we do, is
that they're being demanded to be paying a rights fee.
And for anything that's unproventhese days, those types of
(13:11):
platforms just aren't really willing to put any money,
serious money on the table. I do think there's probably a
challenge with also from, from BB CS perspective on how visible
another broadcaster will be in IE the zone because they'll be
probably doing the lion's share of the broadcast production and
have their brand. I'm guessing the deal would be
(13:33):
ingesting or taking the production direct kind of from
the zone rather than like addingthe expectation wouldn't be to
Add all its own overlay of production that the BBC touch,
let's say to it, you know, the the extra hosts and everything
on top. They would just be looking to
take the feed fairly directly. It would be the proposition and
they're probably not comfortablewith that.
I think I have heard and seen that being an issue previously
(13:55):
for the BBC when they've had other sort of sub licensing
deals come come to the fore. So I think that could play a bit
of a role role there. And I just think fundamental
when it's unproven, the we unproven, which is the cobweb
cup is even as an enticing it is.
I can't think of a situation where in the last decade where
BBC has acquired a set of rightsfor a fairly premium sports
(14:22):
property, particularly definitely without a media
rights price tag attached to it.So it's it's surprising that the
messaging has come out. I'm not really sure.
It might just be some good reporting.
That's basically asked the rightpeople the right questions and
they've actively said that. I haven't read the the articles
where it's come from originally,but that might be why why that
(14:42):
that sort of messages got came out in the mainstream media in
in the UK. But yeah, we'll have to we'll
have to wait and see who ends uppicking that up.
Obviously Channel 4 still a verycommercial organization with a
free to air reach available to it.
And there's obviously your more traditional players like Warner
Brothers Discovery and Sky Sports and a Life.
They could still still make a play for that mass reach side of
(15:03):
things. So we'll have to wait and see.
Two things that are interesting for me and we'll address them
separately. One of them is, are we maybe
getting to a point with which people are over saturated?
I know there's been a lot of talks, especially from the
players that the the competitionschedule is too, too much.
Well, I I also agree the answer is yes, but I am just they're
(15:25):
just they don't want this it there.
There's already a very long domestic season for all these
clubs. There's all of Uefa's
competitions. I know other there's other
similar cups in Germany and Spain and France, but you know,
the UK's also got the FA Cup andthe FL Cup.
Like there's just so much soccer.
Does anyone really want to watchthis?
(15:46):
And I think there's also a little bit of broadcast fatigue
being like, we already spend a lot of money on football.
Like I don't know if we need to spend more.
Well, let's, let's talk about the BBCI think it's worth
talking about because I think it's probably an issue that
other public service broadcasters do face in certain
markets. I'm not sure all of them.
Now BBC is fairly unique in its licensing approach where
everyone who lives in the UK andI think the, I think the law is
(16:08):
anyone who has ATV, which I'm not sure works anymore in this
day and age. But basically you have to pay a
licensing fee. So it's basically like an annual
subscription or an annual fee tohave the rights to access the
BBC suite of content. Now that's just over the years
become under way more scrutiny as a result of the pressures
that come from a consumer and pressure that comes to
(16:30):
government and so forth. And so therefore what that's led
to is a lot of scrutiny on the BBC itself on how they spend
their money, particularly on content.
They're very well known in making and creating lots of
great content themselves. But the own notion of paying a
premium for live sports doesn't really fit in a a bucket that
(16:51):
appeals and appeases it's bulk of audience who are having to
pay a premium. And and I think the message gets
pretty difficult to swallow for many consumers to say, hey, I'm
paying a licensing fee and that licensing fee's paying for a
portion of those live rights. I don't want to watch the Club
World Cup. Why am I having to pay?
(17:12):
I'm, I'm, but I'm funding those rights when it's so, so clear
and so visible when it's talked about what the rights values
are. So as a result, I think they've
had to really be strategic on where they're spending or not
spending their money. There's obviously some rules in
the UK, which I don't know if this exists in other markets,
but there's basically a rule that's managed by Ofcom and the,
and the, the Ministry of Sports Media and Culture, which is
(17:35):
there's different types of live sporting events, right?
So there's the crown jewel events they're called, which is
the FIFA World Cup, the UEFA, the Euro Championships,
Wimbledon, the Grand National, FA Cup in the Olympics.
And that is they have to be shown live and free to wear.
So then just becomes a who's going to to take those rights
(17:56):
and only bidding against each other.
