The NFL’s next play: From primetime to YouTube with MrBeast and IShowSpeed

With the new season underway, the NFL is leaving no screen untouched. Co-hosts Nick Meacham and Chris Stone break down the league’s bold broadcast strategy, from teaming up with YouTube creators like MrBeast and IShowSpeed, to expanding free-to-air access in the UK, and even NBC selling out every Super Bowl ad before kickoff.Key Points:

• Can the NFL prove through YouTube that its advertising model is the future of broadcasting?
• What impact will the NFL’s partnership with content creators MrBeast and IShowSpeed have?
• Should fans be concerned that NFL RedZone is introducing commercials?
• How significant is it that NBC sold all of its Super Bowl advertising before the season kicked off?
• Why has DAZN taken on a sublicensing deal with ESPN for college football?
• What do the WSL’s international broadcast moves mean for women’s soccer?
• Is UFC Fight Pass the reason ESPN was willing to let the MMA promoter move to Paramount?

Episode Transcript

(00:04):
Hello everyone, and welcome backto the next episode of
Streamtime Sports. My name is Chris Stone, the
community lead, joined as alwaysby our Co host Nick Beacham.
Now Nick, if anyone out there can hear the extra pep in my
step, it's because we're recording this on Friday
morning. The NFL is back on.
Despite the zone failing to renew my subscription for the
last three weeks, I'm on renewalintentionally, Nick, as if you

(00:28):
remember, I had some payment issues a couple years back.
So I moved it from my credit card, my subscription, to my
Monzo card, which never has money on it, so I could pay it
when I want to pay it. Genius.
But I did pay it this morning soI could watch the ad free replay
of the Cowboys Eagles. I feel like the the Cowboys let
themselves down. But anyways, Nick, football
season is back. So what do you watch that?

(00:50):
Do you want to change the the 40minutes?
I think it's a 40 minute version.
Is that the one? That you watch certainly.
So there's multiple versions. Now if I'm coming into the
office, I will download the 40 minute version so I can watch it
underground on the tube because obviously I don't even service
down there. This morning I was watching it
from home. Dog usually wakes up about 7:00
AM. So they're they do 2 full

(01:10):
replays, one with adverts and then one without adverts.
I don't know why anyone watch the version with adverts, but
basically, yeah, you can watch the whole game without adverts.
I think it cuts it down to abouttwo hours.
So dog wakes up about 7, I get up, you know, I can pretty much
just watch the whole game by thetime it's work.
So yeah, it, it kind of depends Nick, where, where am I watching

(01:30):
it from? But that is one of the reasons
why I'm willing to pay the subscription is to have all
those different options depending on, you know, where
I'm at in the world, where I'm travelling to and how I want to
rewatch. That's really interesting.
So for those that aren't familiar with it, so my
experience of it is like, you know, a game takes around what 4
hours roughly give or take depending on what's happening.

(01:51):
And so there is a variety of different formats.
The the no ads, no way it's downto two hours.
Yeah. Is that just shows how many ad
breaks there are and how many stoppages there are.
I guess that's obviously the four hours includes the half
time breaks and all the quarter time breaks that they remove as
well. I used to watch quarter from
their 40 minute versions. So which is basically just all

(02:13):
the plays, which I is good for time.
But actually you do lose quite alot of the character of, of the,
the commentary and stuff in between the plays that I think
is really does add a lot more than I expected.
Maybe that's why they pay all those commentators such
extraordinary salaries. But and then one of the versions
underneath that there's a, there's a 15 minute.

(02:34):
Highlights, yeah, there's a 15 minute highlights, which is
usually what's posted on YouTubeand then they have like a short
highlights, which is like scoring plays, turnovers, it's
about 3-4 minutes sort of thing.So they do break it down.
And to your point, yeah, like I watched the 40 minute version.
It's not my preference because even to your point, like if
they're always cutting it, like there might have been a big play
or there might have been a turnover, or there was something

(02:54):
where a referee had to make an explanation, you don't get that
context. You just kind of get that 10
seconds at a time. So it's good for when you need
it. But yeah, to your point, it's
not my preference, but I'm glad that I had the option should I
want to. Yeah, I, I have lots of few
times where something's happenedand you they, they start
breaking it down, what's happened and it cuts to the next
play and you really feel like you're missing out.

(03:15):
But overall, the fact that they're able to do so many
different versions of the same, the game is, is pretty cool.
And I was trying to think, are there any other sports that have
a similar breadth of options of watching it after and the and
the and highlights and the like?And I can't really think of that
many. I've seen the NBA has, you know,
a condensed version, a pretty standardised 1.

(03:35):
And I can't think of anything tothat extent where you can watch
a full game experience condense down because obviously in things
like in football, you have Matchof the Day extended highlights,
which are about what, 20 minutesor 1010 minutes?
Yeah, 10 minutes. Something about that, usually
about 20 minutes per game, but that's partly broken down by the
the the analysis as well afterwards.
Yeah, yeah. What sport would play baseball?

(03:58):
That Yeah, that would be much. Better think about all the
changes between all the innings and stuff like that.
I'll need to do it because the the folks in on me actually
gifted be a season pass for their video subscription, which
was actually a gift for my parents.
My parents love baseball. They sit down on the barn and
watch all 162 games. So I've not necessarily gone and

(04:20):
watched those baseball games areon by the time of the bed, but
I'll need to go ask them if theydo a condensed feature after the
games with baseball. I think would be perfect for
just with, you know, the fact that they're changing every half
inning. I wonder because of the for
people over in in Europe like weare.
Well, you sort of are. Yeah, that's all open up that

(04:41):
can of worms again, who who doesit appeal to that?
So does it get a lot of tractionactually in the US or is it
really a big commodity for thosethat obviously the timings are
pretty off like I think it started here 220 or something in
the morning and I'm like, well, this I actually woke up and I
think it was up at like 5 and the game was still still
running. And I wonder that logging on.

