October 1, 2025 • 43 mins
Having built the Cowboy Channel to over 100,000 subscribers, former guest David Guinan now shares his plans to grow Table Tennis TV to similar heights. In this episode of StreamTime Sports, co-hosts Nick Meacham and Chris Stone explore the key stages, decisions, and challenges involved in launching and scaling a challenger sports streaming platform.
Key Points:
- What are the critical decisions to make before launching a streaming platform?
- How should platforms handle subscriber milestones and the growing pains that come with scaling?
- How do new platforms balance what sits behind a paywall versus what is offered for free on social media?
- What are the most common mistakes made when launching a sports streaming platform?
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:04):
Hello, everyone. Welcome back to the next episode
of Streamtime Sports. My name is Chris Stone, the
community lead, joined as alwaysby our CEO.
And today we also have a specialguest, our friend back for a
second round on the show, Mr. David Guinan.
David, special episode, as anyone can see now that is a
show, no longer just simply a podcast.
We're at the London Stadium, home of the West Ham Irons, my
(00:25):
football club. It's been a tough year of sports
for me between West Ham and the Cincinnati Bengals, but we're
here at Sports Pro AI 25 S David, it is a pleasure to have
you back. We've not seen you in a while
and good to have you back on theshow.
Go Eagles, go Phillies. I'm, I'm sorry.
No, thank you so much for havingme.
(00:45):
It really is a a, you know, honour to be back and slightly
terrifying to be on camera. It's always nice where you can
hide behind my webcam that I normally have at home recording
these things and said now I've got the backdrop of AI, don't
know, 6060 thousand odd stadium behind us.
But really I've never been here for a sporting event.
I've only been here for a music one.
(01:06):
I'm usually here about 8 * a year for football games, Usually
more often than not negative andpositive, but the negatives make
the positive more sweet. You know what they say, you
can't appreciate the sun withouta little bit of rain.
So yeah, I mean, let's be honest, like we're on the same
venue that Usain Bolt won gold in the 100 metre, Mo Farah won
gold. I mean, you think about some of
(01:27):
the athletes that have been out here and then there's awesome.
And then there's us. Yeah, into the the concert I was
here for was ACDC. Great Australian band.
So happy it wasn't Coldplay. And really we had a a staff day
here a few months back and they had Black Sabbath here.
So going with proper hard rockers out here in East London.
Respect. Apparently actually from Black
(01:48):
Sabbath is actually from East London.
That's why their legacy, which Ihad no idea until I found out
that there was the average age of fans in the winter, about 75,
but they have no rocking our heart.
God, we could devote 15 minutes talking about Ozzy.
I mean, rest in peace. Yeah.
Well, today, David, one of the things that we want to talk to
you about, and I will go ahead and plug a former show that we
(02:09):
did together. We talked about your time at the
Cowboy Channel. It's an excellent story.
You know, I love the story aboutkind of how when the system goes
down and you guys personally just had every single person
individually reach out to every single subscriber.
I think it's just a great example of when things do go
wrong, how can you adjust for that?
And you've actually got a bit ofa life update.
It's no longer about the Cowboy Channel.
(02:29):
We're going to jump into some ofthe stuff that you are doing
now, but maybe just give a quickupdate sort of where we've left
off with the Cowboy Channel and where we're at now with you.
And I'm happy to and thank you. Cowboy Channel was a really
interesting ride in that. I like that.
Use Yeah. Manifold.
It was more than an 8 second ride, but I'd be, to be
completely blunt, I mean I had no idea what I was doing.
(02:51):
I mean, I knew from a product side what I wanted it to be, so
it went very top down. Like how do we take this vision
and reduce it into something that works the way it's supposed
to? And during my tenure there, I
learned that every level of success is met with a different
(03:13):
level of pain. Genuinely.
Like, I mean, 5000 subscribers to 30 are two different stratas
of pain. And when you get to 100, it's
more pain and then 150 more. So I don't know what's after
that, but I do know it's there. I mean, we dealt with things
(03:33):
right before the sale to Teton Ridge that is now has my baby
and is treating it very, very nicely.
I'm very happy with what they'vebeen doing.
You know, we were hit with like a VPPA lawsuit, which I knew
nothing about, but which where some judge sued Blockbuster for
releasing his his video VHS or DVD rental history.
(03:58):
And now lawyers go after you forsharing your user data with
Facebook and and Google. That was fun.
And basically there are two different law firms that are in
cahoots to get your cyber insurance.
So you learn that at around 125,000 subscribers.
So I keep just can't wait to seewhat happens at A at 200 because
(04:20):
I'm sure it's going to put another smile on my face.
Well, that's kind of what we're here to talk about today, David,
because you've got a new challenge, a new task on your
hands. You're a bit of a builder.
You know, some people, they liketo jump on the train when it's
already left the station. It's already got momentum.
Not you. You like to build things from
scratch. You're you're, you're a
visionary, someone that likes totake things, you know, a piece
(04:41):
of clay and, you know, model it into something and you.
Metaphors are flying, flying around here.
I. Think I think more of a of a
monkey being given an assortmentof blocks and fruit and you know
has to kind of bang them together and figure out what to
do. Would be more apt description
but but appreciate it. I try.
I do have a great deal of respect for you.
(05:02):
Thank you. But you do have a new task in
here and you've joined and you're going to try to build
another platform. Yeah.
So tell, tell us a little bit about that because then after
that when Nick and I are going to grill you on for the majority
of this is how you actually go about the thought process of
going from absolutely nothing tobuilding it.
So before we really dive into, just tell us a little bit about
the new project and what you're kicking off.
(05:23):
I appreciate it. So we just launched Table Tennis
TV and after Cowboy I was put intouch by my friends at JW Player
with a guy named Flint Lane who's really interesting
character. He sold a company called Bill
Trust, which automated invoicingand retired and retired for two
(05:47):
weeks and was bored out of his mind, like losing it.
And he'd always played table tennis, like competitively but
semi, like, for real. And he spun up a new league
within six months called Major League Table Tennis.
And we're going into our third year right now.
And we had a meeting. And I knew, I mean, I knew I
(06:07):
thought I was good at table tennis.
I called it ping pong. Like most Americans, I I learned
I was not good after going to one of the events where a former
Olympian beat me 111 or 11/1. Surprised he scored one.
I did and I gloat it and I, I, Isaid, were you really in the
(06:28):
Olympics? Are you really that good?
And he looked at me kind of quizzically and then pointed out
he was using a bottle opener to,to play me.
And at the end, I was covered insweat and humiliated and just
looked at him and just went, sorry.
But my point is, after going to the event, I think for a sport
(06:48):
to be good, it needs to do threethings really properly.
It has to be good live. It has to be good on your phone
and it has to be good on your couch.
And the reason for that is, you know, lean back like short clips
and then the live experience that we all, you know, places
like this. And I didn't know what table
tennis would be like live. So I went to one of their events
(07:09):
and it was it was great. I mean, you don't see the spin
properly on on television. I also called my friend and
colleague Charlie Beal and askedhim what he thought of the
opportunity. And he was just like, dude,
yeah. Because the perception of table
tennis in America is much, much different than it is here in
Europe and Asia, Sweden. I mean, really, it's a, it's a
(07:32):
varsity sport. I mean it, it's I mean they're
genuine stars and the idea of kind of building something from
the ground up appealed to me forfor two reasons. 111 sort of
silly. But, you know, the, the self
doubting part of myself says if I could do this with cowboy, it
(07:55):
was a fluke or if I could do this again, I could, you know,
wear a bathrobe for the rest of my life.
But, but really the commonality of what I'm realising,
everything I've always liked to do is connect the audience with
content that they hadn't really been able to receive.
I mean, I did that in Nigeria. I did that at a cowboy channel.
(08:15):
There really is just a real pleasure and taking something
that I might not be into, but that I have a great deal of
respect for and the audience and, and just giving them what
they deserve. And that's not frequently done.
And I noticed that a lot of table tennis content which is
put up for free on YouTube, and I thought there would be a great
(08:37):
deal of efficiency to really give it the tier one treatment
that we did with rodeo. The second challenge is also
part of Out of Ego is how do I take a participatory sport that
everybody knows how to play in America and turn that into a
spectator sport? And I don't know the answer to
that one yet. I think it starts with teaching
(08:59):
people the rules and an appreciation for it.
But that's my own personal challenge.
But yeah, I'm just excited to build stuff.
So, So what exactly was the brief you were given?
Was it was the brief just we need to build a platform so
we've got something to point people to because you talked
about the fact there was alreadysome content being made
available on YouTube that was atthe monetization piece.
(09:20):
That was the priority. What was the?
What was the brief? All of it, I mean they were
putting it on YouTube, but they were growing the league.
But they thought there was an opportunity to really.
We talked about the efficiency of created for the audience,
that it is a fragmented audienceand that that to me is just my
favourite thing to do. But when you have people having
to go to YouTube, going to otherindividual league sites to, to
(09:43):
find all of this, you know, the content they want.
