The Premier League’s new TV deal and key learnings from SportsPro Madrid

News of Premier League’s new broadcast deal with Sky Sports and TNT broke as co-hosts Nick Meacham and Chris Stone recorded this week’s episode of StreamTime Sports. They discuss that and look at some of the biggest talking points from SportsPro Madrid.
-          What are the biggest changes in sports media over the last 12 months?
-          What did LaLiga and Ligue 1 have to say on their broadcast negotiations?
-          Will DAZN reach their goal of 1 billion users in within 10 years?
-          Are the Kings and Queens League a blueprint for disrupting traditional sports?
-          What’s the biggest takeaway on the Premier League’s new UK broadcast deals?

Episode Transcript

(00:12):
Hello everyone. Welcome back to the next episode
of Streamtime Sports. My name is Chris Stone.
The community lead here at Sports for Media joined us
always by our CEO, Nick Beecham.Now Nick, we left last episode
talking about what we were thankful for and you talked
about being thankful for the Jamaican weather.
Well, I just got back from taking my dog for a walk, you
know, and I will let you know right now the I'm, I'm pretty
jealous of that weather that you're talking about.
Nick, I know it's very British to talk about the weather, but

(00:34):
we are. It's ugly, it it's terrible and
it certainly makes me wish I waschilling on a beach somewhere.
I had a pretty good beach weekend.
This weekend I was at place called Frenchman's Cove.
Lovely spot where you have a nice little Cove where the
beach, some nice nice small waves that my kids can play in
and then off of. It goes and connects a stream

(00:54):
which runs up the the mountain and there's a lagoon that comes
off in between there and the theside of the river.
So it's about the most ideally place I've ever been to.
So a little bit of sympathy throwing your way.
Although that being said that the the negatives about living
in a climate like this which is very tropical as you get with
the with the great weather you also get huge storms and when we

(01:17):
had a storm a few weeks ago it created so many potholes or one
pothole I saw was the width, no more than one was actually the
width of my car. So if I didn't see it coming
before I drove in it, I would have ended up being stuck in a
ditch in the middle of the road,which is quite commonplace here.
So you're going to take the goodwith the bad.
I'll take many days of of nice weather to a few potholes here

(01:38):
and there. But part of the driving
experience here is basically like, I don't know what you call
what sort of game would be like,what was the game where you
basically play with your phone, you like, swipe left and right
when something's coming at you like coins.
It's almost like a Sonic thing. Sort of.
I know what you're talking about, I just can't remember
what the name. Is anyone remembers the name of
the game? Super easy.
Was there a game like Maze Runner or something like that?

(01:58):
Something Runner? Yeah, something.
Something like that. It's basically like that with
with a car here because there's there's going to be pop potholes
everywhere, you just got to Dodge as well as people and
cars. So anyway, that's that's another
anecdote from from over here. Well, you know what, Nick, I
will say despite being in Jamaica, I do know last week
there was somewhere else you would have rather been than off
in your Caribbean island. Massive FOMO over here, I have

(02:22):
to say. Just a little bit.
You know, I could see the occasional text messages to yen
and George and Miles just askingfor updates.
And I will say Nick, there was alot of momentum building for
Sports Pro Jamaica. I I hope you take it the right
way, that lots of people are asking where you were at,
wishing they were able to see you, and they were all saying

(02:43):
Sports Pro Jamaica 2024 needs tohappen.
Well I'll, I'm going to start doing some research in the next
couple of weeks around Christmasat the the big 5 star resorts
and see if I can find somewhere that's suitable to host our high
level conference. So never say never, but yeah
I've had a few comments saying when when can we come out and
visit or run a run an event out there.

(03:05):
So we'll we'll see, we'll see what happens.
I won't write it off yet, but I've got to do some inspections
first on that on the quality facilities before we can make a
call. Yeah, I mean, if not, we can
just all hang out at the beach. There's maybe a golf course
around or something. I'm I'm sure we'll find
something to entertain ourselves.
With Yeah, there's one golf course in in Kingston, which
apparently Usain Bolt lives on the 13th hole, so you can see

(03:26):
his place from there. I drove past the other day and
the road that runs alongside thegolf course is right in my
firing line. So I'm a bit worried about going
out and playing there and shedding, shooting some balls
onto the wrong or on across the fence line and then putting
myself, putting other people in danger, let alone myself.
So I'm going to be out there soon to give it a run and see

(03:47):
what it's like, but I might try and wave to Usain Bolt when I
can if he if he's around next time around.
So if you can spot him, man, it's too fast to be seen.
So Nick, we will talk a little bit about Madrid of this wrap up
episode. You know, for us it's a real
tempo moment here at Sports Pro and I think particularly looking
at stream time, sports, podcast,you know, it's sort of all that

(04:07):
stuff coming to life. And you to be honest like you
might have actually been able totune into more of the content
than I did from afar. I know we were doing some from a
production standpoint recording things and you might have been
able to actually tune into more sessions and I did just hosting
some different things that were invite only behind the scenes.
You know Nick it was the same thing I would say and I know you

(04:27):
talk about Madrid being a special event just cause of the
community and I think that sensecame up And interestingly you
know people like Carson Ruble over at DFL and Andres Hayden
formerly at Dime Media spoke to our friends at Ampere Analysis.
You know, Manal, who's been partof the podcast and lots of
editorial work and just people, we kind of see it all of our
events, Carlos CDM and you get the same feedback where you

(04:49):
know, you see a lot of familiar faces.
And I know sometimes that's sortof penciled down is not a great
thing. You're always trying to meet new
people. But the thing that came up
across multiple people is we're seeing the same people, but the
challenges are changing every single year.
So it's almost kind of nice to see those people to say how are
you guys responding to this because it's not something we
were looking at 12 months ago. It's something I'd really love
to do is actually map out where we were at each year of that

(05:12):
event in particular, because it's been such a whirlwind 6-7
years in this sort of OTT era. I mean, now the event obviously
evolved and expanded out of OTT explicitly to BOTT Plus Plus in
terms of all aspects of the sports media landscape.
But indeed just it seems like everyone is on a different
journey and we've all been learning a lot as we go along.
You know, there's been conversations around what role

(05:34):
will big tech play, and then it appeared like they weren't
coming. And then all of a sudden really
this year, Big tech was probablyone of the hottest topics that I
saw, talked about a lot in termsof whether they're going to
invest into sports rights, how they're going to aggregate
different plat, different broadcasters and networks
together, how they're enabling monetization, what platforms
like Apple are doing around global rights.

