SHOW ME THE MONEY! Why are investors so interested in sports media?

Episode Transcript
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(00:09):
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
Beecham. Now, Nick, we hosted 3 Count
them 123 separate events this week.
So it's been a busy, busy week for us.
And we spent a lot of time talking to people in the
industry. But I think sometimes, Nick,
it's important to talk about thecommon man.
And I've got two stories I feel like, you know, are going to be

(00:30):
great to start off this episode,you know, talking to just the
common person within the sports world, not the not the
professionals, not the people managing hedge funds that we
spoke to, things like that, the common man.
Well, it's always important to think about the common man
before we start talking about the, the big numbers.
Technically we delivered 4 events actually, because I'll, I
can give context later on what it's for.

(00:51):
But let's let's jump into it. What have you heard?
What have you heard on the ground?
You've had your ear to the ground with the common man.
Tell us more. I have so the the one I'll start
with is basically obviously FIFAClub World Cup is going on.
One of my good friends in the inthe group chat, he's a Chelsea
fan and he just put in a text message to the group during the
semi finals. So think about, you know,
second, third biggest game of the tournament.

(01:12):
My favourite part about this Chelsea game is the only channel
that it's on is the Spanish channel.
Now I have a feeling that that wasn't the only channel that the
game was on, but it's absolutelya failure in the sense, my
friend, these are sports people.These aren't just so, you know,
people just kind of randomly scoring through.
This is a Chelsea fan. They've got NBC Peacock, they've

(01:33):
got YouTube TV. These are actual sports fans.
I'm sure the game was on more than just the Spanish channel,
but the fact that that was the only place he could seemingly
find it shows that there's some sort of problem from a
discoverability perspective. Yeah, just a little bit, just a
little bit. If someone's actively seeking
out, I mean, we talk about this all the time, right?
But that is a great litmus, A litmus test for this stuff if

(01:53):
you can only find the Spanish version of something you're
actively wanting to watch. I'm not even sure where it is.
Obviously it's available on the zone as every match is available
on there. But like we've talked about,
let's be real, design has next to no awareness in so many key
markets, so many key markets, let alone the US or let alone in
France and other markets where they have those major sets of

(02:15):
rights. So yeah, let's let's be clear.
I think it's not a surprise to hear that sort of feedback, but
I'm thinking it might be was on TNT or something, but maybe not
all the matches. The problem is, they've probably
done some small, some small deals, but not for for not for
the comprehensive rights for anyone else.
So if you can't, if you only find a Spanish game, you're

(02:36):
probably in a spot of bother. Yeah, like I said, I'm sure it
was somewhere else, but the factthat it wasn't.
I'll tell you, the Spanish commentary is probably better
sometimes the emotion. Have you have you seen some of
the highlights you get on socialmedia?
Like, I can't even do it as longas those guys are incredible.
I think at the best days I've seen, I think it's Latin
American and Korean commentary seems to go absolutely bonkers.

(03:00):
So I yes, media of commentary where you don't actually need to
understand the language to really enjoy it, I think there's
a lot to take away from that. Yeah, well the other story I
have, I was at the driving range.
I know I've been talking quite abit about Golf Nick lately, but
so the driving range, I'm up in Yorkshire at the moment, so I'm
not even down in London. So it's a bit odd.
I can hear someone in the the Bay too down for me talking

(03:21):
about being a Crystal Palace fan.
Odd place to find a Crystal Palace fan up in Yorkshire.
But nonetheless. They were talking about Leon
because there was the the Co ownership that might potentially
prevent Crystal Palace from competing in Europa because of
Uefa's rules around multiple club ownership.
So they were talking about that and then it got into all screw

(03:41):
league on. Don't like it.
It's a farmers league. It's not any good.
And then his friend in the background is like, yeah, like
it's not even on TV. Like you can't even watch it
anywhere. Like coming up, it's not going
to be in the UK. You can't even, you know, watch
it in other markets. He's like, even in France, the
only place you can watch it is what's what what what's the name
of that thing? DAZN And so that at this point

(04:06):
I'm like, well, actually guys like it's the zone, but only
that like they actually terminated the contract.
It it doesn't exist anymore. So currently at the moment, you
can't watch it at all in France.Now news has come out, Nick,
that the the plan has moved forward, but it's just hey, I
was just really surprised that anyone in Yorkshire is talking
about Lee Goon. But the fact that they were
familiar with the fact that doesn't have a broadcast

(04:27):
partner, and then again, they couldn't even pronounce Dezone
and Dezone's home market just itis weird sometimes how news just
gets around Nick. I can't wait for the day that
they rebrand that name because I've heard too more people say
dozen than I have Dezone over the years.
And you think about all the names name changes that TNT and

(04:49):
HBO Max and then Max and back toHBO Max has gone through just
one effort with design. Would have been really nice to
just sort out that. I mean, the brand looks great,
the logo looks great, but they could have sorted that name name
stuff out. Look, I think just comes back to
this whole issue that we're where we're at now around sports
media is you cannot just rely onthe content to be enough to

(05:11):
drive an audience to a platform.You have to market the life out
of it to get it visible, create awareness for or even someone
who's actively seeking it struggles to find it,
particularly on platforms that are more gated than most, like a
like a design. And I still think that is one of
the most underappreciated areas of sports today is the ability
just to make sure true widespread awareness and not not

(05:35):
just trying to sell Subs, but the awareness and visibility of
the brand of the platform and getting people just to
understand what it's all about, particularly because of the
fragmentation of rights. If you're not actively know and
going to that platform regularly, you have no idea that
that's a viable option if you'reconstantly going to a Sky or
Warner Brothers Discovery or TNTSports, I should say in the UK.

(05:56):
So I think it's still hugely underappreciated, no doubt under
budgeted in many, many sporting platforms using a very legacy
model of well it's on, it's on the main platform, people will
find it and it's just not the case anymore.
No. Well, Lisa, when I made that
comment, I'd said, well, you came to watch it in France
because the zone is cancelled orterminated the contract early.

(06:20):
That news has been updated, Nick.
We at least have some, some formal plans.
You know, last time we spoke on this topic, we were sort of
like, well, we're six weeks awayfrom the season, what are we
going to do here? It does seem as though there
finally is a plan they've rolledout sort of they're going to do
it, Nick. They're they're going to do the
D to C thing that we've all beenhope, maybe not hope, but I have

(06:41):
been interested to see as a, youknow, great litmus test to see
how something like this can exist.
We've got pricing on it. It appears to be basically the
same amount of games that the zone previously had be and will
still be able to broadcast a live game on Saturday.
But I suppose the one major difference is, is the price in
the sense I believe, to my understanding, it's basically
half the price. If you paid for the full year

(07:04):
subscription upfront, I think itgoes up, which would be about
€15.00 a month. I think it's 20 years a month if
you pay it on a month basis. And there's also, despite the
fact that the zone is not there,my understanding is, Nick, that
they, the zone is going to carrythis as a linear channel and
they've got a few other linear partners.
They're going to help with the distribution, but they are going
to go D to C Nick. So we were talking about it.

(07:25):
Writing's maybe been on the walla little bit, but it seems as
though we finally have a concrete plan.
Yeah, let's let's be clear. I'm pretty sure they won't be
using. It won't be broadcasting through
a linear lens. They'll be distributing it.
So basically the platform will be available on the zone.
This is what my understanding that that platform will be
available, but it won't be through the unavailable on the

(07:47):
zone's linear output. It'll be available in the same
way the Game Pass International effectively is.
And those other places that you'll be available is a
distribution thing. So they are distributing the
product, not having games live on the platform, which is still
a very risky game for discovery.Talk about this.
We just talked about discovery, right, Like if if the games are

(08:08):
only going to be available behind the paywall.
Now they've gone the approach here.
What's unique about it? Well, there's a few things that
are unique about that many have covered and we've covered.
But the few things that are really clear that are unique is
it looks like so now that everything is behind this
paywall on this special dedicated product, baby bar a

(08:28):
few games with being, I think being might have some games, but
the price point's way lower. So instead of having a really
hard to bypass or hard to justify price point at €15.00 a
month, that's much more palatable for anyone who's or
even a mid, I think tier, you know, mid tier fan.

