November 26, 2025 • 27 mins
In this special scene-setting episode of StreamTime Sports, CEO Nick Meacham breaks down the biggest shifts redefining how sports content is created, distributed and consumed. Drawing on insights shared at last week's SportsPro’s Media Summit in Madrid, Nick explores why YouTube is emerging as a powerhouse for live sports, how AI is transforming production and personalisation, and what these changes mean for rights holders, broadcasters and fans. From evolving audience expectations to the decline of traditional TV models, this episode offers a clear look at the forces shaping the next era of sports media.
Key Points:
- Why YouTube is becoming a primary destination for live sports.
- How AI is reshaping content creation, production workflows and fan engagement.
- The impact of advertising and brand partnerships in streaming sports.
- How sports leagues are adjusting their media strategies for a platform-first world.
- What’s ahead for traditional broadcasters as streaming dominance accelerates.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:05):
Hello everyone, and welcome to aspecial edition of the String
Com Sports Podcast. I'm your host Dick Matram, CEO
at Sports Pro and fresh back from the Sports Pro Media
Summit, which we hosted in Madrid this year and last week.
It was an incredible event and Ihave had an amazing experience
this year for a number of reasons, starting with the
amazing feedback I had from listeners on the ground.
(00:28):
Thanks for. Everyone that came up to me and
said hello, you know, it means so well to me when I get a
chance to to meet many of you and hear from you first hand.
So thank you so much for for coming up and sharing your
thoughts about podcasts and alsoyour own views about what's
going on in the industry today. Now for this year's event, we
ran a quite a different format with a heavy dose of people and
(00:50):
content from all areas of the sports media ecosystem. 4 big
themes of advertising, Oct and streaming, social media,
technology and production. And of course, the big one,
YouTube, which was the hottest topic and on everyone's lips.
And I thought I'd spend the nextfew minutes giving you some
things I heard on the ground, key trends across the industry
(01:12):
or key stories, maybe just to pay a little bit more attention
to. After that, you'll hear then
hear a special recording of the keynote presentation I did to
kick off the entire event with some stats and facts and more
insights and some questions to chew on.
And I have to say, it was quite nerve wracking to prepare for,
but I think it turned out quite well.
(01:33):
But let me know what you think about it.
The First things first, here's some of my takeaways from the
event. First one YouTube.
It's really. Working for everyone, leaning
into it from a reach perspective, but monetization is
still tough using any of their native tools.
However, if you. There is a bit of a formula.
(01:54):
If you have a good audience and have a really creator LED
approach to your channel, there are brands spending and spending
big in that space and therefore making it pay to be there today,
not future proofing. Cars.
ATV was the best example we heard from on stage and an
(02:16):
incredible case study for the entire industry.
And I also talked to them off stage and from Sergio with
Sergio Lopez from Live Mode and their plans moving forward.
But what was really interesting to hear was these brand
relationships, these brand activations that they're running
are absolutely funding the entire approach to delivering
(02:37):
their content live on platform. Yes, it's important to have
advertising made available through YouTube, traditional
channels, but it is all about those direct relationships with
advertisers. Get it right and they are
lucrative. If you want to learn a bit more
about that, we will share some of those findings and the
conversation I had with Sergio off stage in an upcoming
(02:58):
podcast. But also Joe Redfern, who's a
great intro commentator and expert in in the space, did a
great post on LinkedIn, which I'd recommend you checking it.
I think I might have reposted and reshared that so you might
find it on my channels as well. Second one is AI.
Is. Fully in motion now.
Gosh, 12 months ago it was just this hottest topic of what it
(03:19):
could maybe do for the industry.Well, everyone is using it now.
Everyone's using it extensively and heavily right across the
sports media landscape. I've no idea where we're going
to get to in the next 12 months,but I'm so excited to see it
because it is moving at an incredible rate of knots.
And with that, I feel like my next point is there is a real
(03:40):
underlying change in the mindsetand the approach industry execs
are taking to this space. I've never felt more of like an
energy of we want to learn, get your heads around new ideas,
actively talk to different concepts, things that are
outside the square in such a creative and open manner.
(04:02):
That really got me quite excitedabout how the industry is
responding to such a transformative changing
landscape. So something for me to get
excited about and something for you just for those listening, I
guess to get some confidence that the industry is in good
hands with some of this innovations being talked about.
The next thing that I heard and talked about quite a bit and
(04:23):
quite a bit of length was the need and demand for more.
It's real. Basically TikTok and two
circles, two major plays in the industry for different reasons
coming out and you saying you need to not just increase the
amount of content you are doing,but you need to at least double
it. Think about that for a second.
(04:43):
Double the amount of content you're doing.
But no one is suggesting you should put more resource into
it. What they're saying is use the
technology, things like AI and other tools to assist with
creation the native apps and platforms.
And the data and insights that you get from some of these major
social platforms is something that's not be is being
(05:04):
underutilised by a lot of people.
So big focus on way more coming out of companies just not
needing and using more people todo it.
The next bit that came out of itfor me was.
We've talked. About it and heard a lot about
how YouTube is really supportingplatforms and channels on their
(05:25):
on YouTube's platform itself to go after these rights and
opportunities to get live sportson the platform.
What in my panel, the string time sports live recording that
we did on stage I had Tim Cockerwho's the founder of the egg
Chasers and they were the ones we've talked about before that
secured Division 2 French rugby rights.
(05:45):
Now, I was expecting when they did that move because it was a
revelation to the industry that they've been working behind the
scenes with YouTube and so forth.