Then there's another set which is purely for highlights must be
available free to air which I didn't even realise there was
one just for highlights alone. But that includes 6 Nations for
the UK matches, cricket, test matches, Ryder Cup and the
Commonwealth Games. And then there's different sub
subgroups under that. But that's the one that has this
(18:16):
crown jewels title, which I justlove the top factor it's got
crown jewels attached to, which is hilarious in in itself.
But because of that legacy of that framework, you, I guess it
basically limits where the otherproperties that we're sorry, the
other broadcasters we're talkingabout would would start to
invest further and further. Because where does the BBC make
(18:38):
its money if it's only making itfrom licensing fees primarily in
the UK? The rest of its funding that it
generates is from international work that it does.
So it's sells its sells its workto other studios
internationally. There might be some revenue that
generates through advertising through its international
channels, but it's not that significant in comparison to its
income it generates domesticallythrough government funding and
(19:00):
the licensing model. It's not going to be spending
money Willy nilly on meteorites,is my basic point.
It's always going to be the commercial organizations.
They're going to fund the bulk of sports rights in this market.
And on the flip side, if you're to zone, how concerning is this
Grant we're talking about one single market as a part of a
global deal. It's not like they don't have
other deals in place. You already said they've they've
(19:21):
secured one in the US, which youknow, just one of the biggest
markets out there. How much of their success is
going to be based on what they can successfully do from a sub
licensing perspective and if this becomes a a more common
trend? Well, you got to think, right?
Remember how late this deal was done?
It's only announced a few monthsago.
Took quite a lot of time for theFIFA to finally find someone
(19:43):
that would basically back the project to the level it wanted
and and who knows the real reasons for maybe does zone
think it's value is as they've paid for it Lot speculate that
with all the money coming from Saudi Arabia and other
investments and the fact that the World Cups basically set to
be in the Kingdom in in the future.
(20:03):
There's a lot of people speculating as to how and why
this this decision was made. But let's this on good faith.
Say that zone thought. This was worth the amount of
money they're putting on the table.
They've only got a few months then to maximise it's value of
the of the rights they have. And there's no way they'd be
able to do that purely through using their own channels wholly
and solely. So for what I'm what I'm hearing
(20:25):
is though, they're basically working frantically, working
frantically, basically like a good old fashioned media rights
agency going market to market and think about how many markets
there are in the world selling to each and every country's set
of broadcasters to try and maximise the revenue opportunity
and the reach of it. Like there's no doubt there's a
mandate from FIFA as well to make sure it's the Club World
(20:48):
Cup is in as many places as possible.
And there's also a mandate, no doubt from the zone to make sure
they make maximise the revenue opportunity.
So you know, there's probably, Idon't know, they, they've got
this set up in the design offices, but there's probably
like a billion dollar price tag and they're cutting it, chopping
it down every deal they've done.And then at the end, hopefully
they go past that zero point andthey can have some nice profit
at, at, at the other end of it. But it's a, it's a grind.
(21:11):
They've got to go out of 200 markets.
What I'm hearing is that all of them, the, the, the top senior
people are going out to market and literally going out one by
one to the broadcaster, selling these rights and trying to get
deals done right across the world.
So a lot of work to be done before this tournament kicks
off, but they're they're well onthe way with some really good
deals. And no doubt, you know, doing a
(21:33):
deal with like TNT and also Warner Brothers Discovery in the
US is a great starting point. But expect to see just a host of
new announcements coming coming flooding over the next couple of
months as they finalise those deals before the the big event.
I said it's a story that we willcontinue to follow and we'll
follow the fall out of it as well.
So this won't be the last time that we speak about it.
(21:54):
But, you know, switching from one Soccer League to another and
another one, I guess you could say, who had a trying to think
of the word to do this sort of aa tone setting type of deal is
the MLS. There's quite a lot of news with
the the international deal that they did with Apple and they're
trying to expand and you know, some of the Club World Cup that
(22:14):
even though they have the deal with Apple, it's not fully
exclusive to some degree. You know, they have partners in
the US to be able to show their games, but they're now also
putting together a Sunday night soccer package and they're
looking to expand those deals internationally to, you know,
not just exclusively live on their their on the Apple
platform. So Nick, you know, I think the
(22:37):
idea that MLS probably big enough to drive everybody to
single Apple platform, we knew was never quite going to be the
case. That's why they have some of
these other deals. But it now looks like, and we
also know they've done some stuff with one football and now
they're also now looking to expand their Sunday night soccer
package or they've got things inGermany, Israel, South Korea,
the Middle East, Southeast Asia,this Sunday night soccer
package. So be curious just to get your
(22:59):
thoughts on this sort of expanded opportunity.