(08:48):
They've also gone with this lower price for under 26 year
olds, which I think works out toless than €10 or about half
price, less than €10 a month, which is a really interesting
point because I've not seen that.
But naturally what they're trying to address there is a
piracy issue because the youngeraudiences, I have no doubt the
ones that are most prevalent in piracy because they're the most

(09:11):
technically adapted using those sorts of tools.
So interesting approach to take go down that direction and to
see if that price point gets lowenough that actually, you know,
for 10 years a month, I will just pay the subscription rather
than pirating it. Actually depending on how
difficult they're able to frustrate the pirates of making

(09:32):
it more difficult because we know piracy is so prevalent
there. So it's a bold move.
They are looking, they want to least a million subscribers.
Year one. I think the economics looked
like they needed 2 million. There's only 2 million to
justify the rights and they weren't even close to getting a
million from what I understand. So they've got a big hurdle to
jump. They brought down that barrier,

(09:55):
so I mean, it's going to be a good test for us.
They don't have the Canal Plus distribution, so they still
haven't sorted how that relationship with Canal Plus.
I had this picture in my head right where there's a lot of
legacy political stuff that's happened over the years.
The LFP burned the bridge with Canal Plus and I kind of had
this almost like godfather like moment where LFPS come back to
canal pluce and said, we want tocome back to the table with you.

(10:17):
And they're like kiss my ring first.
But like, basically, if you, if you kiss your ring and say
sorry, then we can, we can starttalking again and no one's
willing to do it now. I don't know that's the the way
it goes, but I had this vision in my mind that it played, it's
played out like that. So yeah, interesting to see the,
the, the low price point. They had to do something
different to what the Zone had done.
Clearly I'd I'd expect to see Amazon come to the table with a

(10:40):
distribution deal. Distribution deal basically to
give them more visibility given Amazon has had a presence in
France for some time. Who knows, maybe it'll be
Netflix. They did the deal.
TF one? Maybe it'll be Netflix.
Well, one thing I think it hasn't been really covered well
and I'm not quite sure why, but the Endeavour streaming is

(11:01):
basically the one who's doing their their broadcast product or
sorry, the OTT product in the UKand I've heard that they will be
also doing it in France for them.
Now Endeavours, the main thing they have to do with launching
an OTD product is you have to get it right, right.
As we've seen what happens in other markets with the zone and
alike and not getting a right day one can have all sorts of

(11:23):
knock on effects. So in demonstrating from what I
understand is going to be the ones delivering that product,
that gives them a lot of surety.That means that they can connect
up a lot of their technology with what they're using already
in the UK, even if it's not the same product externally.
So it gives them a bit of confidence and they're in pretty
good hands probably with Endeavour streaming out of

(11:44):
everyone else. The, the, what's been quite
interesting is they've gone witha media production company I've
never heard of before, which it looked on paper as someone who
hasn't done this sort of scale of production.
So that is more, the interestingthing here is they've taken a,
let's say a different approach to rather than like what the MLS
did with working with Apple and having take on the production

(12:06):
themselves. They went with the best, the
best, best in the business with IMG and NEP to do that.
Doesn't seem like they're takingthat approach to working with
someone else. So I just know when you have
more stakeholders, more moving parts, and you want to do it
yourself, more can go wrong. So my fingers and toes are
crossed for them to get it rightbecause they have to launch
very, very soon. I don't know when the kick off

(12:28):
of the season is. August 15th.
So they've got not much time to get it all together then they've
got to market it. They're hoping the distribution
deals are going to be significant enough for them to
get good reach. So time will tell.
I really hope it works. I really hope it works.
But with I still think they needto and we'll work out eventually
some extra deals with linear partners to get more visibility

(12:52):
on games outside of this OTT product.
But let's see. Well, the way I'll segue this
snake, and I think it would be quite logical, is we'll talk
about our investment summit. I mentioned we did three, you
told me it's four. You'll probably enlighten me as
to what that is. But we did have our investment
summit and I'll let you talk a little bit more broadly about
what that investment summit is. But that, you know, the segue, I
would say is be interesting to see what impact this has on

(13:15):
League One's media values. I hosted a session at our
investment summit that we'll talk a little bit more talking
about how to drive the value of media for investors.
It was largely more around non live because we kind of know the
NFL is really popular, the NBA is really popular, the Premier
League's really popular. That's pretty easy to to
understand. But more what are the other
content formats you can build todrive value?

(13:37):
And you know, there's a really interesting example about just
change your sport, which I'm sure we'll use as an example to
do that. But you know, maybe we'll see
how this impacts League One's finances for potential investors
in the future. But you know, before we dive
into that session a little bit more, Nick, you know, because it
is a new event, probably had been a shorter runway than some
of our other events. Just maybe talk a little bit
more broadly about that investment summit that we hosted

(13:59):
as well as the dinner. And maybe that's the 4th event
in there that I don't know aboutas well.
We'll see. Yeah.
The difference is that the otherevent is the investment dinner
that we ran. And the reason I count that as a
different event is we are not necessarily attaching them to
each other. They are stand alone themselves.
But we wanted to do it this yearto leverage the investment
summit taking place where it wasand the types of people we'd be

(14:19):
having in town for that event. But we are keeping it as a sort
of a semi stand alone because we'll also be bringing people in
from other corners who may not be attending the conference.
So technically it's a it's there's there was four event, an
extra event in there. But no, the what we wanted to do
with the investment event is youever see, we are pretty strong
as a business. I believe, you know, we're this

(14:39):
one of the strongest, not the strongest in in the world on
covering media, the media space in terms of the events we run
and the content around it. But one of the areas that
everyone is interested in right now is investment.
Whether you're a rights owner trying to understand how to tap
into that space and potentially use investment to grow or just
understanding whether it's financially worthwhile really to

(15:01):
do it and hearing about some examples that have been
successful and a lot that have been unsuccessful.
Just that whole economy around investment is a hugely
developing and growing area thateveryone in the sports industry
is trying to come to grips with.Not like investments new, but
it's still only maturing as a asa real heart and soul core
component of the financing of sports.

(15:23):
So that was why we were keen to do this event and we want to get
our flag in the ground now. We think it's an important area
that we see content and our other events with this huge
engagement with. So we wanted to have something
that was just for that sector ofthe industry, not just about
educating the wider industry, which is what our media channels
and our bigger events do. But this one is to bring
investors and people seeking investment or wanting to learn

(15:46):
about investment actively all together in one place.
And we took a different format. We made sure that the event was
singled day because time's precious.
For the conference itself. We wanted to keep a focus really
about hearing mainly from peoplewho are investors, but also in
this instance of people who haveactively had investment and what
they've done with it, which is what your session around the

(16:08):
media side was really interesting and it was, it was
great for us because also it wasa new way for us to see what the
appetite like was for investors.What I had sort of envisaged is
basically investors would come to our event and they would try
and hideaway because they wouldn't want to be annoyed by
people trying to pitch them stuff.
And it's actually the opposite. They were really open to talk to

(16:29):
as many people and with as many people as possible because they
want to get a feel for the next big investment opportunity, big
or small. They're quite happy to talk
about what they like to invest in and, and whatnot and talk to
from everyone from start-ups through and, and just they
understand the value of buildingrelationships for, for whether
it's something now or in the future.

(16:51):
And so we kept that event intimate.
We didn't want it to be a catch all where you had every Tom,
Dick and Harry in the room, but to be focused around that group.
And it really paid a lot of dividends for us because I think
just gave us a greater sense of the investment market, the
content. I was also afraid that investors
would be too afraid to talk about specifics or about the

(17:12):
numbers. And quite actually that was not
the case. They were much more willing to
talk about scale, revenues, things that were good, things
that aren't so good. It wasn't all just, you know,
bells and whistles and all all positive.
Although maybe the IP, the the hundred session was a little bit
funny on that that regard, whichgot some headlines.

(17:34):
But overall it was a really goodexperience for us to expand our
audience further to double down on that space and really put a
flag in the ground. Basically the only event that's
a true conference style event that is positioned solely around
the investments base in sport and we're going to be doing
something in the US in the near future as well.
So we're quite excited about that.

(17:54):
Yeah, well, it was, it was a real learning day for me.
You know, I made the comment on the ground.
Usually I go to our events. I know all the rights holders, I
know all the leagues at this stage.
I'm pretty familiar with most ofthe vendors.
You get the start-ups that'll come up and surprise you.
But you know, oh, I know Delta Trey, I know WSCI know all those
don't, you know, surprise me theway they used to.
What I spent most of the event being a little overwhelmed.

