August 28, 2025 • 30 mins
The top-flight German soccer league has taken a bold and innovative approach to its broadcast strategy in the UK market. Live coverage of this season’s action spans Sky Sports, Amazon, BBC, and YouTube, offering multiple ways to watch — from subscriptions to free-to-air and pay-per-view. In this episode of StreamTime Sports, co-hosts Nick Meacham and Chris Stone share their thoughts and hopes for how this strategy plays out.
Key Points:
- What characteristics of the UK market led the Bundesliga to take a new approach to distributing its games out of market?
- Should we expect this approach to fundamentally impact domestic broadcast deals?
- Why did the Bundesliga select YouTube and content creators as broadcast partners?
- Which of the Bundesliga, LaLiga, Serie A, and Ligue 1 approaches will have the biggest impact in the race to become the leading foreign league in the UK?
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 Stream Time
Sports. My name is Chris Stone, the
community lead, joined as alwaysby our CEO, Nick Meacham.
Now Nick, I love it when my personal life outside of work
collides with my work life. And for any long time listeners,
they'll know that I'm a Americanfootball coach over here in
London. And one of the teams I coach is
the Great Britain Women's National American Football team.
(00:26):
And this weekend we hosted Finland.
I'm sad to say we did not come away victorious, but there was a
live stream for the game on IFAFTV on International American
Football Federation. And my mother informed me that
part way through the quarter, third quarter that the stream
went down for a fairly significant amount of time.
So Nick, I'm going to have to have words with someone at IFAF
(00:47):
to figure out who their platformdeveloper is and perhaps give
them a recommendation to one of our partners, maybe a stream
time member, you know, they, they certainly would be able to
help them out on those issues. Well, there's no doubt that a
Stream Time Sports member out. There will be able to.
Help anyone with any sports media challenge in this space.
Was it a pay-per-view model? Was it there's free to access
(01:08):
some of the last time I think itwas the Olympic channel right
where you they had games broadcast when you send the link
around. Correct.
The the World Championships we were at that was hosted by the
Olympic Channel, which was greatfrom a reach perspective.
IFAF TV as far as I'm aware is afree service.
It just simply asks you to create an account so you don't
have to pay, no pay-per-view, nosubscription model, but just a a
(01:31):
free sign in. So they're going for the first
party data collection option of the different models to do so.
But you might struggle to get people to tune back in if your
streamings keep going down now. Well, do we name and shame I
found out who it is so. Maybe we'll talk about off the
air and let our listeners research it on their own time.
(01:52):
But if you don't, if you are someone who works with them,
then we can help you out now. But in all seriousness, good to
see that you guys are getting your airtime and good old mums
even tuning in from across across the pond.
I love the fact that that's she's still tuning in and seeing
her son in action even when you're even you're roaming on
(02:12):
the sidelines. But are you?
You're not miked up or anything,are you?
Because I've heard you got quitea mouth on you.
So there was the very, I think it was maybe our first punt of
the game. The Baff of British American
Football Association had their media guy on the sideline and I
made a comment and I turned around.
I was like, you're not recordingaudio too.
(02:34):
Or he was like, Yep. I was like, can we cut that?
Yep. Obviously not all live, all
live. Not live.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that. So, yeah, I've been known to say
a thing, two thing or two on thefootball field.
But hey, it's game of passion, right?
Absolutely. I, I, I think I always found
that when I did coaching, I, I took that way more personally
(02:55):
than I did when I was playing myself.
I don't know why, but if if my team did something, well, I was
just, I've never felt greater emotion than that, Not when I
was playing it Kind of like I expected to be good or I
expected to do what I tried to do.
So when I did it, I was like, oh, well, that's what I wanted
to do, so that's good. But when a team does it, when
(03:16):
it's like maybe it's a tactic ofuse or something, it's a really
exciting, I think part of being a coach.
Yeah, absolutely. You know, I've always gotten
more fulfilment from coaching and playing excellent group of
players. Like I said, wasn't the result
we wanted. But you know Nick, as I say, no
loss is just lessons. You know it's only a loss if you
don't learn from it. You're such a poet and you don't
even know it. Yeah, so Nick, as always,
(03:39):
there's never a dull moment in the sports space when it comes
to media news. And last week there was a news
story. By the time this comes out,
people start putting their thoughts out there.
So we're going to put our thoughts out there in an
interesting 1. You know, we've been following
some of the League One situationin France.
We've talked about what La Liga is doing with Disney Plus in the
UK and some of their partners. And we just got a new
(04:00):
announcement from the Bundesligaand what they're going to do in
the UK market and make. I've got some just general
thoughts in terms of I'm actually quite excited about
what they're doing. I don't know if it makes
business sense, but as a fan I love it.
But I think just to go through just a little bit of context it
previously games in the UK for the Bundesliga were aired on Sky
(04:21):
Sports. I don't know what the numbers
are based when you research it says it's not publicly been
disclosed. So we don't quite know what it's
there. But the new deal looks as though
they're going to still maintain some of their coverage on Sky
Sports. But additionally, there's
basically different tiers, different packages where if I've
got this correct, Nick, the Friday night game for the
Bundesliga will be shown on bothBBC iPlayer or the BBC Sports
(04:44):
app for streaming. It will also be seen on YouTube
on The Overlap. And then Mark Goldbridge's show
that's football I believe are the 2 YouTube sources.
Then Amazon has some rights via pay-per-view.
I can't remember if it's Sunday or Saturday that they have those
games, but on Amazon Sunday, so you can get games via
pay-per-view there, which would allow you to select which game
(05:05):
you wanted on the Sunday. And then Sky Sports will still
have some of its coverage on theSaturday.
So they're going all across the board.
Nick, we've got free to air, we've got subscription via Sky
Sports. You can go pay-per-view via
Amazon or you you got the YouTube stuff with the
influencers and kind of that kind of alternative commentary,
(05:26):
I believe is the word. You know, I've got my thoughts
around it, Nick. I actually watched on BBC
iPlayer on Friday because I justwanted to check it out.
It was new and I loved it. Now the reason I loved it, Nick,
is because I love free to air asan American.
Like that's just sort of like synonymous with like sports
coverage. So for me, I love being able to
just watch sports via BBC so that there's other thoughts are
(05:49):
out there, but just my initial take.
I was a big fan of being able tojust turn on my TV.
Didn't have to log into any streaming service or anything.
I know it's taking BBC iPlayer, but I got this one.
It was just nice to go watch something on a free to air
channel I really liked, didn't they?
Yeah, I, I think it's great. It's a, it's a really smart
strategic play by the Bundesligato take this approach where
(06:10):
they're in lots of different places, massively increasing
their exposure and reach. I do think the industry has got
a little bit too. I'm gonna, I'm gonna try and
counterbalance things a little bit with how people are talking.
People are getting a little bit too excited about this deal.
I think it takes some ambition for them to commit to this cause
there's different types of optics that come with this type
(06:31):
of deal. But we have to put it in
perspective, right? Whilst it is the Bundesliga, it
is just the UK market and we've talked about Syria, we've talked
about Ligon and the Bundesliga all and Syria, sorry, I said
Syria already. I'm getting caught up in all my
top, top football leagues. They all struggle to get any
meaningful rights deal in the UKthe last several years.