It almost to a degree sounds like the NFL where they just
carve out little packages of what exists to try to sell that
as its own stand alone product. You know, what are your
takeaways from this? Yeah, I'm just really interested
to, I think I said that a lot, really interested.
But I'm, I wonder what Apple thought and actually what the
(23:21):
plan has always been. So has it all?
Was it originally we're just going to hyper payable and gate
this and hope we drive everyone to watch the MLS through Apple
channels right across the globe?Was that always a plan or were
they trying to be patient? So how are we going to launch
with this, make it seem like this is the only way to get
access to the MLS, drive as manysubscribers as we can early on
(23:44):
with the hype of the messy trainand then start to relax and try
and get more distribution, more reach and and again, a bit
that's kind of like the disown situation, like trying to
maximize the value of those those rights a little bit
further. I'm going to give them the
benefit of the doubt, at least the MLS, the benefit of the
doubt to say they probably had this always in their back, the
(24:06):
back of their minds as a as a step for them.
Whether it was always planned out is what I'm not too sure
about. But one thing I am pretty
confident in saying is that the messy movement with the MLS,
it's going to come to an end pretty soon.
You know he's going to leave or retire or whatever the case may
be. Has he announced his retirement?
I can't remember if he's announced.
The only big major news I know is that Kevin de Bruyner will be
(24:28):
stepping away from Man City and it's rumored he will be going to
join Messi at Inner Miami. There's apparently some sort of
discover player discoverability clause in the MLS where you can,
you know, rank your top five. I don't know how in the world a
team with Lionel Messi somehow has top rights in this.
I don't know what the discoverability, just player
discover processes. I try to look it up.
(24:50):
I don't get it. I just don't understand how a
team with Lionel Messi some it'slike being fantasy football.
How's the team with Lionel Messihave the number one spot on the
waiver wire. Like I don't get it.
But no, I'm not aware that Messi's said publicly his
retirement yet. Yeah, I'm, I'm curious again.
I remember debating this when the Messi deal was first done is
who would be the ideal follow upact.
(25:13):
Yeah, because even with Messi, as great as he is and he is
probably the exception, you want.
I mean, ideally America loves a star you know, more than as well
as they want. You want someone who's a media
personality, a media darling, like basically a Beckham.
I'm not a near a Beckham, but inthe top echelon.
And I remember trying to debate,was I debating with you or
(25:35):
debating with someone else? Maybe it was like Tom Bassam or
someone who sounds like editor trying to work out who would be
the the next big star you would bring from other markets that
have that inertia, that movementthat could be the face of the
league for the year. Because even though messy is, he
doesn't talk much in the media because he's his English isn't
at the level, but he's comfortable.
So anyway, so my point basicallyback to it all is that this
(25:59):
window now, while he's still there, he's still driving
audiences. There is a bit of momentum
behind it. The World Cup's coming.
They had to go to market now. They had to go do these deals
now because the risk is that in a in a year or two, the market
might not be there if the ratings do flop a little bit or
flat line a little bit for them.So I'm not surprised at going
(26:19):
out to market. It was almost inevitable.
I think everyone in the industrywho's been around sports media
expected it to happen at some stage.
You know, The thing is that Apple as a platform, as a
product, as a brand isn't strongin every country in the world.
In some markets it's massive, but some markets it's all about
Android. Where I lived in my days in
Jamaica, it wasn't even there was no Apple store there.
(26:40):
There was next to nobody could even buy an iPhone.
You was all Android all the way.Now, granted it's a developing
market, but it's one of many developing countries where the
MLS would be appealing to people.
If there's you know, there was some, for example, there was
some Jamaican players who are playing in the MLS.
There are people who would absolutely love to watch him,
but they would they wouldn't even understand the concept of
(27:01):
why would I need to go sign up to Apple TV when many people
don't probably even have a smartTV in that market.
You know that there's a lot of question Marks and holes.
It's a very leaky bucket, I think is really how I would
describe that approach. But now with expanding these
these linear partnerships acrossthe world, that will definitely
mitigate some of those losses and keep the MLS brand alive and
(27:23):
being talked about a lot more than it would be otherwise.