(18:15):
I was like, I don't know the names of all these investment
companies and I didn't want to go up to someone that's, you
know, managing, you know, $50 billion worth of assets and be,
oh, hey, what do you do, buddy? And like, just realise like, so
yeah, it was definitely a day for me to, to do some learning
because it's not our usual audience.
There were some of the rights holders there that I know, but a
lot of the, the people that would have replaced the vendors,
you know, that usually come to our events.

(18:37):
Like it was a lot of me having to to figure out some new names.
Yeah, definitely. Look, I think what was
interesting, I was a little bit maybe less afraid of that.
I was just happy to ask people like what's your approach to
sports? And sometimes you get, oh, we
look at, you know, investment tickets of 2 million to 5
million in startups and like, oh, fine, yeah, that's pretty,
pretty stock standard and oh, manage a portfolio of $5 billion

(18:59):
in assets. Oh, OK, that's quite a lot of
lot of money. What was really interesting in
some of those conversations is Iheard consistently from people
either in the investment space, as in investors themselves, but
also people who are around the service side.
So lawyers, the people, the, thebankers, the merchant bankers,
basically who are connecting the, the, the, let's say the
investors and to opportunity wasit is an insane amount of money

(19:24):
that is not being deployed in investment circles.
So basically there's an issue with deal flow and you know,
deal flow being basically the actual deals happening.
There's all this money ready to invest and you see all these
announcements of happening of there's this war chest for
people to go out and buy teams and clubs and competitions and
just and set new buying. Yeah basically new service

(19:44):
providers and alike. Yeah, the activities not aligned
with that sort of money. And what's going to happen soon
is that all this money that's sitting in the bank ready to be
spent and not accruing interest in some instances just sitting
there ready to be deployed is going to have to get paid back
to the investors soon because it's all very cyclical.
So I learned a lot about and there's more I learnt which I.
Could go on about, but probably not the right platform for it.

(20:06):
But basically we could see a real influx of investment coming
soon. But then you have this other
layer and the layer being an investment being in teams and
leagues, but also in media platforms and service providers
and basically every corner of the industry could really pick
up momentum. But then you couple that with
the global uncertainty about arewe going to be in a global war

(20:29):
soon? Are we what's happening with the
US and interest rates and the Trump effect and all these
things. And this unlayer of uncertainty
has a massive impact on what investors are serious investors
are looking at doing with their money.
So you have this real tension point now.
It's a bit of AI think it soundslike it feels like no one said

(20:50):
this, but it felt like there's abit of a calm before the storm.
So there's a little bit of uncertainty.
Everyone's trying to work out what where we're going and
they're providing the World War doesn't break out and the like
and further uncertainty doesn't come.
You could expect a real influx of deals coming to the market
right across the the industry. So that was the feel I got from

(21:13):
some conversation. But also there could be some oh
shit moments coming. As in basically organisations
that have been invested in, haven't paid up or haven't
delivered results. What's going to happen in those
instances? You can see investors basically
wanting their returns and money back earlier because nothing's
been happening. What does that lead to?
Lots of weird uncertainty and question marks.

(21:35):
But I do feel like it's a bit ofa calm before the storm and glad
we're can be a bit bit more closer to a bit more part of it.
I love a little love a little bit of gossip, love a little bit
of tea. So we'll we'll definitely keep
following that up. But kind of shifting gears
towards my session, I managed tohave a a pretty diverse group of
panellists. Like I said, this session was
titled something beyond the pitch driving media values in

(21:57):
sports content. So I try to drive the session a
little bit away from necessarilyspecifically the live rights
because there's so much content that exists beyond there.
And I had four panellists, one from overtime.
If you're not familiar with overtime, massive platform at
this stage in terms of their growth over the last five years,
we've been fortunate enough to have Dan Porter be a couple part
of a couple of our events. Lots driven around, you know,

(22:19):
they talk quite a bit around community, UGC.
They've even been so successful now they've set up their own IP.
They have the two of their own basketball leagues in A7 on 7
league. There's one of the great
examples where he listed off to the, the teams in the OTE
Basketball League asking if anyone had heard of them before
the event. And of the 200 people, I think 3
raise their hands. And he's like, well, if you go
to TikTok, they're both in the top 10 most followed teams.

(22:41):
You can put Real Madrid, Dallas Cowboys, whoever's up there.
But just to kind of give you an idea, like we're doing really
good in this space of what we do.
So their view on content is going to be completely different
based on sort of they're not competing for traditional live
rights. They're largely doing it on
their own, while also creating some live content themselves
with their own IP. Also.

(23:03):
Go ahead, Nick. I was just going to say, I think
let before we go go the full spiel, I think let's talk about
those those companies. I think before we go into some
of the stuff that covered because what was great is again,
sometimes we talk about theory and stuff at these events, but
actually here they talked about some numbers.
They they shared a bit more context to give the scale and
understanding. And Zach, who's the Co founder,

(23:24):
you know, alongside Dan, I was very impressive in how he talked
about their approach and they'reactively fundraising the moment,
but they've raised a load of money.
They turn, I think he said, theysaid turnover around 100 million
revenue now, which is now it's getting significant because I
wasn't sure where they got to, but he was really great just
explaining not only how well they're doing, but what the

(23:47):
challenges in the market. And I thought that was really
good context before we move on to the others.
And, and I, I wrote some notes down on that.
I think it was interesting to hear that what they find is
still really difficult. The example you shared of him,
like, hey, only two of you out of 200 people plus know what
these two brands are, yet they're the two most followed
clubs in the world. They were talking about the fact

(24:07):
that a don't believe everything you hear about the difficulties
of monetizing short form contentand even mid form content.
They're generating 10s of millions just from those alone.
And they're able to generate 10sof 1,000,000 out of merchandise
sales off the back of that visibility on short form.
So their their thesis or their message is actually they're

(24:29):
already doing it. That's and that's the underlying
challenge. The whole industry is telling
you it's they're growing audiences, but they can't turn
it into anything. Well, actually they have found
the right approach there. So I just thought that was
interesting. And then to couple that.
But their challenge then is to turn that even into further
revenue because they have to do this whole education piece to
explain, oh, trust, like, like you can't say trust us.

(24:51):
We've got two of the best 10 clubs that you've never, ever
heard of that are doing well. And they have to go through this
whole education process of educating the B to B part of the
industry on who they are, why it's significant.
The numbers are legit. Here's the proof of concept
here. And that just takes a lot of
time when you're trying to raiseinvestment, you're trying to
drive, you know, get significantcommercial partnerships,

(25:13):
etcetera. And I just thought that was a
really good reflection because Ithink typically when we talk
about sports and sports media, we all as an industry rely and
talk about the more incumbents, the traditionals with the
traditional channels. And here's someone who has a
quasi traditional approach, but they are doing it so uniquely.
They still have to do a load of education despite the fact

(25:34):
they're generating 100 million in revenue for the through the
year. So I thought that was a really
interesting example of the challenge and opportunity that
is still facing sports, all all wrapped together in one with
overtime. Well, the question that led to
that was basically, and he raised this point, the average
user on overtime is roughly 2021years old, whereas if you look

(25:56):
at the average investor, you're probably talking 40s, fifties.
And to your point, how do you communicate the value of that?
Because like I said, when no oneactually is aware of two of your
biggest assets, you know, do investors look at you the way
you think they should based on what those properties have?

(26:17):
And I think to your point, he said, yeah, it is difficult
because like, they're not familiar with that.
You tell them Dallas Cowboys, they get that, but they don't
realise that Dallas Cowboys are have less TikTok followers.
And then how do you equate that with a, with a dollar amount for
investment? But yeah, he said.
Like it is difficult trying to explain to 4050 year olds why
something that 20 year olds are into is a valuable commodity.