They can't do things like followan athlete, follow a player and
have it in their phone, have it really in one place.
So I mean rodeo is very similar where people would go to a
County Fair with a rodeo every year, but then they go to the
NFR but they would only typically go to their rodeo or
(10:04):
1:00 nearby. When we consolidated the rights,
it allowed people to follow the sport in a completely new way.
And rodeo, it follows a circuit,but the athletes can jump
around. They do that all the time.
And table tennis is very similar.
Certain athletes will be in various competitions all over
the world. They bounce from league to
league and from tournament to tournament and it it deserves
(10:28):
the same respect. It's also the 7th largest played
sport in the world, which I had no idea and seeing it live,
seeing some of the stars. I mean, it is like like watching
sci-fi. I mean it is it just it's faster
than you think It's cooler than I that I thought.
Excuse me, It's it's, it's legitand.
(10:50):
So I'm curious on the dynamics here.
So from what I instead of table tennis, I don't know a lot about
the, the, so the business side of the industry or the
governance of it. But this world table tennis,
they exist out of Singapore. They have their own series of
events they run. Where do you guys then fit in
into that ecosystem? Is it completely independent?
Is it based in the US only from the the events that you're
(11:12):
running and and what's the that landscape look like?
So Major League table tennis is its own league.
And their model really is the NBA, which I love.
I love the ambition and I love that that's their model.
I mean, really in terms of making the stars athletes,
giving them like, I mean, they use like 12 cameras, slow MO.
I mean, it is one table. They've actually altered some of
(11:34):
the rules so they make more sense.
Like, you know, open serve, double S, which used to be, I'm
going to butcher it, so I'm not even going to explain the rules,
but they've changed some of the formats.
But table tennis TV is one of the various leagues.
Sorry, Major League Table Tennisis one of the leagues on Table
(11:57):
Tennis TV. So we have a deal with, you
know, Andreas of, of, of dying, who was gracious enough to work
with us to give us North American rights for the German
Bundesliga, where, you know, thenumber one player Fan Jedong is
playing. In turn, we're broadcasting on
dying, which is a very just coolrelationship.
(12:19):
But we're also in negotiations to bring on more and more
international leagues. So this will be the main
repository, the meet the the main destination if you care
about table tennis. And part of the strategy is not
just live sport but influencer content.
We created a show called Table Tennis Tonight where it is
(12:42):
sports centre but 8 minutes, 9 minutes, however long we want it
to be, which is what's wonderfulabout streaming.
I am not beholden to a linear timeline.
I can dig on fast channels rightnow a little bit.
You can dig on. No, but like when you're not
locked on a linear timeline, youcan like I've been in TV for a
while. It's sometimes you end up having
(13:03):
to fill empty space, like squirrels on water skis at the
end. I mean, that's the joke.
They have to do that. Ours is, you know, there's 8
minutes of stories. There's 8 minutes of stories.
If there's 12, there's 12. We can release whenever and it's
so freeing to be able to do that, but the goal is to give
the users something to give likethe people, what they want or
(13:23):
what they didn't know they wanted, which is a very, very
easy way with 5 to 8 minutes to learn everything that happened
in the world of table tennis across the world, including WTT,
including all the leagues. Let me just shamelessly plug and
ask a question. It is a pointed question.
Where did you meet Andres Hayden?
Here. There you go, There you go,
(13:45):
people. Happy coincidence.
There's a very. Quick aside, at the Sports Pro
Awards in Madrid last year, I was the first person presenting
and it was real. I mean, it was a true pleasure
to present somebody for. I think he won Innovator of the
Year, Most Innovative Platform, someone I voted for who deserved
it, and I was the first person to hand out the award.
(14:06):
No one told me that I was supposed to hand it and then
walk off the stage. So it was me and like 4-6 foot 6
German dudes where I looked likeSlimer from Ghostbusters, and it
ended up on the front page of a German newspaper.
So yeah, thanks. You're welcome.
Yeah. Next time you know.
(14:27):
We'll give you a bit of a betterbrief.
Next talk. I appreciate it.
Like I said, it's more just to let people know, you know, you
never know what kind of relationships you might make at
a sports pro event. And so, like I said, just a
slight segue just to, you know, shamelessly plug, you know the
company, Nick. I mean, seriously, some of my
like, there's this is real. I mean, not the rest wasn't
real, but there's a, a fun part of 1's career when colleagues,
(14:49):
vendors, people that you've worked with, people you've
fired, become friends and you guys have facilitated that.
Like, I mean, I have friends from, you know, cling from
Acedo, from JW Magnus, people that I'd met at these events
that have transcended just, you know, the someone you see at a
conference. Like real friendships, like
(15:10):
real, like exchanges of information that have been
profound in shaping some of my preconceived notions that have
challenged sort of the orthodoxythat I've held and also have
been fun to bounce ideas off of to really move this industry
forward, which I think truly needs.
Yeah, I think that's one of the difficult things when I talk to
(15:32):
people about the sports industryis just how important the
relationships are. People think it's a bit cliche,
but I've talked to people from other sectors and they say it's
much more cutthroat, it's much more transactional.
But in sports it is you need those relationships, whether to
be for the conversations you canhave casually between people or
those those meetings you can have at an event and they
(15:52):
normally can go somewhere over time, whether it's immediately
or down the line. You never know when you'll be
able to open up those opportunities to something to
something more example with yourrelationship with dying.
So it is really important that, you know, that's why we do what
we do, really. Yeah, exactly.
And I guess just moving on and talking about those
relationships, those partnerships, you as Nick said,
he's what was the brief, what came in it?
(16:13):
So now you've got on the brief, you've got on the job.
I mean, you guys have hosted me for vendor dinners and I've
hired the vendors. I mean, like it, it, it works.
It really does. I mean, like shameless plug, but
it's real. I mean, it really is.
It's like, it's why I come here and yeah, I'm like AI guess a be
a sports pro fanboy. So no, I genuinely like
genuinely thank you all for the opportunity.
Well, thank you. So let's so let's get into so
(16:34):
you've, you've now you've now give us an update.
So you've launched the platforms.
Let's take back a couple steps. You got the brief.
What was the next step you had to take once you were on board
to build this platform? So I, I, I worked at a, an
arrangement with, with Flint about the timeline and the
budget and I was immediately laughed at because they wanted
(16:56):
it done in a much shorter periodof time, which I loved.
I think the, the, I said, well, this is, you know, it's not
easy. It's hard.
And the response was, well, you know, going to the moon is hard.
This is not hard. And I, I, I genuinely loved it.
And he was like, I built the entire league in, you know, six
months time and I'm like, all right, let's do it.
And I, I genuinely love the challenge.
(17:19):
And I, I liked the, the sort of no nonsense approach, but also
the lack of perfectionism as a flaw where if we get the 80%
that's quite good. Like don't let what is it?
Don't let perfect be the enemy of the good.
So immediately you have to pick vendors and I looked at a lot of
them. I mean, I just looked at them
(17:40):
all, which is such a, it's a process that can go on forever.
I mean, it really can and you can get paralysed by it.
And so I ended up going with JW player, who, you know, cut me a
fairly decent deal that they're probably going to regret soon.
Their partners train, which do front end apps and I, we created
(18:03):
a bespoke mobile app very similar to the Cowboy Channel
Playbook, where we spun up a website for news and integrated
that with the mobile app. Because you know, 8090% of
people's content is created on ais viewed on a mobile phone and
and created on Google phone right there.
So that to me is the primary destination.
(18:23):
People make mistakes in my opinion when they're building by
prioritising things they shouldn't.
Such as of CT. VI mean the experience, I'm
sorry, is like just get it to work.
All the bells and whistles, in my opinion are not that great
and not that important. I mean, it's it's if you have a
tonne of money, if you have a tonne of budget, yeah, then it
(18:45):
becomes very important. But if you're just starting out
and I mean we built this thing for like 150 K, we're
haemorrhaging money until we getto, you know, a couple 1000
subscribers. So the first thing I had to
think about was how do I do thisright, incorporating all the
mistakes, if you all know were many to build the tech stack.
(19:07):
And yeah, we used JW, we used train and we used I went back to
cling, which I fired it when I was for year one Cowboy Channel.
And I'm so far so good. Yeah, I'm pleased with the
choices. So how long was it the runway
then between that and and actually going live?
Because you only went live like a couple of weeks ago, right?
(19:28):
Yeah. Well, I did the sensible thing
by, you know, lying to all of your vendors and giving them a
wrong date. As everyone does well with their
their service providers is give them a pre date before the real
date. But they do the actual road map.
But I did need a pre date because there are always
revisions and always things thatgo wrong.
I have to say what I liked aboutthe providers that we worked
(19:51):
with is they were hounding me For more information and
threatening me with not being able to reach my deadlines,
which is the greatest position to be in like.
I mean, I kind of always like being the dumbest person in the
room and it was great. Like they were like, you got to
get this done. So it wood Forest us to to push
and we we launched on September 3rd and successfully, I still
(20:13):
consider us beta right now because even there's always once
you launch, we still have an Android version.
