UP425 The Bundle Live - The StreamAMG Direct-to-Fan Playbook Event @ Amazon

This is a live episode recorded at StreamAMG's excellent Direct-to-Fan Playbook event, held at Amazon's Liverpool Street headquarters in London. 
A big thank you goes to the team at StreamAMG for inviting us along, we learnt loads.

Joining Richard on stage was Murray Barnett, one half of the regular Bundle presenting team, founder of West26 Consulting and formerly ESPN, F1 and World Rugby.

We were joined by Andrew Ryan and David Dellea.

Andrew is Managing Director of FIBA Media, the joint venture between basketball's global governing body and DAZN, which produces, commercialises and promotes the biggest events of the FIBA calendar. Andrew previoulsy held senior roels at the IOC and Perform.

David Dellea is Sports Practice Director at Altman Solon consulting group in Zurich, and previously led the sports practice at PwC.

If you'd like to attend one of our live podcast recordings, get in touch via the website here.

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Transcript

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Hello, and welcome to Unofficial Partner, the sports business podcast. I'm Richard Gillis. This is a live episode of the bundle recorded at stream AMGs excellent. Recent director fan playbook event held at Amazon's Liverpool street headquarters. So a big thank you goes to the team at stream AMG. For inviting so long, we learned loads. Joining me on stage was one half of our regular bundle presenting team. Marie Barnett, founder of west 26 consulting group, formerly of ESPN formula one world rugby. You name it. He has worked there. We were joined on stage by Andrew Ryan and David Delea. Andrew is managing director of FIBA media, the joint venture. Between basketball's global governing body and design, which produces commercializes and promotes the biggest events of the fever calendar. Andrew previously held senior roles at the IOC and perform David is sports practice director at Altman, so long consulting group in Zurich and previously led the sports practice at PWC. Unofficial. Partner is the leading podcast for the business of sport. Thank you for listening. We really appreciate it. If you're interested in coming to one of our live events, like the one you're going to listen to today. We've got a number coming up between here and Christmas. So get in touch via the newsletter, which goes out on a Thursday and you'll find a link to that in the show notes. To this one. So here we are at. Stream AMG is direct to fan playbook event The Bundle, is our podcast stream about the media rights marketplace. So we thought we'd come and have a conversation here, and there's quite a few people in the room which I see as listeners, so thank you for, uh, your support. Right, Murray Barnett, let's start with you. in the middle of this marketplace, we've got football, this huge monster, and there'll be a lot of people in the room and people listening who don't work in football and are wondering how to attack this monster. Because it feels like there's a crowding out going on, whether that's a UK view, but there's something happening in terms of the way in which the sports market is evolving. So we need to think about and talk about other sports other than football because it gets, it hoovers up a lot of the sort of oxygen. It's interesting that we're talking about this now, because, you know, we've obviously just had the Olympics, which is not well, largely not a football tournament. we've also got Andrew, who's Australian by background, and football certainly isn't. The number one sport in Australia and you mentioned NBA's TV deals. Football is certainly not the number one sport in the U. S. So it can feel that way when you sit in Europe. But I think in other countries there are definitely other sports which have prominence and a completely different dynamic to the market. And indeed, you know, football, talking about football can be quite monolithic, but actually the situation that Premier League has here is very different to how the Bundesliga finds itself in Germany or how Serie A finds itself in Italy. So yes, as a sport, it tends to dominate European sport, but I think Each one has its own sort of differences and difficulties, if you like, when it thinks about how to commercialize itself. And indeed, the same is true of the competitors in those markets. So, you know, I've just done a project recently for Football Association of Ireland, and what's interesting there is it's by far and away, the, football is by far and away the number one participation sport, and indeed the most followed sport in terms of viewership on, on, on TV. But not Irish football. They're all Premier League fans and indeed there is a hierarchy around, uh, Gaelic games or Gaelic football and rugby being sort of considered to be the more tier one sports, if you like, there. And so each, each market has its own slightly different, unique challenges, but you know, perhaps, It's a good point to bring Andrew in to talk about, the situation that Australia finds itself in with, uh, massive TV deals for, for rugby and for Australian rules. Yeah, it certainly is, Murray. I think it's, uh, I think it's safe to say, Richard, that is quite a European centre of view, even if we go away from the big English language markets outside of that, whether it's the US in particular, or obviously Australia as well as a country which is quite pluralistic in its sports fandom as compared to a lot of countries in Europe that where football is, football is first, second and third. Um, and then even when you go to Asia, you've got sports like obviously we have a lot of success with FIBA basketball in the major Asian markets like China and Japan. So I think it's safe to say it's a, it's a European centric, uh, thing. thing. If we're having a look at Australia in particular, it's a, it's a really intriguing market