(05:03):
Well, you know what, Nick, the the Segways into a story we were
going to talk about today wasn'tgoing to be the one we're going
to lead off with, but it just feeds nicely, which is the NF LS
expanded coverage in the UK. Those that aren't aware within
the UK Sky have expanded their coverage.
Sky used to have I believe two games.
They had one game which would bethe 1:00 PM kick off and then
one game that would be the kick off for the 4:00 PM games if

(05:24):
we're talking stateside. And I think they did the late
night game, but like that's justso late over here.
I think it might have just been a straight rebroadcast as
opposed to having any analysis. They're now expanding that to
six games every Sunday. I believe they're going to have
three at each time squad. Yep, that's why I've seen in the
news. And then Channel 5 going to be
the free to air broadcasters going to have two games.

(05:45):
They're also going to have the Super Bowl.
They're going to have the International series in London
and I believe there's one other set of rights, all they have the
Thanksgiving games, I believe, which is going to bring it to
free to air. So the coverage of the NFL in
the UK massively expanding if you're just going on a
percentage basis of how many games will be available, both
behind the pay wall of the Sky, but also free to air, which I
love. But Nick, it raised the question
for me is if there's not much NFL on, is it still worth me

(06:09):
paying 170 lbs for NFL Game Passbecause I'm getting a lot of
football because I have Sky. I've I've got Channel 5
obviously with my TV licence. I had to ask myself, is the 170
lbs still worth it now? Yes, because I don't for me
personally, I don't know if the Bengals are always going to be
selected. And also there's other feat that
expanded coverage does not include what we just talked
about with being able to watch the Thursday night game on

(06:31):
Friday morning or the Sunday game Monday morning by etcetera,
etcetera. So I'd have that question.
I think actually the the NFOUKGMHenry Hodges even mentioned like
this is not going to cannibaliseNFL Game Pass because the people
that actually won NFL Game Pass,they're the hard course.
They're going to get it anyway. So that's sort of me.
So we were going to talk about this new story anyway, but it
does come up like is even worth me to pay for with how much

(06:54):
stuff is up there. Yeah, it's a great question.
And I think that's where the it's reinforcing the importance
of having a platform that offersmore than just a straight live
feed of content. And the NF, LS Game Pass, even
before the Zone took it, I thinkis where the value was.
I would subscribe to it because of all the other features,
because I didn't watch that manylive games, but because of the

(07:14):
time zone difference, maybe a bit here and a bit there, but it
was on an ad hoc basis. But when you've got different
types of features, I know that the Zone's adding a multi view
experience now as well. Yeah, it's it is a platform that
is only targeted at die hards orT1 fans, but that's what most
OGT platforms are basically targeted, if that they are of
that sort of price point. So I just think it makes such a

(07:37):
lot of sense for them to strike those deals if they were there
to be made. And I think it is a bit of a,
what would you call like a litmus test, but also a signal
that maybe the NF LS fandom and momentum is growing in the UK to
a point now where there's so many broadcasters interested in
having those games. I will flip that though, and
I'll say that, well, we do know that live sports in general has

(07:59):
a lot of momentum because of from an advertising perspective,
because it's live and people therefore need to tune in for
that. The time zone that this is
playing, the time window that these get matches are playing is
probably a pretty weak time for these broadcasters.
So something that's live gives them another serious asset to
sell to advertisers. And now that maybe fandom is at

(08:22):
a decent enough level, now's thetime to strike and and to really
lean into that. But I don't think they could
really strike any more deals in market outside of what they've
got today. And because wrapping more and
making more visible even in the zone isn't going to give them
that visibility because it's behind gating and and the game,
you know, that's obviously the zone have that three to three to

(08:43):
access component. Now that they've they've started
to build, it just gives them another another real serious
access to a very important market for them.
They've been focused on for a long time.
So I think it's a huge win for the NFL.
Yeah. And I think again, to flip it
the other way, like, yes, Sundayevening might not be prime time,
but the other way I'd frame it as well as there's no Premier

(09:04):
League on at that time. No, the Premier League, The
Premier League, yeah, plays 4:30to 6:30.
There's occasionally if the schedule's really condensed a a
late Sunday game, but there almost never is a Premier League
game in that window. We're also going to talk about
the zone in college football later.
Again, Premier League coverage usually ends around 738 o'clock
over here. She got all that there.

(09:25):
So I do think it helps with thatsense that it may not be the
prime slot, but it's not necessarily I think competing
against a bunch I there. No.
And look, a little bit of competition wouldn't hurt them
that much anyway. I think there's some there's
obviously some major crossover with Premier League audiences.
But also if the game they have on a Sunday afternoon isn't a
big match up, a big draw card, then yeah, I don't think you'll

(09:46):
have too much competition. But the other thing I would add
to this, this type of deal is a lot of people might think, oh,
the Zone might not be happy about this.
The fact that a pretty key mark is now going to have more games
available to the point you raised about, is it going to be
less likely that someone's goingto sign up to Game Pass.
My view on that is this is a huge win for the Zone because
it's more people to view and start watching content.