We're having issues with Roku because they won't validate our,
you know, billing info, even though it's right there and you
get this awful cycle. I mean, just little things that,
that, that pop up. But we are streaming live
content. We have live news and we're,
(20:37):
we're, we have a couple 100 followers, a couple 100
subscribers, actually like 300 or something so far.
And this is not with spending a dime on marketing, even with
that big of a promotional push, which I, I don't like to do
until, you know, you're really at a point where the product is,
is ready. And I would say it's there now.
(21:00):
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collaboration feel local. And so you mentioned Roku is the
challenge of that. Are there any what?
What is that mix of devices you have you're available on now?
Oh, glad you asked that. I'd be very selective because of
budget. Again, when you're starting with
(22:03):
0, a very good way of thinking is we were talking about the
term minimum viable product, which I don't like.
To me that means it's bad for me.
I like minimum viable good product.
Like that's actually something people would buy.
Proof of concept I think should be interchanged with minimum
(22:25):
viable product. But we, we did a minimum viable
good product and we did it for Roku because it's, you know, the
number one CTV app player in theOR what do you call platform in
the US. Operating system, yeah.
OS, yeah. Dealer's choice, then Apple TV,
(22:47):
because even though it's a lowerone in terms of popularity.
My gut and a bit of analysis. Thank you, Mark Swick for giving
me some insight into the table tennis community for free was
that it's a higher, it's an older demographic, but with a
much, much higher technical sophistication.
(23:10):
And Apple tends to attract people with more and more tech
savviness and, you know, bespokemobile app as well as web and
Firestick. And I did, I, I want all of the,
like I, I'm cool with paying theRoku and Apple tax and all of
that because you know, 30% for year one when my, my CAC is
(23:34):
probably $75.00. So I'll take that every day.
So how do you get up and runningon those platforms?
Is that through JW players? It's a living hell.
I mean, my God, no, it's really,it's awful.
It's just, it's always awful. I mean, you got to submit a
Dunn's number, you got an apple.You need a human that acts as a
corporation and they've gotten more awful about like we we've
(23:57):
like hacked dev at Apple, but they then you need to convince
them that's a person that needs to be tied to a real human.
I mean, it's just it's nuts. I mean the process is awful and
then they've automated it where you can't reach anybody.
So you get trapped in these these loops.
Like with Roku, we keep submitting here is our
information, the billing address, the name of it, and it
(24:18):
just keeps like a tickets created and it's this and it
feels like a like some sort of hell.
I mean, it's just like this, this loop of just.
Which are the seven levels are we talking about?
I mean, maybe the 8th for OTTI mean it's just like it's just
nuts and like and you get like someone and they can't help you
and then you we've identical tickets being created over and
(24:39):
over again, but we'll get through it.
It reminds me of that story, if I remember from a few years ago
now, where there was a platform that was launched that was
incorporate a lot of the major football players, the soccer
athletes, the stars like Beckham, sedan, Messi and
Neymar. It was called ultra at the time.
And the story going around was basically they put 10's and 10s
(25:01):
of millions into getting the licencing price from the players
and getting the platform ready. And they did this huge marketing
push, but they didn't take into account getting the Apple signed
off and how long that took. And basically they launched it
without having the platform liveon the, on the product on, on,
on the platform and basically LED to a lot of wasted marketing
(25:21):
after that, but and that platform didn't last very long,
I can tell you. That is why I'm not marketing
yet. I was just going to say so.
So OK, you're, you're live now you've talked about being a
subscription business. So two things is rough, rough
price point that you're you're selling at and what do you, what
do you get for that price point?Let's start with that one.
Sure like may I speak on something before that?
Yeah, very short. So back back to haemorrhaging
(25:42):
money. You, you're literally are
bleeding and so you the idea of going to any kind of boutique
place, it's it's out of the question.
I looked at like even stream AMGstay Live, which I liked.
I mean, really, Stay Live is good, like a really good, good
product. Based out of Sweden, right?
Yeah, in Stockholm. Yeah, I mean, they're started as
(26:03):
a high school project. Part of the Spring Media Group
that was acquired by two circles, and that's their
Swedish office. Yeah, I mean, like incredible,
but they didn't have CTV or Rokuabilities.
So for an American audience, like, I mean, I wanted to go
with them, but man, that's a good product.
But I went with what I had. So I pay JW about 30 bucks per
(26:26):
TB to stream and my calculationsshow me that if I had 1000
users, that would last me 13 days.
So there are two companies, System 73 and a company called
Digital Harmonic that I met randomly at a bar in Las Vegas
and at NAB that I just didn't believe what they did.
And it's a a military compression, not even
(26:50):
compression like kind of AI shader that was used in high
altitude surveillance aeroplanesthat takes a 20 megabit feed,
reduces it to 10 and also enhances the quality.
I didn't believe it and I met them, but I looked at it legit.
It's real. And so I have them our feeds
going through them into JW, which saves me half on the
(27:13):
ingest. And then system 73 allows me to
put a peer-to-peer layer. I have to be scrappy in order to
to save money, but I'm basicallysaving about 80 to 90% off my
CDN bill by incorporating both of these technologies.
And I call it the sandwich of savings.
It really is. It's on one side of the other.
(27:34):
They're they're great. Is that something that what
you've achieved there and by taking that approach, is that
something have you checked with others, you know your contacts,
is that something that others are doing as well?
Or do you think it's, it sounds like quite innovative to me?
I don't think they are because I've brought it up to other
people and they they're either too senior because they and
which is fine, meaning their products are more mature that
(27:57):
they. It's not in their road map or
it's just they're occupied. I mean, it's interesting when
I'm in the position of recommending technology to
people, like it's either like, Oh, that's cool.
But you know, whether they use it or not, I mean, I would
especially if you're starting out because it's like I'm
saving, you know, a ridiculous amount of money on on traffic
(28:18):
and analytics. So, but the point is you got to
be scrappy. I mean, you have to really just
one of the things that we did really, really cleverly at
Cowboy is we grew with revenue. I mean always like we did not.
I mean, I had a staff of 9 or maybe a 10 when I left, whereas
the broadcast, the broadcast hadI think 90 to over 100.
(28:42):
The World War, we were tiny and it's best to stay that way.
Otherwise you can in a weird waymake poor decisions.
So God, I'm just realising rightnow that a lot of the pain
points were, were self-inflictedbecause you'd run into a pain
point, which was a revenue issueusually, and then then you'd
expand. Then that's, that's normally
the, I think you think the thingwe hear constantly is people are
(29:06):
so focused on revenue, revenue, revenue.
But actually if you can just keep your costs down and get up
and running and get momentum with that, that's when you can
see the results like paying off and show that that growth,
growth path. Whereas normally revenues are
focus habitat take losses and they they work out at the end.
They can't overcome that that mismatch in dynamic.
(29:28):
A couple of years later, it's too late by.
Then or it's magical thinking that they haven't thought about
really. Should we build before building?
I see that a lot people make theassumption that what they're
building is special in their ownmind and it's really is a bit of
magical thinking and they never break 30,000 and and die.
(29:49):
I say that that comes to the point Nick and I always refer to
back to the great movie Field ofDreams.
If you build it, they will come.I think there's always this
misconception. Then if we build it like they're
just going to come filing through to love this product as
much as we do. What?
What are the things that I, I really have learned is that the
key question of should, should Ibuild?
(30:10):
It should be the number one thing and then talk to people.
And one of the things that Flintand I kind of vibe on is he
turned me on to this book calledThinking and Bets, and it's by a
former poker player. And just because you know, if
something's a 75% chance, 25% chance you could lose.
(30:32):
And a lot of people make decisions based on the loss and
what think it was a bad decision.
So when you think in terms of probability, if you reduce
everything to a bet, one that we're making is that by creating
efficiencies in this sport, by putting it all in one place,
that that will create an audience.
And so far the bet I'm willing to take, how you grow the
(30:55):
audience depends on having a genuine respect for them and
thinking not platform up, but product down.
Really almost envisioning what it looks like without the
arrogance of knowing what they want and being flexible with the
feedback you get. And really listening to what
(31:20):
problems they have and what features they want.
And then putting those in a hierarchy of of risk reward and
what, what can you do quickly that can make the most revenue
versus what's something you really, really want to do, but
might be just a, a bell or a whistle.
So now you've got this platform up and running, and that's a
(31:41):
place you can point to. What is the why?
Abletennis.tv. Abletennis.tv Maybe you can
reach out to David. He might give you a special
offer on subscription though. No pressure I I shall.
Can we actually flash one on thelist so we can work out?
Something a lot of code later on.
Yeah, that is on the case. He's given us the green light
there. What like layering it up a bit
like thinking about what we've done with the media summit as
(32:02):
well as to go go bigger picture now.
Because when you're building a platform, it's only part of a a
wider content and media strategy.
What is that wider approach looklike?
How does a platform fit into it?Is it all about the platform?
Is YouTube part of that strategy?