But Tim actually just said all they did was they doorstopped
the the chief executive of the French Rugby Federation and
said, hey, we want to buy these rights.
And that was actually a harder process to get across the line
than anything they've done sincethen.
(06:07):
But already they're seeing that pay off with commercial interest
and audiences following them. So looks it just just put
basically points out that I would always recommend go speak
to YouTube executives if you want to look investing into the
rights. But even if you don't, you can
still make it happen pretty easily.
Now the next thing is social media.
(06:27):
Now we talk about social media all the time through different
means, but it is absolutely the priority for everyone.
Now what I mean by the priority is that particularly for
commercial teams at sports organisations, this is the area
they can control the most and this is the area they are most
focused on in enhancing and improving.
(06:49):
They want to make sure that theyhave the biggest audiences as
possible. Reach is.
Absolutely everything for these people and with that draws more
commercial upside and performance from sponsorship.
It's is tangible as that greaterreach draws greater return from
commercial. The other thing that came up a
lot was the that many people were impressed with league UNS
(07:12):
stocks to going dig to see, which we've talked about a lot
on this podcast but as well. But one of the things that came
up in our conversation with Manal Motor and Ben Morrell on
on the panel that I hosted was that their goal of two and a
half million Subs is, is a massive number to still aim for
when you take into account possible churn after the next
(07:34):
season. They have to get to over 2 and a
half million basically to get close to the meteorites funding
gather they had since they went on this catastrophic dive in
value that they were getting outof their media business.
So a lot of scepticism from a lot of people off stage as well
as to whether they can actually pull that off.
Can they continue to have this momentum after they get this
(07:57):
first one million subscribers? So a lot of work to be done
there is the sort of the the message coming from people if
they think there were a chance of getting to that that number.
Another one I hosted a panel with Alex Green is the managing
director of Prime Video Sport across EMEASVP of content
(08:18):
partnerships at the NBA Math Brabants.
And we talked about particularlyAmazon's global partnership with
the NBA, which I hadn't really processed that how big of the
scale this deal was when they announced it.
But it is big. It is truly global, and it seems
to be paying dividends. And it's a great example of how
(08:38):
Prime Video is really reaching big audiences right across the
globe. They've already achieved record
numbers with Prime Video for theopening to the season.
And in my eyes, I'd thought of Prime, you know, as a bit of a
more niche audience, a bit more pay pay TV style, I suppose.
But it's just not the case though.
They're delivering incredible numbers.
(09:00):
I'm really looking to double down on the fact that Amazon has
such a global reach to give NBA way more exposure, which goes
against what I was thinking prior to that conversation.
Another conversation I had off stage was with BBC Sports
director of sport there. And that was interesting to see.
Just that they are a feels like he didn't say these things, but
I'm sort of reading between the lines.
(09:21):
I'd expect to see a lot of change in BBC Sports business in
the coming years. He he was really impressive.
He's come from the athletic and really transformed the way they
are thinking about content. But I think they are going to be
making big inroads into platforms like YouTube where
they don't have a presence and leaning into video much more
(09:42):
closely soon. So keep an eye out for what how
they change and evolve the BBC offering in the near future.
Another one is really that linear and OTA over the year is
absolutely being left the dead, at least in the conversation
that I was having. So audiences are are there still
ticking over. OK.
(10:02):
But everyone who was on stage, off stage was only talking about
streaming and YouTube and socialreally as their priority.
They just weren't talking about linear and OTA.
Maybe that's because it's a matured or declining industry or
channel of choice, but the fundamental is that no one is
excited about that space. Probably the least positive
(10:24):
energy I've had around that areafor some time.
I just think I'd wrap on this point is that sometimes I take
for granted how much I follow and I know, and basically from
the commentary that we provide across the industry, many people
are not following this space as much as they, even though they
do work in the sports media industry.
A lot of people who watch the keynote that I presented came
(10:47):
back to me with loads of feedback and questions about
some things that I thought were were obvious.
And this is not me trying to brag, more of trying to make the
point that for all of you listening in there that we're
trying to help educate in the industry.
If you're paying attention to what we're talking about, you're
probably in a better place than actually most of most of the
people that exist in the sports media industry.
(11:08):
And don't take that for granted.Keep learning because this
industry is moving very, very quickly anyway.
So I think that's a probably good spot to wrap the wrap up.
The key takeaways now, the second-half of this absolute
Nick fest today that you're listening into will be the
recording I did on stage. It's a 15 minute presentation
with some industry insights and questions and data points.
(11:28):
That we thought would be really helpful.
For people to get a bit of a scene set of where we are after
the last 12 months in the industry and really what I'm
thinking about now as well. So do let me know what you think
about this week's pod. I can assure you there's no
further plans to have long monologues for me in the future.
Let's let's keep things moving. It's time for me to hand over to
(11:50):
me on stage at the Sports Pro Media Summit.
I hope you enjoy. Thanks very much, Andrew.
Great to be here with you all, and thank you so much for
joining us here. In Madrid.
Now, before we get started, I'd love to see you.
I can barely see you. I'm going to give this a go.
(12:10):
I'm going to see some hands up from the audience here who has
been to a sports pro event before.
Put your hands up. Oh wow.
Good. Good stuff.
Now this week, who was consumed a piece of content editorially
by a sports pro? That's handy.
First D, who is subscribed to our podcast.
All newsletters, nice, good stuff.