at the moment. I think probably people underestimate just how big the media rights values down there. And it probably still has one of the healthiest free to air markets that exist in, in the world of, of, of media. Of traditional sports broadcast where you're finding the major sports, in particular the Australian Rules football and the NRL, the National Rugby League have a series of combintion deals with both the free two air, players, whether that's channel nine or Channel seven, primarily in combination with. Fox Sports, the major pay broadcaster. Why do think, sorry, Andrew. It's a good point, but why do you think that is? Is that just a cultural thing that's evolved over time? Because obviously the, say similar players or the ownership of the media side is, or the com the, the, the dynamic of the competition on the media side is probably very similar. Yeah. It's. I think part of it is a function of the fact that you look at the UK for instance, and for a long time the BBC was just so much the dominant to air broadcaster basically. In Australia it's incredibly different. It's the major commercial networks that are the major free to air broadcasters. Um, the, the ABC, the government station is sort of more supporting second, third tier sports that aren't really getting, getting necessarily a run otherwise. So that, that market has always been Particularly powerful and I think Australia as a country is ultimately so sport obsessed that people demand and will tune in on those free to air channels. Yeah, there's another interesting point about Australia where it has very heavy anti siphoning rules which keeps a lot of sport on free TV. So that helps to keep the profile of it that much higher and if you like, almost does the work for generating revenues from paid TV. What is anti siphoning? Anti siphoning? Events are protected, so they have to be broadcast on, on free to air broadcasters. Not necessarily the state broadcaster, but, or the government broadcaster, but available to the widest, uh, distribution platforms. Yeah, no, completely, completely. And that, and that certainly is a factor as well. And that's something that's being reviewed time and again. But actually the, coming back to the point about just how substantial those media rights values are. I was talking with Murray about this actually the other day that, uh, came out a headline that the National Rugby League, the NRL, uh, was, was sort of going back in the market for its media rights sales, looking to talk with, uh, with Larry Ellison, who's come in to now, um, to, to buy Paramount, who owned Channel 10 down there. Anyway, cut a long story short, I went back and ran the numbers of what the current NRL media rights deal, which was renewed during COVID and was seen as a, you know, an okay outcome in the circumstances, but nothing more than that. And they will go back to the market for 2027. Their media rights deal is bigger than the aggregate of the Gallagher Premiership. United Rugby Championship, the French Top 14, which is considered sort of the, you know, the most powerful financial league in, in rugby union in Europe. And even if you add Super Rugby Pacific, it's not that far behind in aggregates. And when it comes to 2027, if you sort of track the NRL deal being almost similar to the AFL because of the fact that consumption and minute each and the like is actually very, very similar, chances are it will go from. 400 million Australian per year, probably 6, 650 million Australian per year. And when you start doing that, that starts to dwarf that entire group of rugby club leagues. And I know you can always say, okay, yes, the, the international game is very strong in rugby union players at the chance to be topped up. But That single sports property is now in a couple of years going to suck up even more and more of those prime athletes that come from particularly the Polynesian athletes. I think that's currently 45 percent of the NRL are Polynesian heritage athletes. There's around 150 New Zealand heritage players in there at the moment. Those numbers are going to get bigger and bigger and bigger and there is a new team coming in in 2027, another one that's just been announced for 2028 and likely a second New Zealand team for probably pre 2030. So when you add up another 90 odd contracts with a salary cap that's probably going to be 50 percent above what it is at the moment. I'm really curious to see what that is going to do in terms of both the movement of players from the Southern Hemisphere, um, and particularly Polynesian New Zealander players that have actually really, really supplemented the playing base over here, and even then actually going and raiding the playing stocks of French, English, Welsh rugby players, because simply from a monetary perspective, they will be able to offer a lot more than, you know, they Rugby can't as a sport. So which is an interesting turn for a sport that certainly over here is is sort of seen in a Very different light and almost very much working man northern game. Yeah, what I like about that story is that it's quite nicely counterintuitive to my very UK centric European view that we're looking out and we're seeing the Premier League dominating Everything in terms of rights values that David just in terms of that sort of global local You thing that we're talking about there, yeah, I wanted to go back to your, to your first question, right? You started by saying, you know, football is so dominating, what are others doing, right? Well, how can you attack? And I think it's a very valid question in terms of trying to understand if you're not football, if you're not one of those premium property, what type of levers do you have in your hands that you can actually set in motion, right? And we've seen a lot of, uh, kind of sports trying to innovate the product, right? The core product on the field of play product. We were discussing about it before