(05:57):
They're back in, they're back atthe heart of the conversation
again after a bit of a hibernation period I suppose.
So, yeah, just I think generallyjust the the whole journey, the
entire industry's been going on as well as the sports properties
themselves on tackling this new era of of streaming, this new
era of social media and content creation and going direct to
consumer. It feels like we have hit

(06:19):
another point, another milestonewhere the education and the
thinking's different. It's now much more about not
trying to as much as about learning as about how do we get
moving, how do we get action, how do we turn that into
revenue. Whereas before there was putting
more questions about what do we do, what do we do, we don't
really know how to approach this.
I think even last year the conversation was more actually

(06:41):
we can't do it ourselves, we have to rely on other partners.
Now I think that's tipped back alittle bit more centrally
between there's somebody workingwith partners and there's
somebody doing it ourselves. Well, the interesting my first
time here four years ago just you know, talking about where
the whole talk was, is Facebook going to be the next, you know,
big broadcaster? Is Twitter going to be the next
big broadcaster? Like that was sort of the

(07:01):
conversation. Was it, was it Rob Shaw was the
first episode of Stream time that ever happened way back
before I was even a part of it. And like that's sort of just how
far we come. Like in my time, you know, that
was a conversation, you know going on there, you know, social
media going to be the home of these things.
And I remember, I think the veryfirst content session we had
there was Craig Hepburn from UEFA.
Oh, I can't remember her name from Dazone.

(07:22):
She was the Chief Revenue Officer at the time.
I think she's now working in Dazone, Italy.
If you we can remember her name.I'll try to remember by the time
that we come back up. But there was Sergio from Movie
Star plus was the president there and they were talking
about are we going to reach subscription fatigue And that
was four years ago. And I think in fact we are
probably reaching subscription fatigue because now we spend so

(07:43):
much time talking about AVOD andsocial media platforms or using
third party content on social media platforms.
It does seem like an odd odd to look back at four years ago, how
far we've come since my first Sports Pro Madrid event.
Yeah. Look, I think the big thing I'm
seeing now is that there's always a conversation around
business monetization models andapproaches to how to monetize

(08:07):
content. And that just feels like then
there's now actually defined usecases that have been successful
that people can now talk about and that exist that people can
can trial and test and they aren't as difficult as perhaps
we all thought they they would be.
Definitely there's an element ofsubscription fatigue.
I mean the consistency consistent word you're hearing
is that you know the subscription model is great for

(08:28):
some, but unless it's a bundled proposition you have to be
thinking and advertising and other ways of monetising.
You can't focus on a subscription first product if
it's if, it's if it's an unbottled proposition.
That's generally the theme that we're hearing right across the
landscape. And where the bundling part
comes in is what's also really interesting is that with a
sports property doing a lot of the work themselves, is it

(08:50):
working with a sports specific network or is it at the top end
with those big tech companies and big aggregator offerings
bringing all those those worlds together.
So I do think it's it's, it's really interesting.
It's so much more complex than what it used to be, which means
everyone has to be constantly listening, learning and
understanding what's going on and what's working and what's

(09:11):
not. But there is no special special
source secret formula. Everyone has to be very
pragmatic in understanding all of those opportunities and then
coming up with the best approachand not just thinking there is,
well, we like what they do, let's just follow them.
It just doesn't doesn't work like that.
Yeah, Veronica de Quatro was thedesign executive that I couldn't
remember. And she's not design anymore,
but she was the third person on that panel, so I had.

(09:33):
She was CSO, I think at the time.
That's why I think you threw CSOand then CEO of Italy I think
and she left only a month or a couple months ago I think.
Yeah, not too long ago. And the other thing I would say
Nick, there's a lot different this year compared to other
years was the amount of teams and clubs.
I think historically with that event just given to being so
broadcast heavy, you know it wasprimarily broadcasters and

(09:54):
leagues who are looking to go D to C But we saw far more actual
football clubs there because we are talking about the media side
of things and digital monetization, which will I'll
talk a little bit more about my experiences during one of our
exact forms. But the amount of individual
teams and clubs that are coming in now, trying to figure this
out, trying to figure out how weengage fans digitally, is much
different than what the event was like my first four years

(10:14):
there were a couple teams that were doing some things in
smaller leagues, but the amount of Premier League teams, the
amount of from La Liga teams over from America was a much
different set of rights holders over there than what I saw from
my first time coming out. Well, I think what's really
interesting about that space is I think sometimes it's negated
or neglected what is happening at the team level with their

(10:37):
investment into content and content creation.
But there is huge teams and resources being plugged into
these teams and clubs and and leagues to create content every
single day across a whole host of platforms, social media,
YouTube, etcetera, as well as ontheir own owner operated when
they decide they want to take that approach.

(10:57):
And then you add the layer of what sponsors are now demanding,
which is way more content and way more storytelling than ever
before. And then also these other areas
around monetization around what else can we offer to provide
more value and get people spending and drive up ARPU's
across the across their fanbase.It's really it's never been.
I think. I just think it's much more
complex than ever in terms of even what a team is looking at

(11:19):
to do at this space and why they're doing it.
Because I think more, more and more people are getting a little
bit abreast of the vanity metrics are great.
You know it's great to go and tell sponsors and so forth.
We've got X millions of views onanyone post, but to get real fan
engagement, to get actually fansbeing positive about what your
club is doing on or off the pitch, you can't just look at

(11:41):
vanity metrics alone. A lot of people are trying to
work out how to play that. And if you do create a positive,
a true truly positive sentiment with the core of your audience,
then that can make it much easier to monetize in in down
the line. If you're trying to make a a
business case for it. But if you're just trying to ram
buy more shirts, buy more this, buy more tickets, etcetera to an
audience that 95% aren't really relevant or appropriate for,

(12:02):
then it's a lot of wasted effortand energy.
I think that's why teams are taking a lot more seriously now.
So interestingly one of the exact forms that we ran and this
is something we do to all of ourevents invite only you know
proper buy side. One of them was specifically on
fan engagement. You just touched on a point that
there's really interesting Nick.There's a few points that came
up from that exact form and justfor people out there you know
it's it is closed door. I'm not supposed to talk about

