May 28, 2025 • 50 mins
What can a week in Sweden can teach us about the future of sports media? StreamTime Sports host Nick Meacham unpacks his recent trip in the Nordics, where he hosted a Two Circles event to uncover the key trends shaping the industry - from the rising value of fandom to the stark realities of media rights and piracy. We also hear from Dugald Macdonald, CEO of Sportable on how real-time performance data is enhancing the fan experience and broadening its media impact.
Key Points:
- Two Circles predicts four billion global sports fans by 2033 - driving a 50% increase in content consumption
- Nearly 50% of all sports fandom is formed before age 14 and why making youth focused content is more vital than ever
- The Nordic region leads in streaming adoption, but also highlights major piracy challenges
- 'Friction is the enemy,' paywalls, user experience, lack of time, and share of wallet are major blockers to lifelong fandom
- Sportable's performance data is key to unlocking serving super fans with knowledge
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:10):
Hello, everyone. Welcome back to the next episode
of Stream TIME Sports. My name is Chris Stone, the
community lead, joined as alwaysby our CEO, Nick Meacham.
Now, Nick, I know you've been doing a little bit of traveling,
but if you had a chance to watchany of the basketball, you know,
the other week we spoke about the WNBA with Caitlin Clark and
Angel Reese and boosting TV ratings.
I don't know if you saw the the flagrant foul.
They got everybody all upset. I don't know if you've been
(00:30):
watching the Western Conference play offs, Shay Gill, just
Alexander getting everybody's head, you know, baiting for foul
calls. And, you know, in the UK there's
just popular saying, you know, woke nonsense, you know,
thinking about modern day football and soccer.
And I don't know, Nick, do you have a take on some of this?
Because like, I thought there was a pretty weak flagrant foul
that they gave Caitlin Clark, some of the, you know, Shay
(00:51):
Gillis stuff of him flopping around the court.
You know, it's not the basketball I grew up with.
The good old days of real, the authentic, what sports supposed
to be like. Look, I think what's interesting
is to just show us the power of social media, right?
With one little thing can manifest in such a big story.
I have seen so many replays of that clip through my social
(01:14):
channels, and it overtook where the NBA's coverage was really
from in in through my channels anyway, which is insane for what
it was. And part of it really grinds my
gears. But for me from my business had
there's a real learning on theselittle storytelling moments that
can be turned into something such significant that it can
drive such huge, insane audienceengagement.
(01:36):
But yeah, that was a bit overkill.
I do. I mean, what I have been seeing
a lot of lately is I haven't hada chance to watch much because I
have been travelling quite a bit.
But also the time zone obviouslyis not what it was for me 12
months ago when I was on EasternTime Hours is I I have been
seeing a lot of great snapshots and highlights of the night
before and seeing the examples of what you know, Indiana did to
(01:59):
New York and the like. And I just have found it
interesting to see how many times keep getting served same
variations of the same things. And that's an interesting just
learning I'm taking from wearinglooking at what content I'm
consuming through a slightly different lens to go, Oh gosh, I
am. Can you just stop serving me the
same highlight set of highlights?
And maybe it's my fault. Maybe I because I'm watching
them too long and they keep justkeep serving it to me because I
(02:21):
keep showing that I want more ofit, but it's getting a bit bit
repetitious. I'd like to see a bit more of
what's going on just in the sameclips that go viral all the
time. But no, it's exciting when you
see the parity that still existsin the NFL and the NBA and how
successful those leagues are in terms of audience engagement.
(02:41):
Then you compare that to what happens in European football
leagues, and there is a little bit of that, but there's a lot
of in the leagues themselves thesame, the same top five, five
teams leading the way. Maybe a random one pops up year
on year. But that jeopardy is not the
same in Europe as it is in in the US, and I think that's
really exciting. Well, I do find it interesting.
(03:04):
I used to. I've worked at an agency for
about 18 months out of university for sports pro and
used to always get the brief from the client, be like, help
us create a viral moment. It's like just doesn't really
happen, right? Like going viral.
Like I think it's tough to just play in, you know, as you say,
like this was just a kind of a hard foul.
And next thing you know, it's got however many millions and
millions of views. But one of the things you should
(03:25):
talk about there, Nick, I think is interesting in sports is what
the power of a rivalry can do. You know, you think like Tiger
versus Phil back in the day, Michael versus the Bad Boy
Pistons, He had his things with Reggie Miller.
You know, I don't. I know we want to have a talk
about these inclusive, you know,sports environments and
(03:47):
positivity. There's something to be said
about having two sets of people that don't like each other.
Like, I don't think there's an issue with that.
Will you think about every majormovie, that and every TV show
that's basically filmed, There'salways a good guy and a bad guy
involved, and I think you need that.
I think what makes sports successful is the storytelling
bit, the narrative bit for you can have sports where there's a
(04:08):
dominance dominant player. If they're too dominant, then
the sport loses its charm. But if there's that rivalry
that's just just needs to be strong enough where a star can
shine, but there's enough competition there.
So there's a bit of jeopardy. It's like it's a there's a fine
balancing act you think about. I'm thinking like F1 versus
golf, your Tiger Woods versus say maybe Verstappen the last
(04:31):
couple of years or or Schumacherin the generation beforehand.
It can it can really go often off a Cliff edge if there is no
competition relatively speaking happening in that time.
I remember seeing odds for goingback into the betting
conversation briefly that that odds for Tiger to win a
tournament. He was odds on favorite to win,
(04:52):
which means he is basically it'shim.
He's more likely to win than outof every single person in the
entire field. He's more likely to win than any
out of the of the 70 that he's playing against.
That that sort of odds is incredible.
That's the dominance. But then you couple, there was
still enough rivalry, enough competition between people like
Phil to make it interesting, andthe personalities and characters
(05:14):
behind it really help that as well.
So sport has taken a little bit of that character out of it when
they've had to be really carefulabout how they speak in public.
And a lot of media training overthe years.
But sometimes I think social media has given a little bit
back on that front as well for some, particularly for some
athletes who now have platforms that they can speak their mind
and have their own way to market, which maybe hopefully is
(05:36):
a sign of things to come. Hopefully, like I said, I know
people will hate on a Roy Keane or someone like that, but you
know, we need more people. Just speak your mind a little
bit. I just have to say though, like
a Roy Keane, for someone like a Roy Keane to get a job in the
1st place is and, and to be successful of getting, I guess,
driving interest in the viralityof some of the comments he makes
(05:58):
and be able to keep that going. And for someone like Sky, who's
a big major broadcaster, to continue to back it and to, to
get so much value out of that great foresight by the people
who are coming up with the, the types of hosts you need this day
and age. And I still don't get it.
I still don't get how in the in the NBA, the inside the NBA are
Shaq and Charles Barkley and Kenny Kenny Smith and what is
(06:22):
what's their host's name. Brew.
Eric no. Ed, no.
Gosh, I'm having a massive bite.Like we can, oh, I can picture
him vividly as as, as yeah, gosh, that's that's
embarrassing. I should know that because we've
been on, we've even been on the set of Inside the NBA, but I
(06:42):
don't understand how it works. Like, I don't say on how that
combination is basically drivingpremium top ratings for a show.
We just had sort of a weird mix of characters that you can
barely understand what Shaq's saying after time in terms of
how he Mumbles along and CharlesBarkley doesn't really make a
lot of sense what he's saying. But this, this mix seems to
(07:03):
work. And for those people that like
work out the strategy of who they get to be, those pundits
and alike and make it all that come together so effectively,
full credit to them. I just don't get it.
So I don't get it, but it works.It's a bit like sports
sometimes. Well, I'll, I'll clarify it.
It's Ernie Johnson. We made that mistake.
You know, I was like, Eric, it'ssomething.
(07:23):
Not Eric. I knew it was something like
that. It's pretty embarrassing.
I'm just gonna blame the time zones, never get to watch it
live, and we're just going to quickly move on to the next bit.
Nick. But.
So Nick, just to set this up forthe people, over the next two
weeks, we're going to do 2 pods.As I mentioned at the top of the
show, you've done a bit of travelling this week, I mean,
all domestically within Sweden. But it's been a very informative
week for you. And there's just too much stuff
(07:45):
to go around to try to squeeze it into one pod.
So instead, we're going to try to spread it around, looking at
some separate buckets because you got a lot of interesting
insights. And some of these events were
maybe not as big as some of the big super events.
And we've talked about some of those events actually then open
up the door for some more learnings because they are a bit
smaller and more intimate and there are some big names in
there that are doing some innovative, interesting stuff.
So over the next two pods, we'regoing to break it down a little
(08:08):
bit and dive into some of your experiences and some of the
things that you got to learn over the course of that.
So I don't know if there's anything else you want to kind
of highlight that with before wejump into there.
Yeah. And also within this this week's
pod, we're also dropping an interview that I did at Sports
Her live, which we'll introduce a little bit later on, which is
a bit of insight into a really interesting data company that is
(08:29):
making a lot of ways with how they're producing a lot of the
data and, and getting broadcasters involved with that.
But before we jump into that, yeah, I think that's a pretty
good scene set. I, I, you know, obviously have
been to a lot of events in my time and I wear a bunch of
different hats. I'm wearing the hat of someone
who runs these types of things. I'm also wearing the hat of
someone who's really in the thick of producing content
(08:50):
around these topics and trying to learn and get a better grips
of what's really going on in themarket.
And I'm always someone who's a big advocate for events.
I'm not a big, I don't love networking randomly with random
people. I'm I put my hand up for that.
But which is, you know, sometimes people find it weird
to say, given we run events, butit's the reality of it.
But as long as you have a nice sprinkling of people that you do
(09:10):
know, like a few new connections, and then get some
learnings from it, whether it befor the stuff on stage or off of
it, it can be so immensely valuable to spend a day at an
event or more. And I found it hugely valuable
over those two days. I had a lot of great experiences
which we can dig into in a second.
That really gave me a lot to digest, a lot to think about.
(09:31):
It helped me get a better picture of where some of the
industry is going that I think is really worth our listeners
hearing a little bit more about and hopefully helping people get
a bit more of a sense of where we're going with a lot of
different aspects of the sports media landscape.
Well, one of those businesses that is very well connected and
I imagine if you're working in the sports industry, you've
heard of them, is 2 circles. And it sounds like they hosted
(09:54):
an event themselves, had some clients around and you were
asked to be the host of the event.
So you got a front row seat it to everything and got to guide
it a little bit. And you know, 2 circles, you
know, I for me at least, I knew them initially as a data company
sort of helping you with marketing and objectives along
those lines. But they've just continued to
expand as a business, touching all different places within the
sports media landscape. Still data informed.
(10:15):
Is that, is that still their, their expression by how they go
with things? But you know, Nick, maybe just
talking a little bit, sort of what you experienced leading
that session of two circles and kind of where they're headed as
a business because obviously they're continuing to grow and
expand all their influence over the industry.
Yeah, I mean, they've, I mean, everyone who works in the
industry for a lot of lot of years would be really aware and
(10:36):
familiar with two circles now. But they keep going from
strength to strength. They keep growing at a rapid
rate. They've acquired a bunch of
companies in the last few years.Really.
They're a really powerful. I mean, I don't even know how to
describe the knife. And I mean, this is the nicest
way because they do so much now.They are commercial partners for
some major organization. They act as consultants and
(10:57):
advisors in some situations. They do the the sales and
marketing in a lot of instances for major sports properties.