(10:07):
If they want to upgrade their experience, maybe progress up to
being a Tier 1 fan, they are theperfect platform for that.
But this means they don't have to make huge investments in
marketing and have this huge gapin chasm in between someone who
wants to casually watch it through free to air and someone
who's going to pay a a a pretty big sum for accessing a big

(10:27):
subscription. And for what it's worth, you
know, this is, I would argue more coverage than you would get
in the US And like I always talkabout how much I love free to
air in the US. But typically in the US, like
there's usually on free to air only one game available,
typically from CBS and then one game available from Fox and both
of those time slots. And then if you wanted more,

(10:48):
you'd have to go to, oh gosh, I've forgotten the the YouTube
version where they just bought the NFL Sunday Ticket.
So realistically, like if you think that between Channel 5 and
Sky, granted one of those behinda paywall, there's going to be
two games, actually take that back.
I said there's going to be like 3 or 4 games in each of those
time slots. Actually, there's more available

(11:08):
out having to pay for the premium product in the UK.
But then again, we say there's more Premier League games
available in the US than there are in the UK.
But actually like in that sense,like there's as much stuff on
without having to go to the premium product on the UK and
there's in the US at this moment.
That is interesting. I hadn't thought about it that
way. I just had thought about the
fact that there there's a game available in each slot on

(11:31):
different channels and platformsthat they've done those deals
with. But it is, it is interesting to
think about the fact that so thelittle of it is actually
available nationally unless you pay for a premium product even
in the US. So I guess in some instances you
could say the UK is mirroring a little bit the the model of the
US in in a way by by having thatbig gap between what's available

(11:53):
on free to air and then the premium paid offering.
So very, very interesting to see.
And I wonder whether you could see a series of other further
deals being done now by the NFL in other markets now they've got
games in so many different countries now.
Will they continue to lean into getting expanded visibility on
free to wear? Because if if they do, then I'm

(12:15):
really intrigued to see where the NFL can get from a fan of
perspective over the next few years.
Yeah, Well, one of the things wewere talking about advertising.
So again, Nick, we're going to keep not going in the order we
talked about, but the things just keep segwaying.
So naturally is talking about how big of a deal advertising
is. And there's a story that came
out or two stories that came outthis week that are both wrapped
around advertising, one of the more controversial than the
other, sort of the first one. More objectively, you know, the

(12:37):
NBC is going to be the broadcasters for the Super Bowl
this year. They've come out and said
they've already sold 90% of the regular season inventory and
they've already sold out the Super Bowl advertisements.
And we're talking nearly five months in advance.
And for context, Fox charged $8 million for a 32nd ad spot last
year for the Super Bowl just forand we just talked about how we

(12:58):
just talked about how much you can reduce the game with an ad
free version. There's going to be a lot of
32nd commercials in that Super Bowl, Nick.
So they've already managed to sell out pretty much all their
inventory spots. So I'm not, I suppose isn't a
surprise, but it just goes to show the power of advertising
and the Super Bowl itself just being the pinnacle, I think, of
all advertising. Well, like I was saying before,

(13:19):
I really feel that everything I'm hearing and seeing is that
there's even more inertia than ever around advertising in live
sports events and live sports events that matter.
I think particularly when with Netflix and these other
streamers going into Amazon as well.
So heavily it's democratised andbroken down some of those
barriers that were still existing around this.

(13:41):
So for the fact that they've announced it, I mean they always
like to announce and create somegoodwill about how they're
selling, but 90% before the season even begins is sounds
pretty impressive, pretty impressive numbers given the
amount of inventory. Slight segue, have you have we?
We talked much about upfronts before on on the part I'm not
sure if we have. No, now this ring a bell for me.

(14:03):
Are you familiar with that upfront?
No. Have you got a bamboozled,
bamboozled you and maybe bamboozled some of our audience?
Well, this is a really interesting part of the whole
economy over in the US around advertising.
Is that each major network and indeed now each of the major big
tech platforms have these eventscalled upfront.

(14:23):
Although I think the big tech companies use some other name
which is very similar. But basically what it is, is
they basically present their wares about how great they are,
what content and programming they've got coming up, and they
invite loads of advertising execs and basically are selling
to them in an audience. They basically invite them for a
big schmoozy event, lots of probably caviar and drinks going

(14:46):
everywhere and the majority in some sports instances and sorry,
some networks instances, the majority of their advertising
spend is actually wrapped up allin this one event.
And basically that is effectively the ad execs for
like the certain networks or sitdown with a couple of these guys
out like what's a let's do a deal?
Basically, it's very old school and at least how it sounds from

(15:07):
what I've heard. So for the people that don't
follow the US market, this is what happens.
It's still a huge, huge part of the industry.
And now in these upfronts, most of the major networks are
investing even more into it. They're bringing loads of
talent, bringing all their personalities and athletes and
influencers and hosts to like basically make a bit of a sell

(15:27):
and a bit of an entertaining sort of stage show.
Basically get people excited about the event before they then
go and sit down with the table and try and strike a deal.
That sort of stuff, as far as I understand, does not happen
anywhere else in the world otherthan the US.
And that's why the advertising economy is so just so massive in

(15:47):
the US versus everywhere else. They they've the the networks
prioritise those events annually, as big as any single
thing they do for the whole year.
Well, let's speak about some advertising that's not getting
people fired up, Nick. We've got a little bit more
details on it now, but NFL Red Zone, I mean, we've argued on

(16:08):
this show might be the single best sports product in the world
for what it provides, what it offers.
I'm with you, Nick. It's usually a second screen for
me because I like to watch the full game, but what it offers is
great. It was announced very subtly
that they're going to be inserting advertisements into
this. And if you don't know what Red
Zone is, part of the big deal isthe intro.

(16:29):
Scott Hanson every time he comeson, sort of says welcome for
seven hours of commercial free football.
That is literally the slogan that starts off every single
one. He's on the Pat McAfee show, I
believe, and he did the new intro and everyone was like,
something has changed. And he did acknowledge that
there will be advertisements this year within Red Zone, which
just at least I'm still on Twitter X Nick, I, I told you, I

(16:53):
block anything that isn't sportsrelated.
People are fired up. They're like, why am I paying
for a premium channel if it's got advertisements and like
they're all these like, oh, it'ssomeone throwing a Hail Mary and
it's going to breakthrough commercial, which I'm obviously
not going to do. But people are really fired up
about they're like, why am I paying a premium price?
They're like, this is the same thing Amazon Prime did where you
bought a subscription, but now you have to buy an extra
subscription if you want the ad free version of it.