(12:35):
Now the reason I'm asking these questions firstly is thank you
for your support and for consuming our content, not just
at events but also in between all the things that we're doing
on stage. But the reason I'm asking is I
think it a bit of a, there was some confusion coming at you
around sports for as a business.Sometimes I talk to people that
come to our events and some of them they deny that we're a
media business. So I thought I'd give a bit of
(12:57):
context that we are absolutely both an event and content
business covering the business of sports.
Now first out in context, sportsare now delivers over 100,000
views on our own owned and operated website every single
week. We have events of obviously all
year round across a number of different countries.
All in all, we're producing over3000 pieces of content annually
(13:20):
across our own channels. That's generating over 22
million views across our digitalplatforms and network, adding
various measures, whatever you whatever you want to use, we.
Are the number one internationally covering the.
Business of Sports and. Sports.
Media. So if you're new to the sports
pro universe, welcome. You come to the right place and
hopefully the next few days we're going to give you a lot of
(13:41):
insight about where the industryis heading and also after the
event, continue to engage with the content and subscribe to the
stuff we have available through our various channels.
Now let's take a quick recap of of what's happened in the year.
And what are yours? Being in the sports media
landscape, let's have a quick look at Europe.
It's been a. Year of aggregations, Mergers.
(14:03):
Creators getting involved in rights and then deep breath to
consumer becoming even more important for some players.
Aggregation, meaning Amazon are absolutely dominating that
space, being a host of differentpartnerships, becoming the
central platform of choice on many sports properties and non
sports properties. The Zone playing that role as
well and even then coming together and creating a similar
(14:23):
relationship. We'll see mergers and
acquisitions side of the play out at the high end of the
industry with RTL and Sky and ofcourse rumours of Sky and RTD
potentially partnering up as well.
Creators in creators in markets like in France where a streamer
pays 6 figures for Saudi PremierLeague rights and a law so
acquired under 21 French football and in the UK was all
(14:47):
booed as they could take quite an innovative step selling
lights and giving lights over tothe sky but also to various
creators and I'll. Talk a bit more.
About later on all through YouTube and of course laid UN
made a lot of the headlines thathave been for a number of years
with the different moves and things that have happened to
their strategy and were forced to go direct to consumer fought
(15:08):
by designs early exit of their agreement looking towards now
the US Amazon all in on their relationship with the NBA even
using it as a platform to marketand promote AWS.
You can hear a lot more about that on stage late today when
they join me up here. If one might put it differently,
(15:29):
but the fee they wanted and madepublic let's the really only
having one possible direction and that's moving all their
chips in with Apple. Now this is a move that Apple
needed to make and I've since made a league of Morsi could be
a move by moving Major League Soccer to general access on
their platform and without it both property space A lot losing
a lot of momentum in those markets in the most important
(15:51):
media market for them. And now Netflix really made it
made it to move into live sports.
They tried a whole host of different things, building their
own IP, running hot dogs, competitions, prion golf
tournaments, exhibitions and nowstart to be playing a bit more
of a conventional game. But all with this events based
model and mindset. They get to make a move into
(16:14):
season long rights deals with the major leads.
At least not yet. And of course, ESPN finally
launched their direct to consumer platform for me a
little bit under woman after allthis hype and buzz, but the uses
then they've had challenges of without betting business closing
and also a stand off of YouTube as recently as last week.
(16:36):
And of course, the other big players in Paramount and Warner
Brothers Discovery, always in the headlights.
The Temple merger. Chatter.
Around their futures, looking more globally, again, some
interesting case studies and things happening.
You've got out of Brazil, KarzaiTV who really pioneered this
creator LED YouTube LED broadcast model that's put them
on the mount. There's one as Lata's leading
(16:58):
rights holders. You're going to hear more from
them tomorrow as well. In India, IPL continues to break
all sorts of records both from screening but also revenue
generation even through advertising, and they're
delivering one of the most innovative platforms in the
world. Zoe made a lot of headlines
making huge commitments by financially and technologically
(17:19):
on the Club World Cup rights that.
FIFA had. Delivering the event for free to
all customers across the globe and to make up the 1 billion
investment they in sub licence all of those rights in the
shortest window you could imagine to every broadcaster
every market possible who's willing to pay some rights stays
for that and they acquired as great as biggest biggest KTV
(17:42):
operator Fox call what equates to a share of James.
Now let's talk about the sexiestand most misleading topic in
sports rights sports meteor rights sports doesn't produce a
record each year on meteorites values and I think it's a great
reminder for every sports property on how difficult it is
(18:04):
to drive meteorites value directly.
Let's look at some examples here. 5 sports properties take
half of all revenue you paid forrights.
Fire scores give 80% of all media rights are new paid and US
mates have half an EU rights paid globally with four other
(18:27):
countries almost explicitly focused on football, making both
of those numbers alongside the IPL in India.
So why is the US so big when we could spend the whole session
talking just about that? But pure and simply, it is the
ad economy that exists in America.
The sports feel best that advertising are winning right
now. Those the fewer ad breaks are
(18:48):
struggling to drive value. That's why you saw F1 struggle
to get the growth they wanted for them if you are steals.
Yet the NBA and NFL able to get 3X what they got the previous
cycle. And then the conclusion really
is here and our minder is emerging.
Sports, you are old, need to take a very different approach
to the legacy way of working andall these start up leagues that
(19:11):
are popping up now, they need tostop putting in their investor
decks at year 3. They're going to have a massive
hockey stick in meteorites revenue in this ain't going to
happen. Now on to some of the key things
we're covering over the next. Couple of days.
And if you don't pay much attention to the agenda, we have
4 BD forums on these 4 topics, which I'm going to cover
quickly. Starting with OTT and streaming,
(19:34):
40% of sports viewers are now watching exclusively via stream
services, and streaming servicesare now paying four times the
amount that they were for the rights in just five years.