They just, they do basically everything you could think of.
And I'll give some examples as we jump into it.
But one thing they did at this event, which was really cool,
and this event was built both a mix of the global trends to
follow and also the local market.
(11:19):
Local market being the Nordics. So all the major Scandinavian
countries you could think of were in attendance.
A lot of great rights holders and broadcasters in the room for
that. So it was good to get that mix
of learning a little bit more about some of the stuff they
they publish themselves around fandom, around market trends and
a little bit more going deeper into also some of the challenges
(11:41):
that sports properties have in amarket like that, where there is
a bit of a ceiling that exists. If you're serving a sport, a
sport to a localised market, canyou grow internationally?
Is there, is there real room to scale your audience and, and
take it that way? Or is it just having to double
down on who you're already serving?
(12:02):
And then there's a lot of conversation around the balance
or I was pushing on it anyway, the balance between focusing on
getting more value out of your existing audience and growing
just new audiences generally. And they were paint a really
positive picture on where sportsinteresting consumptions going,
which I found really fascinatingto to get people very excited
about the fact that sports has alot of opportunity still
(12:24):
available to it. So behind the scenes, you know,
you've alluded to some of this data, you know, they're they
would be talking about differentthings, you know, kind of having
a look at their their agenda here that you sent over to me.
You know, they're talking about,you know, changing media rights,
they're talking about the futureof fandom.
So there is a better degree. I think those two things are
overlapped where depending on how fandoms going is going to
determine sort of what the the value of those media rights are.
(12:46):
So I'm assuming they're they're positive about the future fandom
to to feed into the value of future meteor rights I would
assume. Yeah.
So Gareth Balch is the Chief executive.
Actually, I'll give you a quick question before I jump into it.
How big do you think 2 circles is now?
Number of employees, number of. Employees, let's go with 800
(13:08):
globally. 1000 / 1000 globally now you know, so they are one of
the biggest, they are legitimately one of the biggest
players in, in the industry thatyou know, offices in
Switzerland, US, you're across Europe and the UK they are and
Australia they have got their, their presence over all markets.
And Gareth have actually their great presentation on where
(13:31):
they're at as a business. The relationship joining up with
Spring Media, which is basicallythe one of the acquisitions they
did last year and they presenteda bit about just how they're
coming together as businesses. So Spring Media had a lot of
aspects that are quite complementary to some of the
things that two circles do, but also really good base of
European and Swedish based clients that they're able to
(13:54):
basically open up the the tool kit and say, well, Spring did
this for you. Now we can do all these other
things for you from from a service perspective.
But yeah, they they were very positive.
Gareth painted a really powerfulpicture of just where sports is
going from a macro perspective in terms of interest.
One of the interesting numbers was that and you talked about
(14:14):
fans. You talked about the fact they
were fans was at a consistent thread.
It was brought up consistently there.
You need to keep focusing basically on building, building
audience, building fandom, build, build, build that.
And basically the commercial opportunities will come as a
result of that. And probably taking a step away
from what we tried to see a lot of sports do is they more
(14:35):
focused on maximizing the commercial value of its existing
audience set. And they weren't saying not to
do that, but they were very muchsaying keep growing your
audience, keep focusing on growth and expansion of that,
that that foothold, that fandom you have it at over both a core
and a casual fan. And there'll be more
opportunities to to get out of it.
One of the stats they published in a few reports and they
presented, which is just to giveyou a sense of the scale, is
(14:58):
that they their stuff that they use is that 46 of the 46% of the
global population will be sportsfans by 2033.
That is up from, well basically that's 3.2 billion up to 4
billion. So that's a pretty massive job.
20% will become sports fans in the next 10 years and those
(15:20):
people will consume 35% more sports than before.
So the the notion is basically that sports consumption is going
up and up and up. And I think it was a nice
reminder for some of us a littlebit concerned about the fact
that, you know, sports are finding difficult to cut
through. You're seeing challenges around
(15:42):
meteorites. But actually, if we stop
thinking about sports through the the the lens of live sports
and just thinking about consumption of content around
sports, then actually the numbers of consumption are going
through the roof. So that was just a good
reminder. I thought about that, that
basically if you think about it through a different lens and get
away from the traditional model of just looking at meteorite
(16:04):
sales and consumption of the live sports in isolation, you
get a much rosier picture of thehealth of of a way you can build
audiences. And the final bit was that I
think was quite interesting was just the growth of the market.
They said that in seven, there'sbeen 7% of growth, revenue
growth from sports IP owners. So it's not a huge number, but
(16:25):
it's significant when it's in a mature market and they're
expected. So that's up to 170 billion for
the year 2024 of total revenue in the ecosystem with sports IP
owners and that's going to go upto 260 billion in the next 10
years in 2033. So that's a big, that's a big
jump. So just it was a basic setting
(16:46):
the scene of there's going to bemore revenue being generated,
There's going to be more interest.
You need to keep growing your audience set and more
opportunities will be made and happen to be able to drive more
value out of that audience over time, which I thought was just a
good reminder for us all. Did you get a sense because
we've spoken in the past? I don't I know we've talked
(17:07):
about, you know, European meteorites kind of see me to
stagnate a little bit. We've seen grow in the US, but I
think it's more the the proportion of, you know, we
talked about the pie more and more of that pie as you went to
the Premier League, the NFL, the, you know, the the top of
the top with that number growing, was that did you get a
sense that that is still kind ofcream rises to the top or is
(17:27):
that it's growing for everybody?What?
Or did that really not get touched on?
Yeah, No, it did. It's actually a great question,
Chris. Chris, you should do this more
often, do this for a job. No, basically that the one of
the lines that was a good and hehad a really good definition on
how they measured this. So for example, they didn't
double count revenue. That was a real big objective.
(17:49):
So what that means is revenue going into the NFL, they
wouldn't have media rights revenue being counted for the
Dallas Cowboys as revenue and the NFL was just the NFL.
But the the number that they shared was about that 50% of the
revenue is going to sit with thetop 30 IP owners.
And they measured something likea couple of 1000.
(18:10):
So it's a big chunk of the revenue just going to a very
small bucket. But what they did point out is
that there are nearly 200, what they call them a super
accelerators, basically sports properties that are growing
faster than the market itself. So there is plenty of growth
happening in lots of areas that is not just at the top of of the
(18:31):
food chain. And the main driver of that was
audience growth that they grew their audiences nearly twice as
fast as everyone else was in themarket.
So I thought that was just an interesting reminder at a macro
level to say, hey, there is someserious growth available.
It still raised for me some questions about how to get there
and can those 200 or 182 I thinkwas the number exactly.
(18:55):
Can they push themselves up in that top echelon or is they're
still just going to always be the divide?
That wasn't clear, but there wasdefinitely a lot of examples
that they gave that really gave you a sense that there is lots
of growth to be had out there, but you have to innovate.
You can't just sit still, which is not surprising.
But I think now it's almost likeif you sit still, you will go
backwards. So you have to move, move fast,
(19:16):
which look that's in two circlesbest interest to say that as
well. But I think you you have to look
at what's going on in the marketand that has to be the approach,
right? And in terms of growth, is that
simply because we know the population of Earth is getting
bigger and therefore we expect people to grow up, and as they
grow up, they're more likely to become sports fans?
Or is this because there's something specific happening in
(19:36):
the market, whether that is the democratization of content via
YouTube and social media, or is it just simply the population's
growing, therefore fandom will grow?
Great question, Tina. That's not 22 solid questions in
a row, Chris, you're absolutely,you're making me think hard
here. No, I think they didn't cover
that question in that specificity.
(19:56):
But my, my, my take on it is that the population of the Earth
is growing, but not of the proportion that they're
suggesting. And I think one of the drivers
of that relievers of that is that.
What the notion of I remember hearing actually Rob Pilgrim,
we've mentioned him, I think on a quite a few pods of late, but
we talked about either the YouTube presentation, what they
classify as sports content is somuch more broader than what we
(20:18):
typically talk about as sports content when we're talking about
live sporting events and highlights, right?
It's all of those things around the edges that are using sports
as a tool from for content. And that's all growing quite a
quite a pretty crazy rate, both because of all the sports
properties doing way more of it,but also all the the
broadcasters and platforms and documentary series and all that
(20:39):
storytelling going around it is happening, which is driving the
consumption of more interest. So Phantom's growing as a result
of this new layer of content that's being created and that's
what's driving wide wider spreadinterest that perhaps we we've
had. Before And then maybe my last
question on this, Nick, because you did mention it's a global
event, but it's also focused on the Nordics.
(21:01):
Was there anything from the the local side from a Nordics
perspective that you thought might be interesting?
Is it's unique to the marketplace that maybe it's not
impacting the rest of the globe or the globe is impacting the
Nordics specifically? Were there any sort of
interesting tidbits there? Well, there was a presentation
that Ludsig Gordbeck and Jakob Leon did, which are Jakob was a
(21:24):
good, a really great contact I've had in the industry over
the over the years who's really clued up with what's going on.
They talked about macro trends and then brought it down more
locally around the media marketplace.
And then the follow up I did with this was, was a session
with a couple of the the clubs. I did one with Malmo FF, which
is the football, basically the football club in Malmo, which is
(21:47):
one of the most prestigious clubs in Sweden and has a huge
successful pedigree and bought aglimpse, which is the club that
was playing Tottenham in the Europa competition that has a
town of like 40,000 people, which was, which is a really
fun, fun story to hear about. But just quickly on the market,
I think the, the main 3 trends they talked about, particularly
(22:09):
from a media landscape, which isdefinitely worth talking about,
is the fact that they did that, you know, digitisation,
digitalisation is massively changing the way fandom is
looking is is assessed, the rights market slowing down and
that that dreaded word piracy isgetting even worse.
It's not getting any better. And obviously they weren't, they
did a bit of history talking about consumption trends.
(22:32):
They showed a bit of demographicdata on different audiences and
how it's been consumed by so different demographics consuming
sports in different ways. So whether some are consuming
via streaming, linear and social.
And you won't be too surprised that where those numbers pushed
up, there's obviously the, the conversation around the death of
linear as a as a medium. And that was something they
(22:55):
presented a nice representation of, I think using the Nordics as
the, the market for that. But the, what people don't, may
not be aware who's not in the Nordics is that Sweden in
particular was one of the reallyone of the, the driving forces
of streaming adoption and have been leading that way for some
time, whether it be SVT or otherplayers who have launched
(23:17):
streaming services. So the adoption is really high
in that market. So overall, the net consumption
of say TV through those different means has gone up and
up and up. So for context, in Sweden in
about 20, what's the numbers here, 2000 and five, 2006, it
was about 150 minutes per day ofTV and that was purely linear.
(23:41):
And then as linear started dropping, linear is now down to,
well, they're predicting in 20-30 you'll be down to 50
minutes, but then stream is going to be up to 150 minutes,
netting that the total consumption of TV will be around
200 minutes of consumption per day per household.
So just chew on that for a second.
(24:01):
Basically that means that in 2025 years we're expecting to
see a 35% increase roughly of consumption of TV in Sweden
alone just through different means, which is streaming, which
just gives you a bit of a sense that, you know, that market is
still still absolutely there. It's just a question of what
they are they are watching. They also talked about
meteorites, you know, revenue slat lining and dipping, and
(24:24):
they gave some great visuals of that.