(06:55):
So them doing things in this market is really, it's, it's not
nothing, it's something, it's, it's, it's a great test ground
for them given the scale of the market, the proximity to
Germany, the possibilities by tapping into a a new audience
and and taking a longer play with relatively marginal impact
(07:16):
on revenues. Because the the media rights
revenue coming out of this market would have been so low to
begin with that yeah, why not try a few different things.
And there's already been a few moves already we've seen with
YouTube being a platform now where creators are going to be
taking rights. And I'll be definitely
interested to follow how this plays out and what's going to be
(07:37):
done with those rights by those creators, because there's a few
different examples already popping up now that we can look
at. Well, I think to your point,
yes, it has to be put in the context of the market.
I think outside of the Premier League, the Premier League I
think is the only sports league in the world that makes more
money internationally than it does domestically.
We're not talking about big numbers.
So it's not a actually a very big bet that they're having to
(07:58):
hedge to to try out some of these new things.
But what I do like about them, Nick, is you, you, we can look
at France, you know, they tried to launch a direct to consumer
platform for people out of market and did not seem to take
off. So it's you're still having the
same problem. But I like the fact that they're
they're bringing it in a way that should have a lower barrier
(08:19):
to entry. Like they're all going to have
the same issue of we're not going to be able to extract a
large broadcast fee out of this.But you should then perhaps be
shifting to can we at least get eyeballs?
And I at least appreciate the fact that they haven't gone the
D to C route like we've seen other people try to do in
domestic markets. But yes, I do think the key
point of this, as we talked through this conversation, is
(08:40):
there's not a massive bet on Bundeslig apart, or at least I
don't think they're necessarily giving up a tonne of money to
take this approach. So on that about the D to C
component, what would I say? I will tell you that I have not
been told that there might be some enhancements coming to
their platform soon now that which may therefore lead to
(09:02):
having access to ADTC offering. So I've suggested that that
could be the case in my Last Post and I've kind of heard that
that might be on the on the cardsoon.
So not confirmed, but I, I wouldbe wouldn't be surprised to see
that also play out and I would get.
I would guess that if that was to play out as as as as it
(09:22):
sounds, that would mean that maybe they would add some new
layers of maybe multi view, maybe some other types of tools
on their platform to be able to watch it through there.
If that plays out how I think it, it will.
So we'll have to wait and see onthat one.
Now there is a couple of other things to really think and
consider about this. And firstly, why is the market
(09:43):
so tough in the UK? Let's firstly start there.
We touched upon this briefly. I think last time around we
talked about La Liga, but think the Bundesliga really fits the
same basically the same bill. There is a couple of stars in
the Bundesliga. They might be appealing to the
English market. Obviously Harry Kane being the
lead there JB Bellingham as well.
Perhaps. But the reality is there was
(10:06):
supposed there isn't a meteorites demanding market.
Sky has is up to the eyes, the up to their elbows.
I don't know the right metaphor.They're up to their elbows in
domestic football matches. They just don't need more
Bundesliga matches. I've I've heard some people seen
some people saying like, oh, these creators speed out the sky
(10:27):
for the rights to this content. I just think sky just didn't
need it, didn't want it. They've got too much on their
plate already, particularly in the Saturday slot where it's
just full up with all the EFL and Premier League.
Why were they throwing the Bundesliga?
If it's they would probably havesome minimum expectation what
would be done with it as well. So I think pretty, pretty low
(10:47):
risk for sorry, but basically there was not much demand in
market for something that doesn't really move the needle
at all. And TNT has been playing a very
conservative game for some time now.
So I think this movie was inevitable.
But what we need to kind of talkabout I think is like maybe how
they got comfortable enough to get here.
(11:09):
I think this is the bit that maybe lost on some people in the
market who aren't following it. Like you can't under estimate
the role YouTube itself as an asan organisation and the people
working in there are playing andgetting these deals happening.
They are like producing the business case basically or
helping all parties come together because they're not
(11:32):
putting up the the fee. Although I've heard some people
suggest they are. I for what I understand the the
business approach that I've heard is they don't commit to
any rights fees. What they do is they do a whole
bunch of other stuff to support and facilitate these types of
deals and they effectively are putting together the business
case for these organisations to commit to, to basically get
(11:55):
confidence I think is the right word in making the move to try
this new approach and innovativeapproach.
And that could be what sort of numbers can be generated, what
sort of revenues can be generated, what sort of CPMS can
be delivered, what other ways ofmonetizing through digital
sponsorships and so forth. They can potentially open doors
(12:15):
for some of those perhaps or at least upskill people to maximise
the value of those rights and looking at using all their
advanced metrics to be able to go, all right, here the overlap
based on your audience, we can guarantee a certain level of CPM
of any advertiser coming on platform and extrapolate all
that out to go, all right, you're going to generate this
(12:37):
sort of revenue. So whether that I mean told it's
not a guarantee, but it sounds like it's more likely an
estimate, but an estimate with confidence.
I've had some people say that it's more than that, but I'm
going to I'm going to stick withthe company line and think it's
more of just the the giving veryspecific estimates on what can
be achieved with a probably likea range with a high level of
(13:01):
confidence that can be delivered.
And then those deals are revenueshares.
So I'm not sure if any rights deal is being exchanged from the
creators in overlap and Mark Aldridge to do that.
But in the end, there's a revenue share approach where
YouTube gets a cart, the creators are getting cut and
Bundesliga are likely getting a cut.
So that's how I believe those things are play out.
(13:23):
But my point is that YouTube itself, the executives there are
absolutely doing a lot of work to bring this to life.
And now it's gaining momentum. So that's why they're putting in
so much hard work to get market adoption.
So now that will kind of be self-sustaining and keep
bringing in more and more opportunities.
That would be my guess. Well, if nothing else, I know
we'll probably never get all thefull numbers or everything, but
(13:44):
it will be fun to see because itseems like all of them are
taking slightly different approaches in terms of what La
Liga are doing in terms of what league on they're doing, in
terms of what the Bundesliga aredoing.
You know, I'd love to be able toyou know, to future sports pro
Madrid session. Have a really candid just all
right, tell us how all these different strategies performed.
But then let's see sort of you know, where where the apple
falls, you know, and figure out which one of these strategies is
(14:06):
the best, because they all have some similarities.
They all have some differences and like, I would be curious to
know, just because there are always other conversation, what
what should you do? That's that's kind of what we
do, Nick. We try to figure out what the
best option is. And it feels like most of the
bases are kind of covered in which way you want to watch
sports between, you know, the different leagues trying to come
to the UK. But I would love to be able to
(14:26):
get the data to see, you know, if one of them is significantly
outperforming one of the. I'm sure if one of them does,
they'll they'll be happy to tellthe story though.
Oh, that, that will be no question.
They will definitely you'll hearabout it.
If it goes, it goes to plan. I think a couple of other
interesting anecdotal things to share around this are I saw a
post by Martin Ross, who's one of the editors at a sport
(14:48):
business who'd been covering thefirst Friday night coverage.