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So one of the, the last story we're going to cover here, Nick
and you, you brought this up andI, I think it's interesting for
a couple different reasons. And we're actually going to talk
about the world of track and athletics.
And within the US, there was a statement recently made by the
Diamond League chief executive, Peter Stansty.
(28:30):
Stansty, I'll do my best. I'm not good with names.
We learned that in the last episode as well.
But we've got multiple athleticscompetitions taking place with
Grand Slam track and Diamond League.
And you know, I think one of thethings that's interesting here,
Nick, we spoke about the Major League volleyball about a couple
(28:51):
months back saying that they want to launch, but there's
already another volleyball league.
You know, I don't think this is quite the same level as PGA Tour
and live golf sort of thing, butstarting to see some of these
other leagues popping up. And I think with track and
field, where it's a bit different is historically, like
I know World Athletics host different events, but it's
(29:11):
really about the Olympics. And it's what do you do in those
four years in between to build that up?
And I think having more events is good for the athletes, you
know, more opportunities, more exposure.
But at the same time, Nick, be curious, you know, with track
and field, is it a, you know, Pete says competition is a good
(29:31):
thing if done correctly and schedules aren't overlapping
each other because it sounds like there's a bit of
cannibalization going on. But do you think that's actually
the case for a sport of this level?
Is competition in fact a good thing?
So I mean, combination is a goodthing, but I think the, the, the
tricky part here is at the moment, there's a few sports
(29:52):
right there are all built around, to your point, like
around the Olympic movement. Like that is the not only like
the proverbial crown jewel of athletics, but it's, it's
basically everything you can. There's a bunch of people that
come and go as world champs and their stardom.
It depending on the market they are from or the country they're
from, can wane pretty quickly ifthey don't get that Olympic
crown to back up the, the years and years potentially of leading
(30:14):
a, a sport, the competition side.
I think it takes you back to almost like how would I, how
would I put this? I think what the key interesting
part of this is, you know, getting away from the media bit
and going more towards can they create events that have wow
factor and excitement. Because actually, if you go to
an athletics event, I've been toa couple over the years, they
(30:36):
can be exciting for the right events, but if they don't have
the right stardom, they don't have the right names, they don't
have the right pace, they can bequite lackluster at experience
if you're not, you know, sure, there's exceptions if you're at
the Olympics and there's 90,000 people cheering and roaring for
something going on, but that's an exception rather than the
rule. And actually, if you watch these
(30:57):
types of events on broadcast, which I have over the years,
they're OK to watch. But there's if you don't know
the athletes, you don't follow their stories or you don't know
of the competitive, say, storiesbetween some of the stars like
they do like a Noah Laws has sort of generated his own brand
and a name, which I think does help massively for something
(31:18):
like the 100 metres to make it more of an interest.
Again, the sport can really struggle to cut through.
So I think this Grand Slam approach is trying to basically
bring to life again, the live event experience that you add a
little bit of star, you know, Stardust, a little bit of
production, some money to incentivize the athletes and you
(31:39):
have a nice mix. I would go and watch a a bunch
of those types of things. If it was a like a nice short
period of time, you know, a 2 hour stint, a window of stuff
where it was all happening and there was a lot on the line.
If you go to the Olympics, normally you'll get a bunch of
heats, a bunch of non essential,non medal winning events going
on. And then there's a few that will
(31:59):
happen and they're they're they're the ones that get
everyone excited about. But you know what I mean?
Like there's, there's if you have an event that's
concentrated, well put together,well scheduled, everything
matters. You have these 10 pole moments
of pressure and intensity. I could see why that would be
really interesting and I could see why it'd be there for a good
product for digital media versustrying to lean into the legacy
model. But you would be looking at more
(32:21):
of an approach in my view of, OK, you pick your hand, pick
your athletes for all competitions you want.
You wouldn't be following the, let's say the, the more
authentic or the, the, the, the right, the what's the right?
Well, how would I put it? The more authentic approach,
which is you have a bunch of heads to get into the finals and
then you have a winner. So therefore you have
(32:42):
potentially 3040 representativestrying to make the 100 metre
final in these in these environments, if you can just
limit it to just the best of thebest, I think there's got to be
huge appetite for it. So I agree with you in terms of
where track and field is and sort of where it's competing
against. I think the part that's actually
worth us maybe diving a little bit more into because it's not
just limited to track and field.This is going to be an argument
(33:04):
that all sports are going to have is when you start looking
into their media approach. So Diamond League is found on
Flow Sports, which is a, a paid streaming service.