And the other thing they show, which I thought was interesting,
is just where the growth's coming from.
So basically they did a bit of abreakdown on using Deloitte
Money League and a few other bits where basically where is
the revenue growth coming for sports properties?
And that growth is coming from game day and it's coming from
sponsorship sales. There's significant good growth
(24:47):
happening in those sectors. It isn't from the media right
side, and that's why taking a different approach to media
rights is so, so important. There was one final start that
really stood out for me that I think everyone should really pay
attention to is that nearly halfof all fandom is made by a time
you were 14 years old. So yeah.
(25:10):
And, and it doesn't really surprise.
And then from there, it flatlines and then it starts to
to dip. But you think about that, then
you think about the responsibility and the way
content's created now and then the importance of grassroots and
driving fandom. It gives you some pretty
profound questions, right, abouthow sports needs to approach
things if they want to make surethat the sport and that the
(25:31):
teams and the clubs have fans and are sustainable for the long
term. It's an interesting point.
I, I think we often just credit what, what geographical region
do we grow? Who are parents a fan of?
And I'm sure that definitely feeds into that.
But like, I started to think of like been a Bengals fan before I
was 14, but it's the same Reds fan before I was 14.
Really the only thing that I've picked up as new fandom is
(25:54):
English football, but I had a pretty severe, not severe, a
dramatic change in life going from living in the US to the UK
where like it just became a significant part of my life.
But I've also said I'm not a golf fan.
I'm not a tennis fan. You know, these are all things
like I didn't pick up as a kid. So like one person out of the 8
billion on earth. But it is interesting to to hear
(26:15):
we we talk about fandom and youth age, but it it's
interesting to hear put in that particular way with the
statistic. Completely.
And actually, I reflect on some of the stuff I see from my kids
and you can see that how excitedthey get about sports before
they've even watched any. If you can just get those things
working together in the right way, consuming the right sort of
(26:36):
content, no wonder it can supercharge fandom and interest
in a sport, right? Like my son's was obsessed with
Messi for a while and he's neverwatched Messi play once in his
life. It's just because he's just
friends of them talking about it.
He's heard the name mentioned a few times and Phantom can just
be so supercharged at that youngage.
So that was, that was just an interesting number They and I'll
(26:57):
jump into the fence up a little bit further in just a second.
Not to go too much more on it, but I think there's some sound
bites there that are interesting.
The final bit, I'll go back to the piracy one for just a
second. They shared a stat which I think
they originally the source was Ampere analysis actually, and
they report that there's £25 billion, no, €25 billion.
(27:17):
So let me start that again. There's €25 billion lost
annually to for sports broadcasting through piracy and
around 51% of fans use illegal services every month.
And the other stuff they use, I think the number was about 40%
of homes in Sweden use some sortof either password sharing or
(27:38):
IPTV, But that's, that's a pretty significant, pretty
significant number. And there's another big stat
that I think it's an empire statthat they shared on screen was
that 55% of all of those watching Marseille versus PSG in
October last year was via illegal streams.
So the majority of people watching that live sporting
(28:01):
event, which had broadcast coverage, etcetera, was through
an illegal stream. So we're pretty screwed
basically without a change in approach, is what the massive
conclusion of all that was. Well, don't get me started on
piracy Nick, because we'll be here for the next two days.
Very interesting set is what I will leave that at and probably
support some of my beliefs on piracy and stop blaming the
(28:26):
fans, but I will leave that at that Nick.
Yeah, absolutely. Look, look, and I think I'll
wrap on this because I think I could talk more about.
There was so much interesting stuff that the Two Circles team
there, they're across so many data points and their big
message is like, know your fan. I really, really know your
audience, know everything about them and they're the best of the
business. I think clearly there's this
really good presentation on fandom that Chris Grosch
(28:49):
delivered the Tina beer and I I could talk about that for ages.
There was just one. I'm trying to see if I can find
this that now that they share that, that sort of blew me, blew
me away. Well, they just they try to
break things up in to core groups, core fans and casual
fans. There was three things they
brought brought up, which was basically that drives fandom,
(29:09):
lifelong fandom. It was knowledge.
It was the fact that friction isthe enemy.
So basically creating friction stops people being fans.
You know, friction being, you know, subscription paywalls and
a like, but also a lot of other examples they gave and advocacy
is exponential. What they mean by that is
basically more people singing praises about a fast sport
(29:29):
drives phantom at an exponentialrate.
There's a whole host of stats and most of the stats and stuff
that I'm talking about are in the reports that they have
produced and have distributed. Sports Pro has a bunch of them
on their website. You can also find them on 2
Circles website as well. But they have a really great
picture of just what things likefor example, gaming does.
(29:49):
Gaming helps drive almost twice as much knowledge of a sport if
they play, if they're gamers of that sport than they are if
they're not, which makes kind ofload of sense.
But but because that knowledge therefore drives, drives the
fandom, it becomes even even more valuable as a result of
that. And the gaming isn't just, you
know, playing EA Sports on a console.
(30:11):
It's also it could be doing quizzes and fantasy sports and
alike, which can drive all thosetypes of things.
But the other final bit was really about friction and I
thought that was a really, really interesting topic
Basically that there's two there's different types of
friction. They talked about 1 is personal
or like life friction and the other one is external friction.
(30:33):
So life friction could be basically you're getting older,
you've got to grow up, you've got work to do those types of
things. The other thing could be the
external friction could be paywall platforms, you know,
those types of things. So basically there's they pretty
cool graph of basically in life,how they how they basically
(30:55):
crossover where where friction in life, external friction
becomes way more powerful, way more of a blocker as you get
older and life friction becomes less.
So basically if more controls, you get older, but there's more
things being thrown at you. And I just found it interesting
that that kind of intersected right around where a midlife
crisis happens, which is around,you know, late, late 40s and so
forth. So I'm not sure there's
something reflective in that, but basically that there's all
(31:17):
these other factors that we don't often think about and they
call it friction that basically can stop people from being fans
of the sports. And I said it at the at the time
on stage that it was kind of like a look into my soul a
little bit because of how I usedto be such a big fan of some
sports. And I just don't have the time,
the bandwidth to follow them in the same way anymore.
(31:38):
And that was basically reflectedin this graph.
I'm like, gosh, OK, maybe now atleast it makes it all makes
sense now. Well, that reminds me of a
conversation I had with Scott Gutterman, who's the SVP digital
Operations and PGA Tour. Super smart girl, basically
leads all the stuff they're doing from a broadcast front.
And I remember him talking abouttech investment.
He was like, you know, older people have more money but less
(31:58):
time. Younger people have less money
but more time. So when it comes to the
decisions we make and the technology we invest in, if it's
about monetizing young people, I'm not interested.
If it's about driving fan engagement for older people, I'm
not interested. Like I, I understand how those
people, which resources they arerich in, which ones they aren't
in. And that helps me determine
(32:20):
which technologies would decide to invest in.
If they don't align with those two things, it doesn't make
sense for us. Yeah, and that's he's got Scott
to really switched on guy. I think you have to listen to a
lot those those people a little bit more, a little bit ahead of
where most people are with the guards.
So understanding that you can't look at things as simply as
simply as you want, whether it be doing X drives more revenue
(32:41):
and so forth. That's not enough.
You have to think of it bigger picture.
And so I think, you know, the the two circles event really
helped me reflect on that. I could go further, but I think
I've talked to Poly E about it enough length to give people a
sense of I took, I took a lot away from it in those on that
day for sure. So that's data from a strategic
perspective, understanding fans,media rights.
(33:02):
But one of the things we're going to pivot over to now is
data and how it impacts sort of fan engagement in real time from
a broadcast perspective. And as you mentioned, you had
the opportunity to speak with, Ibelieve it's the CEO founder,
it's portable. And I think one of the
interesting things about sportable for me and we've
talked about, you know, being able to serve fans and
particularly super serve a certain type of fan.
(33:22):
And I know for me personally, one of the things I'm really
interested in is getting more data from a performance
perspective, partly because I'm a big fantasy football guy,
partly because like my knowledgeof the sport is a certain level
that I want access to those things.
I want to know how fast ADK Metcalf run over the span of 90
yards to prevent a pick six. Like those are the interesting
(33:43):
data points to me. Or when I'm doing my dynasty
football leagues and, you know, I want to figure out what
somebody's top speed is because that's going to impact how good
they're going to be in the NFL. Things like that, more and more
of that I feel needs to be come to come available and
supportable is one of the companies that is helping to
deliver some of those sorts of insights to fans like myself.
Yeah, definitely. And actually that was one of the
(34:05):
points that they made at the event was that that knowledge is
power thing. Your knowledge is, is is really
a driver, a fandom. And to your point, the more
access do you have to the insight about what's happening
on the field, the more like you are to engage with and be more
interested and feel like you're closer to the action than you
are just sitting back and watching and not really taking
in any other information. And sportable definitely doing
(34:26):
some really cool stuff, you know, the way they've been able
to basically. And you'll hear more about them
in the conversation I had with Dougal MacDonald on at Sports
Pro Live. Actually, I did the initial
conversation where they're usingall this technology in in the
balls themselves to drive tracking, which gives you a
whole different experience to, you know, typically we've been
tracking people for all this time.
(34:47):
But to get such a deep insight into the power, that power and
this, the revolutions and all these things that can happen.
Some of us have seen this in bits and pieces before, but they
take it to a whole another level.
It's really exciting. And the best thing is they're
rolling this out. They've really got a strong base
in rugby, but they're really expanding that profile across a
(35:07):
whole host of other sports that they've been successful in doing
a bunch of deals and pilots and partnerships with that.
Yeah, that I think it's quite exciting.
Excited to see where it goes to.And I think the other
interesting thing as well, and you know, I'm just going to keep
name dropping everybody where we're in this episode, Nick was,
I remember having conversation with Andres Hayden, who's going
to pop up in our our next episode in your suite and
(35:29):
streaming tech event where you talked about, you know, we're
not really interested in investing in tech that is sports
specific. And I think one of the
interesting things about portable is initially I think it
was a performance based tech, but now it's also something that
has a broader media impact. I think that sort of thing for
businesses from a startup perspective that, you know, you
have to think about how your, your product can impact things
(35:51):
beyond just such one simple vertical.
And it, you know, they've been successful in some investment
rounds to expand in the company.And I'm sure that is largely due
to the potential impact it couldhave from a media perspective,
which I think some people just you need to consider how your
products can impact things beyond just being so
specifically streamlined. Yeah, you, you'll hear a lot of
(36:12):
people that tell you you need a five year plan.
You need to be really clearly critically focused on what
you're doing, who you're servingand so forth.
But also sometimes you've got toadapt.
And if you see there's a new opportunity or a different
direction to take because you'veunlocked something or found
something that unintended consequence kind of thing, OK,
actually this does a whole different thing we never thought
about. You have to adjust.
And I think that's what these guys and a whole bunch of the
(36:33):
successful sports tech companiesin sports that we follow have
done that They have pivoted at least once in their journey or
at least involved their approachover time.
Because it's almost inevitable that you you don't have all the
answers when you first start on these journeys.
Yeah, so Nick, we will go ahead and we will hand things over to
your interview with Dougal and we will catch you on the next
(36:53):
episode of Stream TIME Sports. Thanks everyone.
So I'm here with Dougald McDonald who is the CEO and
founder of Sportable. Now you've just come off stage.