(17:14):
People are getting really upset.What's come out, Nick?
My understanding is they're going to run 4 commercials over
7 hours. They're going to be 15 seconds
apiece and they will not cut away the video feed in terms of
the full screen. So there was a lot of
controversy. I think that controversy may
have been a little dramatic, youknow what I mean?
The word fan is short for fanatic, but there are people

(17:37):
that are a little concerned thatlike this is just a start.
They're just going to slowly addin ads.
But I would say to the news that's reported, this is not an
ESPN decision because there's a lot of people being like, oh,
ESP NS bought NFL red zone and they're already screwing it up.
My understanding is, is ESPN doesn't have control over that,
at least for another year. And this decision is not coming
from ESPN if we're trying to figure out where to lay blame.

(17:57):
But Nick, I don't think you or Iare probably surprised that
they're going to start adding commercials.
I think we think of people like our friends at Transmit that,
you know, do these add in sort of non disruptive models that it
can work. I get why people are upset Nick,
but I'm not surprised. That's The thing is I think they

(18:20):
could have got away with going calling it's still commercial
free if they didn't stop the show and just keep it those
those overlay ads and are like in the corner of the screen and
so forth. When they break away, when they
show multi viewers, just have one an ad showing in the corner
and at least done it that way. I my my guest then be given if
you're saying that they come outand say that ESPN isn't the ones

(18:42):
dictating that my theory, my conspiracy theory is that ESPN
wants to bring ads when they take over.
Yeah, and they've asked the NFL to take a bit of a bullet here
and take a step forward to the take bridge the gap.
So when he's been do take over, it's not as big a deal when they
start again, inching in a bit further and further along the

(19:04):
way. Obviously they can't go too far
because anyone who's watched theend zone product, I'm trying to
think of how to describe a better example, like I guess
it's, you know, with various football leagues across the
world and they've got games going non-stop and you've got a
live. Saturday Saturday football What
was the show that was on Sky? It was at 3 O clock.
Saturday, yeah, yeah. Gillette, Gillette, they used to
call it Gillette was sponsored by Gillette.

(19:25):
Gillette Soccer Saturday or Soccer Saturday, I think it was.
OK yeah, MLS have obviously got their own version.
And you often hear stories or yeah, launches of this new, it's
red zone for this being brought to the fore.
And obviously it's, it's never going to be able to compete with
the actual NF LS version itself.So I, I, I reckon that that's a
bit of a look, we're going to RIP the RIP the band Band-Aid

(19:48):
off. Now ESPN don't want to deal with
the negative publicity when theydo take over it formally.
So NFL are taking the a little bit of the bullet here and doing
it very, very softly. So they're not going to
interrupt. OK, fine.
But maybe next year, maybe they'll finally give Scott a
taller break somewhere along theway.
You know what he talks about that because he's on air for

(20:09):
seven hours non-stop. So he he talks about like
there's training and things likethat.
We're like and like how he has to prepare the day before, like
trying to essentially dehydrate himself.
Like he didn't go into too many graphic details for like, it's
not an easy gig. He's probably got the toughest
job in all of like sports commentary or commentary in
general. I don't know anyone that goes 7
hours straight without a break. Well, this is wondering whether

(20:30):
he's ever been up during the night for a midnight trip to the
toilet or he's probably never had that in his life.
If he's well trained, Yeah. I mean, my old, my old man blood
account couldn't handle that, that's for sure.
I mean, staying hydrated becauseif I don't drink water like
already we're what, 20 minutes into this conversation, I'm
already looking for where my glass of water is to try and

(20:52):
rehydrate my mouth. So a full credit to him and his
and what he does there. But look, I think it's
inevitable in every instance. I think in summary, I think
every proposition that exists insports around live content has
to have multiple ways of drivingvalue and driving financial
returns. Subscription being one bit,
advertising being obvious another bit.

(21:13):
It could be some sponsorship, itcould be other means.
So it was obviously inevitable it was going to get here.
So we'll see how much they disrupt the feed.
I think they'll take a very cautious approach in the
beginning and go from there. We hope you're enjoying the
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collaboration feel local. So the story we were going to

(22:19):
kick things off with Nick because like I said, as we're
recording this, this is Friday morning, September 5th.
We're going to have the YouTube game being broadcasted for I
guess free to air. I I don't even know if you call
free to air AVOD I guess would be the appropriate term to to
place it under. Yeah.
I mean not AVOD because it's live.
So I think it's GO. What is the term for that it?

(22:42):
Is a free to air for streaming. Plus I should know that really.
Free to free, free to free to streaming.
I would. Just call it free to air.
I just call it free to air because it's not linear like a
free to air on a different distribution model because
linear. It's not on a linear broadcast,
it's on the. It's green, but it's a free to a
broadcast. I'm sure someone will give us an
answer. I'm sure someone will be happy
to tell us what the official term is if they're listening.

(23:04):
But anyways, tonight is going tobe the YouTube game, which is
going to be taking place betweenthe Kansas City Chiefs and the
Los Angeles Chargers. I think I've mostly called them
the Los Angeles Chargers now. There was a while I was still
calling them San Diego. Same thing with the Raiders
being Oakland. I think I've, I think I've
switched on my brand. They are the LA Chargers now
what Nick, couple big things about this A, it's going to be

(23:25):
live stream for free on YouTube.And then the other big part of
this as well is I show speed. We've talked about the creator
economy. He's also going to be doing a
alternative broadcast of that onhosted on his channel.
And just for the numbers, he has43,000,000 subscribers.
So not a small insignificant number.
He's not going to be the only content creator that's going to

(23:47):
be doing this all cast, but there will he's essentially the
biggest one of the group. That game is going to be hosted
down in Brazil Friday night. But you know, Nick, the NFL,
they just they keep trying doingnew things.
And you know, for you, we've spent quite a bit of time
talking about YouTube recently and where it should fit within
your strategy, whether it shouldbe your your main platform, a

(24:09):
supplementary platform, where should it fit?
The NFL, you know, has the deal with YouTube TV, but that's a
completely different thing all to begin with.
They've got different streaming deals with Amazon and NBC.
They've got their traditional linear broadcast partners and
now dipping the toe live streaming the game on YouTube.
So let's take a step back quickly and remember what this
deal is. They paid about 100 million USI

(24:30):
think, for this opportunity to take these rights taken
globally. So that's a big investment,
particularly when YouTube's message has been ever since the
Sunday Ticket deal is we're not buying rights anymore, but they
felt the need to make this investment.
And the question is why? Now, my theory on that is
basically they want to use this as the ultimate case study to
say, look, we're going to pay a fortune for these rights.