The interesting evolution we've seen in these types of rights
deals that are happening are that this major streamers are
(19:54):
acquiring not only some of thesepop tier rights, but they're
also acquiring and migrating theDTC offerings of those boards
into their own ecosystems. The NBA and Amazon, NFL on his
own, F1 and Apple in the US and so on.
So why are they doing this? I mean, it's pretty simple.
It's another way of these broadcasters and streamers be
(20:16):
able to get more value out of the relationship they're
creating with the audience. Seamless upsell possibilities as
a result. Of having that platform.
On that opportunity to upgrade on platform now when it's
focused social media day today many sports properties are
really this is their primary focus. 93% of Gen Z fancy the
(20:40):
second screen while watching a Max think about that number for
a second. You have to seriously ask
yourself now, which screen is really the first screen In 2025,
99 Percent of users don't post content, just consume.
However, 65% of Gen Z consideredthemselves content creators.
(21:02):
Interesting on the platform ranking side, YouTube clearly
leading away. This is from IMG in terms of
rankings through various metrics.
However, they'll be the first totell you then also as a platform
on you all they take the new TV and the others played such an
important role in the Gatesman and not live content and
audience building. So are they social platforms or
major video platforms alone? And then this sat on this table.
(21:26):
I think it's interesting one forus to to chew on if from the
Financial Times where social media consumption is going down
in every group, say the older generation who as usual, I
always go 100 times. The question is, if they're out
on social, where are they going?Some think it's not your.
Revolt against social media digital like me, though I think
(21:48):
it's simply more they're they'reaccessing other things they're
on cat's dark social platforms and they're engaged there's not
being this is but some of them can be extras that they'll tell
me otherwise. Now on to YouTube.
In the past four months, Sky, I'm sorry, YouTube has cyber
operated to the top of the mediaconversation and some of these
(22:09):
stats really make that point blind.
I mean, you've seen that YouTubeis now the number one YouTube
platform in a whole host of other markets, the US obviously
you hear that and see that across all social.
The 30% rise in sports viewing across YouTube's connected TV
app in 2024 shows the rate of growth and importance of sports
on that platform. 20% of TV during starts up to young age or
(22:32):
to YouTube as well. So that's the place you can get
bands, bands from the younger age and even the marketers slow
moving around screaming like theUK has 14% of all in home video
consumption being through YouTube.
You're going to hear a lot more about YouTube over the next
couple of days and including insight from cars ATV for I
(22:52):
mentioned earlier from this their Co founder Sergio Lopez,
who will be on stage tomorrow talking about that.
And you'll also hear about how the Buddha Sega leads into
Youtubes and creators that I mentioned earlier, including
we've Manchester United fan turns Watch along creator Mark
Baldridge and the top podcast channel in the UK.
(23:12):
The distribution and by the way,Mark averages more viewers than
start. UK's coverage.
For some ear bell games. Now on to advertising.
To perhaps the biggest growing focus of three of screening and
sports, following the realisation that you need
multiple monetisation approachesto make a content page.
Who are you? Over time, we've let the
(23:34):
advertisers are more and consumers are more than happy to
consume advertising. In their experience, they're not
as precious as before they were a core of all subscriptions Now
on SBOD have an ad tier includedin active, 81% of consumers are
more than happy to watch them toget it for free.
And the majority of consumers prefer personalised ads over RAN
(23:58):
content. Again, what a surprise that is,
but on the the reason that the sports needs to pay most
attention to this, just that absurping sports are just way
more effective driving higher CPMS and they're so effective.
The big time screamers like Netflix and Paramount are
preferring ad hybrid approach tothe economics of pay-per-view.
(24:19):
And in the last year change thatapproach we bite towards as a
result of this single heavily killing off pay-per-view, at
least for the near future. And final key thing for this
event is of course technology and production.
This that could be in a couple of buckets, but it's true.
But not to include around 24.4 billion is lost on piracy each
(24:40):
year. Think about that number for a
second. It's almost half the meteorites
number I stated earlier and that's not going to change
anytime soon. There's a cultural acceptance of
it, media aid going away and people who are consuming it more
than ever. And especially if we keep
working with legacy access models with high cost entry
points and don't leave its ad funded strategies.
(25:04):
The next number factor is 86% are using cloud now in some
capacity. However, many broadcasters still
struggling to make that shit happen from a legacy workflow
and the final set there is 80% of fans truly believe in AI and
it's impact it's going to have on the the viewership and
viewing experience from 2027. So I'm going to wrap up on these
(25:29):
10 quick five things I'm thinking that and hopefully get
some more clarity on over the next two days.
One our highlights now worth more to sport than live.
I'm not saying it, but you've heard that probably on the
various media lines that Adam Silver in the NBA Bay people in
the UK has made it as well. That's a big question that is
(25:49):
being asked of the future of theindustry 2.
Is YouTube really the future of TV like they say?
Is advertising really a viable monetization channel for live
sports now? Primary, I should add, will
media wise continue to dip in Europe And we big streamers keep
making more. They keep making more plays for
live sports across the world. How will legacy media react to
(26:12):
the movies the screamers are making?
How much improvement does AI make to the top and bottom line
is even see a viable long term plate our creators, the best
partners for sports right now and what mergers and
acquisitions are set to rock this industry feels like we've
only just begun there. So lots of things to think
(26:32):
about, lots of things that I'm thinking, and I hope that this
sets the scene for Watson's score for the next two days.