(26:37):
Hey, well, I'm for I'm in my 40sand I have no problem
understanding, thank you very much.
No, but it is an interesting point, right is to there is that
knowledge and understanding gap.And I'd be shocked in this day
and age, though, if you're not talking, if you're talking to a
a middle-aged investor and they don't understand that, they
don't understand that they that there's a knowledge that they
have to overcome. If they don't, that's a pretty,

(26:59):
pretty ignorant way to look at this space in my view.
So that's not a knock on oath and that's more knock on the
investment wall, which I'm sure there are people like that who
think they know it all. And the reality is they don't
have a clue now. I mean, look overtime.
He's now been in the market for like a decade now, been around
for so long. I think they still have the the
line that he used. It's something like 5% of the NB

(27:19):
as active players are invested in the league now.
I wonder if that's one of those situations where how real is
that investment? How much is invested?
Is it significant? Is it anecdotal?
I don't know. And my guessing is it's more
anecdotal because I'd like to beable to say that.
But nevertheless, you still haveto get them to commit to it.
And that's that's the challenge themselves.

(27:40):
So anyway, I don't have to it's not just about overtime, but I
just thought theirs is a really good example.
I want to read through the transcript and actually watch it
back. It was so much stuff in there.
We'll dig into that a bit more. I want to keep going and there's
a few other interesting parts toit, but it was really
interesting because all of them talk numbers a little bit more,
which was nice to and refreshing.
Well, just before you talk aboutinvestors, you know one of the

(28:01):
questions, how do we raise investment?
And, you know, Zach gave the answer, you know, our first
investor was David Stern. That sort of helps.
That kind of helps when your first investor is, you know, the
commissioner of the NBA. And, you know, it's not to say
that they haven't had struggles or how to do more of it.
You made the point about, you know, 5% of NBA players.
But they're like, when your first investors, David Stern,

(28:22):
like, it's a good starting point.
Certainly helps with the leeway of getting other people on board
to say, hey, David Stern's into this.
Like you should probably be considering it too.
WSC was similar, I think they were.
David Stern was one of the ones and then they used that story
throughout and it clearly works.I mean, if you look at the cap
table that Overtime has and theyrattled off some of the names

(28:45):
and they are ridiculous like Liberty Global, Andreas and
Horowitz, 5% of the NBAI think Jeff Bezos is in there somewhere
at some level around like it is ridiculous who's who.
And he was basically saying, quite frankly, if you get good
names, they do follow each other.
And that is people want a piece of the action.
Effectively, that's what it's all about.

(29:05):
Cause investment is a bit of a gamble and you wanna you trust
other people's names who are investing and you don't wanna
miss out if one of your competitors probably successful.
So yeah, that was an interestinganecdote, but not surprising,
but just interesting to be called out like that.
I think was interesting nonetheless.
Yeah. Well, the other one was Dream
Sport and we spoke about on the last podcast, those aren't

(29:26):
familiar. Dream Sport being based in India
have a heavy presence with cricket.
We we just talked about the justincredible numbers that are
taking place in India. And one of the quotes he had,
one of the statistics he had, which he mentioned in our pre
meeting and then brought it up in India, I believe he said
there are 18 million people per year that are turning 18 years

(29:49):
old. Yeah.
So I think it was about 18,000,000, yeah, which is like
that's almost the size of Australia.
Like 75% of the entire country is turning.
Was it, what was it? What was the age window?
Sorry. 1818. Yeah, wow, Wow.
So like when you're just talkingabout like growing audiences,
when you know, and they're you know, one of their big things

(30:10):
with dream sport is Dream 11, which is a fantasy sports and
you know, fan code, you know, 18kind of get in that fantasy
sports. So they're just about, you know,
just the sheer size of India already that they have to work
with and the fact that every single year an Australia sized
portion of the population is coming into an age range with
which they can target. It's quite a phenomenal

(30:32):
statistic. Yeah, actually strange point on
a good example. Probably the Nordics.
Let's go with the Nordics, probably closer to the market of
Sweden. 10, Norway about 5. Yeah, we'll go, we'll go with a
bit of scan, a bit of the Nordicregion.
But yeah, those are bonkers numbers, right?
So if you've got a product that is purpose built for younger
audiences, you're in a great place.
What was the other study used like 10?
They they have on Google search,they have 10 times the amount of

(30:55):
searches for fantasy sports, 10 times more for Dream 11 than
they do fantasy sports as a search term.
Yeah. Basically showing coining,
coining that they all have cornered the market for for
fantasy sports in that, in that space, No.
What was the guy's name from Dream Sports?
He was great. I thought he was really.
Raj. Raj, he was, he was really on it

(31:16):
and very clear. They seem really seem to be on
on it with their approach. And we talked about them
previously in in recent episodesaround their investment into
Flow Sports. I love the anecdote he gave
about that. Oh, I missed.
There were three things he talked about when they're
looking for an investment because of it's really
interesting to see an Indian based platform, a media company

(31:37):
in diversifying and investing outside of India.
You haven't seen a lot of the examples of that of late, but
there were three things that he said to their approach.
One was that they have to be adding value to their existing
audience in India. They have to think they can get
add, they can add real value to their investment.
In the case of flow sports, thatwas definitely part of that.

(31:58):
And there was a third, which I can't remember what it was.
I was meaning to look at the transcript before this, but I
didn't have time. But the he talked about that
marriage between they've been all focused on products for so
long, which means they've got a really good product and
platform, but less about the community aspects.
And that's what flow sports are really done.
And they saw there's a really good marriage of their tech
expertise and their ability to build and harness an audience in

(32:22):
a different way was I thought aninteresting approach.
The other thing I love from the dream sports side is something I
bang on a little bit, which is abit more controversial to some
people, is they are actively notinterested in a five year
business plan. He basically said we only look
at the next 12 months. We want to be as accurate as we
can over the next 12 months without planning and projections

(32:45):
and are too focused on longer term.
They want there are more worriesaround direction of travel and
momentum and be accurate in the next four months rather than
that longer cycle. And that's something I say a lot
in the business because I've seen too many people talk about
five year plans or even 3 year plans.
And we had that last year in ourbusiness where we had a great
year, our best year and it wouldhappened completely differently

(33:06):
even then to what we had projected.
So getting too far ahead of yourself in this world is, is a
risky game to play. But I like the fact that they
were advocating that, but they don't look at it for their
investments or for themselves. Yeah, and I mean dream sport.
They, you know, he talked about they did their own investment
round. I think maybe it's 2021-2022,

(33:26):
massively successful, continuingto grow, you know, year in year.
And I think to the point, maybe some of the differences and you
can't touch what their flow sports stuff is, unlike some of
those other businesses up there,they're actually actively
investing. So they've almost gone from the
point of, you know, seeking investments and now they've
they've been so big, so successful, they're on the other
side looking for things. And you mentioned it, you know,
talking about the community side, but even they reference

(33:47):
like the niche sports is something, you know, that they
want to be able to tap more into.
And that's where flow sports is really good at it.
And, you know, we're speaking toMark, you know, it's not
necessarily because I think India is interested in, you
know, college wrestling or college athletics, but it's more
what are the products you're delivering?
And Mark spoke about that quite a bit of flow sports is we just
have to build a product that is so damn good that like people

(34:08):
are willing to to pay the price for getting some of those niche
sports. And that's what they spoke
about. A dream was, you know, there was
a community piece. But also, you know, they want to
do better at tapping into sportsbeyond cricket.
There's more for them that they need to be able to go after.
And yeah, the they seem to be doing OK for themselves.
Yeah, they're in a good place and I there is a definitely a

(34:29):
thesis a bit like the Dyne modelof serving servicing or
surfacing A servicing and servicing.
I'm going to start that again. Surfacing and servicing.
I can't say that 10 times fast. The that underserved audience,
an under an an underserved sportis such an opportunity if done

(34:52):
right, if executed well, if the costs are low and if you can get
the top of the funnel really nailed on, then I think you've
got something to to work on. But obviously Diane's done that
well. Flow sports has done that well
and they're getting some scale. They're not in the billion
dollar game yet, but at least they've proven out the model and

(35:12):
should be scalable. The more more sports you find.
And I imagine in India, talking about the growth of the audience
there, I could just see that in a few years that, you know, the
NBA gets a bigger foothold, thatthat's a great and obvious sport
where could ride those coattailsof audience growth and lower
younger demographics through to something quite meaningful for a

(35:34):
media media partner. Well, between you and I, Nick, I
spoke to Raj afterwards, like weneed to get someone on just to
talk about the Indian marketplace for us because it's
just, it's phenomenal. So whether it's him where
there's someone else in the business, we're going to get
someone in here to just talk to us about those.
Absolutely. Just bonkers numbers and like
what that means for everybody else, potentially those on the
outside. Trying to figure out how I get a
piece of that cake. Oh, absolutely.