Is there a broadcast leading partners there that the the
organisation focused on? Just talk us through how that
fits into the the mould. Well, YouTube's always part of
(32:23):
it. I mean, you don't want to run
from YouTube. YouTube's, in my opinion, one of
the great free front. I treat YouTube the same way I
treat fast channels. I think fast channels are
actually an OK idea, if it's an established one, to take some of
your sub premium content, maybe even sub premium content to
teach people the rules, to grow fan avidity, to attract new
(32:45):
people and use that as a marketing funnel to your premium
service. At the same time, you can use
that also with a free game of the week or like what MLB does,
which we obviously steal. So yeah, YouTube also influencer
content where you, I mean, we made a deal with Pong maestros,
(33:05):
they're based in Sweden to get some of their back catalogue and
create new content for us to really be instructional.
If you can teach an American, like they're basically three
moves, you can learn, you can just beat most of your friends.
I have not learned them yet. So that part of teaching people
the rules, whether it be throughcondensed games, clips, coaching
(33:30):
content is vital. Especially this is where I'm
having fun in a, in a participatory sport.
Like I'm not going to get on a 2000 LB bull.
I mean, I'm, yeah, I, I pair youlike, yeah.
But people play table tennis. And another bet that I that I'm
(33:51):
making is that if you teach people the rules, who the
players are, show them the, the real kind of value of the sport,
like how how good it is, you canstart reaching an audience
that's outside of your core demographic, which is still
huge. I'm just talking about a really
(34:12):
America, I mean, hell. And it's, I mean, fan Jidong is
a global celebrity. And in America, our job is to
tell the stories of these athletes.
So with the cup with on what's on the platform then other than
live games, have you adding thateducational content to the
platform as well? Or are you just mainly focused
(34:32):
on giving those those right opportunities to the pong?
Wasn't Pong maestros? I'm definitely going to look up
after this. I started playing table tennis
with my little son the other dayand he.
Based in Sweden. Yeah, based in Sweden, so I'll
get him my. Great dude.
Tune into some of that. Yeah.
I mean it's, it's a combination.We created original programming.
So we have table tennis tonight with a host named Ryan Willard
(34:54):
and I, I mentioned that earlier,it's a summary.
It's a kind of a sports centre. It's a fun short show that
we're, you know, giving to dine and putting that out there so
you can for for free in front ofour paywall so you can actually
learn about the sport. And we're also doing kind of a
one-on-one interview show with some of the major stars called
(35:14):
around the Net that that Flint is hosting.
That's very, very good. One of my long time editors that
I've used who knows nothing about table tennis gave me the
the highest compliment about theshow.
Just said it was a good conversation on its own right
and he knew nothing about it andjust loved it.
So everything has to be thought through ultimately.
(35:39):
How do I say this without sin? I'm a sarcastic bastard as you
know, so I don't want to unsanctimonious, but I will.
God, it's so hard. Fill this up now I.
Know it's so hard being from Philadelphia.
No, you have to be generous liketo be truly generous of spirit
and think like what do these people want?
What do they what do they need and and make it for them.
It ain't about making it for me.I mean like I mean I like
(36:02):
baseball. It, it, it's thinking that if
somebody is actually paying money for this product, like
real money, that they deserve the value in that they, they,
they, they, it should be like it's, it's sacred.
So what to that point? But.
Is it? No, it's important that if you
want to get someone to buy a subscription in this day and
(36:22):
age, you have to make sure you're providing legit value.
Otherwise you're not going to move the needle enough to get
into it. Agree happen.
So what other product, let's sayhow are you product defying the
platform further? For example, we talked about the
NFL and adding those different alternate cuts like the 40
minute games, the the refs Cam. Are you adding different layers
of product or is that coming on the road map to add alternative
(36:44):
cast, different commentary, thatsort of thing to the mix or you
already got that emotion? I mean, I'm going to be dealing
with a potentially the Turkish, Serbian, Romanian, Polish,
Japanese league. And I don't think they, I think
there's a language for each of those.
So the idea of real time language translation would be
(37:05):
probably one of the first thingsthat we're going to have to
approach. I have to shed on that example.
I don't know if you heard it before.
Did you hear the the session they had earlier on stage with I
was Dave Gibbs, Peter Hutton, Louise Lawler and Mejia from
Live like. And one of the examples they
shared that Eurovision has been doing with boxing was they had
(37:26):
automated translation into Hindiand it was translating it and
they were really happy with everything.
And then the background in the venue they were playing, the
examples she gave us, they were playing John.
Lennon. Oh yeah.
Imagine. Imagine and it was translating
the song into Hindi in the background, which I have to go
and find that that footage is going to be incredible to watch.
(37:46):
That that was fantastic. I heard that too.
It was just like the cool moment.
But yeah, I mean, if we're goingto be international, we have to
have alternative feeds, languagetranslation and more.
But I do want to say that we have just started, so there are
all the bells and whistles that I would love to have.
Like, for example, replacing pool tables with table tennis
(38:11):
tables in bars across America where there's a feature saying
find me a game and I can challenge people.
And then I get use Pixel Lot or Spadeo where I get a clip for my
own little digital trophy case that lives on the app.
I would love that. But where are my resources?
(38:31):
My resources come from growing subscribers, but at the same
time, I need to get subscribers something that of value.
And the bet I'm making is by bringing in more and more live
content, but also creating produced content that we're
doing in house and also leveraging the influencer
community to take and reformat alot of their back catalogue.
(38:55):
We can start creating our own Urzats linear feed.
One of the issues though, I do have is cowboy, you have
westerns. There's all sorts of shoulder
programming that that fits tabletennis.
(39:16):
I mean, there's balls of fury, which phenomenal.
My God, I mean Christopher Walk.I mean, it's but the shoulder
programming and related content is not as bountiful.
So that that is a challenge. At the same time, we're doing
things like Serb of the week where it's instructional, it's
(39:37):
fun and then do pieces on like the history of table tennis.
It was apparently Victorian and here I didn't know that I might
be wrong. But every new feature that we
add, it has to be it has to follow a growth cycle or it's
just not worth doing or it has to be something that is demanded
(39:59):
by the audience like now. So I mean, I'm trying to get
push notifications working. So yeah, we're, we're just
started, I mean. So we're going to have to wrap
things up, but I do one last question because I think one of
the best things that came acrossin the interview when we were
talking about the Cowboy Channelis what happens when all of a
sudden the subscription numbers to go through the roof.
We're going to manifest our destiny.
(40:20):
We know the table tennis TV is going to go through the roof.
When it does happen, what have you learned from your
experience? You know, Cowboy Channel, when
that scale does grow, what mightyou do differently this time to
prepare for that inevitable moment when you jump to 10,000
subscribers and 50,000? What?
What's the thing that you're going to take away to?
Prepare. I mean, do you see the panic on
my face right now? Because like I, I'm realising
(40:44):
everything that will happen and I'm about to repeat all of my
mistakes because I don't have a customer service department
right now. I don't.
Have you? Have you put your number on
speed dial again last time? I actually will give people my
phone number right now, but I mean, we're using Cling's
customer support and we, we madethat determination earlier on
because it's, again, it's a higher, they're not as
(41:07):
technically mature as a lot of the older folks in Rodeo are,
which was my problem to solve. I mean, really when a woman
calls and says, I, I can't sell the app on her flip phone, I
mean, it might be funny, but it really is That's my, that's my
problem. It's like I should be telling
teaching her through the marketing process.
But I mean, I hope so. I have a feeling it's going to
(41:28):
be a little bit of repeating history, but we are better
prepared for any kind of thundering herd event.
I mean that that's the sort of the major thing we are prepared
for. But you have given me a wake up
call about redundancy and disaster planning, which to be
fair, I I've been so focused on build, build, build that yeah, I
(41:53):
need to. What it's worth, I sometimes
refer to those as champagne problems.
You know, like it's a good. Problem man Yeah, I mean, like
I, I, you know, those dreams before events where, you know,
all of your teeth fall out are not pleasant.
Yeah. It was fun of I was telling my
wife right before we launched and I was incredibly stressed,
(42:15):
like really stressed. Like, I mean, to the like, you
know, it was affecting me. I mean, I was having those
dreams and then I thought, how cool is this?
I am like so stressed out about ping pong.
And I, I don't mean that to sound dismissive at all.
I just thought it was awesome that like this, like I was, I
mean, and I, I will always be. I mean, it's like you got to
(42:36):
connect to an audience. You got to give them what they
need at the point. Well, David, it is always a
pleasure to get to see you. I often get to get a WhatsApp
call for me about once a month, but get to see you in person.
It's always a privilege. It's great to hear about the new
adventure. No doubt it'll be something
we'll continue to follow on our end.
Lots you've learned from the Cowboy Channel and it sounds
like you're going through the process.
It was really super interesting for us.
(42:58):
Hopefully interesting for the audience because for every NFL
there's 50 other organisations that don't have that sort of
budget ability to do things. So to be able to hear first hand
from you and you've always been super candid, which is something
we appreciate. Some people are very clean and
PR if I'd being able to get the nuts and bolts and something we
get from everybody. So I do appreciate that
probably. You got to share knowledge.