And if you're not already and want to keep better track of all
the things that are going on in the sports industry, again, make
sure you subscribe to Sports Pro.
And of course, I have to give myself A blog, the sports the
stream, find sports podcast every round weekly covering all
things sports media and of course, available on all sports
(26:54):
on all podcast platforms and of course, YouTube.
Now that's what you've done for now.
I'll see you back on stage in a couple of sessions.
Thank you and have a great event.
Hello everyone, and welcome to aspecial edition of the String
Com Sports Podcast. I'm your host Dick Matram, CEO
at Sports Pro and fresh back from the Sports Pro Media
Summit, which we hosted in Madrid this year and last week.
It was an incredible event and Ihave had an amazing experience
this year for a number of reasons, starting with the
amazing feedback I had from listeners on the ground.
(00:28):
Thanks for. Everyone that came up to me and
said hello, you know, it means so well to me when I get a
chance to to meet many of you and hear from you first hand.
So thank you so much for for coming up and sharing your
thoughts about podcasts and alsoyour own views about what's
going on in the industry today. Now for this year's event, we
ran a quite a different format with a heavy dose of people and
(00:50):
content from all areas of the sports media ecosystem. 4 big
themes of advertising, Oct and streaming, social media,
technology and production. And of course, the big one,
YouTube, which was the hottest topic and on everyone's lips.
And I thought I'd spend the nextfew minutes giving you some
things I heard on the ground, key trends across the industry
(01:12):
or key stories, maybe just to pay a little bit more attention
to. After that, you'll hear then
hear a special recording of the keynote presentation I did to
kick off the entire event with some stats and facts and more
insights and some questions to chew on.
And I have to say, it was quite nerve wracking to prepare for,
but I think it turned out quite well.
(01:33):
But let me know what you think about it.
The First things first, here's some of my takeaways from the
event. First one YouTube.
It's really. Working for everyone, leaning
into it from a reach perspective, but monetization is
still tough using any of their native tools.
However, if you. There is a bit of a formula.
(01:54):
If you have a good audience and have a really creator LED
approach to your channel, there are brands spending and spending
big in that space and therefore making it pay to be there today,
not future proofing. Cars.
ATV was the best example we heard from on stage and an
(02:16):
incredible case study for the entire industry.
And I also talked to them off stage and from Sergio with
Sergio Lopez from Live Mode and their plans moving forward.
But what was really interesting to hear was these brand
relationships, these brand activations that they're running
are absolutely funding the entire approach to delivering
(02:37):
their content live on platform. Yes, it's important to have
advertising made available through YouTube, traditional
channels, but it is all about those direct relationships with
advertisers. Get it right and they are
lucrative. If you want to learn a bit more
about that, we will share some of those findings and the
conversation I had with Sergio off stage in an upcoming
(02:58):
podcast. But also Joe Redfern, who's a
great intro commentator and expert in in the space, did a
great post on LinkedIn, which I'd recommend you checking it.
I think I might have reposted and reshared that so you might
find it on my channels as well. Second one is AI.
Is. Fully in motion now.
Gosh, 12 months ago it was just this hottest topic of what it
(03:19):
could maybe do for the industry.Well, everyone is using it now.
Everyone's using it extensively and heavily right across the
sports media landscape. I've no idea where we're going
to get to in the next 12 months,but I'm so excited to see it
because it is moving at an incredible rate of knots.
And with that, I feel like my next point is there is a real
(03:40):
underlying change in the mindsetand the approach industry execs
are taking to this space. I've never felt more of like an
energy of we want to learn, get your heads around new ideas,
actively talk to different concepts, things that are
outside the square in such a creative and open manner.
(04:02):
That really got me quite excitedabout how the industry is
responding to such a transformative changing
landscape. So something for me to get
excited about and something for you just for those listening, I
guess to get some confidence that the industry is in good
hands with some of this innovations being talked about.
The next thing that I heard and talked about quite a bit and
(04:23):
quite a bit of length was the need and demand for more.
It's real. Basically TikTok and two
circles, two major plays in the industry for different reasons
coming out and you saying you need to not just increase the
amount of content you are doing,but you need to at least double
it. Think about that for a second.
(04:43):
Double the amount of content you're doing.
But no one is suggesting you should put more resource into
it. What they're saying is use the
technology, things like AI and other tools to assist with
creation the native apps and platforms.
And the data and insights that you get from some of these major
social platforms is something that's not be is being
(05:04):
underutilised by a lot of people.
So big focus on way more coming out of companies just not
needing and using more people todo it.
The next bit that came out of itfor me was.
We've talked. About it and heard a lot about
how YouTube is really supportingplatforms and channels on their
(05:25):
on YouTube's platform itself to go after these rights and
opportunities to get live sportson the platform.
What in my panel, the string time sports live recording that
we did on stage I had Tim Cockerwho's the founder of the egg
Chasers and they were the ones we've talked about before that
secured Division 2 French rugby rights.
(05:45):
Now, I was expecting when they did that move because it was a
revelation to the industry that they've been working behind the
scenes with YouTube and so forth.
But Tim actually just said all they did was they doorstopped
the the chief executive of the French Rugby Federation and
said, hey, we want to buy these rights.
And that was actually a harder process to get across the line
than anything they've done sincethen.
(06:07):
But already they're seeing that pay off with commercial interest
and audiences following them. So looks it just just put
basically points out that I would always recommend go speak
to YouTube executives if you want to look investing into the
rights. But even if you don't, you can
still make it happen pretty easily.
Now the next thing is social media.