(35:55):
I mean our last guess who was covering the Indian markets now
being promoted to chief or not promoted but taking on the job
of chief executive of of cricketinternationally.
So fair play to Sanjog Gupta who's taken on that role.
He's an impressive guy and has abig responsibility now, which is
much more diverse, I would say. I mean, he had a pretty big role

(36:17):
trying to manage the the live, the broadcast of the biggest
sport in India to hundreds and hundreds of millions.
But now he's got to deal with all the political aspects of
cricket to come. So good luck to him.
Good luck to him. The next guest we had on that
panel was Sam Sadie, who's CEO at Live Score.
And you know, they're interesting.
You know, they're 26 years in the business, so they are still

(36:38):
going through their funding rounds.
I think their most recent one, Ithink he said they raised around
100 million back in around 2022.I think that's what the numbers
he said ended up being around. Oh, I've got a lot of numbers in
my head. I've got different numbers I've
written down. So I, I thought it was, I heard
something about they raised maybe 50 million and a half
billion valuation at some stage,but maybe it's maybe there's 100
million. It might of being 100 across the

(37:00):
all the razors and maybe 15,000,000 was the last raise
perhaps, yeah, but it was a lot of money nonetheless.
But yeah, he was impressive and he very forthright about what
works and what doesn't, and he'shard to argue with.
I think he's got some really good points about the sports
media landscape. Yeah.
Well, I think the the point is Iwas trying to make there's that

(37:20):
there 26 years into the game. So they're not someone like
overtime who kind of picking things up quite quickly.
You know, they've been around for quite a bit, but the
business has had to evolve in some of the new things that it
offers. And I think probably one of
those bigger spaces is they they've now got into some live
streaming. They've been very specific about
which things they choose. You know, they talked about
Ireland as a specific example. We actually did a podcast with

(37:42):
Sam and we talked quite a bit about that one.
If you really want to go throughthe archives, talking about sort
of how they've managed to attract a lower level.
I don't wanna say lower tier property.
I mean, UEFA is still UEFA, but there's no Irish teams in the
Champions League. But it was specifically my
understanding it was the streaming rights for it.
Well, they and that was actuallythe broad, it was basically the

(38:03):
broadcast rights. There was just no competition in
the market like there was just no appetite for someone to go
and buy the rights a bit sort ofbit like France to some extent
terms like only a couple of viable bidders for it.
There was no one really activelygoing after them.
So they wanted to prove the caseat that time, which is we can
broadcast this for free on our platforms and still turn that

(38:26):
into revenue through marketing and advertising and betting,
which is their, which is their lifeblood and their backbone is,
is driving revenues through those other means.
And, and you know, if you talk, I've talked to Sam a few times
and the feedback is that work. There was a successful approach.
They were able to monetize it effectively, but then the, it
wasn't worth them continuing to buy those rights because it is a

(38:49):
marketing play, right? It's a marketing play to get
people to use the platform. And live score is really a
global platform. For those that aren't familiar
with live score, it's more of a,I mean, it's got a lot of layers
to it, but how would you describe it, Chris?
It's probably more like a it's got all the information you
need. It's not it's not about the live
right. It's not about highlights.
It's about all the content that that happens around the sport.

(39:11):
Think maybe ESP NS app or one football probably is a good
example of it. That's.
Going to go with it. Yeah, that type of platform
where it's a mix of just mix of interesting football and other
sports related content, not justabout live on online sports, but
they have different layers to it.
And one of the main ways they'vebeen driving revenue and they

(39:31):
have betting valuable on the platform, if I remember
correctly as well in certain markets is through through
betting and they're very good atmonetizing that.
And Sam would argue that they'rethe best in the business at
turning audiences on their platform into revenue for the
company which has made them so successful.
Yeah, and I thought actually oneof the most interesting comments
he had wasn't even necessarily around live score.

(39:52):
One of the questions that came in from the audience was, I work
in an Olympic sport, well established, but I'm struggling
to create any value from it. How do I create high value
assets? You know, Zach gave a probably a
bit more of a political answer about, you know, kind of the way
you target things, the type of audiences, platform, stuff like
that. And Sam is just really blonde
and he's you can't, you won't. And, and sort of his argument

(40:14):
was you need to be really honestwith yourself.
If you have an existing asset that isn't producing, you're not
going to be able to just magically make it valuable.
And, you know, you made the point of you got to look at
yourself and how do you change things?
And it was interesting having dream sport.
There's so much value around cricket.
You know, the perfect example there is going from Test match
to T20. And he's like, you know, that's
actually what you want to do to produce value.

(40:36):
And I think that it was a good segue in the conversation
because, you know, there's people like, how do I become
more valuable? And he's like, yeah, you're not
going to at least not doing the same thing you are doing.
I just what he said. I was like, oh, that's a punchy
comment. But then I was like, actually,
it makes a hell of a lot of sense.
I think it makes a lot of sense because anyone who's trying to
like turn an Olympic sport but use the same approach or try and

(40:59):
what, wrap something what a sheep in wolves clothes or
whatever the saying is that right?
Say sheep. In wolves clothing, yeah.
Yeah, yeah, Wolves clothing. It's basically that.
It won't work unless you really reinvent you're you're offering.
There's another line he used which was similar, but
referencing his own organisation, which was that the
he has to make sure his engineers numb their feelings

(41:20):
when it comes to what good lookslike with the platform.
And I think that's a good, good sort of sentiment for the sports
industry as well as like numb your feelings about the sport
and what looks good. Just look at what works instead
and, and try and focus on playing that game, which I
thought was an interesting approach, But they're in it.
They seem to be in a good position and they've raised a

(41:40):
lot of revenue, raised a lot of investment.
And what was interesting about his thesis around that is again,
my point about dream is that notabout the five year plan.
They were more about, well, Sam was talking more about, hey,
here's what we've done, here's our pedigree and track record,
Trust us back us. And that's their main thesis,

(42:02):
less about they're going to growthis enormous business 10 years
from now. Just trust us to keep growing
and heading in the right direction because we are doing
so already, which again, it justshows that track record counts
probably more than I think people most expect, particularly
at this sort of scale. And he was talking about that
they're now at a, a certain level where they, they're almost

(42:25):
like too big to just be popped mocked up and acquired by
anyone. And it sounds like they might be
actually looking to make some acquisitions themselves to keep
growing the business from what Iheard.
So very interesting business, one of those companies that is
actually quite significant in scale, probably not given the
amount of visibility or awareness it deserves, given its

(42:45):
audience reach, its revenue generation, the fact it's done
it through mainly non life rights and it's done it through
betting in in a very complex landscape, like betting is the
most complex market of all to turn into hard, hard revenue.
So he's always impressive to listen to and I think they're
they're an interesting journey to follow.

(43:05):
Yeah, well, like you said, shameless plug, go search live
score when you go on Spotify, wherever you listen to podcasts,
we'll we'll have a get more in depth conversation from Sam.
And then the last one we had wasDougal McDonald, who you had the
chance to speak with. It's sports pro live, CEO, Co
founder. It's portable.
And I think the interesting partfor them a, they're probably not

(43:25):
nearly as far along in their investment journey as some of
those other businesses. But I think the other
interesting side of them is theyprobably are a tech first
business in terms of, you know, what the product actually is and
where they initially started, you know, selling their product
to teams trying to, you know, here's tracking data, using it
for performance. But what we've started seeing in
recent years is that actually becomes super interesting data

(43:49):
from a media perspective. When you think about people like
myself who are super into fantasy sports, want every
particular piece of data that I can find, you know, how fast is
the pitch spinning out of the pitcher's hands?
You know, what's the exit velocity like?
There's a tonne of stuff that people actually want in data
itself is becoming more and morevalue, more and more valuable.
So I think they said in an interesting spot that, you know,

(44:12):
they might be started off as a performance tech business, but
they're actually slowly finding out there's a lot of value from
a media perspective when people are now trying to acquire data
rights. Yeah, that they are basically
they are a tech business And I mean he think, I think he said
they spent four years in R&D before launching, which is an
extraordinary amount. But if you spend that much time
on it, you come up with a reallygood product and they raise
something like 25,000,000 to back them.