We're here at Sports Pro Live 2 day event happening in the heart
of London and this event's been running for.
I don't even know how I've been running for probably 13 years or
so I think by now. But you've just come off stage
(37:14):
doing a session and presenting alittle bit about you, about the
business and the organization, what you're doing.
But just let's before we jump into what you've been covering
on this specifically talk a little bit more about
supportable. What do you guys do?
Brian Nickel, thank you very much for for having us today.
It's been been a lot of fun so far.
So supportable is a data collection, analytics and
commercialization business. So we serve the team sports
(37:34):
market with mission critical insights around skill and
tactical performance of their favorite players and their
favorite coaches. So.
That ticks all the boxes for me.When I hear it about about
athletes, it's about data, it's about monetization, all the
musical words everyone wants to hear in the industry.
Take us a bit further. What does that mean?
What are you guys doing specifically that's providing
(37:56):
that value and that insight on the data side especially?
Sure. Well, I think it's, it's not
that we are doing something new.I think everyone in this
industry and anyone really understands intuitively the
value of data in sport, right? It's just such a competitive
market. So performance insights around
the best players and the best teams always going to have
incredible value. The difference that sportable
(38:18):
brings is that it's the, the method that we do to, to
tackling that problem, right. So what we do is actually we get
our hands dirty, we collect datathrough sensor technology and
we've built that all ourselves and we embed that sensor
technology in balls. So your favorite ball, whether
it's a footy ball in, in, in Aussie rules, whether it's a, a
rugby ball, football, American football, we're able to
(38:40):
integrate a sensor that's measuring the location, the
spin, the speed of the data in real time.
And that data is then, you know,packaged by our analytics engine
into unique insights for fans, for players, you name it.
Anyone who wants to get closer to the action is a, is a is an
eventual user of the data. Now the notion of having a chip
(39:01):
put into a ball is almost a pipedream.
From the years I've been in the industry, we've talked about the
concept of this happening and you're actually doing it.
So talk us through what some of the sports that you're working
with and and able to deliver this sort of technology to and
what, what is what is the outputyou'll be delivering.
Yeah, well, we, you know that we've been on a great journey
with it because as you can imagine, putting a sensor in a
ball is is challenging for many reasons.
(39:23):
I mean, one, it's a inflatable rubber object that gets kicked
by the most powerful human beings on earth and also the
most sensitive human beings on earth when it comes to the
integrity of the product they'reusing, right?
They can discern micro changes in their environment and
particularly around their equipment.
So you've really got to be able to to get this right.
So our journey started in rugby.We parted with Gilbert's, you
(39:44):
know, one of the, you know, pre eminent sports brands in the
world, let alone in rugby, wherethey are synonymous with the
tradition of the game. And we went through this journey
of understanding how players behave, how we could model the
ball and make sure that the integrity stayed right.
And through that, we created this really scalable solution
(40:05):
where we can now put a sensor that measures spin, orientation,
rotation, location 300 times a second into any ball anywhere at
scale. And that's been a really key P
part of the of the value unlockers that we partner with
major brands like Nike, for example.
(40:25):
Without disrupting their manufacturing processes, we
create this new digital element to their product.
And so they're really excited toget it into our shared customers
hands. And so we have these wonderful
collaborations that that allow us to move quickly.
Is it as straight forward as talking to Nike and say, hey, we
want to do this, let's do some pilots and then go for it?
Because then you've also got thethe right hold of the governing
(40:46):
body style that comes into the play.
I'm sure it comes in the conversation at some stage.
What's that dynamic like? So, yeah, great question.
I think the, there, there's two ways, right?
So 1 you have the, the market LED approach, right, which is
the, which is the the latter part of your question, which is
you have rights holders, whetherit's a team or a league, who are
always super progressive and they want to harness data,
(41:07):
whether it's for fan engagement,whether it's to commercialize
data, you know, in, in secondarymarkets or to improve
performance, right, And get a higher ROI on their, on, on
their players and on their teams.
So in that case, the market willinsist to the ball partner and
they'll say, look, guys, we we really want this.
And then we'll all work togetherto bring that technology to
(41:29):
bear. So that's model #1 model number
2 is kind of the partner LED approach, which is where you
have a progressive ball brand like Gilbert's a great example
where they see the future, they see the disruptive capability
that technology can bring. And so we develop and then
collaborate to bring it to the shared network of teams and
leagues. So for you, when you're going
(41:52):
out and talking to these types of organizations, how do you
make the business operate? What's the business approach?
Are you doing a deal with Gilbert in this instance?
Are you doing it with NYG? Are you doing it with the
governing bodies? Is there some sort of what's the
type of approach you have to take?
Because I can imagine it can be tricky.
It is, it is tricky. There's there's, I mean, it's
basically everyone at the end ofthe day.
I mean, you know, I think that'spart of the the the challenge is
(42:14):
getting the business is to find the sweet spot of, you know,
that the the core customer groups and you know, the core
partner groups. But we have a nice mix now
where, you know, we look at the market through the lens of the
ball partner. First, I'll go to market is
built around those guys in the shared network.
And then we look at the low hanging fruit within that shared
(42:34):
network, whether it's are we solving a pain point for driving
new revenue into a into a rugby league or are we supporting high
performance needs in a elite football team, right.
And that's then how we triangulate and bring the tech
into play. But really sorry, I was gonna
add in there, but really anyone who needs high fidelity, high
(42:55):
speed data is a potential buyer or a partner, which does make it
a a very wide range. I can imagine.
Now let's talk about the data. How real time is it?
How quick are you able to give that data to broadcasters,
sports, properties and teams forperformance?
I'm guessing it's serving servicing both performance and
broadcasting, right? Yeah.
I think that's, you know, a lot of the early things that we
(43:17):
worked on were always about latency.
So that speed, you know, your, your partners or your off
takers, whether it's a broadcaster, whether it's a
team, super sensitive to latency.
So you know, we are anywhere between 200 milliseconds and 500
milliseconds, depending on on the links in the chain
downstream from us. So that's, that's very fast.
(43:39):
And then in terms of kind of theintegrity of the data as well,
you got to make sure it doesn't get interrupted.
And so another key piece of our secret sauce is how do you
deliver, it's easy to deliver data, low latency, you know, in
a training ground, you know, in in the middle of the
countryside. It's a totally different thing
to do that in 110,000 C to stadium with every type of
(44:02):
electronic mobile phone connection interference issue
you could face. And so having that defensibility
in our technology has kind of reinforced our ability to get
the data out and, and out in a, in a, in a Safeway.
So you were on stage earlier talking about some of the ways
that it comes to life and the data.
Talk about some of those other specific examples.
(44:22):
Perhaps broadcasters are using it or that performance leaders
are using it. Sure.
I think the, I mean the stuff that everyone really gets
excited about because you can really see and feel it is that
broadcast integration. So, you know, our technology not
only collects the data and analyzes the data, but we also
have visualization as part of the technology stack.
So you know, data in its purest form is, is unusable.
(44:46):
You need to make it, you know, you're consumable for your end
audience. And So what we do is we have
this special visualization platform that then turns the
movement of a ball into this transfixing arc of of of of
flames that follow it through the air or an instant pop up
when a magical moment, whether of skill or whether it's of
(45:08):
decision making happens. We're able to bring an audiences
attention to that immediately and then allow them to to work
their way around that, right. That's the the nature of this
technology is it's customizable.People can curate their own
experience as as they see fit. So you want to give the tools
and technology, put that in the hands of the broadcasters and
the media players mainly and letthem get to work and maximize
(45:30):
the value out of it mainly. Or are you looking at even a
more of a direct approach with fans?
I don't know. It's, it's very much the former,
right? We, we see ourselves as you
know, an empowering technology within the ecosystem.
We are, we're not the expert in understanding the fan, that
those experts are the rights holder.
It's the broadcaster. We want to make sure that those
(45:52):
fans, the relationship with the fans stay in their pipeline.
So if we can deepen that connection, if we can give them
more information about the habitof that fan or what interest
that fan might have on certain pieces of, you know, skill or
certain pieces of tactics, then then we've done our job.
So I love the sound of the technology.
I love what's trying to do for providing value to customers
with consumers and alike. Where's the growth comfort
(46:14):
sportable now? Where are you looking to really
grow? Is it, is it working with
broadcasters and selling more ofthat data, access to different
platforms? Or is it finding more sports
partners to work with to get that that ecosystem going and
then you're able to maximize thevalue of it afterwards?
So I, I, we always, well at least I try to keep it, keep it
simple. Is, is, is how, if I can
(46:35):
collect, collect data, how am I going to get it into places
where that same piece of data can be used many, many times?
And so there's two sides to thatscale, right?
The scale opportunities in the fan environment.
So focusing on how we get that data into broadcasts, gaming,
fantasy sports, so that our partners, this channel, partners
of broadcasters or the fantasy groups are then using that and
(46:59):
flooding it into the, the fans hands, right?
That's, that's, that's, that's number one, that's pillar number
one. Pillar #2 is in performance and
the engagement of data in the youth environment, right?
And so that's a volume play, right?
Every young player being able topick up an app and understand
their performance relative to their peers, relative to their
(47:19):
heroes. That's another big element for
us. And so we're kind of pushing
into both of those environments because we see them as complete,
completely complementary and linked to each other.
You know, the, the relationship between that young player and as
a fan and as a player is, is, you know, they're, they're
synonymous. So you've been on this journey
for a while. The company's not new to the
market. It's been growing and evolving
(47:41):
over the years. You've recently raised several
million in investment to try andgrow and take the next step.
So where's the business at now? Where?
Where do you think you want to be in five years time in terms
of scale of the business and organization?
So we've, I mean fundamentally we've you know over the last two
years proved you know, product market fit in those the category
of you know, fan serving data and performance serving data.
(48:04):
And so now really it's about scaling out those, scaling out
those products to the biggest addressable markets possibly.
Our big focus is in football andAmerican football and it's well
served by great market share in rugby and Aussie rules, where
we're now focusing on penetration and market share.
So that's really where the bulk of our investment goes is, is
(48:25):
into that sales and customer experience part of the business.
But we are always innovating at an engineering level.
Everything we we we have developed is patented and we
also recently acquired this visualization business that
allows us to bring the data to life in a more exciting way.
So you know, this is it's the the stage is set.
(48:49):
Definitely is set and I'm sure lots of opportunities to grow
the business in different markets with lots of different
sports. By the sounds of it, you've got
really sounds like you're only scratching the surface of the
opportunity right now. I mean, I mean, definitely, I
think focus is a word that comesup a lot, you know, when talking
to our new shareholders and our investors.
And you know, that's just part of the challenge is there's a
lot of opportunity, there's a lot of scope, whether it's to go
(49:12):
further down the value chain, whether it's to go, you know,
into new sports. You know, the, the constant
return on investment question isalways there.
I think where we are now is, youknow, we've, we've, we've got
great early stage partners in some of these sports.
And you know, we want to be a mainstay here.
We want to be essential. So, you know, it's we're
(49:32):
focusing on going deep. Well, one thing's clear that in
the sports industry, fans definitely want more, more of
content, more data, more insights.
It sounds like you guys are sitting in a pretty sweet spot
for that opportunity. But that is all we've got time
for. Big thank you to Google to tell
us a little bit, telling us a little bit more about
supportable business. Thank.