(24:52):
We're going to monetize them, and we're going to make it worth
our while to spend this money. But following this, we're not
going to buy any more rights. We're going to show you how it's
done. Because remember, YouTube's
model is pretty much primarily ad funded.
They, I believe, will be also selling some sponsorships and
doing special advertising packages, mainly on the content.
I'm intrigued to see who they'reusing as their broadcast partner

(25:15):
to produce the live broadcast. I'm guessing there's one of the
the main freeway partners in theUS is taking that.
But anyway, my point here is I think they're using this as a
case study and then they're going to go walk away.
Go look, we've shown you now we can generate incredible audience
numbers. We've created a new way of
distributing content by working with creators to create this all

(25:37):
these extreme distribution channels.
They can basically with those relationships can scale their
audience to unprecedented levels, you know, tapping into
an IHO speed and all these otherinfluencers and say, hey, we're
going to give you the rights to the NFL here.
In return, we're going to share,share ad revenue off your feed
and you get the rights for free.I mean, how are they not going

(26:00):
to say yes to that? And instantly YouTube in this
instance just scales their audience to incredible,
incredible levels. So I just think the sky is the
limit for this type of model andapproach.
I never thought about the fact that YouTube might take this
such heavier creator LED option.I remember when they did the
Sunday Ticket deal, part of thatwas giving creators access to

(26:23):
the rights in some instances to create alternative broadcasts,
but never at this scale. This is this feels pretty
massive. It's not the only thing, you
know, we we talked about I Show Speed is going to be live
streaming from his channel, but also we got gifted something in
preparation for this Mr Beast putting out advertisement, A
gimmick promotion, whatever you want to call it, you know,

(26:44):
saying he's bought the NFL and he's brought in all these
streamers. I Show Speed.
One of them I mentioned to you before the show, Nick, I'm a
little upset. While I understand putting him
next to Tyreek Hill because of some of the other, he is
technically from Cincinnati, OH and is a Cincinnati Bengals fan.
But they even got Mr Beast trying to come in and promote
this and whip this up because obviously Mr Beast is the king

(27:06):
of all things YouTube and, you know, trying to plug in with his
influence as well. But Dick you, you didn't sound
like you're necessarily loving this idea.
Well, I think the idea. Right.
Are you under the bus? Well.
I think that the idea of leaninginto the creative economy is
absolutely genius and I think iswhat most sports.

(27:29):
Everyone in sports should be paying so much attention to this
model and to this approach. I've been talking about this for
years to say to people. I had a conversation recently
this week with a rights owner approached me to get some
advice. It's like think about giving
some of your rights to your athletes and to your athletes
and basic people who I have either got a big audience or

(27:51):
want to have a meaningful audience and have the ability to
grow one to scale it. Because that incentive of taking
on their own rights just massively increases the scale of
the audience and visibility of that that live experience.
And by doing so, all those otherlevers that can be pulled in
terms of not only just getting mass interest in fandom, but

(28:11):
also sponsorship, obviously merchandise sales and etcetera
can then be laid on with this huge audience.
That's why we've been saying fora long time, you can't just take
a subscription only approach, right?
So this is just basically destroying the subscription
model and saying, hey, we have anew way of working, a new way of
working, which is get your rights onto YouTube.
You will generate revenues of wecan YouTube saying this, we can

(28:35):
predict what you can basically earn, not guarantee, but close
to and then you have all these other levers to expand your
audience and expand your revenue.
It just makes makes working withYouTube almost a no brainer over
time. Now I'm saying that because
which makes me probably sound like I'm selling the life out of
YouTube. We did a part on this a couple
of weeks ago where try to like set the scenes of expectation

(28:56):
here. It sounds great in theory for
anyone who's not the NFL, it's very difficult to pull some of
these levers and get AI showed speed and Mr Beast to to work
with you. So it's not that easy for
everyone. But I think it I think relative
terms, if you're a sports property that's struggling to
forget a rights deal, look at this type of approach to see if
you can really scale your audiences using athletes and

(29:20):
other maybe influences around your sport.
And you might be shocked about the scale that you can get.
Now I would add the the questionabout this particular campaign.
What I cringed a little bit was about the whole 3 minute video
that's being done and this wholelike, oh, Mr Bases bought the
league and but Roger Goodell acting easy like supporting cast
member through the three minute pitch along all these other

(29:41):
influences and every the the storyline basically is he buys a
league and Mr Beast's first decision at the press conference
is to make every team increase the size of their official
roster from 53 to 54 and the 54th has to be an influencer.
And so you see like, dude, perfect and these other guys go
on. We've got we're going to be the

(30:01):
Cowboys and blah, blah, blah. It goes and it goes on.
And what I'm just a bit cringy about is, well, I'm a bit
uncertain how I feel is like at one stage.
I think it's really smart to lean into that that world.
And who knows what you'll see inthe future of this.
This works with YouTube where they do perfect might pick up
their own alternative feed and broadcast and the like.
But just how far are we going togo with leaning into stuff that

(30:24):
is not actually the core sport? And what is the endpoint of all?
It's like I, I feel like I mightbe going to stand like I'm about
75 years old saying you know, the, you know, the, the, the,
the traditions of the game. But I think it's leaning so much
into the creator and influencer world these days.
Or where, where's the end point is there is there a stage where

(30:45):
we can't go further than that? Or is actually in in 1020 years
time, you could have a team of influence playing in the NFL.
I don't know. Yeah.
I mean, I think the interest of that I'll I'll flip it a little
bit is we previously spoke aboutsort of the the impact of golf,
because you've made the commentsthat anecdotally you've seen
more young people golfing than you ever have before.