Because that's really, I think the most interesting part out of
all this, right, is the the Friday night where you've got
BBC iPlayer playing it. You've got therefore available
on three different YouTube channels alone, 15,000
concurrents. He said he's on his LinkedIn
post. We're watching on that's
(15:08):
football, 3600 watching on the Overlap and 3600 watching on
Bundesliga's YouTube channel. That's concurrence.
And then there was a further 4000 tuned into Goldbridge's
watch along with with no footageavailable in it.
So still getting more on the watch along then with the actual
(15:28):
live feed. Now he goes on to say later on
that Overlap was simply using the world feed.
So there's no pre match, no halftime, just a very
straightforward RIP the feed, plug it into the overlap channel
and broadcast, which is a bit underwhelming really.
You think that if they're going to take on those rights, you
would hope for something more, but they're just using it as an
(15:50):
out and out distribution channel, which, yeah, it feels a
little bit undercooked, but it is only early stages, but I feel
like from the beginning you wantto probably.
What is it? That's almost like what Ronaldo
did with his YouTube channel. Was it paddle or something like
that where it basically like it had No, at least you know those
channels are about football, so they're playing football.
Maybe it's not branded in their their style, but at least it's
(16:13):
the same sport. Yeah, yeah, basically the the
same, the same type of concept Ithink is they just took the feed
and that's no work for that Channel, right?
It's literally nothing for them to do that.
They just plug it in, give them an RSS feed equivalent or RTMP
feed, I think it is and then offyou go.
So look, well, let's see if I can keep up those numbers.
What I read somewhere I need to give shout out to who that was
(16:38):
from an article called Telenomics by Mike Darcy I think
is his name. Really good person to follow.
Also on LinkedIn who's written abit about this and the he was
suggesting that the the deals are actually only very short
term. I've not seen the actual length
discussed, but it could be that these created only have it for a
season and then it's over or they have the option to renew
(17:01):
and obviously after that. But this is only a test case for
everyone involved. So really there's not much to
lose here for the Bundesliga. It takes a it takes some certain
confidence or risk to almost from a brand perspective to make
this move, but I don't think it's up really as big a deal as
potential people are making out.Like you think about where some
of those other leagues were. I mentioned they weren't
(17:22):
available on any basic free to wear access.
It was only through a pay-per-view model or a like.
So one other thing I think to consider here, and this is the,
you know, the balancing side of things.
Like I'm not sure how happy players in Germany might be
about this this deal. Because the thing with YouTube,
(17:44):
from my experience, and I've been shared some examples of
this, is it doesn't take much for the VPN to get watching a
live feed from a different market.
And I just wonder if people are going to be able to access these
games happening on a Friday night quite easily happening in
the UK. Could that impact the, the
premiums being paid in the German market if it's easily as
(18:07):
accessible as I expected to be? Because YouTube isn't the most
heavily protected piracy Ave outthere.
So I'm, I think there's, there'sthat little thing hanging in the
mix about what can they do to make sure that these rights are
secure if they get to a premium situation.
I think at this scale I'm not sure it matters that much at the
(18:28):
moment, but I think it's just something they could be
conscious of given if it's up scaling up audience that the
ones that are paying the big cheques might get a little bit
concerned if they are starting to lose some audience because of
this. And that is an interesting
point. And I think there's always a
question of who who's responsible for pirate
cigarette. That's that's always the
(18:49):
question it comes back to. And I remember I can't believe
Warner Brothers Discovery was their head of tech, Peter, Peter
Scott. Peter Scott, yes, thank you,
brilliant, smart man. And his argument around piracy,
does it start with the rights holders and that every time they
picked up a new broadcast partner was only one more place
for it to potentially be pirated?
(19:10):
And his argument way back in theday, and I think he's even
referring back to the relationship they have with the
NBA, sorry, with the NBA. I guess WB part of that too was
as if they didn't stop piracy attheir end, then it was just
going to make it more difficult.And I think to your point, you
talk about there, you know, you could RIP it from YouTube.
You can go through BB shop, play, all these different
things. Is it actually cannibalising
(19:32):
itself then? So yeah, you know, the numbers
will be when you keep it on. Obviously, you know, YouTube in
America at least YouTube T VS got NFL Sunday tickets.
So curious to know what YouTube is, you know, putting in place
because surely they'll have something for some of that live
sports stuff. But to your point, I had
absolutely, when I was on a my Caribbean holiday last year
(19:54):
using AVPN to make sure that I can access video highlights.
You know, I've talked about the difficulty in even finding some
UEFA highlights sometimes for certain events where they won't
let you do it in the market. And it's really simple to turn
on your paid for VPN and select your market so you can watch the
highlights you want. So that is an interesting part
of the conversation that probably isn't going to be
talked about as much. No, the problem won't be.
(20:16):
We talked about as much and it still isn't today.
So we know this is an all ongoing conversation or lack of
conversation around it. But look, I think to put a, a
bit of a bow on this, I would say that there are a couple of
what are the couple of the points that I think are
interesting. They're, they're minor.
Again, I, I'm trying to like temper.
I'm trying to balance up the conversation now.
(20:37):
I've seen a lot of stuff on LinkedIn and social media just
basically celebrating the move large.
You haven't seen too many negative takes and I think
that's good because I don't think there should be much
negativity about this. There's a lot of positives by
the Bundesliga, by YouTube and even these creators and BBC as
well to take on these rides. I think it's great to see both
BBC making this move as well. So overall I think it's real
(20:59):
positive. But other couple of small points
that like the Friday deal itselfbecause of the timings, we're
the Champions League. The main teams are Bayern and
Brucci Dorp and maybe Leipzig. I think they were one of the top
teams last year. They will very rarely be on a
Friday night match because they've always going to be
(21:20):
Champions League hamstrung or Tuesday, Wednesday.
So they'll almost always be on that Saturday slot or the Sunday
slot, which is great for Sky to have that Saturday window, but
also for for for Amazon. And the other thing that's
interesting, we're not talk muchabout it at all, but it is the
fact that Amazon had this pay-per-view offering.
(21:42):
It's only £2.49. It's quite a cheap price point,
but it's exclusive. It is exclusive.
And maybe at the moment, maybe there's some context and
asterisk there that maybe those rights for that game will be
made available on an app soon. But for current, and I think
there was some, some clause somewhere about nothing to do
(22:03):
with mobile, but effectively forthe fact this is the exclusive,
I don't think they've done any exclusive pay-per-view deals.
They've done a bunch of pay-per-view style arrangements,
which is non exclusive. But I'm not seeing 1 of this
nature. So there's just so many little
quirks to this strategy and approach, which is quite
exciting to see. But in the end, I'm not sure how
(22:24):
needle moving any of this is going to be.
But if Bundesliga can say, turn on those commercial revenues,
I'll say YouTube as well can turn on those commercial
revenues through those creator channels, through the
Bundesliga's own channel, building audiences, that'll be a
lot of things. They can start celebrating and
they could massively ramp up Bundesliga's popularity in the
(22:44):
UK. They could instantly jump up to
a clear #2 if this goes the way they hoped for, which has to be
exciting for the longer term. Yeah, and you know, we we've
done some studies about how different different sports fans
going, different markets and England is very football.