We spoke about Flow last week with their their investment from
Dream Sports and you know, it's approximately $3030 a month or
$150.00 for an annual subscription.
And this is apparently been called out by athletes such as
(33:24):
Gabby Thomas saying like, hey, being on a paywall is not good
for us. Whereas if we look at Grand Slam
track, which I forgot to mentionis Co founded by Michael
Johnson, famous US Olympian, their broadcast deals on ABC
Peacock streaming service, whichis significantly lower price
point, but it's also on The CW, which is a free to air channel.
So they have taken different approaches within how they go
(33:46):
about distributing their content.
But I thought what was really interesting, really true, was
Stephanie's comment from DiamondLeague, which is, yes, I would
love free to air, but the reality is we're looking at 32
to 33 hours of competition that's available.
The reality is free to air broadcasters.
There's only so much real estateif we want to think about it in
that sense. And you've got to convince
someone of that 32 hours you have that it's better than the
(34:09):
32 hours of something else they can put on that linear channel.
And does that actually drive as much revenue?
Because obviously you still needthat revenue to grow it.
And there's that whole argument of reach first revenue.
And these two organizations havetaken different paths.
But I also think it's interesting his point being
like, yeah, I would love to be on Free to Air, but that doesn't
mean someone is going to be willing to provide me a home to
(34:30):
do so. That was me.
Profound I. Was gonna say that's me putting
words in his mouth but like that's sort of what I get from
that comment. But it but it that that is the
conundrum of, of sports and where it's gone through.
And we've seen over time, ultimately those that have
chased the the biggest check hascome with the sacrifice of, of
audience engagement and and massawareness.
(34:54):
The tricky bit I think when you're looking at athletics is
there's different pockets like every sport of, of audiences.
There's people who are obsessed,who live and breathe athletics,
who you know, you could see you could define different groups.
I could say there's the if you go to actually there, you
wouldn't believe this, but the biggest event in Jamaica every
year was the high school collegeAthletics Championships.
(35:17):
Bigger than any football match, bigger than anything else
because I don't know there's so there's so much riding on
basically these athletes gettingthrough.
I guess I'm not too too sure andeveryone's family is going to
watch them. I'm not too sure, but there are
pockets. My point is there are pockets
globally and domestically where fans want to be super served
athletics related content and that's where a premium
(35:38):
proposition is valuable. The problem is if you put all
your eggs in that basket and that I think is the ultimate
problem here. And Dominley probably didn't
have much of A choice, you know,whether it's flow sports or
anyone else coming to the table,we're willing to pay you for
these rights, but we'll take them all because we don't want
to lose audiences to a free to air platform where you want to
(35:58):
have say the finals of the 100 metres made available to get
mass reach. Like that's it's a supply and
demand conundrum that they've got on that front.
And then people will be complaining about the checks
that they're getting for winningraces and if they go down the
full reach play. And that's why.
And it is a good question. I think the modern day question
now is actually do you just accept, And I think we've talked
(36:20):
about this before, like, but do you, if you accept no meteorites
check upfront, but just the biggest possible reach made
available, whatever the method. And then it's up to the athletes
and it's up to everyone else to maximise that awareness, that
visibility through their own methods and channels.
Because now they can do that a lot more than they ever could
through creating their own mediabusinesses, just through social
(36:42):
media, going out and selling partnerships and visibility.
We could give them more freedom than say the Olympics do in
terms of brand visibility. Because obviously that's one of
the challenges for the Olympics is you might compete with the
Olympics, but you can't show anyof the brands you really are
attached to because of all the heavy policing on IP there.
(37:02):
Maybe that would be enough. And maybe you allow some of the
athletes to have some of the thelive and near live rights
available to give them more visibility, more audience
growth, and let them make money that way from it.
It's a conundrum. It's tricky because no one
would, no one in this world I'veever heard say, yes, let's
accept less money wilfully and happily and leave it to the
(37:24):
athletes to make the money. And they and athletes are like,
yeah, that sounds like a great, great idea.
But I think we'll get there at one at some stage down the line
once the the the monetization machine, you know, like social
media and YouTube and those platforms continues to become
more and more robust and trusted.