(31:05):
I've read some studies saying kind of talking about
participation in golf and a lot of it is credited with not
necessarily anything the PGA Tour is doing.
And that's not a shot the PGA Tour, but but the fact that the
amount of golf content creators that are popping up and that's
still people going out and playing the traditional version
of golf. So, yeah, yeah, I don't know.

(31:26):
I don't know, Nick. It's a good question.
It'll be really interesting to see if it drives more people to
participate. I guess the question is, does it
matter? It's interesting.
I and I wonder where the future also lies, where it comes to the
pressure that's going to be madeon certain athletes in certain
leagues. I can imagine startups and
disruptor leagues, especially NFL, will probably be much more

(31:49):
cautious on this. It's how much pressure they'll
have to make their own content and become visible, become, you
know, think of a grand hall thatyou know, from the from a golf
perspective or Bryson's already,you know, he's obviously one of
the world's best. But those players that aren't
necessarily at the top tier, butthey might be playing in a
disruptor league or a start up. Let's say the What's 1 of the
American American Football League has popped up over the

(32:12):
years, like the UFL or. Something well, I was even
thinking something like the the,the big three league where like
they're trying to go more of that personality LED approach to
to get people to to drive into things on that side.
You could think of things like TGTGL golf, yeah, Disruptor side
so. But basically what, what are
they getting asked for? Like what what is like at some
stage is going to be, well, you need to produce 10 pieces of

(32:34):
content for your channels and, and, and do all these types of
things to make sure your audience is a certain scale.
If your audience is in a certainlevel, you're not invited.
Like, I just wonder where it's going to get to at this point
because it's, it's delivering results in terms of audience
invisibility. And that's the tricky bit.
That's why I'm not saying it's something that should be ignored
or moved away from, but there isa, there's got to be an end

(32:56):
point at some time or maybe maybe there isn't.
Yeah. Well, we're going to stick with
football, Nick, and there's a little bit of basketball time to
this. One of my biggest complaints
being in the UK roughly 10 of the last 12 years over 2 trips
basically and permanently now for nine years we've talked
there's no college football here.
Like it drives me crazy. Like why is no because like the

(33:19):
rights can't be that expensive. And like most of these games are
mentioned earlier, they're on late night Saturday.
Like there's no Premier League on, there's no Formula One on
unless it's the US Open. There's no golf on.
Like why is there no college football?
Finally, Nick, someone has put aserious, you know, stake in the
ground to say they're going to take college football and it's
the people we said should have been doing it all along, which

(33:40):
is the Zone. I've always made the argument,
you've already got an NFL game pass, you might as well just
make yourself the home of football.
Obviously on an incredibly smaller scale, they've got the
European League of Football ELF.So it's like you might as well
just get everybody, get all the football and just become the
home of football. So for this, I don't know the
exact dollar amounts, but The Zone has agreed a sub licencing
deal with ESPN for college football and college broadcast

(34:03):
in the UK, Europe and Middle Eastern, North African region.
So 25 live college football games a week and once we get to
college basketball season, 20 live college basketball season.
So for me, Nick, I don't have a tonne of analysis other than I'm
just really happy that this finally happened.
And I think a bunch of it's going to be made free to air as
well made available free to air,which means they're obviously

(34:24):
using it as a funnel to grow audiences as well as try and
build up their portfolio to drive advertising revenue, which
I think is an interesting dimension or layer to the zone
strategy that seems to be comingmore and more prevalent is that
investment into free freely accessed content to drive their
advertising business. But look, I think your point's

(34:44):
right. I think the zone are absolutely
in the prime position for being a leading voice and platform,
particularly with the NFL deal also the NHL deal that they have
in place as well. I mean, and in I think in some
markets I might even have a bit of MBA in a in a few smaller
markets as well. So I think them trying to be
this kind of destination for US sports makes a lot of sense.

(35:07):
Now what I would flip it though,I would say that I'm there's two
things really. One was that I was surprised to
find out that ESPN actually already owned the international
rights for some time. So they've been sitting on those
rights and they've actually beendark in a couple of markets
because they couldn't strike a deal.
Now you layer that in with Disney, ESPN and it just shows

(35:29):
how little the NCAA or ESPN cared about international that
they didn't even bother broadcasting it in a bunch of
markets. Now with what they're doing
across Europe with Disney Plus, my thinking is that now's the
time for that to be just pluggedinto what they're doing in, for
example, in the Baltics and the Nordics.
In Sweden, there's an example which we've covered a few weeks

(35:50):
back where they've they've got the Europa League and the
Conference League and they've got a whole host of TGL and a
bunch of other rights there and they're doing it under the ESPN
brand. Why not just lay this in there
and really make a destination and, and what conversation I
have with people is like, well, why are you using the ESPN brand
to house this content in like inlike Sweden when no one knows

(36:12):
ESPN for anything other than American sports and American
American culture and so and using it for European based
sports. So this would just make such a
natural extension. I think of that.
So really surprised that ESPN hasn't tried that at least for
like a period of time to say, hey, we're going to have this
destination for all college sports now in in smaller
markets, low risk. But I imagine the the zone