I mean, we're all in this together.
I mean, it's and it's hard. And that's how the industry
(43:20):
moves forward much quicker when we share and share alike.
So thanks, Kevin David, for joining us.
Thank you so much for the opportunity.
Thank you everybody. Catch you on the next episode
stream TIME Sports.
Hello, everyone. Welcome back to the next episode
of Streamtime Sports. My name is Chris Stone, the
community lead, joined as alwaysby our CEO.
And today we also have a specialguest, our friend back for a
second round on the show, Mr. David Guinan.
David, special episode, as anyone can see now that is a
show, no longer just simply a podcast.
We're at the London Stadium, home of the West Ham Irons, my
(00:25):
football club. It's been a tough year of sports
for me between West Ham and the Cincinnati Bengals, but we're
here at Sports Pro AI 25 S David, it is a pleasure to have
you back. We've not seen you in a while
and good to have you back on theshow.
Go Eagles, go Phillies. I'm, I'm sorry.
No, thank you so much for havingme.
(00:45):
It really is a a, you know, honour to be back and slightly
terrifying to be on camera. It's always nice where you can
hide behind my webcam that I normally have at home recording
these things and said now I've got the backdrop of AI, don't
know, 6060 thousand odd stadium behind us.
But really I've never been here for a sporting event.
I've only been here for a music one.
(01:06):
I'm usually here about 8 * a year for football games, Usually
more often than not negative andpositive, but the negatives make
the positive more sweet. You know what they say, you
can't appreciate the sun withouta little bit of rain.
So yeah, I mean, let's be honest, like we're on the same
venue that Usain Bolt won gold in the 100 metre, Mo Farah won
gold. I mean, you think about some of
(01:27):
the athletes that have been out here and then there's awesome.
And then there's us. Yeah, into the the concert I was
here for was ACDC. Great Australian band.
So happy it wasn't Coldplay. And really we had a a staff day
here a few months back and they had Black Sabbath here.
So going with proper hard rockers out here in East London.
Respect. Apparently actually from Black
(01:48):
Sabbath is actually from East London.
That's why their legacy, which Ihad no idea until I found out
that there was the average age of fans in the winter, about 75,
but they have no rocking our heart.
God, we could devote 15 minutes talking about Ozzy.
I mean, rest in peace. Yeah.
Well, today, David, one of the things that we want to talk to
you about, and I will go ahead and plug a former show that we
(02:09):
did together. We talked about your time at the
Cowboy Channel. It's an excellent story.
You know, I love the story aboutkind of how when the system goes
down and you guys personally just had every single person
individually reach out to every single subscriber.
I think it's just a great example of when things do go
wrong, how can you adjust for that?
And you've actually got a bit ofa life update.
It's no longer about the Cowboy Channel.
(02:29):
We're going to jump into some ofthe stuff that you are doing
now, but maybe just give a quickupdate sort of where we've left
off with the Cowboy Channel and where we're at now with you.
And I'm happy to and thank you. Cowboy Channel was a really
interesting ride in that. I like that.
Use Yeah. Manifold.
It was more than an 8 second ride, but I'd be, to be
completely blunt, I mean I had no idea what I was doing.
(02:51):
I mean, I knew from a product side what I wanted it to be, so
it went very top down. Like how do we take this vision
and reduce it into something that works the way it's supposed
to? And during my tenure there, I
learned that every level of success is met with a different
(03:13):
level of pain. Genuinely.
Like, I mean, 5000 subscribers to 30 are two different stratas
of pain. And when you get to 100, it's
more pain and then 150 more. So I don't know what's after
that, but I do know it's there. I mean, we dealt with things
(03:33):
right before the sale to Teton Ridge that is now has my baby
and is treating it very, very nicely.
I'm very happy with what they'vebeen doing.
You know, we were hit with like a VPPA lawsuit, which I knew
nothing about, but which where some judge sued Blockbuster for
releasing his his video VHS or DVD rental history.
(03:58):
And now lawyers go after you forsharing your user data with
Facebook and and Google. That was fun.
And basically there are two different law firms that are in
cahoots to get your cyber insurance.
So you learn that at around 125,000 subscribers.
So I keep just can't wait to seewhat happens at A at 200 because
(04:20):
I'm sure it's going to put another smile on my face.
Well, that's kind of what we're here to talk about today, David,
because you've got a new challenge, a new task on your
hands. You're a bit of a builder.
You know, some people, they liketo jump on the train when it's
already left the station. It's already got momentum.
Not you. You like to build things from
scratch. You're you're, you're a
visionary, someone that likes totake things, you know, a piece
(04:41):
of clay and, you know, model it into something and you.
Metaphors are flying, flying around here.
I. Think I think more of a of a
monkey being given an assortmentof blocks and fruit and you know
has to kind of bang them together and figure out what to
do. Would be more apt description
but but appreciate it. I try.
I do have a great deal of respect for you.
(05:02):
Thank you. But you do have a new task in
here and you've joined and you're going to try to build
another platform. Yeah.
So tell, tell us a little bit about that because then after
that when Nick and I are going to grill you on for the majority
of this is how you actually go about the thought process of
going from absolutely nothing tobuilding it.
So before we really dive into, just tell us a little bit about
the new project and what you're kicking off.
(05:23):
I appreciate it. So we just launched Table Tennis
TV and after Cowboy I was put intouch by my friends at JW Player
with a guy named Flint Lane who's really interesting
character. He sold a company called Bill
Trust, which automated invoicingand retired and retired for two
(05:47):
weeks and was bored out of his mind, like losing it.
And he'd always played table tennis, like competitively but
semi, like, for real. And he spun up a new league
within six months called Major League Table Tennis.
And we're going into our third year right now.
And we had a meeting. And I knew, I mean, I knew I
(06:07):
thought I was good at table tennis.
I called it ping pong. Like most Americans, I I learned
I was not good after going to one of the events where a former
Olympian beat me 111 or 11/1. Surprised he scored one.
I did and I gloat it and I, I, Isaid, were you really in the
(06:28):
Olympics? Are you really that good?
And he looked at me kind of quizzically and then pointed out
he was using a bottle opener to,to play me.
And at the end, I was covered insweat and humiliated and just
looked at him and just went, sorry.
But my point is, after going to the event, I think for a sport
(06:48):
to be good, it needs to do threethings really properly.
It has to be good live. It has to be good on your phone
and it has to be good on your couch.
And the reason for that is, you know, lean back like short clips
and then the live experience that we all, you know, places
like this. And I didn't know what table
tennis would be like live. So I went to one of their events
(07:09):
and it was it was great. I mean, you don't see the spin
properly on on television. I also called my friend and
colleague Charlie Beal and askedhim what he thought of the
opportunity. And he was just like, dude,
yeah. Because the perception of table
tennis in America is much, much different than it is here in
Europe and Asia, Sweden. I mean, really, it's a, it's a
(07:32):
varsity sport. I mean it, it's I mean they're
genuine stars and the idea of kind of building something from
the ground up appealed to me forfor two reasons. 111 sort of
silly. But, you know, the, the self
doubting part of myself says if I could do this with cowboy, it
(07:55):
was a fluke or if I could do this again, I could, you know,
wear a bathrobe for the rest of my life.
But, but really the commonality of what I'm realising,
everything I've always liked to do is connect the audience with
content that they hadn't really been able to receive.
I mean, I did that in Nigeria. I did that at a cowboy channel.
(08:15):
There really is just a real pleasure and taking something
that I might not be into, but that I have a great deal of
respect for and the audience and, and just giving them what
they deserve. And that's not frequently done.
And I noticed that a lot of table tennis content which is
put up for free on YouTube, and I thought there would be a great
(08:37):
deal of efficiency to really give it the tier one treatment
that we did with rodeo. The second challenge is also
part of Out of Ego is how do I take a participatory sport that
everybody knows how to play in America and turn that into a
spectator sport? And I don't know the answer to
that one yet. I think it starts with teaching
(08:59):
people the rules and an appreciation for it.
But that's my own personal challenge.
But yeah, I'm just excited to build stuff.
So, So what exactly was the brief you were given?
Was it was the brief just we need to build a platform so
we've got something to point people to because you talked
about the fact there was alreadysome content being made
available on YouTube that was atthe monetization piece.
(09:20):
That was the priority. What was the?
What was the brief? All of it, I mean they were
putting it on YouTube, but they were growing the league.
But they thought there was an opportunity to really.
We talked about the efficiency of created for the audience,
that it is a fragmented audienceand that that to me is just my
favourite thing to do. But when you have people having
to go to YouTube, going to otherindividual league sites to, to
(09:43):
find all of this, you know, the content they want.
They can't do things like followan athlete, follow a player and
have it in their phone, have it really in one place.
So I mean rodeo is very similar where people would go to a
County Fair with a rodeo every year, but then they go to the
NFR but they would only typically go to their rodeo or
(10:04):
1:00 nearby. When we consolidated the rights,
it allowed people to follow the sport in a completely new way.