And you mentioned Harry Kane's England captain probably will be
for a while. Joe Bullock, Bellingham is out
(23:07):
there. But even think about the other
way around. You look at Liverpool, Flurry
and Verts, Hugo Ekitika are players that came from the
Bundesliga and have now moved their way over to the Premier
League. You know, wouldn't be the first
time lots of very big name players that come from
Bundesliga to the Premier League.
So it's not as if the two don't share some connections and there
probably isn't something wrong with being the second biggest
(23:27):
Football League big in the UK. Like it's not a it's not a bad
place to be in terms of your ownbuilding things out.
So I agree with you, Nick. I don't know how massive it will
be. I just know that I personally
love the approach as just to seesomeone trying something
different and not just going with the out of market.
(23:48):
Let's build a cheap OTT platform.
We'll see who gets at least, if nothing else, if you're in the
UK, the whole stumble ability thing just got a little bit
easier. It sure did.
I'm just really interested to tosay like, obviously how
meaningful impact it has in longterm fandom.
Are they able to drive meaningful revenue and just how
much of A commitment those distribution channels are able
(24:11):
to deliver in telling the stories around it.
The reason I say that is, as I mentioned or alluded to it
before, that the overlap as an example, just did a world feed
straight on on their channel. Are they going to create more
dedicated content between the matches to actually talk about
the Bundesliga, talk to British fans and audiences about that
(24:31):
league itself, or they simply just going to take in the feed?
You compare that that possibility or what it looks
like now, they're just taking a world feed alone.
And then look what's happened inthat deal that I don't know if
we've talked about it. Yet which was the Saudi?
Premier League basically doing adeal with the creator in France
(24:51):
and now the storylines are that I've seen have been published
are there's a six figure deal inplace for this guy called Zach
Nanny to take the right. There's a commitment to
interviews and pre game, a unique way of broadcast and
produce that production, but also the storytelling around it,
you know, talking to athletes, etcetera.
And he's got a massive audience base.
I, I published a post on this. I can't remember.
(25:13):
I did some research. I was in the millions between
Twitch and YouTube. So there's a commitment there.
There's an obvious 1 apparent and he has come out and said
that ING had approached him for that.
But there's a commitment there that they've invested and
they're going to be putting a lot of money into production.
And really, I don't want to say milking it.
It sounds like a negative connotation, Call it milking it,
(25:33):
but like maximise the the value of those rights.
I'd just be disappointed if we don't see a bit more of that
coming through those other channels.
But maybe they don't need it forit to be a success.
It doesn't mean they have to have the overlap and Goodridge
and BBC doing more content than ever, but it would just be a
nice extra layer for them to getvalidation of reaching new
(25:54):
audiences and and telling those stories outside of the live
match alone. Absolutely.
And I think just, we, we've talked about some of these
different approaches. One of the things we, we, we
touched on previously, you know,I just referenced, I turned on
and watched on the BBC iPlayer. But you know, the week before we
had talked about, you know, is Amazon going to be able to see
Leon? And we managed to at least get
(26:14):
some initial numbers from that. You put out a LinkedIn post, but
just as you're kind of shifting from one league's performance to
another, you know, we're obviously talking a little bit
more about the domestic performance.
So, but just to follow up on allthese different approaches,
what's some of your takes from that initial early launch with
what we've seen or at least the numbers we're seeing reported on
in terms of how that that started the new seasons going
(26:36):
there? Because they definitely waited
till the last second to figure out how they were going to do
things this year over in France.I, I get, I really sympathise
with them over there and they, they must be happy with how
things have played out. I looked into it and didn't
find, I looked at a bunch of different websites and sources
to see if there's much conversation around the, the
(26:59):
production, you know, whether there was any major dropouts or
alike. And the overwhelming feedback is
that it was a large, a large success.
Basically, they delivered their product delivered to over half
1,600,000 subscribers is the number they're reporting they
achieved after week 1. We're short of the 2 1/2
billion, but I think they're celebrating the fact they got
(27:20):
600,000 over the line in the first week and with rather
marginal impact bar with I thinkPrime Video, there were some
issues getting onto the platform, but I think they were
fairly minor in the grand schemeof things.
So they will probably be very thrilled with how they they were
were able to get through that period.
They also announced A Molotov deal for more further
(27:43):
distribution. So Molotov is the Fubo TV owned
carrier platform, sorry out in France.
So I think they'll be pretty happy with it.
Now the the reality is for them to drive enough revenue out of
this is that's where the real question mark is.
Even if they get to 2 and a halfmillion, you're only talking
(28:04):
get, you get a piece of paper and work it out.
But it's like it's only a coupleof 100 million of revenue minus
all your production costs and what they were expecting
previously. It's just they're back to square
1. They're just back to square 1.
So this is as good as they couldhave done, I think and could
have expected after week 1. And I just really hope they can
keep momentum. I think there's a lot of
positive energy, positive talk about the price point, the
(28:28):
experience that they've gone outwith which we've covered in
quite a bit of detail already. Then hopefully they can get
close to that number. I think it'll give a low
buoyancy to the market and for others to consider something in
the future. So let's, you know, let's let's
wait and see. But I'm I'm very happy to see
and relieved for them in particular after all they've
been through, that they got through that relatively
(28:48):
unscathed. Yeah, we know how important it
is to start things off right because as long as it takes to
build trust, you can lose it in fractions if you if you don't
get it set off right. I mean, there was, you know,
we've referenced multiple times you Syria, you know, the
national government was looking at having to end the contract
with the zone because things didn't go well.
So if nothing else, we shouldn't, you know, we started
(29:10):
the episode B talking about whathappens when a stream doesn't go
right. You gotta at least get that part
done. So thankfully for them, they've
done step one. Yeah, absolutely.
And they're gonna keep working on it for, but they've got, you
know, obviously they're working with Endeavour Streaming on
that. Endeavour Streaming has got not
only the technical expertise, but also I think the commercial
strategy to support and coming up with the right approach.
(29:31):
So I'm interested to see how well that goes and just whether
I can keep a run rate up that gets them north of a million
very, very quickly. Because I think if they can get
north of 1,000,000 subscribers with the next couple of weeks
after getting 600 under their belts, they will be very
confident they can get close to the mark.
Then the challenge is year 2, but that's a whole other
problem. Let's let's focus on year one
first. Yeah, yeah, let's walk before we
(29:52):
run. But anyone, if you've got any
thoughts around that, like I said, Nick, he's put a post out
there came around last week talking about the Bundesliga
deal. So if you do have any thoughts
on it, definitely go check that out.
Let us know if you agree, disagree.
I know Nick's had some conversations in the background
that have been very insightful. So either, hey, if you know
something we don't know or if you've got thoughts around it,
(30:12):
definitely do let us know. And I think as well, Nick, by
the time this podcast comes out,it's not too late to start
thinking about IBC. You know, we'll be, we'll have
some people on the ground at IBC.