You awesome. Thanks, Nick.
Now before you go, if you liked what you heard today, be sure to
(49:54):
rate and review and just let me know what you think on social.
You can find me on most social platforms.
A sports pro, Nick. And please do spread the word of
the podcast. There's no better way of
marketing than word of mouth, whether that be in person or on
social media. And if you don't like what
you've heard or you think we should be doing more or less of
something, then reach out and let me know as I'd love to hear
from you. Thanks.
Stream timers until next time.
Hello, everyone. Welcome back to the next episode
of Stream TIME Sports. My name is Chris Stone, the
community lead, joined as alwaysby our CEO, Nick Meacham.
Now, Nick, I know you've been doing a little bit of traveling,
but if you had a chance to watchany of the basketball, you know,
the other week we spoke about the WNBA with Caitlin Clark and
Angel Reese and boosting TV ratings.
I don't know if you saw the the flagrant foul.
They got everybody all upset. I don't know if you've been
(00:30):
watching the Western Conference play offs, Shay Gill, just
Alexander getting everybody's head, you know, baiting for foul
calls. And, you know, in the UK there's
just popular saying, you know, woke nonsense, you know,
thinking about modern day football and soccer.
And I don't know, Nick, do you have a take on some of this?
Because like, I thought there was a pretty weak flagrant foul
that they gave Caitlin Clark, some of the, you know, Shay
(00:51):
Gillis stuff of him flopping around the court.
You know, it's not the basketball I grew up with.
The good old days of real, the authentic, what sports supposed
to be like. Look, I think what's interesting
is to just show us the power of social media, right?
With one little thing can manifest in such a big story.
I have seen so many replays of that clip through my social
(01:14):
channels, and it overtook where the NBA's coverage was really
from in in through my channels anyway, which is insane for what
it was. And part of it really grinds my
gears. But for me from my business had
there's a real learning on theselittle storytelling moments that
can be turned into something such significant that it can
drive such huge, insane audienceengagement.
(01:36):
But yeah, that was a bit overkill.
I do. I mean, what I have been seeing
a lot of lately is I haven't hada chance to watch much because I
have been travelling quite a bit.
But also the time zone obviouslyis not what it was for me 12
months ago when I was on EasternTime Hours is I I have been
seeing a lot of great snapshots and highlights of the night
before and seeing the examples of what you know, Indiana did to
(01:59):
New York and the like. And I just have found it
interesting to see how many times keep getting served same
variations of the same things. And that's an interesting just
learning I'm taking from wearinglooking at what content I'm
consuming through a slightly different lens to go, Oh gosh, I
am. Can you just stop serving me the
same highlight set of highlights?
And maybe it's my fault. Maybe I because I'm watching
them too long and they keep justkeep serving it to me because I
(02:21):
keep showing that I want more ofit, but it's getting a bit bit
repetitious. I'd like to see a bit more of
what's going on just in the sameclips that go viral all the
time. But no, it's exciting when you
see the parity that still existsin the NFL and the NBA and how
successful those leagues are in terms of audience engagement.
(02:41):
Then you compare that to what happens in European football
leagues, and there is a little bit of that, but there's a lot
of in the leagues themselves thesame, the same top five, five
teams leading the way. Maybe a random one pops up year
on year. But that jeopardy is not the
same in Europe as it is in in the US, and I think that's
really exciting. Well, I do find it interesting.
(03:04):
I used to. I've worked at an agency for
about 18 months out of university for sports pro and
used to always get the brief from the client, be like, help
us create a viral moment. It's like just doesn't really
happen, right? Like going viral.
Like I think it's tough to just play in, you know, as you say,
like this was just a kind of a hard foul.
And next thing you know, it's got however many millions and
millions of views. But one of the things you should
(03:25):
talk about there, Nick, I think is interesting in sports is what
the power of a rivalry can do. You know, you think like Tiger
versus Phil back in the day, Michael versus the Bad Boy
Pistons, He had his things with Reggie Miller.
You know, I don't. I know we want to have a talk
about these inclusive, you know,sports environments and
(03:47):
positivity. There's something to be said
about having two sets of people that don't like each other.
Like, I don't think there's an issue with that.
Will you think about every majormovie, that and every TV show
that's basically filmed, There'salways a good guy and a bad guy
involved, and I think you need that.
I think what makes sports successful is the storytelling
bit, the narrative bit for you can have sports where there's a
(04:08):
dominance dominant player. If they're too dominant, then
the sport loses its charm. But if there's that rivalry
that's just just needs to be strong enough where a star can
shine, but there's enough competition there.
So there's a bit of jeopardy. It's like it's a there's a fine
balancing act you think about. I'm thinking like F1 versus
golf, your Tiger Woods versus say maybe Verstappen the last
(04:31):
couple of years or or Schumacherin the generation beforehand.
It can it can really go often off a Cliff edge if there is no
competition relatively speaking happening in that time.
I remember seeing odds for goingback into the betting
conversation briefly that that odds for Tiger to win a
tournament. He was odds on favorite to win,
(04:52):
which means he is basically it'shim.
He's more likely to win than outof every single person in the
entire field. He's more likely to win than any
out of the of the 70 that he's playing against.
That that sort of odds is incredible.
That's the dominance. But then you couple, there was
still enough rivalry, enough competition between people like
Phil to make it interesting, andthe personalities and characters
(05:14):
behind it really help that as well.
So sport has taken a little bit of that character out of it when
they've had to be really carefulabout how they speak in public.
And a lot of media training overthe years.
But sometimes I think social media has given a little bit
back on that front as well for some, particularly for some
athletes who now have platforms that they can speak their mind
and have their own way to market, which maybe hopefully is
(05:36):
a sign of things to come. Hopefully, like I said, I know
people will hate on a Roy Keane or someone like that, but you
know, we need more people. Just speak your mind a little
bit. I just have to say though, like
a Roy Keane, for someone like a Roy Keane to get a job in the
1st place is and, and to be successful of getting, I guess,
driving interest in the viralityof some of the comments he makes
(05:58):
and be able to keep that going. And for someone like Sky, who's
a big major broadcaster, to continue to back it and to, to
get so much value out of that great foresight by the people
who are coming up with the, the types of hosts you need this day
and age. And I still don't get it.
I still don't get how in the in the NBA, the inside the NBA are
Shaq and Charles Barkley and Kenny Kenny Smith and what is
(06:22):
what's their host's name. Brew.
Eric no. Ed, no.
Gosh, I'm having a massive bite.Like we can, oh, I can picture
him vividly as as, as yeah, gosh, that's that's
embarrassing. I should know that because we've
been on, we've even been on the set of Inside the NBA, but I
(06:42):
don't understand how it works. Like, I don't say on how that
combination is basically drivingpremium top ratings for a show.
We just had sort of a weird mix of characters that you can
barely understand what Shaq's saying after time in terms of
how he Mumbles along and CharlesBarkley doesn't really make a
lot of sense what he's saying. But this, this mix seems to
(07:03):
work. And for those people that like
work out the strategy of who they get to be, those pundits
and alike and make it all that come together so effectively,
full credit to them. I just don't get it.
So I don't get it, but it works.It's a bit like sports
sometimes. Well, I'll, I'll clarify it.
It's Ernie Johnson. We made that mistake.
You know, I was like, Eric, it'ssomething.
(07:23):
Not Eric. I knew it was something like
that. It's pretty embarrassing.
I'm just gonna blame the time zones, never get to watch it
live, and we're just going to quickly move on to the next bit.
Nick. But.
So Nick, just to set this up forthe people, over the next two
weeks, we're going to do 2 pods.As I mentioned at the top of the
show, you've done a bit of travelling this week, I mean,
all domestically within Sweden. But it's been a very informative
week for you. And there's just too much stuff
(07:45):
to go around to try to squeeze it into one pod.
So instead, we're going to try to spread it around, looking at
some separate buckets because you got a lot of interesting
insights. And some of these events were
maybe not as big as some of the big super events.
And we've talked about some of those events actually then open
up the door for some more learnings because they are a bit
smaller and more intimate and there are some big names in
there that are doing some innovative, interesting stuff.
So over the next two pods, we'regoing to break it down a little
(08:08):
bit and dive into some of your experiences and some of the
things that you got to learn over the course of that.
So I don't know if there's anything else you want to kind
of highlight that with before wejump into there.
Yeah. And also within this this week's
pod, we're also dropping an interview that I did at Sports
Her live, which we'll introduce a little bit later on, which is
a bit of insight into a really interesting data company that is
(08:29):
making a lot of ways with how they're producing a lot of the
data and, and getting broadcasters involved with that.
But before we jump into that, yeah, I think that's a pretty
good scene set. I, I, you know, obviously have
been to a lot of events in my time and I wear a bunch of
different hats. I'm wearing the hat of someone
who runs these types of things. I'm also wearing the hat of
someone who's really in the thick of producing content
(08:50):
around these topics and trying to learn and get a better grips
of what's really going on in themarket.
And I'm always someone who's a big advocate for events.
I'm not a big, I don't love networking randomly with random
people. I'm I put my hand up for that.
But which is, you know, sometimes people find it weird
to say, given we run events, butit's the reality of it.
But as long as you have a nice sprinkling of people that you do
(09:10):
know, like a few new connections, and then get some
learnings from it, whether it befor the stuff on stage or off of
it, it can be so immensely valuable to spend a day at an
event or more. And I found it hugely valuable
over those two days. I had a lot of great experiences
which we can dig into in a second.
That really gave me a lot to digest, a lot to think about.
(09:31):
It helped me get a better picture of where some of the
industry is going that I think is really worth our listeners
hearing a little bit more about and hopefully helping people get
a bit more of a sense of where we're going with a lot of
different aspects of the sports media landscape.
Well, one of those businesses that is very well connected and
I imagine if you're working in the sports industry, you've
heard of them, is 2 circles. And it sounds like they hosted
(09:54):
an event themselves, had some clients around and you were
asked to be the host of the event.
So you got a front row seat it to everything and got to guide
it a little bit. And you know, 2 circles, you
know, I for me at least, I knew them initially as a data company
sort of helping you with marketing and objectives along
those lines. But they've just continued to
expand as a business, touching all different places within the
sports media landscape. Still data informed.
(10:15):
Is that, is that still their, their expression by how they go
with things? But you know, Nick, maybe just
talking a little bit, sort of what you experienced leading
that session of two circles and kind of where they're headed as
a business because obviously they're continuing to grow and
expand all their influence over the industry.
Yeah, I mean, they've, I mean, everyone who works in the
industry for a lot of lot of years would be really aware and
(10:36):
familiar with two circles now. But they keep going from
strength to strength. They keep growing at a rapid
rate. They've acquired a bunch of
companies in the last few years.Really.
They're a really powerful. I mean, I don't even know how to
describe the knife. And I mean, this is the nicest
way because they do so much now.They are commercial partners for
some major organization. They act as consultants and
(10:57):
advisors in some situations. They do the the sales and
marketing in a lot of instances for major sports properties.
They just, they do basically everything you could think of.
And I'll give some examples as we jump into it.
But one thing they did at this event, which was really cool,
and this event was built both a mix of the global trends to
follow and also the local market.
(11:19):
Local market being the Nordics. So all the major Scandinavian
countries you could think of were in attendance.