(12:24):
you know specifics of what went on but you know if you told me
list off the if I said make a list of the 21st sports
properties you could think of inthe world of football whether
that be leagues or individual football clubs.
I'd say probably 50% of that list of 20 was in that room sort
of thing and they're all very senior people.
One of the things that came up we do an activity where it's you
know remove any pre-existing youknow broadcast deals you have,

(12:48):
remove any existing legacy tech stacks you have and build a
platform how you'd want to buildit from scratch.
Which is a fun exercise because most of these guys are tied into
some other deal where they can'tjust do it or there's cash
restrictions. And the thing that came up with
one of this discussions or one of the groups of tables was
around loyalty, which I think iswhat you were kind of touching
on a little bit there about fansare over monetized already to

(13:10):
begin with. And you know when they were
talking about building their perfect platform for fan
engagement, the, the number one thing you said was, you know,
how do we build something that people are going to feel loyalty
towards because that, you know, they're tired of being monetized
in every other way. How can you make it about fan
loyalty, which was interesting because some of the other groups
were talking about, you know, how do we add in gamification
features? How do we do this?
How do we do that? The other group never actually

(13:32):
got very far and they just talked about building brand
loyalty, which I thought was, you know, there's always room
for people to have that high level conversation where some
people took it very grandly, butthen some people talked about
building that proper loyalty community, which was an
interesting shift from what someof the other groups are talking
about. Yeah, I I think it's probably
been not not neglected, but it'ssomething that people have been

(13:55):
not as focused on for a while now because that it's very
difficult to measure loyalty or has been in the past where we
now have more data points than ever.
And it is something that we can continue to work on across the
across the industry to get more and more insight into what
people are. We're talking about data all the
time, right. So there must be some answers in
there to prove what brand loyalty is all about and how it

(14:17):
drives, drives value. There are lots of teams taking
different purposes, but I think it's pretty consistent now that
they are aware. But whether it's through the the
battle scars are going through the NFT era I suppose, where a
lot of them found out there wasn't going to be this appetite
that they were hoping for that you have to take brand loyalty
very seriously if you want to really get your fans engaged.

(14:38):
And I I even hate using the wordengage.
But fans, loyal, fans positive. You know, fans feeling like if
you publish something, they wantto write something supportive
and not write something negative.
Now it's hard in the social media era, but I do think
there's there's a layer of that if they really think you're
trying to do best for them that can turn into real value.
I think that the whole that yourpoint about the over
monetization bit, I mean there'sthere's an argument that goes

(15:00):
against that, right? Because like 99% of all fans if
you think from a social media era aren't actually spending
money with the club directly. But the problem is they're
spending in other ways. Normally it's through
subscriptions of broadcast product, but generally they they
they aren't getting that direct sort of currency exchange
happening with with the fan. But because there is, there's a

(15:21):
stigma there because all the money that's talked about in the
industry, everything they do does feel like it's taking more,
more, more when they're already just printing checks basically.
So it's it's an important time for those those sports teams to
to continue to push on how can they build more of a
relationship with fans. I haven't seen anyone who's
blown me away on their approach,but I think there was a few
interesting stories and and studies brought up the event

(15:43):
which I'm hoping to dig into on the On Demand tab on the the
Event app next week because I think I need to spend a bit of
time to consume those sessions. Well, yeah.
And I just stick on this particular exact form because it
is interesting you talk about those 99% of fans.
They also talked about those 99%of fans, but in a different
direction, which is, you know, if you are Barcelona, Real

(16:07):
Madrid, Arsenal, Man United, 99%of your fan base is never
actually going to visit your stadium.
You know, because they're, they're such global fan groups.
And that's one of the things they talked about was one of
their current biggest headaches is localization.
And then how do you monetize based off of that localization
Because they understand the global draw that they have, but
at the moment they really do struggle, you know, monetizing

(16:29):
the overwhelming majority of their audience.
Yes, they'll sell some jerseys, but you know the fans that
they're really probably driving the most money off of, the ones
that are coming to the stadiums,you know, week in, week out, you
know the majority of their fan bases, as you say, like they're
not making any money off of them.
And that's something that they're they're all trying to
figure out from a localization perspective, which opened up
some conversations around AI. You know, how do you use A to to

(16:51):
transcribe or to use different language features to make it
more relevant? And you know, that was what they
were all talking about as a major headache for a lot of
these sports, trying to go international to figure out how
to to tie into some of those fangroups that they do have.
Well, it comes down to also the conversations.
We we hear a lot about whether they should go, whether a Sports
Club or team should go to go down the direct to consumer

(17:14):
route or not, whether it's it's financially worth it, whether
it's whether from a fan engagement perspective.
And a great question I hear a lot is and I often wonder as
well like do you really need when you're talking to a
consumer one, do you really needfirst party data?
And I think there are some casesfor why, but do you what about
all the data points you do get through all those social media

(17:35):
platforms that tell you the demographics, where they're
located, what they're interestedin.
You can get a lot of the information through YouTube and
some of those social media platforms.
So what is so valuable about that first party data that you
can turn into something of real substance because you can get a
lot of information around consumer habits, habits just
anonymized through some of thosethose platforms themselves.
So I think there's there's stillplenty of work to be done.

(17:57):
I think they're all trying to work it, work it out.
I think they're probably more buoyant, I think more positive
than it used to be about there'sa there's a light at the end of
the tunnel for some of this, butit's all marginal gains.
It's not like there's no silver bullet here for for any of them,
that's for sure. So moving on to the content
itself, you know we started off the the event with two sessions
that kind of aligned to content that you and I have been

(18:18):
speaking a bit about. So it's good to hear from them
directly instead of just you andI trying to read the tea leaves.
You know, we had the La Liga andLeague One join us.
Javier Tabas, you know, ex president, but likely soon to be
re elected president, I imagine is the way that's going to go.
And then the CEO of League One, Ben Morrell kind of talking

(18:40):
about, you know, sort of how they're seeing things.
You know, we've talked about some of the struggles we've
we've seen for some of the European football leagues trying
to negotiate their domestic rights.
Was there anything that came outof those conversations that you
think were surprising or insightful?
Well, I thought in the Ben Marioconversation, what was quite
clear is that he spoke very humbly about their position.
Sometimes you get these these big, big leagues that have a

(19:03):
really strong market position incertain places.
It was very honest and open about where they sit within the
European mix. You know they're they're in the
top five, but they're at the bottom of that five,
particularly from a commercialization standpoint.
They had those USPS they're trying to lean into about sort
of homegrown talent and and whatnot, but they have a lot of
opportunity in driving more value out of their media rights