So if you're headed out there, make sure you reach out to your
favourite sports pro person to to see if you can schedule a
meeting with us while we're out and catch up.
Absolutely. And obviously make sure you've
marked your calendars for the Sportswear Media Summit in
Madrid. Of course, we'll keep giving
(30:33):
that a shout out every now and again because this this
conversation will be probably the hottest topic I think on the
ground is what to do with YouTube.
So stay tuned for that one.
Hello everyone, welcome back to the next episode of Stream Time
Sports. My name is Chris Stone, the
community lead, joined as alwaysby our CEO, Nick Meacham.
Now Nick, I love it when my personal life outside of work
collides with my work life. And for any long time listeners,
they'll know that I'm a Americanfootball coach over here in
London. And one of the teams I coach is
the Great Britain Women's National American Football team.
(00:26):
And this weekend we hosted Finland.
I'm sad to say we did not come away victorious, but there was a
live stream for the game on IFAFTV on International American
Football Federation. And my mother informed me that
part way through the quarter, third quarter that the stream
went down for a fairly significant amount of time.
So Nick, I'm going to have to have words with someone at IFAF
(00:47):
to figure out who their platformdeveloper is and perhaps give
them a recommendation to one of our partners, maybe a stream
time member, you know, they, they certainly would be able to
help them out on those issues. Well, there's no doubt that a
Stream Time Sports member out. There will be able to.
Help anyone with any sports media challenge in this space.
Was it a pay-per-view model? Was it there's free to access
(01:08):
some of the last time I think itwas the Olympic channel right
where you they had games broadcast when you send the link
around. Correct.
The the World Championships we were at that was hosted by the
Olympic Channel, which was greatfrom a reach perspective.
IFAF TV as far as I'm aware is afree service.
It just simply asks you to create an account so you don't
have to pay, no pay-per-view, nosubscription model, but just a a
(01:31):
free sign in. So they're going for the first
party data collection option of the different models to do so.
But you might struggle to get people to tune back in if your
streamings keep going down now. Well, do we name and shame I
found out who it is so. Maybe we'll talk about off the
air and let our listeners research it on their own time.
(01:52):
But if you don't, if you are someone who works with them,
then we can help you out now. But in all seriousness, good to
see that you guys are getting your airtime and good old mums
even tuning in from across across the pond.
I love the fact that that's she's still tuning in and seeing
her son in action even when you're even you're roaming on
(02:12):
the sidelines. But are you?
You're not miked up or anything,are you?
Because I've heard you got quitea mouth on you.
So there was the very, I think it was maybe our first punt of
the game. The Baff of British American
Football Association had their media guy on the sideline and I
made a comment and I turned around.
I was like, you're not recordingaudio too.
(02:34):
Or he was like, Yep. I was like, can we cut that?
Yep. Obviously not all live, all
live. Not live.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that. So, yeah, I've been known to say
a thing, two thing or two on thefootball field.
But hey, it's game of passion, right?
Absolutely. I, I, I think I always found
that when I did coaching, I, I took that way more personally
(02:55):
than I did when I was playing myself.
I don't know why, but if if my team did something, well, I was
just, I've never felt greater emotion than that, Not when I
was playing it Kind of like I expected to be good or I
expected to do what I tried to do.
So when I did it, I was like, oh, well, that's what I wanted
to do, so that's good. But when a team does it, when
(03:16):
it's like maybe it's a tactic ofuse or something, it's a really
exciting, I think part of being a coach.
Yeah, absolutely. You know, I've always gotten
more fulfilment from coaching and playing excellent group of
players. Like I said, wasn't the result
we wanted. But you know Nick, as I say, no
loss is just lessons. You know it's only a loss if you
don't learn from it. You're such a poet and you don't
even know it. Yeah, so Nick, as always,
(03:39):
there's never a dull moment in the sports space when it comes
to media news. And last week there was a news
story. By the time this comes out,
people start putting their thoughts out there.
So we're going to put our thoughts out there in an
interesting 1. You know, we've been following
some of the League One situationin France.
We've talked about what La Liga is doing with Disney Plus in the
UK and some of their partners. And we just got a new
(04:00):
announcement from the Bundesligaand what they're going to do in
the UK market and make. I've got some just general
thoughts in terms of I'm actually quite excited about
what they're doing. I don't know if it makes
business sense, but as a fan I love it.
But I think just to go through just a little bit of context it
previously games in the UK for the Bundesliga were aired on Sky
(04:21):
Sports. I don't know what the numbers
are based when you research it says it's not publicly been
disclosed. So we don't quite know what it's
there. But the new deal looks as though
they're going to still maintain some of their coverage on Sky
Sports. But additionally, there's
basically different tiers, different packages where if I've
got this correct, Nick, the Friday night game for the
Bundesliga will be shown on bothBBC iPlayer or the BBC Sports
(04:44):
app for streaming. It will also be seen on YouTube
on The Overlap. And then Mark Goldbridge's show
that's football I believe are the 2 YouTube sources.
Then Amazon has some rights via pay-per-view.
I can't remember if it's Sunday or Saturday that they have those
games, but on Amazon Sunday, so you can get games via
pay-per-view there, which would allow you to select which game
(05:05):
you wanted on the Sunday. And then Sky Sports will still
have some of its coverage on theSaturday.
So they're going all across the board.
Nick, we've got free to air, we've got subscription via Sky
Sports. You can go pay-per-view via
Amazon or you you got the YouTube stuff with the
influencers and kind of that kind of alternative commentary,
(05:26):
I believe is the word. You know, I've got my thoughts
around it, Nick. I actually watched on BBC
iPlayer on Friday because I justwanted to check it out.
It was new and I loved it. Now the reason I loved it, Nick,
is because I love free to air asan American.
Like that's just sort of like synonymous with like sports
coverage. So for me, I love being able to
just watch sports via BBC so that there's other thoughts are
(05:49):
out there, but just my initial take.
I was a big fan of being able tojust turn on my TV.
Didn't have to log into any streaming service or anything.
I know it's taking BBC iPlayer, but I got this one.
It was just nice to go watch something on a free to air
channel I really liked, didn't they?
Yeah, I, I think it's great. It's a, it's a really smart
strategic play by the Bundesligato take this approach where
(06:10):
they're in lots of different places, massively increasing
their exposure and reach. I do think the industry has got
a little bit too. I'm gonna, I'm gonna try and
counterbalance things a little bit with how people are talking.
People are getting a little bit too excited about this deal.
I think it takes some ambition for them to commit to this cause
there's different types of optics that come with this type
(06:31):
of deal. But we have to put it in
perspective, right? Whilst it is the Bundesliga, it
is just the UK market and we've talked about Syria, we've talked
about Ligon and the Bundesliga all and Syria, sorry, I said
Syria already. I'm getting caught up in all my
top, top football leagues. They all struggle to get any
meaningful rights deal in the UKthe last several years.
(06:55):
So them doing things in this market is really, it's, it's not
nothing, it's something, it's, it's, it's a great test ground
for them given the scale of the market, the proximity to
Germany, the possibilities by tapping into a a new audience
and and taking a longer play with relatively marginal impact
(07:16):
on revenues. Because the the media rights
revenue coming out of this market would have been so low to
begin with that yeah, why not try a few different things.