A lot of great rights holders and broadcasters in the room for
that. So it was good to get that mix
of learning a little bit more about some of the stuff they
they publish themselves around fandom, around market trends and
a little bit more going deeper into also some of the challenges
(11:41):
that sports properties have in amarket like that, where there is
a bit of a ceiling that exists. If you're serving a sport, a
sport to a localised market, canyou grow internationally?
Is there, is there real room to scale your audience and, and
take it that way? Or is it just having to double
down on who you're already serving?
(12:02):
And then there's a lot of conversation around the balance
or I was pushing on it anyway, the balance between focusing on
getting more value out of your existing audience and growing
just new audiences generally. And they were paint a really
positive picture on where sportsinteresting consumptions going,
which I found really fascinatingto to get people very excited
about the fact that sports has alot of opportunity still
(12:24):
available to it. So behind the scenes, you know,
you've alluded to some of this data, you know, they're they
would be talking about differentthings, you know, kind of having
a look at their their agenda here that you sent over to me.
You know, they're talking about,you know, changing media rights,
they're talking about the futureof fandom.
So there is a better degree. I think those two things are
overlapped where depending on how fandoms going is going to
determine sort of what the the value of those media rights are.
(12:46):
So I'm assuming they're they're positive about the future fandom
to to feed into the value of future meteor rights I would
assume. Yeah.
So Gareth Balch is the Chief executive.
Actually, I'll give you a quick question before I jump into it.
How big do you think 2 circles is now?
Number of employees, number of. Employees, let's go with 800
(13:08):
globally. 1000 / 1000 globally now you know, so they are one of
the biggest, they are legitimately one of the biggest
players in, in the industry thatyou know, offices in
Switzerland, US, you're across Europe and the UK they are and
Australia they have got their, their presence over all markets.
And Gareth have actually their great presentation on where
(13:31):
they're at as a business. The relationship joining up with
Spring Media, which is basicallythe one of the acquisitions they
did last year and they presenteda bit about just how they're
coming together as businesses. So Spring Media had a lot of
aspects that are quite complementary to some of the
things that two circles do, but also really good base of
European and Swedish based clients that they're able to
(13:54):
basically open up the the tool kit and say, well, Spring did
this for you. Now we can do all these other
things for you from from a service perspective.
But yeah, they they were very positive.
Gareth painted a really powerfulpicture of just where sports is
going from a macro perspective in terms of interest.
One of the interesting numbers was that and you talked about
(14:14):
fans. You talked about the fact they
were fans was at a consistent thread.
It was brought up consistently there.
You need to keep focusing basically on building, building
audience, building fandom, build, build, build that.
And basically the commercial opportunities will come as a
result of that. And probably taking a step away
from what we tried to see a lot of sports do is they more
(14:35):
focused on maximizing the commercial value of its existing
audience set. And they weren't saying not to
do that, but they were very muchsaying keep growing your
audience, keep focusing on growth and expansion of that,
that that foothold, that fandom you have it at over both a core
and a casual fan. And there'll be more
opportunities to to get out of it.
One of the stats they published in a few reports and they
presented, which is just to giveyou a sense of the scale, is
(14:58):
that they their stuff that they use is that 46 of the 46% of the
global population will be sportsfans by 2033.
That is up from, well basically that's 3.2 billion up to 4
billion. So that's a pretty massive job.
20% will become sports fans in the next 10 years and those
(15:20):
people will consume 35% more sports than before.
So the the notion is basically that sports consumption is going
up and up and up. And I think it was a nice
reminder for some of us a littlebit concerned about the fact
that, you know, sports are finding difficult to cut
through. You're seeing challenges around
(15:42):
meteorites. But actually, if we stop
thinking about sports through the the the lens of live sports
and just thinking about consumption of content around
sports, then actually the numbers of consumption are going
through the roof. So that was just a good
reminder. I thought about that, that
basically if you think about it through a different lens and get
away from the traditional model of just looking at meteorite
(16:04):
sales and consumption of the live sports in isolation, you
get a much rosier picture of thehealth of of a way you can build
audiences. And the final bit was that I
think was quite interesting was just the growth of the market.
They said that in seven, there'sbeen 7% of growth, revenue
growth from sports IP owners. So it's not a huge number, but
(16:25):
it's significant when it's in a mature market and they're
expected. So that's up to 170 billion for
the year 2024 of total revenue in the ecosystem with sports IP
owners and that's going to go upto 260 billion in the next 10
years in 2033. So that's a big, that's a big
jump. So just it was a basic setting
(16:46):
the scene of there's going to bemore revenue being generated,
There's going to be more interest.
You need to keep growing your audience set and more
opportunities will be made and happen to be able to drive more
value out of that audience over time, which I thought was just a
good reminder for us all. Did you get a sense because
we've spoken in the past? I don't I know we've talked
(17:07):
about, you know, European meteorites kind of see me to
stagnate a little bit. We've seen grow in the US, but I
think it's more the the proportion of, you know, we
talked about the pie more and more of that pie as you went to
the Premier League, the NFL, the, you know, the the top of
the top with that number growing, was that did you get a
sense that that is still kind ofcream rises to the top or is
(17:27):
that it's growing for everybody?What?
Or did that really not get touched on?
Yeah, No, it did. It's actually a great question,
Chris. Chris, you should do this more
often, do this for a job. No, basically that the one of
the lines that was a good and hehad a really good definition on
how they measured this. So for example, they didn't
double count revenue. That was a real big objective.
(17:49):
So what that means is revenue going into the NFL, they
wouldn't have media rights revenue being counted for the
Dallas Cowboys as revenue and the NFL was just the NFL.
But the the number that they shared was about that 50% of the
revenue is going to sit with thetop 30 IP owners.
And they measured something likea couple of 1000.
(18:10):
So it's a big chunk of the revenue just going to a very
small bucket. But what they did point out is
that there are nearly 200, what they call them a super
accelerators, basically sports properties that are growing
faster than the market itself. So there is plenty of growth
happening in lots of areas that is not just at the top of of the
(18:31):
food chain. And the main driver of that was
audience growth that they grew their audiences nearly twice as
fast as everyone else was in themarket.
So I thought that was just an interesting reminder at a macro
level to say, hey, there is someserious growth available.
It still raised for me some questions about how to get there
and can those 200 or 182 I thinkwas the number exactly.
(18:55):
Can they push themselves up in that top echelon or is they're
still just going to always be the divide?
That wasn't clear, but there wasdefinitely a lot of examples
that they gave that really gave you a sense that there is lots
of growth to be had out there, but you have to innovate.
You can't just sit still, which is not surprising.
But I think now it's almost likeif you sit still, you will go
backwards. So you have to move, move fast,
(19:16):
which look that's in two circlesbest interest to say that as
well. But I think you you have to look
at what's going on in the marketand that has to be the approach,
right? And in terms of growth, is that
simply because we know the population of Earth is getting
bigger and therefore we expect people to grow up, and as they
grow up, they're more likely to become sports fans?
Or is this because there's something specific happening in
(19:36):
the market, whether that is the democratization of content via
YouTube and social media, or is it just simply the population's
growing, therefore fandom will grow?
Great question, Tina. That's not 22 solid questions in
a row, Chris, you're absolutely,you're making me think hard
here. No, I think they didn't cover
that question in that specificity.
(19:56):
But my, my, my take on it is that the population of the Earth
is growing, but not of the proportion that they're
suggesting. And I think one of the drivers
of that relievers of that is that.
What the notion of I remember hearing actually Rob Pilgrim,
we've mentioned him, I think on a quite a few pods of late, but
we talked about either the YouTube presentation, what they
classify as sports content is somuch more broader than what we
(20:18):
typically talk about as sports content when we're talking about
live sporting events and highlights, right?
It's all of those things around the edges that are using sports
as a tool from for content. And that's all growing quite a
quite a pretty crazy rate, both because of all the sports
properties doing way more of it,but also all the the
broadcasters and platforms and documentary series and all that
(20:39):
storytelling going around it is happening, which is driving the
consumption of more interest. So Phantom's growing as a result
of this new layer of content that's being created and that's
what's driving wide wider spreadinterest that perhaps we we've
had. Before And then maybe my last
question on this, Nick, because you did mention it's a global
event, but it's also focused on the Nordics.
(21:01):
Was there anything from the the local side from a Nordics
perspective that you thought might be interesting?
Is it's unique to the marketplace that maybe it's not
impacting the rest of the globe or the globe is impacting the
Nordics specifically? Were there any sort of
interesting tidbits there? Well, there was a presentation
that Ludsig Gordbeck and Jakob Leon did, which are Jakob was a
(21:24):
good, a really great contact I've had in the industry over
the over the years who's really clued up with what's going on.
They talked about macro trends and then brought it down more
locally around the media marketplace.
And then the follow up I did with this was, was a session
with a couple of the the clubs. I did one with Malmo FF, which
is the football, basically the football club in Malmo, which is
(21:47):
one of the most prestigious clubs in Sweden and has a huge
successful pedigree and bought aglimpse, which is the club that
was playing Tottenham in the Europa competition that has a
town of like 40,000 people, which was, which is a really
fun, fun story to hear about. But just quickly on the market,
I think the, the main 3 trends they talked about, particularly
(22:09):
from a media landscape, which isdefinitely worth talking about,
is the fact that they did that, you know, digitisation,
digitalisation is massively changing the way fandom is
looking is is assessed, the rights market slowing down and
that that dreaded word piracy isgetting even worse.
It's not getting any better. And obviously they weren't, they
did a bit of history talking about consumption trends.
(22:32):
They showed a bit of demographicdata on different audiences and
how it's been consumed by so different demographics consuming
sports in different ways. So whether some are consuming
via streaming, linear and social.
And you won't be too surprised that where those numbers pushed
up, there's obviously the, the conversation around the death of
linear as a as a medium. And that was something they
(22:55):
presented a nice representation of, I think using the Nordics as
the, the market for that. But the, what people don't, may
not be aware who's not in the Nordics is that Sweden in
particular was one of the reallyone of the, the driving forces
of streaming adoption and have been leading that way for some
time, whether it be SVT or otherplayers who have launched
(23:17):
streaming services. So the adoption is really high
in that market. So overall, the net consumption
of say TV through those different means has gone up and
up and up. So for context, in Sweden in
about 20, what's the numbers here, 2000 and five, 2006, it
was about 150 minutes per day ofTV and that was purely linear.
(23:41):
And then as linear started dropping, linear is now down to,
well, they're predicting in 20-30 you'll be down to 50
minutes, but then stream is going to be up to 150 minutes,
netting that the total consumption of TV will be around
200 minutes of consumption per day per household.
So just chew on that for a second.
(24:01):
Basically that means that in 2025 years we're expecting to
see a 35% increase roughly of consumption of TV in Sweden
alone just through different means, which is streaming, which
just gives you a bit of a sense that, you know, that market is
still still absolutely there. It's just a question of what
they are they are watching. They also talked about
meteorites, you know, revenue slat lining and dipping, and
(24:24):
they gave some great visuals of that.
And the other thing they show, which I thought was interesting,
is just where the growth's coming from.
So basically they did a bit of abreakdown on using Deloitte
Money League and a few other bits where basically where is
the revenue growth coming for sports properties?
And that growth is coming from game day and it's coming from
sponsorship sales. There's significant good growth
(24:47):
happening in those sectors. It isn't from the media right
side, and that's why taking a different approach to media
rights is so, so important. There was one final start that
really stood out for me that I think everyone should really pay
attention to is that nearly halfof all fandom is made by a time
you were 14 years old. So yeah.