Agreed. And I think the what you're
seeing with the Kings and Queensleague, what you're seeing with
(37:46):
the bowlers league, it won't happen in a in a formal spark to
start off. But you would think that these
types of leagues that are more driven by star power and
influence in terms of follower numbers on TikTok, Instagram, if
those sorts of disruptor leaguescan show that you don't need the
broadcast you and you can reallyrely on the individual talent to
(38:07):
drive that. Like, I feel like that's almost
sort of the test bed and you seeif that maybe actually trickles
into the more mainstream media. Yeah, I I think they are the
test bed. They're what everyone's hoping
is unlocking this new approach, this new way of doing things.
The the jury is still well and truly out on those types of
approaches because they're, they're trying a shortcut and
(38:28):
that's using creators and and entertainment first over true
sport. And so therefore will true
sports be able to unlock an entertainment like approach to
it. And that's where I do think you
almost, you almost need to have two different propositions.
I think the Diamond League trying to sort of, it can't be a
(38:48):
half half hearted version of theGlan.
Is it grand? Slam track.
Yeah, it can't be 1/2 hearted version of that.
It has to be all in, you know, because it can lose it's
identity because Diamond League is supposed to be service
serving the the the world of athletics, you know, not just
the best of the best. I mean, that is a bit of it, but
(39:08):
like it's, but it's supposed to be making sure it's accessible
to if you're the best runner from somewhere, I don't know, in
in Africa, you've got a genuine chance.
It's because you're fast to be able to compete in that event.
And I'm bet, I bet you the glam slam track and these other
competitions, you can be one of the better runners and
potentially A viable option. But if you don't have the star
(39:30):
power, the US centric audience where the media world's driven,
you're not going to get that chance to race in it.
And that's why they both need toexist.
They both need to find their place, but if they try and be a
bit of too much of each other then that's where they lose
their their value in the eyes ofthe audiences.
Yes, well, like I said, it's just interesting just given the
(39:51):
way that the two organizations have taken their different media
approaches, whether they end up some sort of joint coming
together, you know, it's something we'll follow.
But I think it's just it was theIT was those comments made like,
hey, would love to be free to air, but it doesn't fit for us
that I just. I thought made it an interesting
debate to have because that is achoice other organizations will
(40:11):
have to make. So it is, I think the challenge
you, your point is, is a is a really important one.
I think the the challenge, we'veseen every disruptor come to
market, Things like the ISL, theInternational Swimming League
was a really exciting proposition.
Disruptive, more money for athletes, more innovative
approach. I haven't heard that talked
(40:31):
about. I don't even know if it exists
anymore. Had a pretty eccentric person
who was running it. Anything that's disruptor like
can disrupt the approach that's being taken.
But for it to be viable, the only one I can think of at the
moment is the golf situation with live golf kicking on and
this conundrum about whether or not they're going to end up
(40:53):
joining up or not with PGA Tour.But that's a whole another ball
game. So yeah, we'll have to wait and
see if it works out, but I thinkit clearly needs some
disruption, that's for sure. The whole, the whole athletic
space. Yeah, it'll it'll be
interesting, like you said, withlive golf as well, like you
mentioned there, Nick, where that'll go, whether that becomes
a precedent or if it ends up just being kind of a one off
situation. But Nick, it's been it's been a
(41:13):
fun episode diving into some different things this week.
Lots of you know, I know you keep using the word interesting,
but it's very true. And I think more, I think what
I've noticed in some recent episodes, Nick, is we're
following up on stories. They're not just one offs.
You know, the Club World Cup is something we've been we've been
talking about for a little bit, the MLS Apple deal, something
we've been falling a little bit.So I've noticed there's some of
these thematics that we we keep following these stories as they
(41:35):
evolve and more information comes out and to see the
directions they went compared towhere we started.
So I'm actually kind of enjoyingthat.
Yeah, I think it's good if we can continue to add more layers
and depths to the stories as they develop, and then we learn
and hopefully people listening learn as well, and that's all
part of the fun. Yeah, absolutely.
Well, everyone, I appreciate youjoining us and we'll catch you
on the next episode. Now before you go, if you liked
(41:57):
what you heard today, be sure torate and review and just let me
know what you think on social. You can find me on most social
platforms at Sports Pro Nick. And 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. 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.
(42:18):
Thanks. Stream timers until next time.
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