(19:25):
both domestically and indeed internationally.
And you think, you know one of the things that that sounds
straightforward, right? But one of the things that made
the Premier League so successfulwas it being an English, English
based league initially, which definitely helped get it into
new markets pretty comfortably. Well, French is is is spoken in
so many different countries where there's next to no value

(19:46):
being generated from those markets for a leader has a lot
of internationals coming from French speaking nations.
So there's a lot of opportunity he talked about there.
But they haven't unlocked and they've had to do a lot of work
to sort of reshape how they're looking to approach things.
They've even remodeled how Champions League funding is
being distributed to some of thethe the top, the top teams

(20:08):
basically. So the rich teams get a bit
richer is the is the crux of it,which is not how he said it, but
I'm paraphrasing. But the view is that they want
to hopefully be more competitiveat a European level.
So there's more interest ultimately in the European from
a European international level in the league itself.
But you know he even talked about the fact they've they've

(20:28):
been really passive on their direct to consumer approach and
what they've been doing themselves.
And now they're perhaps seeing some of the the the scars from
that now that that they're now having to build build from
basically scratch on all their approaching on 1st party data
and direct to consumer etcetera etcetera which they haven't been
able to do. So that was just interesting to
see how how clearly he talked about about those those

(20:51):
challenges and indeed I suppose how they're looking to to that
where they are at with their current tender process.
And it doesn't sound like everything's concrete they're
just trying to work with all talk to all their broadcast
partners about who wants what and then try and do the best
deal they can given the situation in many ways very
similar to what Siri are situation was which I think he
even referenced. So I mean it wasn't a rosy

(21:15):
picture wasn't like don't worry about what's happened, you know
we're all good. It was very pragmatic very, very
frank from Ben that they have got a lot of work to do.
He did also point out that I think they're on the he's been
for coming from rugby and rugby was going through a lot of
governance challenges and changes when he was in rugby.
It says a lot of that's been sought out, sorted out since
when, since he's joined LFP, because of the, I think probably

(21:36):
because of the CVC relationship where they've invested into the
media business. So he's much more.
It's sort of a bit of an acceleration from what he went
through last time and now he's about going forth, coming out
with a strategy and then executing.
Yeah. And I do think that is going to
be a bit complicated because he was even talking about different
things with streaming platforms like Amazon, but also looking at
going to a free to Air. And it does seem like the idea

(21:58):
of having sort of an exclusive broadcaster to make it nice,
tight and clean is not going to be the case.
And it is going to be a bit of asort of a very mixed bag
approach. But you know, I'd be curious,
you know, long term how that does impact fandom.
You know, we've talked about discoverability being such an
issue that, you know, is it going to be a problem?
I I don't know, but it def. They've got work to do.

(22:19):
They sure do. I mean, it's such a complex
situation. You think about what PSG has
done and what they've invested in.
PSGS ownership is connected withbeing in sport, who's the
biggest investor in international rights for for
LFP, yet they have one of the lowest returns on international
rights out of all the the leagues.
It's a very complex this situation and all those

(22:41):
investments that PSG made on huge global stars doesn't bear
any long term fruit. The audiences come and go right,
They're not, I'm not saying they're fickle, but they, they
follow the athletes. So now most of those top stars
have left. You think about Messi, you think
about Neymar and Bape is probably going to go in the next
season though and they might lose some of those audiences

(23:02):
with those people as well. So how do they curb that when
they have been so athlete centric in their major
investments, particularly from PSGS angle which is obviously
the the top club there. So an interesting situation,
certainly not an easy one for for Ben and his team to be
navigating, that's for sure. And he just anecdotally he did
say that he's talking almost every day with CVC and if CVC

(23:24):
are pushing him to think longer term not shorter term.
So I think it's just an interesting sound bite there
because we do talk a lot about CVC or we hear a lot about CVC
and those investments they've made across a bunch of sports.
Yeah, very interesting. Another conversation of the
keynote speaker was Shy Segev, the CEO.
It does own and it it did seem like he touched on some of the
points we've talked about or it seems to be a common you know

(23:45):
statement from them around profitability talking about
whether or not they were going to try to enter into into the UK
And you know they sort of talkedabout only if the price is
right. I think I even heard mention
that they, you know, you know, kind of circled maybe League One
in France is the right opportunity for the right price
where opportunity meets chance and meets the right financial

(24:06):
situation. So there are quite a few things
that, you know, Shai talked about.
Is there anything in particular that stood out for you?
Yeah, I mean he was very clear cut that he expects, fully
expects them to own the Premier League, set the Premier League
media rights in the future. Just whether or not it's this
time around, I mean his his answer was fairly standard
standard you know they won't paywhatever they whatever the price
tag is but they would be keen tohave some of those rights.

(24:29):
I I from what I'm hearing that the UK market isn't as buoyant
as what probably the Premier League was expecting.
So I think they have a very goodchance to secure some of those
rights just depends on what Sky and the incumbents are are
willing to to do. I mean he talked a little bit
about betting about the the complimentary role that's
playing. I mean that's not, that's not

(24:49):
nothing surprising there but he's obviously got a betting
background given his previous career previous role I think was
an entain if I remember correctly.
So, so introduced to see him talk about that and we also had
another session where I think wedid have them talk about the
women's sports investment as well.
And I'm not sure that was. I can't remember if that was

(25:10):
raised in that in that session with Shy.
But they've clearly made a lot of moves strategically around
women's sports and women's football in particular and that
needs to start paying off as well.
So they've obviously made a big decision to shift the
monetization model from subscription to advertising for
or free to free to access for the way for women's Champions

(25:32):
League. So that's going to be something
that we're all going to be watching, that's for sure.
Well, I think he also said something around the the the
goal, the aim, the North Star that they're they're following
is within 10 years to have a globe or globally a billion
users. That's quite a quite a lofty
number and goal. But hey, you know what was it
that we got from our friend TimoLumay in his Hall of Fame

(25:54):
interview, the the bag meeting they had at Nike, big audacious
goal. You know, I I think there's
nothing wrong with saying a big audacious goal like that.
It's always just the devils in the detail.
What's a billion actually is a billion views.
Billion billion monthly uses, billion annual uses, billion all
time. They all mean very different
things, but a nice have a big big fat number to work towards
as long as you don't put a deadline and timeline to it.