(36:35):
probably committed a pretty decent deal for them.
They that look, you know, all the step away, you guys deal
with a deal with this, this set of rights and see how you go.
And if they they they see the zone doing well, they can always
just bring it back onto their own platform if they continue to
own those, you know, those international rights.
And who knows, with the sub licencing, they may still have
the ability to do so, and they're just choosing not to at

(36:57):
this moment. Yeah.
So yeah, because like I said, there's no, I wasn't able to
find any particular dollar amount that was associated with
this. So maybe it's a non exclusive
thing that yeah, that works out.They might listen to the podcast
as well and decide that Nick knows Sounds genius.
I like the thing that happens a lot, Chris, but I probably less

(37:17):
than I would expect. No, I expect I think that's not
what I mean. That sounds way too arrogant.
No, I mean, I know that those those, those guys listen to
because they've, I've been contacted various times, but if
they're taking advice from me tomake decisions, then I'm a bit
actually more worried for them than anything.
Speaking of ESPN then Nick, one of the stories we've covered a
couple times in a couple different angles is the UFC

(37:40):
moving over to Paramount Plus, part of that $7.7 billion deal.
The big part of that being no more pay-per-view.
But one of the things that sort of sort of what is ESPN, they've
been the long time partner and technically ESPN that deal still
has is I believe it runs throughthe end of this year.
There's still some time left on the end of it, but what has come

(38:02):
out is the UFC Fight Pass may partner with ESP NS new direct
to consumer platform to still have the UFC content directly
available via ESP NS new streaming service.
Now to be clear, this would not include any of the, I think
believe they call them the numbered fights, which are
obviously the really major ones.I don't think it includes some
of their other events, but it would have all the archive

(38:24):
content that it sits in there. So basically ESPN still having a
little bit of a small foothold on the UFC as it grows maybe
somewhere else. So I think, Nick, this is maybe
one of the questions we were asking.
You know, how exclusive was the deal?
We do the UFC Fight Pass. It's the equivalent of the NFL

(38:45):
Network where it's kind of ownedby the NFL but also slightly
operates independently. We didn't know what was going to
happen with that. You know, similar, what was it?
Was it the WWE completely moved its platform onto Netflix?
We didn't hear anything about the UFC Fight Pass and that
original Paramount Plus deal. So I guess that answers some
questions for us, Nick. Yeah, maybe that's, that was one

(39:07):
of the reasons the ESPN was quite happy to step away from
the Gargatuan number that the Paramount paid and not willing
to bid for that. Yeah, I, I this idea of
wrapping, I guess products like 5 Pass or OGT platform like Game
Pass into a more, you know, major networks platform like The
Zone and ESPN. I'm still not sure how

(39:31):
successful that is as an approach.
I think the Zone will tell you it's been very successful for
them to have the NFL though. They paid a lot for those rights
to, to grow. And does US, does the UFC gain a
lot of value losing that relationship with fans and
giving it all over to ESPN again, if the price is right,

(39:51):
yes, it does. And they can find other ways to
build that relationship. I think basically a lot of these
rights owners have now just become a lot more comfortable
with building relationships withfans in different ways and not
having to own every data point of their audience like many
people might have told them overthe years.
So I don't really know. I think that I think ESPN might
have NHLTV in the US also on theplatform.

(40:15):
So they might be looking to takethis approach and add a few more
products. And basically ESPN signed to
mirror a little bit of what Zonelooks like in terms of having
these platforms within the platform, which I'm sure the
zone would take, you know, take quite favourably to see that
they're being mimicked by by their competitors in the US.

(40:36):
Yeah, I mean, I think from US CSperspective, it makes sense.
It wasn't going to be wrapped upwith Paramount Plus.
You've already got that existingrelationship with the ESPN.
From a fan perspective, I know Italked about I go back and watch
the game the next day. I don't think that's the kind of
archive content they're referring to is going to be
available on there. So I'll be curious to know how

(40:56):
much the UFC fan is going to want to go back over to ESPN.
I don't know, it'll be interesting.
But for the UFCII, guess it makes sense if someone's willing
to pay for it. Yeah, and obviously the ESPN is
going to invest an incredible amount of money in growing their
direct to consumer platform itself.
So they will have a huge audience base no doubt that the

(41:17):
UFC can be easily, the UFC FightPass can be easily marketed to
to try and drive into the platform if they're they are
interested, even if they don't have any anything else
available. The last thing we're gonna cover
today, there was an announcementmade yesterday, yesterday, and
when we're recording this on yesterday is whenever you were
listening to the podcast. The WSL has secured 13 new

(41:38):
international media rights dealsfor the upcoming 252026 season.
And like I said, when I say global, it's global.
They've got Stan Sport in Australia.
Nick, you're gonna tell me who Stan Sport are?
I've not heard of Stan Sport. Yeah, they are an OTT platform
for the free to air broadcast ofChannel 9, which is basically
the biggest broadcast or number.2 Channel 9.

(41:59):
Yeah, yeah, I've heard of Channel 9, just haven't heard of
their TT shirt. Flower.
A movie star in Spain. We've had this.
Launched after I left the country I might add.
So I tested my memory a little bit there, but they followed it
to some extent. Yeah, Fox Sports in the US and
then being sports again in the Middle East, Northern Africa
region. So Nick, in terms of this for
them, I'm not aware of a tonne of women's sports at this stage

(42:20):
that have necessarily these international deals.
I don't necessarily know what the the dollar amounts are going
to be, but just in terms of themtrying to grow it, we've, I
think we've, we've seen multipleinstances of people trying to do
this. You know, UEFA try to do this
with the zone a little bit with their Champions League coverage.
But for someone from a domestic league perspective to be doing

(42:41):
this internationally, I don't know how much the dollar amounts
always matter, Nick, but just simply being able to to broaden
it, I think is an important stepjust in the growth of coverage
for women's sports and women's football in particular.
Well, big time. I'll take it a step further than
that and let's just assume the meteorites revenue is fairly
marginal from international. It could be better, but I'm