And there's already been a few moves already we've seen with
YouTube being a platform now where creators are going to be
taking rights. And I'll be definitely
interested to follow how this plays out and what's going to be
(07:37):
done with those rights by those creators, because there's a few
different examples already popping up now that we can look
at. Well, I think to your point,
yes, it has to be put in the context of the market.
I think outside of the Premier League, the Premier League I
think is the only sports league in the world that makes more
money internationally than it does domestically.
We're not talking about big numbers.
So it's not a actually a very big bet that they're having to
(07:58):
hedge to to try out some of these new things.
But what I do like about them, Nick, is you, you, we can look
at France, you know, they tried to launch a direct to consumer
platform for people out of market and did not seem to take
off. So it's you're still having the
same problem. But I like the fact that they're
they're bringing it in a way that should have a lower barrier
(08:19):
to entry. Like they're all going to have
the same issue of we're not going to be able to extract a
large broadcast fee out of this.But you should then perhaps be
shifting to can we at least get eyeballs?
And I at least appreciate the fact that they haven't gone the
D to C route like we've seen other people try to do in
domestic markets. But yes, I do think the key
point of this, as we talked through this conversation, is
(08:40):
there's not a massive bet on Bundeslig apart, or at least I
don't think they're necessarily giving up a tonne of money to
take this approach. So on that about the D to C
component, what would I say? I will tell you that I have not
been told that there might be some enhancements coming to
their platform soon now that which may therefore lead to
(09:02):
having access to ADTC offering. So I've suggested that that
could be the case in my Last Post and I've kind of heard that
that might be on the on the cardsoon.
So not confirmed, but I, I wouldbe wouldn't be surprised to see
that also play out and I would get.
I would guess that if that was to play out as as as as it
(09:22):
sounds, that would mean that maybe they would add some new
layers of maybe multi view, maybe some other types of tools
on their platform to be able to watch it through there.
If that plays out how I think it, it will.
So we'll have to wait and see onthat one.
Now there is a couple of other things to really think and
consider about this. And firstly, why is the market
(09:43):
so tough in the UK? Let's firstly start there.
We touched upon this briefly. I think last time around we
talked about La Liga, but think the Bundesliga really fits the
same basically the same bill. There is a couple of stars in
the Bundesliga. They might be appealing to the
English market. Obviously Harry Kane being the
lead there JB Bellingham as well.
Perhaps. But the reality is there was
(10:06):
supposed there isn't a meteorites demanding market.
Sky has is up to the eyes, the up to their elbows.
I don't know the right metaphor.They're up to their elbows in
domestic football matches. They just don't need more
Bundesliga matches. I've I've heard some people seen
some people saying like, oh, these creators speed out the sky
(10:27):
for the rights to this content. I just think sky just didn't
need it, didn't want it. They've got too much on their
plate already, particularly in the Saturday slot where it's
just full up with all the EFL and Premier League.
Why were they throwing the Bundesliga?
If it's they would probably havesome minimum expectation what
would be done with it as well. So I think pretty, pretty low
(10:47):
risk for sorry, but basically there was not much demand in
market for something that doesn't really move the needle
at all. And TNT has been playing a very
conservative game for some time now.
So I think this movie was inevitable.
But what we need to kind of talkabout I think is like maybe how
they got comfortable enough to get here.
(11:09):
I think this is the bit that maybe lost on some people in the
market who aren't following it. Like you can't under estimate
the role YouTube itself as an asan organisation and the people
working in there are playing andgetting these deals happening.
They are like producing the business case basically or
helping all parties come together because they're not
(11:32):
putting up the the fee. Although I've heard some people
suggest they are. I for what I understand the the
business approach that I've heard is they don't commit to
any rights fees. What they do is they do a whole
bunch of other stuff to support and facilitate these types of
deals and they effectively are putting together the business
case for these organisations to commit to, to basically get
(11:55):
confidence I think is the right word in making the move to try
this new approach and innovativeapproach.
And that could be what sort of numbers can be generated, what
sort of revenues can be generated, what sort of CPMS can
be delivered, what other ways ofmonetizing through digital
sponsorships and so forth. They can potentially open doors
(12:15):
for some of those perhaps or at least upskill people to maximise
the value of those rights and looking at using all their
advanced metrics to be able to go, all right, here the overlap
based on your audience, we can guarantee a certain level of CPM
of any advertiser coming on platform and extrapolate all
that out to go, all right, you're going to generate this
(12:37):
sort of revenue. So whether that I mean told it's
not a guarantee, but it sounds like it's more likely an
estimate, but an estimate with confidence.
I've had some people say that it's more than that, but I'm
going to I'm going to stick withthe company line and think it's
more of just the the giving veryspecific estimates on what can
be achieved with a probably likea range with a high level of
(13:01):
confidence that can be delivered.
And then those deals are revenueshares.
So I'm not sure if any rights deal is being exchanged from the
creators in overlap and Mark Aldridge to do that.
But in the end, there's a revenue share approach where
YouTube gets a cart, the creators are getting cut and
Bundesliga are likely getting a cut.
So that's how I believe those things are play out.
(13:23):
But my point is that YouTube itself, the executives there are
absolutely doing a lot of work to bring this to life.
And now it's gaining momentum. So that's why they're putting in
so much hard work to get market adoption.
So now that will kind of be self-sustaining and keep
bringing in more and more opportunities.
That would be my guess. Well, if nothing else, I know
we'll probably never get all thefull numbers or everything, but
(13:44):
it will be fun to see because itseems like all of them are
taking slightly different approaches in terms of what La
Liga are doing in terms of what league on they're doing, in
terms of what the Bundesliga aredoing.
You know, I'd love to be able toyou know, to future sports pro
Madrid session. Have a really candid just all
right, tell us how all these different strategies performed.
But then let's see sort of you know, where where the apple
falls, you know, and figure out which one of these strategies is
(14:06):
the best, because they all have some similarities.
They all have some differences and like, I would be curious to
know, just because there are always other conversation, what
what should you do? That's that's kind of what we
do, Nick. We try to figure out what the
best option is. And it feels like most of the
bases are kind of covered in which way you want to watch
sports between, you know, the different leagues trying to come
to the UK. But I would love to be able to
(14:26):
get the data to see, you know, if one of them is significantly
outperforming one of the. I'm sure if one of them does,
they'll they'll be happy to tellthe story though.
Oh, that, that will be no question.
They will definitely you'll hearabout it.
If it goes, it goes to plan. I think a couple of other
interesting anecdotal things to share around this are I saw a
post by Martin Ross, who's one of the editors at a sport
(14:48):
business who'd been covering thefirst Friday night coverage.
Because that's really, I think the most interesting part out of
all this, right, is the the Friday night where you've got
BBC iPlayer playing it. You've got therefore available
on three different YouTube channels alone, 15,000
concurrents. He said he's on his LinkedIn
post. We're watching on that's
(15:08):
football, 3600 watching on the Overlap and 3600 watching on
Bundesliga's YouTube channel. That's concurrence.