(26:17):
Yeah, Well, someone I spoke to in association with his own
behind the scenes and we will repurpose this, you'll get a
chance to hear my full brief interview.
I spoke to Matthew Primack, who's the SVP of International
Business Development at Fanatics.
So obviously, e-commerce, when we're talking about the D2C
world and how that is all moving, that sort of is a
massive opportunity. And he talked about sort of
where Fanatics fits within this.And you know, he sort of

(26:39):
described it as like, hey, rights holders, teams, leagues
and even broadcasters, they are not commerce platforms.
This is not what they're built for.
It's not what the expertise theyhave.
They don't build the platforms for it.
They don't have the distribution, the logistics for
it and just where it fits in. You know he mentioned the
Alejandro Guerra Nacho goal. You may have seen that Nick the
bicycle kick of the Man U playerthe week before.

(27:00):
And he talked about how jersey sales increased by, I think he
said 600% within, you know, the half hour of him making that
goal. And he was talking about, you
know, for the sports platforms, that's the kind of thing that
you'd want to be able to tap into immediately and directly.
And he also gave an anecdote, which I won't try to repeat the
stats off the top of my head, but he talked about when LeBron
James last year hit the all timeNBA scoring record, the amount

(27:22):
of jerseys that they sold withinthat window.
And it's just really interestingconversation about how they are
looking to to globally expand and how they're looking to get
more into sports, particularly on the broadcast side and really
why they're they really are the key partners for anybody in that
space. And it was a really interesting
interview, some really great statistics.
I can't remember off the top of my head, but like, we're talking

(27:43):
very, very like big numbers in terms of the things they were
seeing. Just being able to be live in
person, not leave the platform with which you're consuming the
sports, but still be able to go out and purchase that jersey,
whatever amazing thing just happened.
It still feels that we're on this journey with e-commerce
right And and even betting whichof the two areas of Fanatics are
focused on is how that integrates into the the viewing

(28:04):
and and sports experience And they are the power here.
They are the powerhouse behind alot of major sports properties
and that consumer relationship, the active it's there, they are.
I don't know what they're, I think I remember the term
they're using, they are effective like the Amazon of
sports effectively, right. So they're trying to be
something to everyone in this instance and they're doing a

(28:25):
really good job of it. They still only feel like they
scratched the surface on that. I'm not quite sure what the
issue, what challenges they've had in going to some of the
other markets. They haven't broken Europe in
the same way that they have the USI think part of the US thing
was they were able to do deals at a very at a centralized level
because of the NFLNBA and so forth.
Those those organizations do them at at the top end, whereas

(28:46):
in in European typically have todo those types of deals at a
club by club basis which changesthe, the dynamic of of that
approach makes it much more difficult.
And that's what I think also, anecdotally, what a lot of
startups and tech companies don't realize when they come
from the US They don't realize you've got to do a deal with
every single team and club in almost every instance when
you're selling a service or a tech offering.

(29:07):
But fanatics, I think, are stillsomeone to follow.
They've made all sorts of bets. They've got all sorts of money
backed in, thrown into them fromall sorts of investors all over
the planet. I still feel like they've got a
lot more to bring to the table in the coming years.
They're kind of like feels like they're setting themselves up
for a big run at sports, international, international
sports outside of the US So I'm excited to see where they take

(29:27):
it, that's for sure. Well, from the monetization
side, you know, so we had a an executive form on Fan Engage.
We also had one on monetization.And you know we talked about the
things you'd all expect whether that is you know, owned and
operated platforms, whether you're monetizing content on 3rd
party platforms, looking into membership programs.

(29:48):
You know and one of the rights holders, very prominent
individual at a very big football club literally stopped
the the whole room and just asked the question, does anyone
here actually feel comfortable that they've succeeded in
monetizing any sort of digital asset and the room is very
quiet. There are all people in that
room that have launched OTT platforms.

(30:08):
Some of them have membership programs.
Yes, they're making some money on it.
But in terms of, you know, really feeling confident about
it, Not really. And it's interesting because I
think sometimes you, you hear atthe top of every episode, my
name is Chris. I'm the community at sports, Pro
media. Sometimes slightly ambiguous
what that means. But one of the things I do,
Nick, is I have lots of conversations with people trying
to figure out what's in the community.
And the number one thing I'm hearing from football clubs in

(30:30):
particular, especially those whohave been recently purchased by
Americans, is find a way to monetize digital assets, which,
you know, sounds great, but, youknow, no one's really quite
doing it. I think the only answer anybody
gave wasn't actually anyone in the room they talked about.
They were really big fans of what Disney was doing in terms
of the way Disney's sort of building its membership program.

(30:52):
It's got the streaming platform,it's got what you can do on
site. I thought was a bit interesting,
but no one else really wanted tooffer anything about being
overly confident in what they'veproduced so far in terms of
having a sustainable digital monetization model.
Well, one of the things I think we have talked about for is that
difficulty about the if you build it, will they come.

(31:13):
And the reality is because that relationship like we talked
about earlier isn't so positive and so strong.
Disney had that right. Disney's IP brand loyalty, brand
equity, so powerful that they launch a product and proposition
built around some amazing IP that everyone loves.
People are going to come flocking to it.
Your kid sees that that that brand of, you know, Frozen or

(31:34):
something on there. I want to watch that when you
watch it or there's only one place you're going to go there
and it's not too difficult to point people to that product.
But sports, you know, is trying to change the entire way
consumers engage with this sportas a whole.
They're trying to drive revenue from people that haven't
historically ever had to pay transactionally direct to any of

(31:54):
these in these clubs and teams. And then you just think, well if
we build this, we're going to get so much support it's
obviously fallen on deaf ears and pretty much every instance.
Hence why we know a bunch of clubs that have actually decided
not to launch their own direct to consumer like product because
they've seen a lot of the war wounds from a lot of people who
have tried and and failed or or tried and not just not hit the

(32:16):
results that they were hoping tohit.
You know, you can get the best consultants of the world to tell
you what it could look like and it could look like a Hock stick
growth once you launch it. But the reality is you've got to
be an incredible marketer. You've got to have incredible
people in your business to constantly once a platform's
built to make sure everyone's across it and understands the
benefits and can change public perception if their perception

(32:38):
is that you're just trying to get more money out of them, have
to add real value. And most of those product
digital products we've seen justhaven't had enough value in, in,
in, in, in, in frank terms. So one session that's, you know,
non traditional and, you know, monetizing in their own
different way, I'll ask you about, is the Kings League and
the Queens League. You know, perhaps maybe just

(32:59):
give people a bit of a rundown, 'cause I think you actually,
like I said, it's not a session I got to enjoy.
And I wish I could have 'cause our good friend Jeff Nathanson
was moderating the session, but maybe just give some an idea to
some people that maybe aren't even familiar what that is and
just sort of what you took away from their CEO and some of the
comments he made. Right, So I haven't prepared
this, so I might get the the description a bit wrong, but the

(33:20):
Kings League is like a 7A side football competition that was
founded by a company called Cosmos, which is Jared Piquet,
Gerard Piquet's sporting organization.
For those who don't know, Cosmosalso holds the rights to the
Davis Cup, which is the tennis competition, and they have a
bunch of other investments and things that they do as well.