(44:34):
So they're not, they're not as not on a shoestring.
They have invested and and looking to continue to grow,
continue to raise and continue to scale.
But yeah, he's the way he talks about I think is really good.
He talks about basically talks about the business and use cases
of the data, which is clearly there is appetite for data.
We we all, I think everyone understands that they're both

(44:54):
the educational aspects of understanding a sport better and
just also feeding more people atthe the pointy around to give
them more content to consume. I mean, think about golf as an
example. Like no, by the way, you haven't
talked about my pictures behind me yet.
Finally got my set up here, got got Tiger Woods here, one of the
first covers of sports pro and my old hero Greg Norman in the

(45:16):
corner there, the great white shark.
But on the golf fronts side, there's a whole host of data
points now that are actually become part of the conversation
both at a leisure level and an elite level.
You know, things are like club speed, ball speeds, spins,
revolutions, etcetera, that sortof stuff.
All the tracking data that comeswith that that just did not

(45:37):
exist 5 to 10 years ago now is is people know what is a good
club head speed and and what isn't and the impact it has.
And you know, it blows my mind, right.
I've from all the years I've been playing golf now and I'm
trying to get my head around that.
But my point is the depth it adds is really interesting when
it, I think when it transcends watching sport at an elite level

(46:00):
to give you a greater understanding, like in the case
of F1 and all the data you can get around pit, pit changes and
on track performance to when it impacts the user, the customer
on a personal level and the way they participate in sport.
And that seems to be where sportables coming to life here
is like creating products, creating content that aid

(46:20):
performance at a personal level.But also it's stuff that you can
use both in content and to make your performance better as an
elite athlete. And I think that's a really
interesting spot to if you can get that right, sort of apex
that right. I know triangle triangulation of
data, which obviously they're very much focused on ball
tracking and alike, is a really cool place to bring to life.

(46:41):
Yeah, well, one of the questionsI asked him and asked the the
group more generally be curious.Your take on this as well, Nick,
is it felt like, and this is just outsiders opinion, there
used to be a lot of talk about investing in, you know, that
Unicorn tech business that was going to take you to the moon,
stuff like that, you know, buying Apple before it's Apple.
But it does seem like in recent years, and perhaps this is

(47:02):
because it's people like Barcelona pulling whatever
levers they can to to, you know,stay afloat.
It does seem like there's more investment in media rights then
maybe there was in that same time frame and whether they
felt, you know, as a tech business, but also doing some
media stuff, whether they thought, you know, investors
viewed media more attractive than it used to be, How it

(47:24):
compares to tech investment. And I'll be just curious your
opinion, Nick, just sort of whatyou see on the outside, what you
think that sort of relationship is where the differences are
between tech investment versus media investment?
Well, it seems like I, I feel like media is in a bit of a
crossroads with that. I feel like actually I, I asked
one of the questions you asked the audience, the panellists,

(47:45):
which was the one around the value of media businesses,
because my theory is that they're actually undervalued if
you incorporate not just the hard returns that a media
business generates, but also theinfluence and impact.
I've got some personal examples I can share about what happens
when we publish things, if it's in the right place or position

(48:06):
the wrong way, the impact it canhave positively and negatively
to someone's business. Like it's media has this extra
layer of influence that I think is sometimes lost on some
people. So it's important.
Like we heard about the Shroom Time Connect event came up quite
a bit is the importance of basically having more than one

(48:27):
way of driving value out of our content, IE not just through
programmatic ad revenue. Can you can you achieve an
objective or another revenue stream off the back of that same
piece of content to make it worthwhile doing?
And I think so. I still think media has now fall
into this little dip of being undervalued in terms of its
impact. And and if if sports is in a

(48:50):
place where the theory is that sports is just going to work out
how to drive more value to or through direct to consumer
technology advances, their mediashould be the same.
Now I'd say that the catalyst orthe the challenge there is that
all right, but then you've got the creator economy coming,
you've got YouTube democratisingeverything.
Maybe it's at a crossroads, but I just feel like the media

(49:11):
industry will work out how to address that problem in the same
way. Perhaps like, you know, maybe
podcasts where we're being rocked and we're positioned as
independent titles, but we're being wrapped together in wider
media outlets. Like maybe there's some way that
that's going to come to come to the fore rather than a lot of
independent outlets. But I feel like media's got a

(49:31):
lot more legs in it. Tech tech's value for decades
is, is being probably over the odds.
And actually what you hear, I think the number I heard from
someone with like 90% of start-ups, particularly tech
start-ups fail. I mean, so that tells you
something, right, When particularly expectations are
not married up with realistic revenues or realistic
projections that more businessesfailed or not.

(49:51):
So yeah, maybe valuations are higher in tech, but the risk is
for failure is much, much higher.
Yeah, and those guys are all obviously very optimistic.
You know, Zach, you know, from an overtime perspective, you
know, they're continuing to growtheir own IP, you know, and just
where they think that business will go as it grows up, you
know, things like live score, you know, it's really crazy big.
Like I was talking about this with Sam.

(50:11):
Like betting is still not even legal, like in all 50 states in
the US And that's not even including some of the big ones
like, you know, like Texas, California, stuff like that.
And like, even though we've talked about the the impact it's
already had, like it's still potentially could just be
scratching the surface there. You know, India talk about how
many people are entering an age with which they're more likely
to have income to spend on sports.
And then, you know, we're just talking about all the stuff with

(50:33):
data from a performance side, people wanting more of that.
They're all very optimistic they're headed in the right
place. And betting is still illegal in
India. So there's a match if that opens
up the floodgates, gosh, could you, could you imagine the
influx there if of excitement from the industry, if that, that
ever changes? I interested to see that, that
journey. So look, I'm still buoyed about

(50:55):
where media businesses can go, how they can drive value.
But we, we all, I, you know, we all as an I run a media
business, although much smaller in scale than some of these
organisations, we all have to keep innovating and finding new
ways to approach it. And almost every single
organisation we've talked about today and everyone we talk about
on our channels has had the pivot or change approach because

(51:16):
of dynamics within audiences, because of macro changes,
etcetera. You can't just play the same
playbook and expect it to just magically work.
So along with media keeps evolving, keeps finding
different ways to approach it, keeps balancing the right
diversification, plus double doubling down on certain areas
that are working, then I think it's got a really rosy future.

(51:38):
But it's not as not as black andwhite as perhaps something about
that. There's all doom and gloom for
media. I think there's plenty of plenty
of runway still in it. So you, you just referenced in,
in your answer there, Nick, our,our stream time connect event.
And, you know, for us, you know,we maybe give a little spiel on
stream time. You know, if you're listening to
the podcast, hopefully this isn't the first one you've
listened to. We're very quickly coming up to

(51:58):
200 episodes, which is mind blowing, Nick.
But we have built a community off the back of that, Nick.
But maybe let's highlight the 200 episodes.
Nick, I see you. You just want to celebrate that
moment with me. When you told me that the other
day, I had lost track completelyabout where we were, and the
show's evolved a lot over it's over time.
It's been a really fun ride. I don't want to get too

(52:19):
nostalgic because we'll probablyget nostalgic for the 200
episodes, but I think it's really cool that we're now in a
place where we can expand what we talk about on this podcast,
but also still have a lot of value to the audience we're
attempting to serve with this content.
You know, we're not trying to serve everyone.
We're trying to serve people whowork in sports media.
And it's really, it's cool that we're able to bring that to life

(52:40):
at as part of this new membership community that we're
really excited about. We actually want to keep
building and expanding. And at the moment it's very much
focused on these different typesof events based activations that
we're doing. I'm really keen to try and focus
on what else we can do from a content perspective.
So if anyone does have any ideasof things that they think that
we should do, whether it's just more exclusive content, more of

(53:03):
the same, whether it's somethingelse that you think is
underserved or under covered in the industry, we'd love to know
what you think from a content perspective that is missing from
our industry. But you know, it's really cool
that we can bring these types ofpeople together at events like
the Stringtonsports Connect event.
And we've got a couple more coming up that I'm really
excited about as well. For those of you who didn't say

(53:24):
on LinkedIn, we got to host our first one, it's snap absolutely
incredible Offices got the chance to try on some of their
their their AR goggles. I've not really got to wear
anything like that before. I think it's still the case of
really intense to see where thatgoes in the future, what sort
of, you know, abilities those have.
But it's really great place to host.
The venue was lovely, well catered to what we wanted to do.
Some breakout rooms had a numberof different broadcasters.