And rodeo, it follows a circuit,but the athletes can jump
around. They do that all the time.
And table tennis is very similar.
Certain athletes will be in various competitions all over
the world. They bounce from league to
league and from tournament to tournament and it it deserves
(10:28):
the same respect. It's also the 7th largest played
sport in the world, which I had no idea and seeing it live,
seeing some of the stars. I mean, it is like like watching
sci-fi. I mean it is it just it's faster
than you think It's cooler than I that I thought.
Excuse me, It's it's, it's legitand.
(10:50):
So I'm curious on the dynamics here.
So from what I instead of table tennis, I don't know a lot about
the, the, so the business side of the industry or the
governance of it. But this world table tennis,
they exist out of Singapore. They have their own series of
events they run. Where do you guys then fit in
into that ecosystem? Is it completely independent?
Is it based in the US only from the the events that you're
(11:12):
running and and what's the that landscape look like?
So Major League table tennis is its own league.
And their model really is the NBA, which I love.
I love the ambition and I love that that's their model.
I mean, really in terms of making the stars athletes,
giving them like, I mean, they use like 12 cameras, slow MO.
I mean, it is one table. They've actually altered some of
(11:34):
the rules so they make more sense.
Like, you know, open serve, double S, which used to be, I'm
going to butcher it, so I'm not even going to explain the rules,
but they've changed some of the formats.
But table tennis TV is one of the various leagues.
Sorry, Major League Table Tennisis one of the leagues on Table
(11:57):
Tennis TV. So we have a deal with, you
know, Andreas of, of, of dying, who was gracious enough to work
with us to give us North American rights for the German
Bundesliga, where, you know, thenumber one player Fan Jedong is
playing. In turn, we're broadcasting on
dying, which is a very just coolrelationship.
(12:19):
But we're also in negotiations to bring on more and more
international leagues. So this will be the main
repository, the meet the the main destination if you care
about table tennis. And part of the strategy is not
just live sport but influencer content.
We created a show called Table Tennis Tonight where it is
(12:42):
sports centre but 8 minutes, 9 minutes, however long we want it
to be, which is what's wonderfulabout streaming.
I am not beholden to a linear timeline.
I can dig on fast channels rightnow a little bit.
You can dig on. No, but like when you're not
locked on a linear timeline, youcan like I've been in TV for a
while. It's sometimes you end up having
(13:03):
to fill empty space, like squirrels on water skis at the
end. I mean, that's the joke.
They have to do that. Ours is, you know, there's 8
minutes of stories. There's 8 minutes of stories.
If there's 12, there's 12. We can release whenever and it's
so freeing to be able to do that, but the goal is to give
the users something to give likethe people, what they want or
(13:23):
what they didn't know they wanted, which is a very, very
easy way with 5 to 8 minutes to learn everything that happened
in the world of table tennis across the world, including WTT,
including all the leagues. Let me just shamelessly plug and
ask a question. It is a pointed question.
Where did you meet Andres Hayden?
Here. There you go, There you go,
(13:45):
people. Happy coincidence.
There's a very. Quick aside, at the Sports Pro
Awards in Madrid last year, I was the first person presenting
and it was real. I mean, it was a true pleasure
to present somebody for. I think he won Innovator of the
Year, Most Innovative Platform, someone I voted for who deserved
it, and I was the first person to hand out the award.
(14:06):
No one told me that I was supposed to hand it and then
walk off the stage. So it was me and like 4-6 foot 6
German dudes where I looked likeSlimer from Ghostbusters, and it
ended up on the front page of a German newspaper.
So yeah, thanks. You're welcome.
Yeah. Next time you know.
(14:27):
We'll give you a bit of a betterbrief.
Next talk. I appreciate it.
Like I said, it's more just to let people know, you know, you
never know what kind of relationships you might make at
a sports pro event. And so, like I said, just a
slight segue just to, you know, shamelessly plug, you know the
company, Nick. I mean, seriously, some of my
like, there's this is real. I mean, not the rest wasn't
real, but there's a, a fun part of 1's career when colleagues,
(14:49):
vendors, people that you've worked with, people you've
fired, become friends and you guys have facilitated that.
Like, I mean, I have friends from, you know, cling from
Acedo, from JW Magnus, people that I'd met at these events
that have transcended just, you know, the someone you see at a
conference. Like real friendships, like
(15:10):
real, like exchanges of information that have been
profound in shaping some of my preconceived notions that have
challenged sort of the orthodoxythat I've held and also have
been fun to bounce ideas off of to really move this industry
forward, which I think truly needs.
Yeah, I think that's one of the difficult things when I talk to
(15:32):
people about the sports industryis just how important the
relationships are. People think it's a bit cliche,
but I've talked to people from other sectors and they say it's
much more cutthroat, it's much more transactional.
But in sports it is you need those relationships, whether to
be for the conversations you canhave casually between people or
those those meetings you can have at an event and they
(15:52):
normally can go somewhere over time, whether it's immediately
or down the line. You never know when you'll be
able to open up those opportunities to something to
something more example with yourrelationship with dying.
So it is really important that, you know, that's why we do what
we do, really. Yeah, exactly.
And I guess just moving on and talking about those
relationships, those partnerships, you as Nick said,
he's what was the brief, what came in it?
(16:13):
So now you've got on the brief, you've got on the job.
I mean, you guys have hosted me for vendor dinners and I've
hired the vendors. I mean, like it, it, it works.
It really does. I mean, like shameless plug, but
it's real. I mean, it really is.
It's like, it's why I come here and yeah, I'm like AI guess a be
a sports pro fanboy. So no, I genuinely like
genuinely thank you all for the opportunity.
Well, thank you. So let's so let's get into so
(16:34):
you've, you've now you've now give us an update.
So you've launched the platforms.
Let's take back a couple steps. You got the brief.
What was the next step you had to take once you were on board
to build this platform? So I, I, I worked at a, an
arrangement with, with Flint about the timeline and the
budget and I was immediately laughed at because they wanted
(16:56):
it done in a much shorter periodof time, which I loved.
I think the, the, I said, well, this is, you know, it's not
easy. It's hard.
And the response was, well, you know, going to the moon is hard.
This is not hard. And I, I, I genuinely loved it.
And he was like, I built the entire league in, you know, six
months time and I'm like, all right, let's do it.
And I, I genuinely love the challenge.
(17:19):
And I, I liked the, the sort of no nonsense approach, but also
the lack of perfectionism as a flaw where if we get the 80%
that's quite good. Like don't let what is it?
Don't let perfect be the enemy of the good.
So immediately you have to pick vendors and I looked at a lot of
them. I mean, I just looked at them
(17:40):
all, which is such a, it's a process that can go on forever.
I mean, it really can and you can get paralysed by it.
And so I ended up going with JW player, who, you know, cut me a
fairly decent deal that they're probably going to regret soon.
Their partners train, which do front end apps and I, we created
(18:03):
a bespoke mobile app very similar to the Cowboy Channel
Playbook, where we spun up a website for news and integrated
that with the mobile app. Because you know, 8090% of
people's content is created on ais viewed on a mobile phone and
and created on Google phone right there.
So that to me is the primary destination.
(18:23):
People make mistakes in my opinion when they're building by
prioritising things they shouldn't.
Such as of CT. VI mean the experience, I'm
sorry, is like just get it to work.
All the bells and whistles, in my opinion are not that great
and not that important. I mean, it's it's if you have a
tonne of money, if you have a tonne of budget, yeah, then it
(18:45):
becomes very important. But if you're just starting out
and I mean we built this thing for like 150 K, we're
haemorrhaging money until we getto, you know, a couple 1000
subscribers. So the first thing I had to
think about was how do I do thisright, incorporating all the
mistakes, if you all know were many to build the tech stack.
(19:07):
And yeah, we used JW, we used train and we used I went back to
cling, which I fired it when I was for year one Cowboy Channel.
And I'm so far so good. Yeah, I'm pleased with the
choices. So how long was it the runway
then between that and and actually going live?
Because you only went live like a couple of weeks ago, right?
(19:28):
Yeah. Well, I did the sensible thing
by, you know, lying to all of your vendors and giving them a
wrong date. As everyone does well with their
their service providers is give them a pre date before the real
date. But they do the actual road map.
But I did need a pre date because there are always
revisions and always things thatgo wrong.
I have to say what I liked aboutthe providers that we worked
(19:51):
with is they were hounding me For more information and
threatening me with not being able to reach my deadlines,
which is the greatest position to be in like.
I mean, I kind of always like being the dumbest person in the
room and it was great. Like they were like, you got to
get this done. So it wood Forest us to to push
and we we launched on September 3rd and successfully, I still
(20:13):
consider us beta right now because even there's always once
you launch, we still have an Android version.
We're having issues with Roku because they won't validate our,
you know, billing info, even though it's right there and you
get this awful cycle. I mean, just little things that,
that, that pop up. But we are streaming live
content. We have live news and we're,
(20:37):
we're, we have a couple 100 followers, a couple 100
subscribers, actually like 300 or something so far.