(25:10):
And, and it doesn't really surprise.
And then from there, it flatlines and then it starts to
to dip. But you think about that, then
you think about the responsibility and the way
content's created now and then the importance of grassroots and
driving fandom. It gives you some pretty
profound questions, right, abouthow sports needs to approach
things if they want to make surethat the sport and that the
(25:31):
teams and the clubs have fans and are sustainable for the long
term. It's an interesting point.
I, I think we often just credit what, what geographical region
do we grow? Who are parents a fan of?
And I'm sure that definitely feeds into that.
But like, I started to think of like been a Bengals fan before I
was 14, but it's the same Reds fan before I was 14.
Really the only thing that I've picked up as new fandom is
(25:54):
English football, but I had a pretty severe, not severe, a
dramatic change in life going from living in the US to the UK
where like it just became a significant part of my life.
But I've also said I'm not a golf fan.
I'm not a tennis fan. You know, these are all things
like I didn't pick up as a kid. So like one person out of the 8
billion on earth. But it is interesting to to hear
(26:15):
we we talk about fandom and youth age, but it it's
interesting to hear put in that particular way with the
statistic. Completely.
And actually, I reflect on some of the stuff I see from my kids
and you can see that how excitedthey get about sports before
they've even watched any. If you can just get those things
working together in the right way, consuming the right sort of
(26:36):
content, no wonder it can supercharge fandom and interest
in a sport, right? Like my son's was obsessed with
Messi for a while and he's neverwatched Messi play once in his
life. It's just because he's just
friends of them talking about it.
He's heard the name mentioned a few times and Phantom can just
be so supercharged at that youngage.
So that was, that was just an interesting number They and I'll
(26:57):
jump into the fence up a little bit further in just a second.
Not to go too much more on it, but I think there's some sound
bites there that are interesting.
The final bit, I'll go back to the piracy one for just a
second. They shared a stat which I think
they originally the source was Ampere analysis actually, and
they report that there's £25 billion, no, €25 billion.
(27:17):
So let me start that again. There's €25 billion lost
annually to for sports broadcasting through piracy and
around 51% of fans use illegal services every month.
And the other stuff they use, I think the number was about 40%
of homes in Sweden use some sortof either password sharing or
(27:38):
IPTV, But that's, that's a pretty significant, pretty
significant number. And there's another big stat
that I think it's an empire statthat they shared on screen was
that 55% of all of those watching Marseille versus PSG in
October last year was via illegal streams.
So the majority of people watching that live sporting
(28:01):
event, which had broadcast coverage, etcetera, was through
an illegal stream. So we're pretty screwed
basically without a change in approach, is what the massive
conclusion of all that was. Well, don't get me started on
piracy Nick, because we'll be here for the next two days.
Very interesting set is what I will leave that at and probably
support some of my beliefs on piracy and stop blaming the
(28:26):
fans, but I will leave that at that Nick.
Yeah, absolutely. Look, look, and I think I'll
wrap on this because I think I could talk more about.
There was so much interesting stuff that the Two Circles team
there, they're across so many data points and their big
message is like, know your fan. I really, really know your
audience, know everything about them and they're the best of the
business. I think clearly there's this
really good presentation on fandom that Chris Grosch
(28:49):
delivered the Tina beer and I I could talk about that for ages.
There was just one. I'm trying to see if I can find
this that now that they share that, that sort of blew me, blew
me away. Well, they just they try to
break things up in to core groups, core fans and casual
fans. There was three things they
brought brought up, which was basically that drives fandom,
(29:09):
lifelong fandom. It was knowledge.
It was the fact that friction isthe enemy.
So basically creating friction stops people being fans.
You know, friction being, you know, subscription paywalls and
a like, but also a lot of other examples they gave and advocacy
is exponential. What they mean by that is
basically more people singing praises about a fast sport
(29:29):
drives phantom at an exponentialrate.
There's a whole host of stats and most of the stats and stuff
that I'm talking about are in the reports that they have
produced and have distributed. Sports Pro has a bunch of them
on their website. You can also find them on 2
Circles website as well. But they have a really great
picture of just what things likefor example, gaming does.
(29:49):
Gaming helps drive almost twice as much knowledge of a sport if
they play, if they're gamers of that sport than they are if
they're not, which makes kind ofload of sense.
But but because that knowledge therefore drives, drives the
fandom, it becomes even even more valuable as a result of
that. And the gaming isn't just, you
know, playing EA Sports on a console.
(30:11):
It's also it could be doing quizzes and fantasy sports and
alike, which can drive all thosetypes of things.
But the other final bit was really about friction and I
thought that was a really, really interesting topic
Basically that there's two there's different types of
friction. They talked about 1 is personal
or like life friction and the other one is external friction.
(30:33):
So life friction could be basically you're getting older,
you've got to grow up, you've got work to do those types of
things. The other thing could be the
external friction could be paywall platforms, you know,
those types of things. So basically there's they pretty
cool graph of basically in life,how they how they basically
(30:55):
crossover where where friction in life, external friction
becomes way more powerful, way more of a blocker as you get
older and life friction becomes less.
So basically if more controls, you get older, but there's more
things being thrown at you. And I just found it interesting
that that kind of intersected right around where a midlife
crisis happens, which is around,you know, late, late 40s and so
forth. So I'm not sure there's
something reflective in that, but basically that there's all
(31:17):
these other factors that we don't often think about and they
call it friction that basically can stop people from being fans
of the sports. And I said it at the at the time
on stage that it was kind of like a look into my soul a
little bit because of how I usedto be such a big fan of some
sports. And I just don't have the time,
the bandwidth to follow them in the same way anymore.
(31:38):
And that was basically reflectedin this graph.
I'm like, gosh, OK, maybe now atleast it makes it all makes
sense now. Well, that reminds me of a
conversation I had with Scott Gutterman, who's the SVP digital
Operations and PGA Tour. Super smart girl, basically
leads all the stuff they're doing from a broadcast front.
And I remember him talking abouttech investment.
He was like, you know, older people have more money but less
(31:58):
time. Younger people have less money
but more time. So when it comes to the
decisions we make and the technology we invest in, if it's
about monetizing young people, I'm not interested.
If it's about driving fan engagement for older people, I'm
not interested. Like I, I understand how those
people, which resources they arerich in, which ones they aren't
in. And that helps me determine
(32:20):
which technologies would decide to invest in.
If they don't align with those two things, it doesn't make
sense for us. Yeah, and that's he's got Scott
to really switched on guy. I think you have to listen to a
lot those those people a little bit more, a little bit ahead of
where most people are with the guards.
So understanding that you can't look at things as simply as
simply as you want, whether it be doing X drives more revenue
(32:41):
and so forth. That's not enough.
You have to think of it bigger picture.
And so I think, you know, the the two circles event really
helped me reflect on that. I could go further, but I think
I've talked to Poly E about it enough length to give people a
sense of I took, I took a lot away from it in those on that
day for sure. So that's data from a strategic
perspective, understanding fans,media rights.
(33:02):
But one of the things we're going to pivot over to now is
data and how it impacts sort of fan engagement in real time from
a broadcast perspective. And as you mentioned, you had
the opportunity to speak with, Ibelieve it's the CEO founder,
it's portable. And I think one of the
interesting things about sportable for me and we've
talked about, you know, being able to serve fans and
particularly super serve a certain type of fan.
(33:22):
And I know for me personally, one of the things I'm really
interested in is getting more data from a performance
perspective, partly because I'm a big fantasy football guy,
partly because like my knowledgeof the sport is a certain level
that I want access to those things.
I want to know how fast ADK Metcalf run over the span of 90
yards to prevent a pick six. Like those are the interesting
(33:43):
data points to me. Or when I'm doing my dynasty
football leagues and, you know, I want to figure out what
somebody's top speed is because that's going to impact how good
they're going to be in the NFL. Things like that, more and more
of that I feel needs to be come to come available and
supportable is one of the companies that is helping to
deliver some of those sorts of insights to fans like myself.
Yeah, definitely. And actually that was one of the
(34:05):
points that they made at the event was that that knowledge is
power thing. Your knowledge is, is is really
a driver, a fandom. And to your point, the more
access do you have to the insight about what's happening
on the field, the more like you are to engage with and be more
interested and feel like you're closer to the action than you
are just sitting back and watching and not really taking
in any other information. And sportable definitely doing
(34:26):
some really cool stuff, you know, the way they've been able
to basically. And you'll hear more about them
in the conversation I had with Dougal MacDonald on at Sports
Pro Live. Actually, I did the initial
conversation where they're usingall this technology in in the
balls themselves to drive tracking, which gives you a
whole different experience to, you know, typically we've been
tracking people for all this time.
(34:47):
But to get such a deep insight into the power, that power and
this, the revolutions and all these things that can happen.
Some of us have seen this in bits and pieces before, but they
take it to a whole another level.
It's really exciting. And the best thing is they're
rolling this out. They've really got a strong base
in rugby, but they're really expanding that profile across a
(35:07):
whole host of other sports that they've been successful in doing
a bunch of deals and pilots and partnerships with that.
Yeah, that I think it's quite exciting.
Excited to see where it goes to.And I think the other
interesting thing as well, and you know, I'm just going to keep
name dropping everybody where we're in this episode, Nick was,
I remember having conversation with Andres Hayden, who's going
to pop up in our our next episode in your suite and
(35:29):
streaming tech event where you talked about, you know, we're
not really interested in investing in tech that is sports
specific. And I think one of the
interesting things about portable is initially I think it
was a performance based tech, but now it's also something that
has a broader media impact. I think that sort of thing for
businesses from a startup perspective that, you know, you
have to think about how your, your product can impact things
(35:51):
beyond just such one simple vertical.
And it, you know, they've been successful in some investment
rounds to expand in the company.And I'm sure that is largely due
to the potential impact it couldhave from a media perspective,
which I think some people just you need to consider how your
products can impact things beyond just being so
specifically streamlined. Yeah, you, you'll hear a lot of
(36:12):
people that tell you you need a five year plan.
You need to be really clearly critically focused on what
you're doing, who you're servingand so forth.
But also sometimes you've got toadapt.
And if you see there's a new opportunity or a different
direction to take because you'veunlocked something or found
something that unintended consequence kind of thing, OK,
actually this does a whole different thing we never thought
about. You have to adjust.
And I think that's what these guys and a whole bunch of the
(36:33):
successful sports tech companiesin sports that we follow have
done that They have pivoted at least once in their journey or
at least involved their approachover time.
Because it's almost inevitable that you you don't have all the
answers when you first start on these journeys.
Yeah, so Nick, we will go ahead and we will hand things over to
your interview with Dougal and we will catch you on the next
(36:53):
episode of Stream TIME Sports. Thanks everyone.
So I'm here with Dougald McDonald who is the CEO and
founder of Sportable. Now you've just come off stage.
We're here at Sports Pro Live 2 day event happening in the heart
of London and this event's been running for.
I don't even know how I've been running for probably 13 years or
so I think by now. But you've just come off stage
(37:14):
doing a session and presenting alittle bit about you, about the
business and the organization, what you're doing.
But just let's before we jump into what you've been covering
on this specifically talk a little bit more about
supportable. What do you guys do?
Brian Nickel, thank you very much for for having us today.