(53:45):
There's leagues teams, but one of the things we focused on,
Nick, we're primarily focused on, given we were at snaps
offices was around non live content specifically.
And you and I got to moderate some of those tables.
And that was really the, the, the key point of the, the
conversation. As you mentioned, we'll do
different content at different events, focus on different
things. But what were some of your key
takeaways, Nick, from your groupwith the, the, the conversation

(54:07):
around non live content? Because like we said, we quite
frequently always talk about thelive rights.
You know, that's the, it's the sexy topic because it's got the
most zeros and most commas in the title.
But we would argue at least the example I made of my group, I'll
watch six hours of NFL on Sunday, but I'll watch 30 hours
of content on YouTube or social media.
Like there's a huge gap that's not really properly, I think, in

(54:29):
my opinion, being monetized by all those organisations at this
stage. Yeah, it was super interesting
conversation because we had so many different streaming
platforms and rights owners there alongside some of the the
tech companies as well who support the delivery of that
content both live and on live. And the the, the theory or there
is a definitive consistent thread, which is it's really

(54:52):
important to have all this non live content and this engagement
on channels. It's really hard to drive it
into meaningful revenue still. And this is from some of the
most mature media platforms in the industry.
Keep being a little bit coy because I don't want to share
over share, but given it's more of a private setting, but there
were some key themes and things that really came out.

(55:14):
One of the interesting points that were made and everyone was
very vocal of supporting this was that the non live content
just doesn't work in driving subscriptions to a platform.
So you know, if you run docu series content, if you run other
sorts of magazine shows and likeit doesn't do much, even if it

(55:35):
gets good engagement on the platforms themselves does not
drive subscriptions for the organisation.
And that for a lot of investmentthat went into that non live
side trying to mimic Drive to Survive, another docu series has
been nowhere near as valuable tothose organisations as expected
in spite of the heavy investmentin production efforts there.
So that was an interesting pointof how black and white it is

(55:59):
that non live is not driving subscriptions, it is still live
that moves the needle there. And the other point that I think
was raised by one of the the members was that basically you
have to have that secondary reason.
I think I briefly said this before, secondary way of getting
value out of it. Now that doesn't always mean

(56:19):
getting value out of it, out of direct revenue.
It could be all right, we want to get it, engage our audience
and engage me and just get lots of eyeballs, provide more value
for people who are following us,but what else can we give them?
So can this be a piece of content that really drives
better understanding or better appreciation of the athletes or

(56:39):
the sports rules or is somethingthat we can monetize through
sponsorship if it's substantial enough and its impact?
There's got to be like multiple layers of value being generated
out of one piece of content if it's non live related for it to
be worth doing. Otherwise it's really difficult
to justify its purpose. So I thought that was a couple

(57:01):
of interesting points around around the non live bit.
The other thing that was to stand out, we talked about what
platforms to use, you know, withSnap as an example, Snap is both
a platform and an AR business. So I've got a better feel now.
It was really good to actually be there and talk to Callan
McCauley, who is headed sports partnerships there to get a
better sense of animal Malhotra,who is the global head, to get a

(57:25):
sense of where the business is at.
Because I just kind of mainly, Iknew there were a bit in AR, I
wasn't sure to what level. Getting a touch and feel the the
product was really interesting hearing and saying that I didn't
realise how much of their their AR technologies being used in
stadia right across the US, which was very cool to see.
I didn't realise that was them who who were doing all that.

(57:46):
So just I thought that was an interesting.
We can jump into that back in back into the second.
But the question was really about platforms, which ones the
ones to focus on. It was consistent that everyone
is focused on YouTube as the number one stand out.
The reasons were were to do withmonetization mainly.
The reason being basically that they can not only drive revenue

(58:07):
directly from AD ad programmaticand and using the traditional
means from that sense, but they are have also the capability of
selling their advertising partners directly onto YouTube's
channels in a much more streamlined way than you can
anywhere else. And that allows them to monetize
that content and much more effectively than you can on any
other big tech platform. So I thought that was a very

(58:31):
simple point. We hear a lot of that YouTube,
we talk about positive positivity of YouTube, but that
kind of gives the extra businessreason, the commercial case of
getting value out of it other than just get lots of eyeballs
on it through the world's biggest consumption platform.
And then you'll you'll be able to monetize it other ways.
Well, actually they are able to turn that into something right
now. Well, Nick, you know me, I, I

(58:52):
love piracy and I, I will say I'm not the one that brought up
piracy, but it came up from the naive non live content from 2
perspectives. One of them was your point,
which is there's not a lot of proof that this is going to the
non live content Dr subscriptions.
So the argument was from a piracy perspective, why are you
trying to protect that content? You're better off putting that
non live content as broadly as you can and make it as

(59:12):
accessible as possible. So whether or not it's even
worth trying to protect that content was question number one
from, you know, your own to platform perspective.
The other part of it came from the highlights side of it, which
is sports is so much about live and in the moment and you know,
they were talking about the current broadcast deals make it
really difficult for non live content, particularly highlights

(59:34):
where, you know, the Premier League.
I think it's something like teams can't post highlights
until midnight of the day of their game or someone like BBC
has paid specifically for Match of the day highlights or Sky
gets first access for YouTube highlights.
They said it actually creates a bit of an issue from a piracy
perspective because, you know, people are just going to record
their TV screens and post a highlight.

(59:54):
But it's so important in sports to be the first to publish
something because once it goes viral, they're going to go to
the original source of that content.
And they were talking about, youknow, we try to schedule our
highlights literally the second we can legally do it because if
someone gets to it before us andstarts getting comments, posts,
retweets, we're not going to be the ones to get it.
And they were just talking aboutthat is a issue that takes place
at the league and broadcaster level because they're so strict

(01:00:17):
about when highlights can be shown and.
Not surprisingly, WSC used the reference of the NBA, basically
opening up the floodgates to allow their highlights to be
seen. They viewed it as a positive to
have that engagement, but it wasinteresting that piracy did come
up. You know, one of them is even
worth protecting on live contentand the second one being the
structure of deals that rights holders make with the broadcast

(01:00:39):
partners on the exclusivity of highlights also makes it really
difficult, particularly when people can just post whatever
they want on social media. Yeah, I think highlights is a
really interesting part of it. They came up a bit in ours, not
the piracy bit, but the highlights side definitely did.
One of the members is for our shooting.
I will mention some of the people.
I, I think I could probably be more flexible than I, I was

(01:01:01):
making out, but I think I want to protect some of the rights
owners who have to be a little bit more cautious.
But Spork was is one of our now Downing members of the group and
they are they do remote commentary basically, and they
were just talking about the the the now growing demand of
multilingual sets of highlights.And so he planted a great

(01:01:21):
picture. Michael Prendergast, I think is
his name is the Co founder therewho basically talked about the
fact that they kind of sit in a workflow now.
So where those highlights depending on what league,
different leagues have differentapproaches, right?
But let's say I have a league. The the rights get them
basically distributed to them. That gets fed to different
commodities of different languages and they create

(01:01:42):
dedicated commentary for those languages for those highlights.
So it's not just cut out of the full feed.
They actually are creating effectively dedicated commentary
just for the highlights themselves and multitude
languages and, and then distributing as quickly as they
can. And then you're working with
your WS, ES and the like to bring that all, all to life.
But ultimately it means that youcan get again, way more value

(01:02:05):
out of the highlights if even ifone provider can enable all of
that and make sure that that piece of highlight content is
available in a multitude of languages, that gives you the
mass reach and not just focusingon English, English alone.
So I thought that was interesting approach to it all.
And that that they're they're they're tasked with driving near
live, right? So in many, in many instances,

(01:02:27):
not all instances, but dependingon rights.
But so basically it's getting out the content as soon as
possible once the the clips havebeen cut.
So never tell you there's some the things they're looking at
from an AI perspective on some of the automated commentary, but
they see that as an enabler for them, not a challenge.
So that that was just an interesting thing.
But again, highlights, you know,more, more versions, more