And this is not with spending a dime on marketing, even with
that big of a promotional push, which I, I don't like to do
until, you know, you're really at a point where the product is,
is ready. And I would say it's there now.
(21:00):
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collaboration feel local. And so you mentioned Roku is the
challenge of that. Are there any what?
What is that mix of devices you have you're available on now?
Oh, glad you asked that. I'd be very selective because of
budget. Again, when you're starting with
(22:03):
0, a very good way of thinking is we were talking about the
term minimum viable product, which I don't like.
To me that means it's bad for me.
I like minimum viable good product.
Like that's actually something people would buy.
Proof of concept I think should be interchanged with minimum
(22:25):
viable product. But we, we did a minimum viable
good product and we did it for Roku because it's, you know, the
number one CTV app player in theOR what do you call platform in
the US. Operating system, yeah.
OS, yeah. Dealer's choice, then Apple TV,
(22:47):
because even though it's a lowerone in terms of popularity.
My gut and a bit of analysis. Thank you, Mark Swick for giving
me some insight into the table tennis community for free was
that it's a higher, it's an older demographic, but with a
much, much higher technical sophistication.
(23:10):
And Apple tends to attract people with more and more tech
savviness and, you know, bespokemobile app as well as web and
Firestick. And I did, I, I want all of the,
like I, I'm cool with paying theRoku and Apple tax and all of
that because you know, 30% for year one when my, my CAC is
(23:34):
probably $75.00. So I'll take that every day.
So how do you get up and runningon those platforms?
Is that through JW players? It's a living hell.
I mean, my God, no, it's really,it's awful.
It's just, it's always awful. I mean, you got to submit a
Dunn's number, you got an apple.You need a human that acts as a
corporation and they've gotten more awful about like we we've
(23:57):
like hacked dev at Apple, but they then you need to convince
them that's a person that needs to be tied to a real human.
I mean, it's just it's nuts. I mean the process is awful and
then they've automated it where you can't reach anybody.
So you get trapped in these these loops.
Like with Roku, we keep submitting here is our
information, the billing address, the name of it, and it
(24:18):
just keeps like a tickets created and it's this and it
feels like a like some sort of hell.
I mean, it's just like this, this loop of just.
Which are the seven levels are we talking about?
I mean, maybe the 8th for OTTI mean it's just like it's just
nuts and like and you get like someone and they can't help you
and then you we've identical tickets being created over and
(24:39):
over again, but we'll get through it.
It reminds me of that story, if I remember from a few years ago
now, where there was a platform that was launched that was
incorporate a lot of the major football players, the soccer
athletes, the stars like Beckham, sedan, Messi and
Neymar. It was called ultra at the time.
And the story going around was basically they put 10's and 10s
(25:01):
of millions into getting the licencing price from the players
and getting the platform ready. And they did this huge marketing
push, but they didn't take into account getting the Apple signed
off and how long that took. And basically they launched it
without having the platform liveon the, on the product on, on,
on the platform and basically LED to a lot of wasted marketing
(25:21):
after that, but and that platform didn't last very long,
I can tell you. That is why I'm not marketing
yet. I was just going to say so.
So OK, you're, you're live now you've talked about being a
subscription business. So two things is rough, rough
price point that you're you're selling at and what do you, what
do you get for that price point?Let's start with that one.
Sure like may I speak on something before that?
Yeah, very short. So back back to haemorrhaging
(25:42):
money. You, you're literally are
bleeding and so you the idea of going to any kind of boutique
place, it's it's out of the question.
I looked at like even stream AMGstay Live, which I liked.
I mean, really, Stay Live is good, like a really good, good
product. Based out of Sweden, right?
Yeah, in Stockholm. Yeah, I mean, they're started as
(26:03):
a high school project. Part of the Spring Media Group
that was acquired by two circles, and that's their
Swedish office. Yeah, I mean, like incredible,
but they didn't have CTV or Rokuabilities.
So for an American audience, like, I mean, I wanted to go
with them, but man, that's a good product.
But I went with what I had. So I pay JW about 30 bucks per
(26:26):
TB to stream and my calculationsshow me that if I had 1000
users, that would last me 13 days.
So there are two companies, System 73 and a company called
Digital Harmonic that I met randomly at a bar in Las Vegas
and at NAB that I just didn't believe what they did.
And it's a a military compression, not even
(26:50):
compression like kind of AI shader that was used in high
altitude surveillance aeroplanesthat takes a 20 megabit feed,
reduces it to 10 and also enhances the quality.
I didn't believe it and I met them, but I looked at it legit.
It's real. And so I have them our feeds
going through them into JW, which saves me half on the
(27:13):
ingest. And then system 73 allows me to
put a peer-to-peer layer. I have to be scrappy in order to
to save money, but I'm basicallysaving about 80 to 90% off my
CDN bill by incorporating both of these technologies.
And I call it the sandwich of savings.
It really is. It's on one side of the other.
(27:34):
They're they're great. Is that something that what
you've achieved there and by taking that approach, is that
something have you checked with others, you know your contacts,
is that something that others are doing as well?
Or do you think it's, it sounds like quite innovative to me?
I don't think they are because I've brought it up to other
people and they they're either too senior because they and
which is fine, meaning their products are more mature that
(27:57):
they. It's not in their road map or
it's just they're occupied. I mean, it's interesting when
I'm in the position of recommending technology to
people, like it's either like, Oh, that's cool.
But you know, whether they use it or not, I mean, I would
especially if you're starting out because it's like I'm
saving, you know, a ridiculous amount of money on on traffic
(28:18):
and analytics. So, but the point is you got to
be scrappy. I mean, you have to really just
one of the things that we did really, really cleverly at
Cowboy is we grew with revenue. I mean always like we did not.
I mean, I had a staff of 9 or maybe a 10 when I left, whereas
the broadcast, the broadcast hadI think 90 to over 100.
(28:42):
The World War, we were tiny and it's best to stay that way.
Otherwise you can in a weird waymake poor decisions.
So God, I'm just realising rightnow that a lot of the pain
points were, were self-inflictedbecause you'd run into a pain
point, which was a revenue issueusually, and then then you'd
expand. Then that's, that's normally
the, I think you think the thingwe hear constantly is people are
(29:06):
so focused on revenue, revenue, revenue.
But actually if you can just keep your costs down and get up
and running and get momentum with that, that's when you can
see the results like paying off and show that that growth,
growth path. Whereas normally revenues are
focus habitat take losses and they they work out at the end.
They can't overcome that that mismatch in dynamic.
(29:28):
A couple of years later, it's too late by.
Then or it's magical thinking that they haven't thought about
really. Should we build before building?
I see that a lot people make theassumption that what they're
building is special in their ownmind and it's really is a bit of
magical thinking and they never break 30,000 and and die.
(29:49):
I say that that comes to the point Nick and I always refer to
back to the great movie Field ofDreams.
If you build it, they will come.I think there's always this
misconception. Then if we build it like they're
just going to come filing through to love this product as
much as we do. What?
What are the things that I, I really have learned is that the
key question of should, should Ibuild?
(30:10):
It should be the number one thing and then talk to people.
And one of the things that Flintand I kind of vibe on is he
turned me on to this book calledThinking and Bets, and it's by a
former poker player. And just because you know, if
something's a 75% chance, 25% chance you could lose.
(30:32):
And a lot of people make decisions based on the loss and
what think it was a bad decision.
So when you think in terms of probability, if you reduce
everything to a bet, one that we're making is that by creating
efficiencies in this sport, by putting it all in one place,
that that will create an audience.
And so far the bet I'm willing to take, how you grow the
(30:55):
audience depends on having a genuine respect for them and
thinking not platform up, but product down.
Really almost envisioning what it looks like without the
arrogance of knowing what they want and being flexible with the
feedback you get. And really listening to what
(31:20):
problems they have and what features they want.
And then putting those in a hierarchy of of risk reward and
what, what can you do quickly that can make the most revenue
versus what's something you really, really want to do, but
might be just a, a bell or a whistle.
So now you've got this platform up and running, and that's a
(31:41):
place you can point to. What is the why?
Abletennis.tv. Abletennis.tv Maybe you can
reach out to David. He might give you a special
offer on subscription though. No pressure I I shall.
Can we actually flash one on thelist so we can work out?
Something a lot of code later on.
Yeah, that is on the case. He's given us the green light
there. What like layering it up a bit
like thinking about what we've done with the media summit as
(32:02):
well as to go go bigger picture now.
Because when you're building a platform, it's only part of a a
wider content and media strategy.
What is that wider approach looklike?
How does a platform fit into it?Is it all about the platform?
Is YouTube part of that strategy?
Is there a broadcast leading partners there that the the
organisation focused on? Just talk us through how that
fits into the the mould. Well, YouTube's always part of
(32:23):
it. I mean, you don't want to run
from YouTube. YouTube's, in my opinion, one of
the great free front. I treat YouTube the same way I
treat fast channels. I think fast channels are
actually an OK idea, if it's an established one, to take some of
your sub premium content, maybe even sub premium content to
teach people the rules, to grow fan avidity, to attract new
(32:45):
people and use that as a marketing funnel to your premium
service. At the same time, you can use
that also with a free game of the week or like what MLB does,
which we obviously steal. So yeah, YouTube also influencer
content where you, I mean, we made a deal with Pong maestros,
(33:05):
they're based in Sweden to get some of their back catalogue and
create new content for us to really be instructional.