(33:41):
The Kings League blew up becauseit's mainly, if I understand
correctly, mainly the clubs and teams are built on franchises or
teams that are owned or powered by football personalities and
Internet streamers. So it's not a traditional
football model in that sense. It's built on the new age of
influencers and it's just done incredibly well in getting huge

(34:02):
huge audiences across all platforms and channels that they
publish now they broadcast free to air on YouTube, they
broadcast through those respective influencers own
channels and that allows them tojust get huge audiences.
I think they're the thing that they wear as a a sort of a
feather in the cap was they ran a they had a game or competition
at camp camp Noo, the FC Barcelona's home and filled the

(34:26):
stadium completely for for that match.
So they are, but they they they say if I remember correctly, I
should check my notes. But one of the things they talk
about is that, you know, the monetisation model isn't around
media rights. There are sponsorship deals that
are pretty central to the core revenue streams.
They also get I believe some money through maybe some

(34:47):
merchandising e-commerce, but most of it's done through free
to wear. So they broadcast through
YouTube as a primary channel. YouTube was also on that panel
to talk about how successful it's been and the numbers were
pretty insane. And what's interesting also is
they're generating more revenue through YouTube from their live
stream product through traditional content.

(35:08):
So they've they've themselves proven that you can build and
they've been profitable pretty much from day one.
So they've proven and this is where the investments to be
clear around influencers, investments in doing deals with
influencers and they have paid players playing in those teams.
So it's not like it's a, it's just it's not just a charity
match, it's treated very seriously but with these

(35:30):
influences sort of owning our big responsibility in that mix
And what they've just proven is that you can build a really
successful model around advertising through platforms
like YouTube. They use all sorts of various
advertising through the live broadcasting experience that
YouTube's allowing enabling and they rely heavily on sponsored

(35:51):
sponsorship deals digitally to to drive monetization.
But there is no focus at all on broadcast rights and there's no
plan to because why would they kill an audience that is super
engaged and supporting them endlessly And that's their basic
message. And it's a super young audience,
right? Obviously it's a super young
audience. So everyone, I mean that is
really the model that I think everyone is reluctant to go

(36:12):
down, but it's absolutely the model that is makes the most
sense, get as many eyeballs as possible and monetize it other
ways. But because sports stuck with
that subscription first or that pay TV funded model, it's so
difficult to rip the Band-Aid off of that and then move to
this, this new world of using streaming platforms like
YouTube. But they've proven that it can
work and it can work very quickly if you have the right
people involved. So Nick, before I move on to the

(36:36):
OTT awards and kind of talk about some of the winners there,
are there any other sessions youwant to talk about?
Are you happy to to get to move on to the awards themselves?
I'm going to try and remember ifthere was anything else off the
top of my head. I don't think there was off the
top of my head. So let's jump into the awards.
So the awards the the two biggest ones I guess you could
say from a organization perspective or the the platforms

(36:59):
of the year. So from a network perspective,
basically we split our platform of the year into two categories,
one being rights holders really going to AD 2C and then we do
one with networks more along sort of those people that have
multiple broadcast rights. And the winner for D2C was yes,
network and what the work they're doing with Ease Live.
And then the winner on the network side was Discovery Plus

(37:22):
with Warner Brothers and their big massive merger, they just
beat out ESPN and the Zone, you know, so it's very close
competition there. And then on the D2C side, if I
can remember that the runners upor Media Pro for those that
aren't familiar, they ran a veryimpressive campaign on what they
did with the World Cup in Spain domestically.
And then interestingly it was a a super sport in South Africa

(37:45):
via pixelot came in bronze with a very interesting case study on
building AD to C platform. But ultimately you know we're
kind of looking at Yes Network and Discovery plus you know for
me, I'll just be honest, anyone that's not familiar with Yes
Network and I think a lot of thereason they stood out and won
and you know Ease Live won multiple awards.
So they're worth giving a shout out to was really the user
experience. And you know for me, being a big

(38:06):
fantasy sports guy, the platformoffers a lot of personalization
in terms of being able to pick the stats that you want in live
real time as opposed to always being dependent on the
broadcaster to you know randomlypop up the stats that you want.
And you know they scored very highly.
You know Ease live won multiple goals, multiple awards.
So it's not a surprise that their product with yes Network
ended up winning. But the discovery plus one was

(38:28):
interesting. Maybe ESPN will win if they can
figure out how to to do international.
Nick, you know, last night I wastrying to figure out the college
football All Playoff ranking, who was going to get in?
And it was blacked out. And I'm like, well, how can I
watch, you know, just a little upset, Nick.
But yeah, those are our two winners of the two biggest
awards. Yeah, it's, I mean the Discovery

(38:48):
one was an interesting one for me because they've been going
through such a transition and and and launch And so I'll be
honest, someone they use their platform and I I've struggled to
use it. But what they have been had to
go through is quite a significant change where they're
bringing in all their sports content into a new platform.
They're migrating audiences and and systems from one system to
another. So it's clear that they that was

(39:09):
really something that they resonated with some of the
judges on on that approach because there was some very good
competition in that mix. Incidentally, while we have been
on the pod, I just saw that TNT Sports have announced that they
have UK Premier League rides 52 matches per season for the next
four years. So they have announced their
their Premier League rights thatthey've secured so that gives

(39:30):
them solidifies their place in the UK market for the next four
years which is not a huge surprise but I've not seen the
Premier League announcement incidentally come through on who
all the other packages. So it's interesting to see
that's come out before anything's come out from the
Premier League. So anyway I sorry diverted a
little bit but because it was you got me thinking about the