And then there was a further 4000 tuned into Goldbridge's
watch along with with no footageavailable in it.
So still getting more on the watch along then with the actual
(15:28):
live feed. Now he goes on to say later on
that Overlap was simply using the world feed.
So there's no pre match, no halftime, just a very
straightforward RIP the feed, plug it into the overlap channel
and broadcast, which is a bit underwhelming really.
You think that if they're going to take on those rights, you
would hope for something more, but they're just using it as an
(15:50):
out and out distribution channel, which, yeah, it feels a
little bit undercooked, but it is only early stages, but I feel
like from the beginning you wantto probably.
What is it? That's almost like what Ronaldo
did with his YouTube channel. Was it paddle or something like
that where it basically like it had No, at least you know those
channels are about football, so they're playing football.
Maybe it's not branded in their their style, but at least it's
(16:13):
the same sport. Yeah, yeah, basically the the
same, the same type of concept Ithink is they just took the feed
and that's no work for that Channel, right?
It's literally nothing for them to do that.
They just plug it in, give them an RSS feed equivalent or RTMP
feed, I think it is and then offyou go.
So look, well, let's see if I can keep up those numbers.
What I read somewhere I need to give shout out to who that was
(16:38):
from an article called Telenomics by Mike Darcy I think
is his name. Really good person to follow.
Also on LinkedIn who's written abit about this and the he was
suggesting that the the deals are actually only very short
term. I've not seen the actual length
discussed, but it could be that these created only have it for a
season and then it's over or they have the option to renew
(17:01):
and obviously after that. But this is only a test case for
everyone involved. So really there's not much to
lose here for the Bundesliga. It takes a it takes some certain
confidence or risk to almost from a brand perspective to make
this move, but I don't think it's up really as big a deal as
potential people are making out.Like you think about where some
of those other leagues were. I mentioned they weren't
(17:22):
available on any basic free to wear access.
It was only through a pay-per-view model or a like.
So one other thing I think to consider here, and this is the,
you know, the balancing side of things.
Like I'm not sure how happy players in Germany might be
about this this deal. Because the thing with YouTube,
(17:44):
from my experience, and I've been shared some examples of
this, is it doesn't take much for the VPN to get watching a
live feed from a different market.
And I just wonder if people are going to be able to access these
games happening on a Friday night quite easily happening in
the UK. Could that impact the, the
premiums being paid in the German market if it's easily as
(18:07):
accessible as I expected to be? Because YouTube isn't the most
heavily protected piracy Ave outthere.
So I'm, I think there's, there'sthat little thing hanging in the
mix about what can they do to make sure that these rights are
secure if they get to a premium situation.
I think at this scale I'm not sure it matters that much at the
(18:28):
moment, but I think it's just something they could be
conscious of given if it's up scaling up audience that the
ones that are paying the big cheques might get a little bit
concerned if they are starting to lose some audience because of
this. And that is an interesting
point. And I think there's always a
question of who who's responsible for pirate
cigarette. That's that's always the
(18:49):
question it comes back to. And I remember I can't believe
Warner Brothers Discovery was their head of tech, Peter, Peter
Scott. Peter Scott, yes, thank you,
brilliant, smart man. And his argument around piracy,
does it start with the rights holders and that every time they
picked up a new broadcast partner was only one more place
for it to potentially be pirated?
(19:10):
And his argument way back in theday, and I think he's even
referring back to the relationship they have with the
NBA, sorry, with the NBA. I guess WB part of that too was
as if they didn't stop piracy attheir end, then it was just
going to make it more difficult.And I think to your point, you
talk about there, you know, you could RIP it from YouTube.
You can go through BB shop, play, all these different
things. Is it actually cannibalising
(19:32):
itself then? So yeah, you know, the numbers
will be when you keep it on. Obviously, you know, YouTube in
America at least YouTube T VS got NFL Sunday tickets.
So curious to know what YouTube is, you know, putting in place
because surely they'll have something for some of that live
sports stuff. But to your point, I had
absolutely, when I was on a my Caribbean holiday last year
(19:54):
using AVPN to make sure that I can access video highlights.
You know, I've talked about the difficulty in even finding some
UEFA highlights sometimes for certain events where they won't
let you do it in the market. And it's really simple to turn
on your paid for VPN and select your market so you can watch the
highlights you want. So that is an interesting part
of the conversation that probably isn't going to be
talked about as much. No, the problem won't be.
(20:16):
We talked about as much and it still isn't today.
So we know this is an all ongoing conversation or lack of
conversation around it. But look, I think to put a, a
bit of a bow on this, I would say that there are a couple of
what are the couple of the points that I think are
interesting. They're, they're minor.
Again, I, I'm trying to like temper.
I'm trying to balance up the conversation now.
(20:37):
I've seen a lot of stuff on LinkedIn and social media just
basically celebrating the move large.
You haven't seen too many negative takes and I think
that's good because I don't think there should be much
negativity about this. There's a lot of positives by
the Bundesliga, by YouTube and even these creators and BBC as
well to take on these rides. I think it's great to see both
BBC making this move as well. So overall I think it's real
(20:59):
positive. But other couple of small points
that like the Friday deal itselfbecause of the timings, we're
the Champions League. The main teams are Bayern and
Brucci Dorp and maybe Leipzig. I think they were one of the top
teams last year. They will very rarely be on a
Friday night match because they've always going to be
(21:20):
Champions League hamstrung or Tuesday, Wednesday.
So they'll almost always be on that Saturday slot or the Sunday
slot, which is great for Sky to have that Saturday window, but
also for for for Amazon. And the other thing that's
interesting, we're not talk muchabout it at all, but it is the
fact that Amazon had this pay-per-view offering.
(21:42):
It's only £2.49. It's quite a cheap price point,
but it's exclusive. It is exclusive.
And maybe at the moment, maybe there's some context and
asterisk there that maybe those rights for that game will be
made available on an app soon. But for current, and I think
there was some, some clause somewhere about nothing to do
(22:03):
with mobile, but effectively forthe fact this is the exclusive,
I don't think they've done any exclusive pay-per-view deals.
They've done a bunch of pay-per-view style arrangements,
which is non exclusive. But I'm not seeing 1 of this
nature. So there's just so many little
quirks to this strategy and approach, which is quite
exciting to see. But in the end, I'm not sure how
(22:24):
needle moving any of this is going to be.
But if Bundesliga can say, turn on those commercial revenues,
I'll say YouTube as well can turn on those commercial
revenues through those creator channels, through the
Bundesliga's own channel, building audiences, that'll be a
lot of things. They can start celebrating and
they could massively ramp up Bundesliga's popularity in the
(22:44):
UK. They could instantly jump up to
a clear #2 if this goes the way they hoped for, which has to be
exciting for the longer term. Yeah, and you know, we we've
done some studies about how different different sports fans
going, different markets and England is very football.
And you mentioned Harry Kane's England captain probably will be
for a while. Joe Bullock, Bellingham is out
(23:07):
there. But even think about the other
way around. You look at Liverpool, Flurry
and Verts, Hugo Ekitika are players that came from the
Bundesliga and have now moved their way over to the Premier
League. You know, wouldn't be the first
time lots of very big name players that come from
Bundesliga to the Premier League.