(01:02:49):
languages getting more, much more exposure, particularly for
these global sports properties. Yeah.
Well, the highlights is one partof it.
And I think it was interesting you talked about specific
platforms. We talked a bit about specific
formats where basically the the argument was is highlights.
They serve one purpose, but theyonly serve a very shallow
purpose and that your other non live content has to be the stuff

(01:03:11):
that is going to drive people deeper.
It was almost sort of like highlights grab the attention,
but then the the docu series, the the creator LED content.
That's the stuff that's going todrive a greater affinity because
one of the, we had someone from,you know, Team GB, you know,
they talk about one of our issues is, you know, we, our

(01:03:31):
athletes really only compete every four years at the
Olympics. You know, how do you, you know,
build that? Because there's just simply not
enough highlights to do that. And you know, we sort of talked
about the different format typesand what their true purpose is.
And you know, you can't just runthe same content on the same
platforms for the same purposes.You know, defining what it's
almost to your point, like everypiece of content has to have

(01:03:52):
multiple roles that it serves. And you know, they sort of broke
it down more with the content types and which fan that it
serves and how you potentially go about monetizing sort of each
level of fandom. Well, I think that it's a tricky
predicament right when you've seen the Olympics try to be more
relevant and prevalent using theOlympic Channel and other means
to try and be more regularly part of the conversation rather

(01:04:13):
than every couple of years for the different Olympics they they
run. So I know it's every four years,
people that the two years for the winter to the summer.
So just calm down if you think I'm, I don't know the basics
there. But whether from, for me, it's
not whether that's needed or whether that actually provides
value, I don't think we've seen,we've seen probably more people
take the edge off of that tent pole moment by trying to be

(01:04:36):
always visible. And sometimes it's actually
better to strategize, get your ducks in a row and then hit the
market harder. I think in the example like a, a
collective group, let's say likea Team GB or anyone who's like a
national governing body level, they maybe have these tent pole
moments like the Olympics. My recommendation is do whatever
you can to enable the athletes to get more access to that

(01:04:57):
content, to the share and to usebecause you won't be able to
drive enough value for themselves.
But they absolutely, absolutely can, whether it's working with
the right tech partners, whetherit's working the right rights
owners, just to make sure that you can have everyone who's
within your respective stakeholder map have access to
content that they can share and build the awareness that way.
And then you can just focus on building up for those Temple

(01:05:20):
moments every few years and maximising it at those moments,
if that makes sense. And then you're also adding a
lot more value to the athletes because one of the weaknesses of
say, the Olympic movement is that athletes haven't been able
to use their rights to that sortof level, particularly around
the Olympics. But if you were to give them
something to use between the Olympics, then I think you'd be
you'd be reaching a whole new audience set.

(01:05:41):
I think it would be quite exciting and building up those
athletes in between Olympics much more effectively than just
having that one moment to shine.Yeah.
And I think just to wrap this snake, because I thought was an
interesting point you made aboutSnaps business, because it came
up, you know, one of the people working on the business from the
sports perspective was a bit like, I don't know what Snap
does anymore these days, sort ofwho's the user base and kind of
the point we made. And then that got validated

(01:06:03):
because I was also speaking to Hugo Sharman used to be the the
CEO stream AMG super smart guy. Was it Snap is a tech business.
Yes, there's the the B to C sidethat you see with the Philtres
and the actual app, but they're also do using their technology
on a more B to B scale. And Hugo, apparently one of the
companies he's now working for is a stadium based business.
And basically Snap is taking those features that they're

(01:06:24):
using on the B to C side, but now distributing them or
providing them to B to B services like a stadium.
And that's where some of that tech comes in and almost leads
back to that media conversation we were having before, that kind
of balance between media versus tech investment.
And then sometimes those two things are actually
complementary of each other. So I think seeing some of that
stuff in the flesh kind of gave you an idea of, you know, they

(01:06:47):
don't have to be in such a one silo for those, you know,
technologies to be multiple value propositions for different
users. It's interesting.
Hey, their, their business. I, I feel like at one stage
we're talking about, we're talking about their platform,
which is like, let's call it a social media platform, which it

(01:07:07):
basically is. And then there's this other part
of the business which does feel very separate.
Yes, there is some crossover in the use of these philtres and
stuff, but it feels like a very separate type of business right
to sell the use of AR philtres in stadium and alike.
An interesting part of their business model is that with some
of the deals they try and do with a partner, let's say one of

(01:07:28):
the major rights owners on platform is then they share,
there's a monetization share play here that they can.
They will actually help monetization of those rights on
the platform and then do a Rev share with those partners, which
is obviously more interesting tosome people who don't have to
basically have the responsibility of trying to find
a way to monetize it. Snap will will do it for you.

(01:07:50):
But it does feel like basically the AR business should be just
separated on to something else. Maybe come up with a different
name or a like. And just to make it more clean
and clear. I mean, now some of the numbers
that Callan shared on terms of audience are pretty insane.
I'm just trying to look at the numbers here quickly.
In 25 plus countries they reached 90% of the 13 to 24 year

(01:08:10):
old population and then 75% of the 13 to 34 year old
population. I think that made everyone feel
very old very quickly, considering there was only a
couple of people in the room that actually had had snap on
their on their devices from whatthey a lot of people put their
hand up for. And there was a bunch of other
stats in there which I could go into, but I thought that was
just a good eye. Again, it's a bit like the

(01:08:31):
overtime point, right? It's like we sit now, Bubbles
probably looking at the wrong platforms, but actually there's
a whole host of activations activity going on elsewhere that
sports needs to pay greater attention to.
Yeah. Well, as it was reflected in
that podcast, Nick, we did a hell of a lot of stuff this
week. Lots of really great insights,
whether it's the the events, youknow, we've got sports pro AI

(01:08:52):
coming up in September. If you heard about the stream
time connect event, we're doing one in IBC alongside our
partners of media kind sports from Madrid won't be that far
away now. Like there's all kinds of
different stuff where these types of insights these.
And I think what's really important you mentioned about
the investment in stream time isthe connections like we are
doing more stuff to purposely build curated spaces for smaller

(01:09:13):
groups because we recognise the value in those things.
But like, if you've heard this podcast, you know, this is just
talking about a very small sample of the content that's
actually taking place across those three days.
You know, we spoke over an hour about it.
Imagine what you we did. If we did, then everything.
Well, look, I mean, the main thing I would say take away and
for those that aren't too activeat going to events, I learn more

(01:09:35):
from the off stage stuff than I do on the on stage stuff.
And I learned a lot from the on stage stuff.
But the, the, the nuance, the the devil in the detail, the,
the perspectives you hear from people who are actually doing
and executing on this stuff is truly remarkable.
It takes time to really process some of this stuff to go, OK,
how do you use this and how doesit help shape opinion and

(01:09:58):
understanding and awareness of where we're really going?
And that's part of our job is tohave those conversations
offline. And in different calls.
So then be able to share that with people who are listening
into this. But for our our recommendation
or is also for those that are listening in that if you aren't
able to get to those conversations and think about it
as, oh, do I want to hear what that person's got to say on

(01:10:18):
stage. It is just as much the off stage
stuff that is the is where the values really created.
And I learnt a huge amount both around sports media and around
investment this week. So it's been a great, great few
days in London. Absolutely.
When it was always good to see you in person, Nick.
You know, you, you, you came over from Sweden, got to shake
hands, you know, we got to do a photo shoot, some funny faces,

(01:10:38):
things like that. So it's always just, you know,
it's always nice to be in person, Nick.
Absolutely, it's definitely goodto be in touch and be in person
and connect with yourself Chris,but also not only the team, but
indeed just across the wider industry and obviously London's
such a great hub for that. The next we have an event coming
up, also the AI event in September, which we'll be
getting together for as well. And then we'll be doing it.
We'll be on the road for most ofit.

(01:10:59):
Then if you think about it, we've got Madrid, we've got New
York, we've got, we'll see, Amsterdam, Amsterdam.
So lots, lots to lots happening across the world.
So excited about the next few months, but it's been, it's been
great. Absolutely.
Well, thank you everybody for tuning in.
We'll catch you on the next episode.
Thanks everyone. Now before you go, if you liked

(01:11:20):
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. And if you don't like what
you've heard, what you think we should be doing more or less of
something, then reach out and let me know as I'd love to hear
from you. Thanks.

(01:11:40):
Stream timers until next time.

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