and we, we see. Obviously, there are a couple of sports, and I think 3x3, and for sure Andrew will tell us about it, that really come, I would say, from a grassroots movement, from a participatory movement, right, and then kind of governing bodies take it and try to market it, right, to elevate it. Well, you have a number of other sports, actually, that also have a grassroots movement, but they're not fit for immediate consumption, necessarily. We're talking about paddle tennis, for example, booming from right to left, however Do you think paddle is a television sport? Well, I Personally, don't think so. I think it's a great sport to engage with, to participate with, to, you know, if you're a tennis player and you're a bit rusty like I am, so playing paddle tennis will make it much easier to have fun and re engage with the sport, right? Now, is it nice to watch on television or is it to watch on, on, on media? Maybe in short clips, yes. I don't believe in that being a potential for, I would say, more mainstream, uh, media. Product. This being said, sort of the product is one point that is, that is very important. We don't have to forget that. The other lever that one have, uh, has in, in its end is access to content. Right? And that's actually what we're all talking about today, right? So how, how are you going to make it discoverable, findable, accessible, right? That's second big lever. What I, what I like to say is that what I find particularly interesting on, around the product actually, right, is that. And we were discussing about it before, is that through product innovation, we have a great chance to shake the tree, right? Let's remember that we are still a quasi monopoly industry, right? Dominated by a lot of governing bodies, which are not necessarily prone to change. Right. Um, that's, there's lot of com, there's a lot of complacency, right? And, and I think talking about new products, you're basically, uh, jamming their brains in a way. So you, you're, you're taking a, a go, I would say federation efficient and literally jamming, jamming their brain by talking about changing the product upside down. And I think that has a positive impact in terms of rethinking, uh, kind of freeing up new energy and, and rethinking the entirety of the model. Yeah, absolutely. So, Andrew, we should talk, I mean, your day job, FIBA, media, and I always get this wrong, so you always tell me off, so 3x3, 3x3, 3x3, shit, I knew it was going to be, I always call it 3x3, but, so 3x3 is the short version of the game, basketball, so 3x3, And a load of questions which I was just thinking about where that product comes from, and whether it comes from the market, demand, fans, they want this, or whether it's a sort of, supplier side, conversation, let's do this and try and take it to market, and then this room is full of people who are sort of given the job of go find an audience, connect to an audience, distribute, discover, all of those really difficult jobs of, you know, some of them are technical, some are marketing. what was the situation with, within FIBA? Because I think it's quite a nice case study because we can then, I don't want to make it all about this, but we can then project onto it in terms of other formats like that, you know, it could be 2020 or 7s or whatever it is. Yeah, no, it's a great case study actually. I mean, we don't look after the media rights for that at FIBA Media, but obviously very close to the property, uh, which, which is run out of FIBA headquarters in Geneva. I think it probably actually almost fits into both of the, the things that you've just described. So on the one hand, anyone who's got familiarity with basketball or having played that when they were younger, um, Playing 3 on 3 on a half court is essentially the way that most people grow up playing until you get into organised club basketball or anything like that. Like 20 over cricket. In a way, it is the organic way in which most people experience basketball for the first time, so it is, it is very much born out of, uh, That natural evolution of the sport or for whatever whatever restrictions in court availability or people. It's just easy to play. So on the one hand, it is it is an incredibly organic one as compared to, for instance, rugby sevens, for instance, a bit more of a manufactured product. On the other hand, it I guess what FIBA has done is seen a bunch of objectives in terms of having an additional discipline that sits in the Olympic games, having a product that could be taken to city centres rather than in indoor arenas, being able to have a form of the game that somewhat allows new countries, the ones that have not necessarily been dominant in 5 on 5 basketball, to have a better chance both in terms of it being a new format. So historical coaching and knowledge is not such a big deal. Only three players on court needed plus one reserve. So can I just ask a quick question? Is it a is it the same game but smaller or is it a different game because obviously 2020 is evolving and one of the It's the it's the case study that we land on because the IPL and it's commercialized and we'll you know We can talk about that in terms of media the interest from that But is that the same because 2020 there is it's there's a difference. It's different enough for there to be a sort of whole Skill based. Probably it's on a continuum in a way. If I was going to give the 2020 comparison, I think there's a, there's a version that's being played out of New Zealand at the moment called Rapid Basketball. I think that's four by four minute quarters. That's probably more similar to 2020. I guess T20 cricket tactics change because of available resources and the like and risk profiles of what you're doing. 