(06:27):
Now we talk about social media all the time through different
means, but it is absolutely the priority for everyone.
Now what I mean by the priority is that particularly for
commercial teams at sports organisations, this is the area
they can control the most and this is the area they are most
focused on in enhancing and improving.
(06:49):
They want to make sure that theyhave the biggest audiences as
possible. Reach is.
Absolutely everything for these people and with that draws more
commercial upside and performance from sponsorship.
It's is tangible as that greaterreach draws greater return from
commercial. The other thing that came up a
lot was the that many people were impressed with league UNS
(07:12):
stocks to going dig to see, which we've talked about a lot
on this podcast but as well. But one of the things that came
up in our conversation with Manal Motor and Ben Morrell on
on the panel that I hosted was that their goal of two and a
half million Subs is, is a massive number to still aim for
when you take into account possible churn after the next
(07:34):
season. They have to get to over 2 and a
half million basically to get close to the meteorites funding
gather they had since they went on this catastrophic dive in
value that they were getting outof their media business.
So a lot of scepticism from a lot of people off stage as well
as to whether they can actually pull that off.
Can they continue to have this momentum after they get this
(07:57):
first one million subscribers? So a lot of work to be done
there is the sort of the the message coming from people if
they think there were a chance of getting to that that number.
Another one I hosted a panel with Alex Green is the managing
director of Prime Video Sport across EMEASVP of content
(08:18):
partnerships at the NBA Math Brabants.
And we talked about particularlyAmazon's global partnership with
the NBA, which I hadn't really processed that how big of the
scale this deal was when they announced it.
But it is big. It is truly global, and it seems
to be paying dividends. And it's a great example of how
(08:38):
Prime Video is really reaching big audiences right across the
globe. They've already achieved record
numbers with Prime Video for theopening to the season.
And in my eyes, I'd thought of Prime, you know, as a bit of a
more niche audience, a bit more pay pay TV style, I suppose.
But it's just not the case though.
They're delivering incredible numbers.
(09:00):
I'm really looking to double down on the fact that Amazon has
such a global reach to give NBA way more exposure, which goes
against what I was thinking prior to that conversation.
Another conversation I had off stage was with BBC Sports
director of sport there. And that was interesting to see.
Just that they are a feels like he didn't say these things, but
I'm sort of reading between the lines.
(09:21):
I'd expect to see a lot of change in BBC Sports business in
the coming years. He he was really impressive.
He's come from the athletic and really transformed the way they
are thinking about content. But I think they are going to be
making big inroads into platforms like YouTube where
they don't have a presence and leaning into video much more
(09:42):
closely soon. So keep an eye out for what how
they change and evolve the BBC offering in the near future.
Another one is really that linear and OTA over the year is
absolutely being left the dead, at least in the conversation
that I was having. So audiences are are there still
ticking over. OK.
(10:02):
But everyone who was on stage, off stage was only talking about
streaming and YouTube and socialreally as their priority.
They just weren't talking about linear and OTA.
Maybe that's because it's a matured or declining industry or
channel of choice, but the fundamental is that no one is
excited about that space. Probably the least positive
(10:24):
energy I've had around that areafor some time.
I just think I'd wrap on this point is that sometimes I take
for granted how much I follow and I know, and basically from
the commentary that we provide across the industry, many people
are not following this space as much as they, even though they
do work in the sports media industry.
A lot of people who watch the keynote that I presented came
(10:47):
back to me with loads of feedback and questions about
some things that I thought were were obvious.
And this is not me trying to brag, more of trying to make the
point that for all of you listening in there that we're
trying to help educate in the industry.
If you're paying attention to what we're talking about, you're
probably in a better place than actually most of most of the
people that exist in the sports media industry.
(11:08):
And don't take that for granted.Keep learning because this
industry is moving very, very quickly anyway.
So I think that's a probably good spot to wrap the wrap up.
The key takeaways now, the second-half of this absolute
Nick fest today that you're listening into will be the
recording I did on stage. It's a 15 minute presentation
with some industry insights and questions and data points.
(11:28):
That we thought would be really helpful.
For people to get a bit of a scene set of where we are after
the last 12 months in the industry and really what I'm
thinking about now as well. So do let me know what you think
about this week's pod. I can assure you there's no
further plans to have long monologues for me in the future.
Let's let's keep things moving. It's time for me to hand over to
(11:50):
me on stage at the Sports Pro Media Summit.
I hope you enjoy. Thanks very much, Andrew.
Great to be here with you all, and thank you so much for
joining us here. In Madrid.
Now, before we get started, I'd love to see you.
I can barely see you. I'm going to give this a go.
(12:10):
I'm going to see some hands up from the audience here who has
been to a sports pro event before.
Put your hands up. Oh wow.
Good. Good stuff.
Now this week, who was consumed a piece of content editorially
by a sports pro? That's handy.
First D, who is subscribed to our podcast.
All newsletters, nice, good stuff.
(12:35):
Now the reason I'm asking these questions firstly is thank you
for your support and for consuming our content, not just
at events but also in between all the things that we're doing
on stage. But the reason I'm asking is I
think it a bit of a, there was some confusion coming at you
around sports for as a business.Sometimes I talk to people that
come to our events and some of them they deny that we're a
media business. So I thought I'd give a bit of
(12:57):
context that we are absolutely both an event and content
business covering the business of sports.
Now first out in context, sportsare now delivers over 100,000
views on our own owned and operated website every single
week. We have events of obviously all
year round across a number of different countries.