So it's not as if the two don't share some connections and there
probably isn't something wrong with being the second biggest
(23:27):
Football League big in the UK. Like it's not a it's not a bad
place to be in terms of your ownbuilding things out.
So I agree with you, Nick. I don't know how massive it will
be. I just know that I personally
love the approach as just to seesomeone trying something
different and not just going with the out of market.
(23:48):
Let's build a cheap OTT platform.
We'll see who gets at least, if nothing else, if you're in the
UK, the whole stumble ability thing just got a little bit
easier. It sure did.
I'm just really interested to tosay like, obviously how
meaningful impact it has in longterm fandom.
Are they able to drive meaningful revenue and just how
much of A commitment those distribution channels are able
(24:11):
to deliver in telling the stories around it.
The reason I say that is, as I mentioned or alluded to it
before, that the overlap as an example, just did a world feed
straight on on their channel. Are they going to create more
dedicated content between the matches to actually talk about
the Bundesliga, talk to British fans and audiences about that
(24:31):
league itself, or they simply just going to take in the feed?
You compare that that possibility or what it looks
like now, they're just taking a world feed alone.
And then look what's happened inthat deal that I don't know if
we've talked about it. Yet which was the Saudi?
Premier League basically doing adeal with the creator in France
(24:51):
and now the storylines are that I've seen have been published
are there's a six figure deal inplace for this guy called Zach
Nanny to take the right. There's a commitment to
interviews and pre game, a unique way of broadcast and
produce that production, but also the storytelling around it,
you know, talking to athletes, etcetera.
And he's got a massive audience base.
I, I published a post on this. I can't remember.
(25:13):
I did some research. I was in the millions between
Twitch and YouTube. So there's a commitment there.
There's an obvious 1 apparent and he has come out and said
that ING had approached him for that.
But there's a commitment there that they've invested and
they're going to be putting a lot of money into production.
And really, I don't want to say milking it.
It sounds like a negative connotation, Call it milking it,
(25:33):
but like maximise the the value of those rights.
I'd just be disappointed if we don't see a bit more of that
coming through those other channels.
But maybe they don't need it forit to be a success.
It doesn't mean they have to have the overlap and Goodridge
and BBC doing more content than ever, but it would just be a
nice extra layer for them to getvalidation of reaching new
(25:54):
audiences and and telling those stories outside of the live
match alone. Absolutely.
And I think just, we, we've talked about some of these
different approaches. One of the things we, we, we
touched on previously, you know,I just referenced, I turned on
and watched on the BBC iPlayer. But you know, the week before we
had talked about, you know, is Amazon going to be able to see
Leon? And we managed to at least get
(26:14):
some initial numbers from that. You put out a LinkedIn post, but
just as you're kind of shifting from one league's performance to
another, you know, we're obviously talking a little bit
more about the domestic performance.
So, but just to follow up on allthese different approaches,
what's some of your takes from that initial early launch with
what we've seen or at least the numbers we're seeing reported on
in terms of how that that started the new seasons going
(26:36):
there? Because they definitely waited
till the last second to figure out how they were going to do
things this year over in France.I, I get, I really sympathise
with them over there and they, they must be happy with how
things have played out. I looked into it and didn't
find, I looked at a bunch of different websites and sources
to see if there's much conversation around the, the
(26:59):
production, you know, whether there was any major dropouts or
alike. And the overwhelming feedback is
that it was a large, a large success.
Basically, they delivered their product delivered to over half
1,600,000 subscribers is the number they're reporting they
achieved after week 1. We're short of the 2 1/2
billion, but I think they're celebrating the fact they got
(27:20):
600,000 over the line in the first week and with rather
marginal impact bar with I thinkPrime Video, there were some
issues getting onto the platform, but I think they were
fairly minor in the grand schemeof things.
So they will probably be very thrilled with how they they were
were able to get through that period.
They also announced A Molotov deal for more further
(27:43):
distribution. So Molotov is the Fubo TV owned
carrier platform, sorry out in France.
So I think they'll be pretty happy with it.
Now the the reality is for them to drive enough revenue out of
this is that's where the real question mark is.
Even if they get to 2 and a halfmillion, you're only talking
(28:04):
get, you get a piece of paper and work it out.
But it's like it's only a coupleof 100 million of revenue minus
all your production costs and what they were expecting
previously. It's just they're back to square
1. They're just back to square 1.
So this is as good as they couldhave done, I think and could
have expected after week 1. And I just really hope they can
keep momentum. I think there's a lot of
positive energy, positive talk about the price point, the
(28:28):
experience that they've gone outwith which we've covered in
quite a bit of detail already. Then hopefully they can get
close to that number. I think it'll give a low
buoyancy to the market and for others to consider something in
the future. So let's, you know, let's let's
wait and see. But I'm I'm very happy to see
and relieved for them in particular after all they've
been through, that they got through that relatively
(28:48):
unscathed. Yeah, we know how important it
is to start things off right because as long as it takes to
build trust, you can lose it in fractions if you if you don't
get it set off right. I mean, there was, you know,
we've referenced multiple times you Syria, you know, the
national government was looking at having to end the contract
with the zone because things didn't go well.
So if nothing else, we shouldn't, you know, we started
(29:10):
the episode B talking about whathappens when a stream doesn't go
right. You gotta at least get that part
done. So thankfully for them, they've
done step one. Yeah, absolutely.
And they're gonna keep working on it for, but they've got, you
know, obviously they're working with Endeavour Streaming on
that. Endeavour Streaming has got not
only the technical expertise, but also I think the commercial
strategy to support and coming up with the right approach.
(29:31):
So I'm interested to see how well that goes and just whether
I can keep a run rate up that gets them north of a million
very, very quickly. Because I think if they can get
north of 1,000,000 subscribers with the next couple of weeks
after getting 600 under their belts, they will be very
confident they can get close to the mark.
Then the challenge is year 2, but that's a whole other
problem. Let's let's focus on year one
first. Yeah, yeah, let's walk before we
(29:52):
run. But anyone, if you've got any
thoughts around that, like I said, Nick, he's put a post out
there came around last week talking about the Bundesliga
deal. So if you do have any thoughts
on it, definitely go check that out.
Let us know if you agree, disagree.
I know Nick's had some conversations in the background
that have been very insightful. So either, hey, if you know
something we don't know or if you've got thoughts around it,
(30:12):
definitely do let us know. And I think as well, Nick, by
the time this podcast comes out,it's not too late to start
thinking about IBC. You know, we'll be, we'll have
some people on the ground at IBC.
So if you're headed out there, make sure you reach out to your
favourite sports pro person to to see if you can schedule a
meeting with us while we're out and catch up.
Absolutely. And obviously make sure you've
marked your calendars for the Sportswear Media Summit in
Madrid. Of course, we'll keep giving
(30:33):
that a shout out every now and again because this this
conversation will be probably the hottest topic I think on the
ground is what to do with YouTube.
So stay tuned for that one.
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