It's been been a lot of fun so far.
So supportable is a data collection, analytics and
commercialization business. So we serve the team sports
(37:34):
market with mission critical insights around skill and
tactical performance of their favorite players and their
favorite coaches. So.
That ticks all the boxes for me.When I hear it about about
athletes, it's about data, it's about monetization, all the
musical words everyone wants to hear in the industry.
Take us a bit further. What does that mean?
What are you guys doing specifically that's providing
(37:56):
that value and that insight on the data side especially?
Sure. Well, I think it's, it's not
that we are doing something new.I think everyone in this
industry and anyone really understands intuitively the
value of data in sport, right? It's just such a competitive
market. So performance insights around
the best players and the best teams always going to have
incredible value. The difference that sportable
(38:18):
brings is that it's the, the method that we do to, to
tackling that problem, right. So what we do is actually we get
our hands dirty, we collect datathrough sensor technology and
we've built that all ourselves and we embed that sensor
technology in balls. So your favorite ball, whether
it's a footy ball in, in, in Aussie rules, whether it's a, a
rugby ball, football, American football, we're able to
(38:40):
integrate a sensor that's measuring the location, the
spin, the speed of the data in real time.
And that data is then, you know,packaged by our analytics engine
into unique insights for fans, for players, you name it.
Anyone who wants to get closer to the action is a, is a is an
eventual user of the data. Now the notion of having a chip
(39:01):
put into a ball is almost a pipedream.
From the years I've been in the industry, we've talked about the
concept of this happening and you're actually doing it.
So talk us through what some of the sports that you're working
with and and able to deliver this sort of technology to and
what, what is what is the outputyou'll be delivering.
Yeah, well, we, you know that we've been on a great journey
with it because as you can imagine, putting a sensor in a
ball is is challenging for many reasons.
(39:23):
I mean, one, it's a inflatable rubber object that gets kicked
by the most powerful human beings on earth and also the
most sensitive human beings on earth when it comes to the
integrity of the product they'reusing, right?
They can discern micro changes in their environment and
particularly around their equipment.
So you've really got to be able to to get this right.
So our journey started in rugby.We parted with Gilbert's, you
(39:44):
know, one of the, you know, pre eminent sports brands in the
world, let alone in rugby, wherethey are synonymous with the
tradition of the game. And we went through this journey
of understanding how players behave, how we could model the
ball and make sure that the integrity stayed right.
And through that, we created this really scalable solution
(40:05):
where we can now put a sensor that measures spin, orientation,
rotation, location 300 times a second into any ball anywhere at
scale. And that's been a really key P
part of the of the value unlockers that we partner with
major brands like Nike, for example.
(40:25):
Without disrupting their manufacturing processes, we
create this new digital element to their product.
And so they're really excited toget it into our shared customers
hands. And so we have these wonderful
collaborations that that allow us to move quickly.
Is it as straight forward as talking to Nike and say, hey, we
want to do this, let's do some pilots and then go for it?
Because then you've also got thethe right hold of the governing
(40:46):
body style that comes into the play.
I'm sure it comes in the conversation at some stage.
What's that dynamic like? So, yeah, great question.
I think the, there, there's two ways, right?
So 1 you have the, the market LED approach, right, which is
the, which is the the latter part of your question, which is
you have rights holders, whetherit's a team or a league, who are
always super progressive and they want to harness data,
(41:07):
whether it's for fan engagement,whether it's to commercialize
data, you know, in, in secondarymarkets or to improve
performance, right, And get a higher ROI on their, on, on
their players and on their teams.
So in that case, the market willinsist to the ball partner and
they'll say, look, guys, we we really want this.
And then we'll all work togetherto bring that technology to
(41:29):
bear. So that's model #1 model number
2 is kind of the partner LED approach, which is where you
have a progressive ball brand like Gilbert's a great example
where they see the future, they see the disruptive capability
that technology can bring. And so we develop and then
collaborate to bring it to the shared network of teams and
leagues. So for you, when you're going
(41:52):
out and talking to these types of organizations, how do you
make the business operate? What's the business approach?
Are you doing a deal with Gilbert in this instance?
Are you doing it with NYG? Are you doing it with the
governing bodies? Is there some sort of what's the
type of approach you have to take?
Because I can imagine it can be tricky.
It is, it is tricky. There's there's, I mean, it's
basically everyone at the end ofthe day.
I mean, you know, I think that'spart of the the the challenge is
(42:14):
getting the business is to find the sweet spot of, you know,
that the the core customer groups and you know, the core
partner groups. But we have a nice mix now
where, you know, we look at the market through the lens of the
ball partner. First, I'll go to market is
built around those guys in the shared network.
And then we look at the low hanging fruit within that shared
(42:34):
network, whether it's are we solving a pain point for driving
new revenue into a into a rugby league or are we supporting high
performance needs in a elite football team, right.
And that's then how we triangulate and bring the tech
into play. But really sorry, I was gonna
add in there, but really anyone who needs high fidelity, high
(42:55):
speed data is a potential buyer or a partner, which does make it
a a very wide range. I can imagine.
Now let's talk about the data. How real time is it?
How quick are you able to give that data to broadcasters,
sports, properties and teams forperformance?
I'm guessing it's serving servicing both performance and
broadcasting, right? Yeah.
I think that's, you know, a lot of the early things that we
(43:17):
worked on were always about latency.
So that speed, you know, your, your partners or your off
takers, whether it's a broadcaster, whether it's a
team, super sensitive to latency.
So you know, we are anywhere between 200 milliseconds and 500
milliseconds, depending on on the links in the chain
downstream from us. So that's, that's very fast.
(43:39):
And then in terms of kind of theintegrity of the data as well,
you got to make sure it doesn't get interrupted.
And so another key piece of our secret sauce is how do you
deliver, it's easy to deliver data, low latency, you know, in
a training ground, you know, in in the middle of the
countryside. It's a totally different thing
to do that in 110,000 C to stadium with every type of
(44:02):
electronic mobile phone connection interference issue
you could face. And so having that defensibility
in our technology has kind of reinforced our ability to get
the data out and, and out in a, in a, in a Safeway.
So you were on stage earlier talking about some of the ways
that it comes to life and the data.
Talk about some of those other specific examples.
(44:22):
Perhaps broadcasters are using it or that performance leaders
are using it. Sure.
I think the, I mean the stuff that everyone really gets
excited about because you can really see and feel it is that
broadcast integration. So, you know, our technology not
only collects the data and analyzes the data, but we also
have visualization as part of the technology stack.
So you know, data in its purest form is, is unusable.
(44:46):
You need to make it, you know, you're consumable for your end
audience. And So what we do is we have
this special visualization platform that then turns the
movement of a ball into this transfixing arc of of of of
flames that follow it through the air or an instant pop up
when a magical moment, whether of skill or whether it's of
(45:08):
decision making happens. We're able to bring an audiences
attention to that immediately and then allow them to to work
their way around that, right. That's the the nature of this
technology is it's customizable.People can curate their own
experience as as they see fit. So you want to give the tools
and technology, put that in the hands of the broadcasters and
the media players mainly and letthem get to work and maximize
(45:30):
the value out of it mainly. Or are you looking at even a
more of a direct approach with fans?
I don't know. It's, it's very much the former,
right? We, we see ourselves as you
know, an empowering technology within the ecosystem.
We are, we're not the expert in understanding the fan, that
those experts are the rights holder.
It's the broadcaster. We want to make sure that those
(45:52):
fans, the relationship with the fans stay in their pipeline.
So if we can deepen that connection, if we can give them
more information about the habitof that fan or what interest
that fan might have on certain pieces of, you know, skill or
certain pieces of tactics, then then we've done our job.
So I love the sound of the technology.
I love what's trying to do for providing value to customers
with consumers and alike. Where's the growth comfort
(46:14):
sportable now? Where are you looking to really
grow? Is it, is it working with
broadcasters and selling more ofthat data, access to different
platforms? Or is it finding more sports
partners to work with to get that that ecosystem going and
then you're able to maximize thevalue of it afterwards?
So I, I, we always, well at least I try to keep it, keep it
simple. Is, is, is how, if I can
(46:35):
collect, collect data, how am I going to get it into places
where that same piece of data can be used many, many times?
And so there's two sides to thatscale, right?
The scale opportunities in the fan environment.
So focusing on how we get that data into broadcasts, gaming,
fantasy sports, so that our partners, this channel, partners
of broadcasters or the fantasy groups are then using that and
(46:59):
flooding it into the, the fans hands, right?
That's, that's, that's, that's number one, that's pillar number
one. Pillar #2 is in performance and
the engagement of data in the youth environment, right?
And so that's a volume play, right?
Every young player being able topick up an app and understand
their performance relative to their peers, relative to their
(47:19):
heroes. That's another big element for
us. And so we're kind of pushing
into both of those environments because we see them as complete,
completely complementary and linked to each other.
You know, the, the relationship between that young player and as
a fan and as a player is, is, you know, they're, they're
synonymous. So you've been on this journey
for a while. The company's not new to the
market. It's been growing and evolving
(47:41):
over the years. You've recently raised several
million in investment to try andgrow and take the next step.
So where's the business at now? Where?
Where do you think you want to be in five years time in terms
of scale of the business and organization?
So we've, I mean fundamentally we've you know over the last two
years proved you know, product market fit in those the category
of you know, fan serving data and performance serving data.
(48:04):
And so now really it's about scaling out those, scaling out
those products to the biggest addressable markets possibly.
Our big focus is in football andAmerican football and it's well
served by great market share in rugby and Aussie rules, where
we're now focusing on penetration and market share.
So that's really where the bulk of our investment goes is, is
(48:25):
into that sales and customer experience part of the business.
But we are always innovating at an engineering level.
Everything we we we have developed is patented and we
also recently acquired this visualization business that
allows us to bring the data to life in a more exciting way.
So you know, this is it's the the stage is set.
(48:49):
Definitely is set and I'm sure lots of opportunities to grow
the business in different markets with lots of different
sports. By the sounds of it, you've got
really sounds like you're only scratching the surface of the
opportunity right now. I mean, I mean, definitely, I
think focus is a word that comesup a lot, you know, when talking
to our new shareholders and our investors.
And you know, that's just part of the challenge is there's a
lot of opportunity, there's a lot of scope, whether it's to go
(49:12):
further down the value chain, whether it's to go, you know,
into new sports. You know, the, the constant
return on investment question isalways there.
I think where we are now is, youknow, we've, we've, we've got
great early stage partners in some of these sports.
And you know, we want to be a mainstay here.
We want to be essential. So, you know, it's we're
(49:32):
focusing on going deep. Well, one thing's clear that in
the sports industry, fans definitely want more, more of
content, more data, more insights.
It sounds like you guys are sitting in a pretty sweet spot
for that opportunity. But that is all we've got time
for. Big thank you to Google to tell
us a little bit, telling us a little bit more about
supportable business. Thank.
You awesome. Thanks, Nick.
Now before you go, if you liked what you heard today, be sure to
(49:54):
rate and review and just let me know what you think on social.
You can find me on most social platforms.
A sports pro, Nick. And please do spread the word of
the podcast. There's no better way of
marketing than word of mouth, whether that be in person or on
social media. And if you don't like what
you've heard or you think we should be doing more or less of
something, then reach out and let me know as I'd love to hear
from you. Thanks.
Stream timers until next time.
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