(39:50):
fact that they they took the Discovery Plus title.
Well actually they've also just we've got some sort secure some
solid rights in the UK that willsolidify their long term future.
So kudos to them to keep keep things running, but we still
have the juries out on the rest of them at this stage.
Well, you know, maybe by Wednesday when this podcast
comes out, we'll have clarity from the Premier League on their

(40:12):
side of the announcement as well.
It was interesting from, you know, like I said, Ezlive won
multiple awards. We had some some new categories,
you know, reflective of sort of the the sports world with best
fast channel, best use of AI andthe best, best broadcast
distribution. So those are new categories that
were were introduced and you know, popular.
But one I think I missed out on there was our Executive of the

(40:34):
Year, which was Brian Roll at the Chief Business and Media
Officer at the NFL. There's some interesting
competition there as well, but ultimately one just simply
because of the sheer size of allthe deals that the NFL has done.
It probably does a little bit unfair when someone negotiates
$100 billion worth of deals. But you know, some of the things
specifically that were in the application that the judges
voted on, that that stood out were not just the focus on what

(40:57):
they're doing free to air and linear broadcast.
Everybody's aware of that. But the NFL, you know, has made
some steps working with YouTube TV to launch the new Sunday NFL.
Take it through there. Their commitment to Amazon Prime
with what they're doing on Thursday night as well as
launching their NFL Plus platform, You know, I don't
think we need to spend too much time talking about why the NFL,
you know, makes a lot of money. But you know, they there was an

(41:19):
emphasis, you know, sort of in the applications before that.
It wasn't just what they were doing strictly on linear, you
know, there has been a big push to do different things
digitally. Yeah, I think they are really
leading the the charge. I think what Blake Stuken we've
had on the podcast before and hespoke at New York as well and
that team under Brian's leadership have done in terms of
really looking at the full end spectrum of of media activity

(41:42):
and what they can do to drive value in audiences.
You know the Skydance deal has been recently expanded as well
to produce more documentary and non live content.
The partnerships they have with all the major social and big
tech platforms are as as good asthey come with those
relationships and with good reason.
So I think the YouTube relationship they have where
they've brought creators and allowing them to broadcast

(42:03):
matches on for the Sunday Ticketis a great move and a great
initiative. So they've they're really
pushing the NBA sort of innovation title, right in terms
of what they're doing on the media front and a lot, a lot of
kudos from from me to them aboutwhat they're what they're trying
to do have been doing. Now it looks like it's been
quite successful. So it's almost great.
You know, it's a great way to dobusiness ultimately get your,

(42:24):
get your contracts done for the next 10 years and then you can
just focus on all the other stuff around the edges to
amplify that maximise and they're clearly doing that very,
very well. Yeah.
And then sort of the other two big awards were the next two
members of the Sports Pro Hall of Fame.
We have Laurent and Eric Lele who who spoke on day three kind
of talking about what France television is doing particularly
with upcoming Olympics coming in2024.

(42:45):
But he was recognized for you know his his 30 plus years in
the industry, you know launchingdifferent activations with
Eurosport being part of France TV for a long time.
And then on the other side as well, we had Manalo Romero, who
is the the founding CEO of the Olympic Broadcasting Services
and his daughter Ursula Romero was there, as well as current
CEO Yanni Xarchos. Both of them gave incredibly

(43:08):
moving speeches, multiple peopleand tears.
And then as you would not be surprised, you know, OBS put an
incredible video together just outlining, you know, his career
and the things that he's done, you know, you think arguably for
probably one of the most prominent and impactful sports
that are out there. I know we always talk about the
NFL and the NBA and things like that, but few things I think,
like the Olympics truly bring people together on a global

(43:29):
scale. So both of them very well
deserving of those awards. But it's really great to have
some of the, you know, Laurent with us to be able to speak
about some of the highlights of his career, but also being able
to have Yanni and Ursula come through and, you know, have a
really great way, way to look back on the life and career of
Manalo. I mean they've they've given an
incredible amount to the industry and sometimes with a

(43:51):
fast changing, moving, fast changing industry like we have
in sports and sports media, sometimes people can be I always
say forgotten but like they justcan be lost in the mix of change
and and and new businesses, new people coming to the mix.
But Manolo's impact on how broadcast production and the
Olympics is being broadcast is is really second to none.

(44:11):
And I think what the role of Laurence plays been super
impressive on bringing being oneof the the real staple leaders
in in sort of sports broadcasting in his role in
Eurosport beforehand and very exciting time for them building
up to Paris on what what they can do.
But really feels like as someonewho's got these fingers on the
pulse of of what the challenges and opportunities in in this

(44:32):
marketplace so great that we could celebrate them and what
they what they brought to the industry because they they have
brought a lot of blood, sweat and tear so to speak to to it
and really helped us move, move things forward.
So Nick, I'll I'll kind of let you pick and choose if if you
there's anything in particular that you want to close on.
You know for me the last thing Iwould sort of highlight just to

(44:53):
give you a bit of time to trap your your thoughts around, you
know, I would say the first chairs at sports for media.
There's a lot of talk about social media and subscription
platforms. My second year was the the year
just following or in the midst of COVID.
So there's a lot of conversationaround how do we broadcast under
these situations from a logistics perspective, How do we
engage with fans that now don't have the experience, you know,

(45:16):
all the watch parties, all the pumping and fake crowd noise.
Then the year after that, very heavy Web Three, there wasn't a
presentation that didn't includesomething about NFTS.
This year, seemingly the magic word was all around AI and like
I said there, there are different versions of that.
One of that was generative AI, whether that that was using AI
as a tool, like I said, using translations or different

(45:37):
languages for localization. This year AI was a big topic and
it seemed to come up in lots of different conversations about,
you know how that's going to help us as a business, how it's
going to help us create content.But I would say unlike Web
Three, it does seem like becauseit's more of AB to B application
as opposed to AB to C application that that can't,
that will be a conversation thatwe'll probably had in 24/20/24

(46:00):
Madrid unlike you know Web 3 which seemingly took a step back
this year. Well, I do.
I do think Web 3 is going to rear its head a little bit now.
I think it's a little bit time to calm down and I think it's, I
think it's going to come come back.
I think it's just going to be more of an enabler of tech
rather than B. It has to be Web 3 for it to be
good and shiny. It just has to solve problems