All in all, we're producing over3000 pieces of content annually
(13:20):
across our own channels. That's generating over 22
million views across our digitalplatforms and network, adding
various measures, whatever you whatever you want to use, we.
Are the number one internationally covering the.
Business of Sports and. Sports.
Media. So if you're new to the sports
pro universe, welcome. You come to the right place and
hopefully the next few days we're going to give you a lot of
(13:41):
insight about where the industryis heading and also after the
event, continue to engage with the content and subscribe to the
stuff we have available through our various channels.
Now let's take a quick recap of of what's happened in the year.
And what are yours? Being in the sports media
landscape, let's have a quick look at Europe.
It's been a. Year of aggregations, Mergers.
(14:03):
Creators getting involved in rights and then deep breath to
consumer becoming even more important for some players.
Aggregation, meaning Amazon are absolutely dominating that
space, being a host of differentpartnerships, becoming the
central platform of choice on many sports properties and non
sports properties. The Zone playing that role as
well and even then coming together and creating a similar
(14:23):
relationship. We'll see mergers and
acquisitions side of the play out at the high end of the
industry with RTL and Sky and ofcourse rumours of Sky and RTD
potentially partnering up as well.
Creators in creators in markets like in France where a streamer
pays 6 figures for Saudi PremierLeague rights and a law so
acquired under 21 French football and in the UK was all
(14:47):
booed as they could take quite an innovative step selling
lights and giving lights over tothe sky but also to various
creators and I'll. Talk a bit more.
About later on all through YouTube and of course laid UN
made a lot of the headlines thathave been for a number of years
with the different moves and things that have happened to
their strategy and were forced to go direct to consumer fought
(15:08):
by designs early exit of their agreement looking towards now
the US Amazon all in on their relationship with the NBA even
using it as a platform to marketand promote AWS.
You can hear a lot more about that on stage late today when
they join me up here. If one might put it differently,
(15:29):
but the fee they wanted and madepublic let's the really only
having one possible direction and that's moving all their
chips in with Apple. Now this is a move that Apple
needed to make and I've since made a league of Morsi could be
a move by moving Major League Soccer to general access on
their platform and without it both property space A lot losing
a lot of momentum in those markets in the most important
(15:51):
media market for them. And now Netflix really made it
made it to move into live sports.
They tried a whole host of different things, building their
own IP, running hot dogs, competitions, prion golf
tournaments, exhibitions and nowstart to be playing a bit more
of a conventional game. But all with this events based
model and mindset. They get to make a move into
(16:14):
season long rights deals with the major leads.
At least not yet. And of course, ESPN finally
launched their direct to consumer platform for me a
little bit under woman after allthis hype and buzz, but the uses
then they've had challenges of without betting business closing
and also a stand off of YouTube as recently as last week.
(16:36):
And of course, the other big players in Paramount and Warner
Brothers Discovery, always in the headlights.
The Temple merger. Chatter.
Around their futures, looking more globally, again, some
interesting case studies and things happening.
You've got out of Brazil, KarzaiTV who really pioneered this
creator LED YouTube LED broadcast model that's put them
on the mount. There's one as Lata's leading
(16:58):
rights holders. You're going to hear more from
them tomorrow as well. In India, IPL continues to break
all sorts of records both from screening but also revenue
generation even through advertising, and they're
delivering one of the most innovative platforms in the
world. Zoe made a lot of headlines
making huge commitments by financially and technologically
(17:19):
on the Club World Cup rights that.
FIFA had. Delivering the event for free to
all customers across the globe and to make up the 1 billion
investment they in sub licence all of those rights in the
shortest window you could imagine to every broadcaster
every market possible who's willing to pay some rights stays
for that and they acquired as great as biggest biggest KTV
(17:42):
operator Fox call what equates to a share of James.
Now let's talk about the sexiestand most misleading topic in
sports rights sports meteor rights sports doesn't produce a
record each year on meteorites values and I think it's a great
reminder for every sports property on how difficult it is
(18:04):
to drive meteorites value directly.
Let's look at some examples here. 5 sports properties take
half of all revenue you paid forrights.
Fire scores give 80% of all media rights are new paid and US
mates have half an EU rights paid globally with four other
(18:27):
countries almost explicitly focused on football, making both
of those numbers alongside the IPL in India.
So why is the US so big when we could spend the whole session
talking just about that? But pure and simply, it is the
ad economy that exists in America.
The sports feel best that advertising are winning right
now. Those the fewer ad breaks are
(18:48):
struggling to drive value. That's why you saw F1 struggle
to get the growth they wanted for them if you are steals.
Yet the NBA and NFL able to get 3X what they got the previous
cycle. And then the conclusion really
is here and our minder is emerging.
Sports, you are old, need to take a very different approach
to the legacy way of working andall these start up leagues that
(19:11):
are popping up now, they need tostop putting in their investor
decks at year 3. They're going to have a massive
hockey stick in meteorites revenue in this ain't going to
happen. Now on to some of the key things
we're covering over the next. Couple of days.
And if you don't pay much attention to the agenda, we have
4 BD forums on these 4 topics, which I'm going to cover
quickly. Starting with OTT and streaming,
(19:34):
40% of sports viewers are now watching exclusively via stream
services, and streaming servicesare now paying four times the
amount that they were for the rights in just five years.
The interesting evolution we've seen in these types of rights
deals that are happening are that this major streamers are
(19:54):
acquiring not only some of thesepop tier rights, but they're
also acquiring and migrating theDTC offerings of those boards
into their own ecosystems. The NBA and Amazon, NFL on his
own, F1 and Apple in the US and so on.