(43:03):
giving, given some of the ones you've mentioned, you know, your
movie stars and Fox Sports and be in sports, they have huge
reach. And I imagine that was the main
focus here was to get visibility, not only on women's
football, but in particularly onthe WSL, because I feel like
there's a bit of a race going on.
You're the NWSL in the US who's got a lot of investment done, a

(43:23):
lot of deals in the, in the, in the US market probably feels
like a chance that they can really throw some cash and
activity to try and build the NWSL into the Premier League of
women's football. And obviously WSL is trying to
latch on and hold on to that position given they're also
based in the UK. But if they're not careful, they
could lose that because of the money that Americans inevitably

(43:47):
will throw at grabbing market share.
So I think it's important that they really got some major
visibility and tried to stamp orput their flag in the ground as
that the number one league in the market and getting exposure
in some pretty key markets with these types of broadcast
partners will really help them. So I think we're in a bit of a
race. I think we're in a bit of a race

(44:07):
to solidify that because we all know if you're at the top of the
food chain, the revenues look a lot more favourable than for
those at #2. And be an early mover as well.
I think one of the interesting things, there's a statistic in
the article that reported that 76% of audiences for the WSL
come from outside the UK, which I think was a pretty
extraordinary and telling number.

(44:27):
So that might explain the push for international, but you know,
maybe WSL can fall in the Premier League steps and be
someone who makes more money internationally than they do
domestically. Not that the Premier League
struggling with the money they make from, you know, Sky Sports
and TNT, but at the moment they are the only sports league I'm
aware of that makes more money internationally and
domestically. So maybe maybe they can follow a
similar path. Yeah, it's a good.

(44:49):
It's a really interesting question or interesting start,
but if you then thought about how many people follow the
Premier League out of the out ofthe UK versus in it and actually
then the UK would look really small in terms.
Of all. Think of it that way, yeah.
So it's an interesting comparison, though I still think
it's definitely something, it's definitely something that it's
so skewed that way. I just how, where, where is the

(45:12):
opportunity to like, what's the scale?
What's the, the dream opportunity?
Because then you also have the UEFA Champions League, the
Women's Champions League that's got visibility across Disney
Plus now as well. And they use YouTube and so
forth. That's kind of this other
competition that sits there thatit's just so such different set
of circumstances to the men's game.

(45:35):
I'm just fascinated to see if they can just solidify
themselves. And I just thought there was a
record transfer, the nearly one and a half million by the
Lionesses owned by what was thatLady who spoke it?
I know who you're talking about.Was it?
Is it? Oh, gosh.
Michelle Kane. She's a massive investor in
women's football. Michelle Kane.
Yes, well done with my memory. Five points.

(45:56):
Well, there's there's so many speakers at sports pro events
over my six years, Nick, Sometimes I got to really go
through the Rolodex and pull it back.
I used. To have a good memory with all
this stuff and now my memory is a sieve.
Yeah. Well, Speaking of interviews,
historic interviews, Nick, and now we're really going to end
the podcast off on a we're, we do have our sports pro AI event
coming up. By the time this podcast comes
out, I think it'd be two weeks after that.

(46:19):
I'm going to be super excited about this.
I don't know how many of our listeners will know this,
particularly outside of the US. I'm going to interview Greg
Odin. He will certainly be the tallest
speaker. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I, I put in a request for that one.
He will certainly be the tallestspeaker to ever appear to sports
pro event. And I'm pretty willing to bet we
will never break that record. Those who don't know, Greg Odin,

(46:40):
former number one NBA draft pickfrom Indiana, went to Ohio
State. I'm from Ohio.
So when I heard he was coming over for the event, I, I, I
messaged our two wills and I waslike, I want that interview.
That is 1 I won't forget. What college did he play for?
Because that was obviously wherehe came, you know, claimed to
fame was obviously his college career was incredible.

(47:01):
I came from Ohio State. Him and Michael Conley.
Yeah. And then Michael Conley were
teammates at in high school in Indiana.
Then they went over to Ohio State.
Good Lord, there was a third guyon that team who went to Dunbar
High School in Dayton. That's going to drive me crazy.

(47:22):
We're losing our audience here, mate.
We are. We are.
We too. It's a good thing we're 45
minutes deep. Deep into war.
Yeah. But yes, I'll be interviewing
Greg. Good.
I'm very excited about that. Buy your ticket to Sports Pro
AI. So you can see Chris talk, talk
about Ohio, his home state. He over 7 feet tall.
That's a big, that's a big man. Very, very big man.

(47:44):
But yeah, so yeah, that that's how we're going to end.
Today's podcast, Nick going through guested former events
and interviews. I'm looking forward to future
events. Well, look, I'm forward to to,
I'm looking forward to that event actually in all serious
seriousness as well, because it's only a couple of weeks away
now. And you know, we're doing this
event because they are such a hot topic across the wider
sports industry, but especially across sports media, which we

(48:05):
spend so much time talking about.
So I'm really excited to hear somany great examples now of where
AI has got to over the last 12 months on stage of that event
with major broadcasters, rights owners, everything from fan
engagement to content creation, basically all corners,
performance data, everything there.
So really looking forward to that event in London.

(48:27):
And if you want any more information, don't be afraid to
get in touch with either of us so we can send you some more
info on it. But it should be really
interesting to see because that's the thing I love about
these events. Like we had it with the the
Madrid event as well, is you see, it's like snapshots in
time. But last year we were a little
bit more of a discovery phase. Like what is AI relative to
sports now? Like we're a year in, so many

(48:47):
people have been working on and using AI.
Where are we at now? What, what examples have we got
to point out? We've got a lot of really
exciting examples of that event to to see first hand.
Absolutely do get in touch and thank you everybody once again
for joining us for another episode of Stream TIME Sports.