(46:21):
where it has to just do the job.Whether it's Web three, Web two,
it doesn't really matter, but I think you're going to see more
and more of it in 12 months time.
Whether it impacts the digital media space, I'm not too sure
yet. The only thing I can think we
did, Web three related stuff canstill play a role is around
identity and perhaps around digital collectibles again.
But I'd like to see more of whatit can bring to the table other

(46:42):
than those areas which still arethings that can be offered now
with or without Web 3. Have you got something for me,
Chris? I do because first I am bullish
on web three. Like, I still think to your
point, it's going to come back. But the thing I am looking
forward to, I think we're going to talk about it in Madrid 2024,
although it probably won't be until like Madrid 2028 that it

(47:02):
becomes like a real topic. So yeah, we're going real bold
and out there in the future withour predictions.
I'm curious to see what happens with the Apple Vision Pro.
I know Facebook has had their Oculus goggles, but it just
feels different that Apple is going to be releasing this.
And like I said, I think we're going to be talking about those
immersive experiences, which I think will maybe it's not

(47:23):
directly Web 3, but you're starting to get into more that
Metaverse type of feel, which kind of sometimes pulls itself
into the Web three discussion. I think with Apple doing that,
people will be talking about it next year.
They want to figure it out or how it actually applies to
sports. But I do think to your point,
like I think we probably will hear a little bit more Web 3
next year and I think what Apple's doing with the release
of that in early 2024 could potentially be one of the

(47:47):
catalyst for that. Well, I think, yeah, I I was, I
wouldn't disagree with much of that, although I'm still yet to
see an example and we've been waiting for 20 years of what VR
can bring to the table that is going to be really mainstream
and I'll still wait to see if that that can play out.
I think next year we're going tobe looking towards how platforms

(48:08):
like YouTube and alike have enabled a new audience base and
revenue stream. I think that's the the pressure
of trying to do broadcast deals and build subscription products
I think has been now demystified.
And I think you're going to see more and more teams, leagues,
sports properties, put more timeinto big platforms like that get

(48:31):
mass reach and then sell other opportunities and monetize other
ways. I think it's now going to be
more, more use cases of it. And so we'll be talking about
more and more of those. You won't just have a Kingsley,
you might have half a dozen moreexamples of that.
I'm not going to say there's going to be a complete shift in
12 months time, but you're goingto see more and more examples of
people that have made that work for themselves.
And you know e-commerce and those things I think will just

(48:52):
be more mature. You'll see more activity and
hopefully you'll see a lot more opportunity than we have in the
in the before where we're still trying to work out our way
through things. So have I given enough time to
to come with anything Nick, or is that, is that, is that how
you want to wrap things up talking about our predictions
for 2024? Well, actually I well, I was on
this and you were giving your little description.

(49:13):
I did find the extra stuff on the Premier League because I
think everyone would be interested in that because it's
used a bit of a litmus test. So it looks like that there was
5 packages up for grabs and Sky took four of them and Premier
League and TNT took the final one.
So there's no design in there. There's no Apple, there's no
Amazon, there is no one else by the looks of it.

(49:34):
So that is quite a a big deal tosee that it's been reduced to.
So Sky Sports have been water packages, BCD and a, and I
believe TNT secured a. That would mean that Amazon's
out of the picture, and we only had them talking last week about
those rights there as well, and The Zone also talking about how

(49:55):
they wanted a piece of the pie. Now the rides seem to have gone
up net across the board, about 4% cycle to cycle.
Not a huge amount, but it's goneup marginal.
But there's a lot more games available.
So interesting, interesting to see.
I wasn't sure if Sky would take more rides because I thought,
well, they got those EFL rides tied up in the UK, why would

(50:18):
they need to invest as much? But clearly they've seen an
opportunity to take even grossermarket share.
And now there is this, You have to have a Sky Sports
subscription. If you were want to watch
football, that's basically that's basically it in the UK.
If you don't don't love football, then you don't need
Sky, but otherwise you are locked and loaded.
You're going to have to subscribe to Sky for the next

(50:39):
four years. So yeah, big win for Sky in on
paper if they can make those those commercials work.
But surprising to see Amazon step away, and indeed the Zone.
Not not get a piece of that. Yeah, well, sounds like that's
some great juicy content for some future podcasts.
Absolutely. We'll have to dig dig through
that one a little bit more and see why the others didn't come

(50:59):
to the come to the table. Obviously, again, monetization
issue continues to be a challenge or justification I
suppose. Amazon not getting them as a
huge surprise for me. Out of everything, I wasn't sure
the zone would pull the trigger base, especially since Shai's
comments last week. But for them to be stepping
away, I think that's actually a blow that the Premier League
couldn't get enough value out ofthem just to keep a third,

(51:22):
third, third player in the mix there.
So, but good, you know, good forsports fans, good for football
fans. That means there's less
fragmentation, right? So a big win for for UKEPO
watchers and obviously less content is behind a paywall.
So that's sorry, it's not not behind a paywall, less content
is blacked out because they've moved more games out of the 3:00

(51:43):
PM slot. So that's also a win for the
next cycle. Yeah, well, everyone, it was
good to meet some of you in Madrid.
I know some of you came up and chatted to me.
I can tell you our next event will be in March of 2024, this
time in New York. So for those of you that maybe
Madrid was a bit too far to come, New York's going to be a
little bit closer to you. Would absolutely love to see you

(52:05):
there. So until next time, Nick.
It's until next time. Thanks very much everyone for
listening and look forward to talking to you all in the in due
course from my sunny Jamaican home.
Before you go, myself and Nick would just like to thank you for
tuning into this episode of Stream Time.
If you found the episode insightful, please make sure you
like and subscribe on whichever platform you listen to.
As a growing podcast, we'd greatly appreciate your support

(52:27):
and sharing or writing a review.Ultimately, we want this podcast
to not only entertain you, but also hopefully help you navigate
the digital sports landscape. If you have any feedback on
previous episodes or any topics and speakers you'd like to hear
from in the future, please don'thesitate to reach out.
You can find myself and Nick Meacham on LinkedIn or on
Twitter. My Twitter handle is at Sports
Pro Chris. One Nick can be found at Sports

(52:49):
Pro Nick. Of course, if you want to stay
fully up to date on the sports business news cycle, please make
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anything. Once again, thank you and we
look forward to you joining us next week on the Stream Time
Podcast.