So why are they doing this? I mean, it's pretty simple.
It's another way of these broadcasters and streamers be
(20:16):
able to get more value out of the relationship they're
creating with the audience. Seamless upsell possibilities as
a result. Of having that platform.
On that opportunity to upgrade on platform now when it's
focused social media day today many sports properties are
really this is their primary focus. 93% of Gen Z fancy the
(20:40):
second screen while watching a Max think about that number for
a second. You have to seriously ask
yourself now, which screen is really the first screen In 2025,
99 Percent of users don't post content, just consume.
However, 65% of Gen Z consideredthemselves content creators.
(21:02):
Interesting on the platform ranking side, YouTube clearly
leading away. This is from IMG in terms of
rankings through various metrics.
However, they'll be the first totell you then also as a platform
on you all they take the new TV and the others played such an
important role in the Gatesman and not live content and
audience building. So are they social platforms or
major video platforms alone? And then this sat on this table.
(21:26):
I think it's interesting one forus to to chew on if from the
Financial Times where social media consumption is going down
in every group, say the older generation who as usual, I
always go 100 times. The question is, if they're out
on social, where are they going?Some think it's not your.
Revolt against social media digital like me, though I think
(21:48):
it's simply more they're they'reaccessing other things they're
on cat's dark social platforms and they're engaged there's not
being this is but some of them can be extras that they'll tell
me otherwise. Now on to YouTube.
In the past four months, Sky, I'm sorry, YouTube has cyber
operated to the top of the mediaconversation and some of these
(22:09):
stats really make that point blind.
I mean, you've seen that YouTubeis now the number one YouTube
platform in a whole host of other markets, the US obviously
you hear that and see that across all social.
The 30% rise in sports viewing across YouTube's connected TV
app in 2024 shows the rate of growth and importance of sports
on that platform. 20% of TV during starts up to young age or
(22:32):
to YouTube as well. So that's the place you can get
bands, bands from the younger age and even the marketers slow
moving around screaming like theUK has 14% of all in home video
consumption being through YouTube.
You're going to hear a lot more about YouTube over the next
couple of days and including insight from cars ATV for I
(22:52):
mentioned earlier from this their Co founder Sergio Lopez,
who will be on stage tomorrow talking about that.
And you'll also hear about how the Buddha Sega leads into
Youtubes and creators that I mentioned earlier, including
we've Manchester United fan turns Watch along creator Mark
Baldridge and the top podcast channel in the UK.
(23:12):
The distribution and by the way,Mark averages more viewers than
start. UK's coverage.
For some ear bell games. Now on to advertising.
To perhaps the biggest growing focus of three of screening and
sports, following the realisation that you need
multiple monetisation approachesto make a content page.
Who are you? Over time, we've let the
(23:34):
advertisers are more and consumers are more than happy to
consume advertising. In their experience, they're not
as precious as before they were a core of all subscriptions Now
on SBOD have an ad tier includedin active, 81% of consumers are
more than happy to watch them toget it for free.
And the majority of consumers prefer personalised ads over RAN
(23:58):
content. Again, what a surprise that is,
but on the the reason that the sports needs to pay most
attention to this, just that absurping sports are just way
more effective driving higher CPMS and they're so effective.
The big time screamers like Netflix and Paramount are
preferring ad hybrid approach tothe economics of pay-per-view.
(24:19):
And in the last year change thatapproach we bite towards as a
result of this single heavily killing off pay-per-view, at
least for the near future. And final key thing for this
event is of course technology and production.
This that could be in a couple of buckets, but it's true.
But not to include around 24.4 billion is lost on piracy each
(24:40):
year. Think about that number for a
second. It's almost half the meteorites
number I stated earlier and that's not going to change
anytime soon. There's a cultural acceptance of
it, media aid going away and people who are consuming it more
than ever. And especially if we keep
working with legacy access models with high cost entry
points and don't leave its ad funded strategies.
(25:04):
The next number factor is 86% are using cloud now in some
capacity. However, many broadcasters still
struggling to make that shit happen from a legacy workflow
and the final set there is 80% of fans truly believe in AI and
it's impact it's going to have on the the viewership and
viewing experience from 2027. So I'm going to wrap up on these
(25:29):
10 quick five things I'm thinking that and hopefully get
some more clarity on over the next two days.
One our highlights now worth more to sport than live.
I'm not saying it, but you've heard that probably on the
various media lines that Adam Silver in the NBA Bay people in
the UK has made it as well. That's a big question that is
(25:49):
being asked of the future of theindustry 2.
Is YouTube really the future of TV like they say?
Is advertising really a viable monetization channel for live
sports now? Primary, I should add, will
media wise continue to dip in Europe And we big streamers keep
making more. They keep making more plays for
live sports across the world. How will legacy media react to
(26:12):
the movies the screamers are making?
How much improvement does AI make to the top and bottom line
is even see a viable long term plate our creators, the best
partners for sports right now and what mergers and
acquisitions are set to rock this industry feels like we've
only just begun there. So lots of things to think
(26:32):
about, lots of things that I'm thinking, and I hope that this
sets the scene for Watson's score for the next two days.
And if you're not already and want to keep better track of all
the things that are going on in the sports industry, again, make
sure you subscribe to Sports Pro.
And of course, I have to give myself A blog, the sports the
stream, find sports podcast every round weekly covering all
things sports media and of course, available on all sports
(26:54):
on all podcast platforms and of course, YouTube.
Now that's what you've done for now.
I'll see you back on stage in a couple of sessions.
Thank you and have a great event.
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