If you can teach an American, like they're basically three
moves, you can learn, you can just beat most of your friends.
I have not learned them yet. So that part of teaching people
the rules, whether it be throughcondensed games, clips, coaching
(33:30):
content is vital. Especially this is where I'm
having fun in a, in a participatory sport.
Like I'm not going to get on a 2000 LB bull.
I mean, I'm, yeah, I, I pair youlike, yeah.
But people play table tennis. And another bet that I that I'm
(33:51):
making is that if you teach people the rules, who the
players are, show them the, the real kind of value of the sport,
like how how good it is, you canstart reaching an audience
that's outside of your core demographic, which is still
huge. I'm just talking about a really
(34:12):
America, I mean, hell. And it's, I mean, fan Jidong is
a global celebrity. And in America, our job is to
tell the stories of these athletes.
So with the cup with on what's on the platform then other than
live games, have you adding thateducational content to the
platform as well? Or are you just mainly focused
(34:32):
on giving those those right opportunities to the pong?
Wasn't Pong maestros? I'm definitely going to look up
after this. I started playing table tennis
with my little son the other dayand he.
Based in Sweden. Yeah, based in Sweden, so I'll
get him my. Great dude.
Tune into some of that. Yeah.
I mean it's, it's a combination.We created original programming.
So we have table tennis tonight with a host named Ryan Willard
(34:54):
and I, I mentioned that earlier,it's a summary.
It's a kind of a sports centre. It's a fun short show that
we're, you know, giving to dine and putting that out there so
you can for for free in front ofour paywall so you can actually
learn about the sport. And we're also doing kind of a
one-on-one interview show with some of the major stars called
(35:14):
around the Net that that Flint is hosting.
That's very, very good. One of my long time editors that
I've used who knows nothing about table tennis gave me the
the highest compliment about theshow.
Just said it was a good conversation on its own right
and he knew nothing about it andjust loved it.
So everything has to be thought through ultimately.
(35:39):
How do I say this without sin? I'm a sarcastic bastard as you
know, so I don't want to unsanctimonious, but I will.
God, it's so hard. Fill this up now I.
Know it's so hard being from Philadelphia.
No, you have to be generous liketo be truly generous of spirit
and think like what do these people want?
What do they what do they need and and make it for them.
It ain't about making it for me.I mean like I mean I like
(36:02):
baseball. It, it, it's thinking that if
somebody is actually paying money for this product, like
real money, that they deserve the value in that they, they,
they, they, it should be like it's, it's sacred.
So what to that point? But.
Is it? No, it's important that if you
want to get someone to buy a subscription in this day and
(36:22):
age, you have to make sure you're providing legit value.
Otherwise you're not going to move the needle enough to get
into it. Agree happen.
So what other product, let's sayhow are you product defying the
platform further? For example, we talked about the
NFL and adding those different alternate cuts like the 40
minute games, the the refs Cam. Are you adding different layers
of product or is that coming on the road map to add alternative
(36:44):
cast, different commentary, thatsort of thing to the mix or you
already got that emotion? I mean, I'm going to be dealing
with a potentially the Turkish, Serbian, Romanian, Polish,
Japanese league. And I don't think they, I think
there's a language for each of those.
So the idea of real time language translation would be
(37:05):
probably one of the first thingsthat we're going to have to
approach. I have to shed on that example.
I don't know if you heard it before.
Did you hear the the session they had earlier on stage with I
was Dave Gibbs, Peter Hutton, Louise Lawler and Mejia from
Live like. And one of the examples they
shared that Eurovision has been doing with boxing was they had
(37:26):
automated translation into Hindiand it was translating it and
they were really happy with everything.
And then the background in the venue they were playing, the
examples she gave us, they were playing John.
Lennon. Oh yeah.
Imagine. Imagine and it was translating
the song into Hindi in the background, which I have to go
and find that that footage is going to be incredible to watch.
(37:46):
That that was fantastic. I heard that too.
It was just like the cool moment.
But yeah, I mean, if we're goingto be international, we have to
have alternative feeds, languagetranslation and more.
But I do want to say that we have just started, so there are
all the bells and whistles that I would love to have.
Like, for example, replacing pool tables with table tennis
(38:11):
tables in bars across America where there's a feature saying
find me a game and I can challenge people.
And then I get use Pixel Lot or Spadeo where I get a clip for my
own little digital trophy case that lives on the app.
I would love that. But where are my resources?
(38:31):
My resources come from growing subscribers, but at the same
time, I need to get subscribers something that of value.
And the bet I'm making is by bringing in more and more live
content, but also creating produced content that we're
doing in house and also leveraging the influencer
community to take and reformat alot of their back catalogue.
(38:55):
We can start creating our own Urzats linear feed.
One of the issues though, I do have is cowboy, you have
westerns. There's all sorts of shoulder
programming that that fits tabletennis.
(39:16):
I mean, there's balls of fury, which phenomenal.
My God, I mean Christopher Walk.I mean, it's but the shoulder
programming and related content is not as bountiful.
So that that is a challenge. At the same time, we're doing
things like Serb of the week where it's instructional, it's
(39:37):
fun and then do pieces on like the history of table tennis.
It was apparently Victorian and here I didn't know that I might
be wrong. But every new feature that we
add, it has to be it has to follow a growth cycle or it's
just not worth doing or it has to be something that is demanded
(39:59):
by the audience like now. So I mean, I'm trying to get
push notifications working. So yeah, we're, we're just
started, I mean. So we're going to have to wrap
things up, but I do one last question because I think one of
the best things that came acrossin the interview when we were
talking about the Cowboy Channelis what happens when all of a
sudden the subscription numbers to go through the roof.
We're going to manifest our destiny.
(40:20):
We know the table tennis TV is going to go through the roof.
When it does happen, what have you learned from your
experience? You know, Cowboy Channel, when
that scale does grow, what mightyou do differently this time to
prepare for that inevitable moment when you jump to 10,000
subscribers and 50,000? What?
What's the thing that you're going to take away to?
Prepare. I mean, do you see the panic on
my face right now? Because like I, I'm realising
(40:44):
everything that will happen and I'm about to repeat all of my
mistakes because I don't have a customer service department
right now. I don't.
Have you? Have you put your number on
speed dial again last time? I actually will give people my
phone number right now, but I mean, we're using Cling's
customer support and we, we madethat determination earlier on
because it's, again, it's a higher, they're not as
(41:07):
technically mature as a lot of the older folks in Rodeo are,
which was my problem to solve. I mean, really when a woman
calls and says, I, I can't sell the app on her flip phone, I
mean, it might be funny, but it really is That's my, that's my
problem. It's like I should be telling
teaching her through the marketing process.
But I mean, I hope so. I have a feeling it's going to
(41:28):
be a little bit of repeating history, but we are better
prepared for any kind of thundering herd event.
I mean that that's the sort of the major thing we are prepared
for. But you have given me a wake up
call about redundancy and disaster planning, which to be
fair, I I've been so focused on build, build, build that yeah, I
(41:53):
need to. What it's worth, I sometimes
refer to those as champagne problems.
You know, like it's a good. Problem man Yeah, I mean, like
I, I, you know, those dreams before events where, you know,
all of your teeth fall out are not pleasant.
Yeah. It was fun of I was telling my
wife right before we launched and I was incredibly stressed,
(42:15):
like really stressed. Like, I mean, to the like, you
know, it was affecting me. I mean, I was having those
dreams and then I thought, how cool is this?
I am like so stressed out about ping pong.
And I, I don't mean that to sound dismissive at all.
I just thought it was awesome that like this, like I was, I
mean, and I, I will always be. I mean, it's like you got to
(42:36):
connect to an audience. You got to give them what they
need at the point. Well, David, it is always a
pleasure to get to see you. I often get to get a WhatsApp
call for me about once a month, but get to see you in person.
It's always a privilege. It's great to hear about the new
adventure. No doubt it'll be something
we'll continue to follow on our end.
Lots you've learned from the Cowboy Channel and it sounds
like you're going through the process.
It was really super interesting for us.
(42:58):
Hopefully interesting for the audience because for every NFL
there's 50 other organisations that don't have that sort of
budget ability to do things. So to be able to hear first hand
from you and you've always been super candid, which is something
we appreciate. Some people are very clean and
PR if I'd being able to get the nuts and bolts and something we
get from everybody. So I do appreciate that
probably. You got to share knowledge.
I mean, we're all in this together.
I mean, it's and it's hard. And that's how the industry
(43:20):
moves forward much quicker when we share and share alike.
So thanks, Kevin David, for joining us.
Thank you so much for the opportunity.
Thank you everybody. Catch you on the next episode
stream TIME Sports.
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