3x3 has its own tactics because there are less players on court, there's a shorter shot clock, physically it's incredibly demanding because the players are essentially on the Always on. There's, you know, not essentially the, you know, the, the period where someone's bringing the ball up, setting up a play in a 24 second shot clock. So it is, it's got the fundamentals of basketball. Everyone can recognize that it is basketball as soon as they see it, but it's developed its own, own culture, its own strategy, its own tactics, and certainly certain players are more adept at playing that than they are necessarily five on five basketball. What would be the next job then, Murray, in terms of connecting the, you know, and we can use. 3x3 or we can use a different example, but just the job of connecting it to audiences. What are the problems? What's the challenge there? Well, I think just just to finish off on Andrew's point The interesting thing is where the idea comes from because the way that a federation is going to run a sport Whatever that sport is or whatever derivative of the sport it is. It's very different to if a commercial entity such as private equity or indeed anybody decides they're going to set up something completely different and usually the big difference is actually iteration. So federations like to think hard with their expensive management consultants about exactly what a 3x3 should look like and present it as a finished plan to, to their audience or to their broadcast partners and sponsors. Whereas if you have take something like King's League in Spain, where it's a completely commercial entity where they're saying, well, we're going to throw a bunch of rules at the wall and see what resonates with, with our audiences, wherever they are. And. That is almost like a kind of a live version of, focus groups, uh, or it's a live focus group in terms of you put the event out there, you come up with a bunch of rules, if they don't seem to resonate with the audience, you change them and move on, so season one looks quite different to season two, et cetera, et cetera, and then you hone, a concept which is really designed for its audience, and if it's designed for its audience, The audience will find it because if it's by definition, it's something that they, uh, that they've responded to and they, they like the look of and they feel engaged and involved in it. So wherever, then you put that content and one of that might be a bespoke OTT service. Some of it might be Twitch or, social media streaming or whatever. they'll find that content and actually the way that then it's sort of monetized is quite a different model to say a 3x3 federation type model. If I could just chime in because I think it's a really interesting word you've used there of iteration and change from season to season. It's slightly tangential but, um, I put a LinkedIn post up a couple of weeks ago, uh, post Olympics. Just thinking through this concept of you've got so many sports there that have a moment in the sun for a period of time and we've all had those conversations, sorry it's a bit presumptive, but you know, of where you become a massive fan of equestrian. for a week or all of a sudden, you know, just follow breaking closely for, you know, for two or three days and what those sports can, can do to, to essentially grab some of that momentum and turn it into something useful for the period thereafter. And we've got so many examples of whether what we're talking about today in terms of trying to improve your place in the market or, you know, You might have a sport like the NFL, which has actually done a pretty good job of taking a quintessentially American product that is slow, violent, played in blue collar towns and has somehow convinced Germans and, you know, Brits that Sunday night is now NFL night, which is great. But ultimately, I think we still understand very little about the, the psychology of what makes someone sample and then follow. So, you know, there was some research done about a decade ago by a collection of Korean and American researchers that looked at sport curiosity and the susceptibility or propensity of individuals to actually, first and foremost, be attracted by marketing to a new sport or what Type of messaging was most effective to get them to take the next step to sample it, and then what might induce them to follow it more regularly. And for something that is so fundamental to the expansion of sport, and there's so much money put in from all of us that at the moment we're doing a lot of what. Murray is talking about actually just iterating, hoping that, you know, a new broadcast deal or bigger broadcast deal will happen. Or, you know, for instance, we, we've had some great success in Germany for FIBA basketball off the back of the national team winning the World Cup, but that's not necessarily the same as, you know, um, Planning and marketing, leaving aside what the National Federation has done there, is very good work. So I think that is an area that is ripe for further study and investigation in the next decade, because we're throwing so much money and resource that they're trying to develop new markets and generate new fans, but it's still a little bit flying blind for the most part. David, there's a question I think I quite often come back to, there's that sort of culture question. In terms of where the new innovation comes from, whether it comes from within the traditional governing body or from outside. The Kings League comes from, you know, a sort of disruptor that comes from outside. What do you think about that in terms of you're someone who, you know, that that management bit or the just the the organizational culture that exists and it's It's probably a cliche to think of it as private public in that, in that sense, but there is a difference between how they might go about developing ideas. I always talk about part run it has to emerge from outside rather than from within a governing body. So there are a bit both models, right? You have cases, and I think we were discussing about rugby before and I'm by far not a rugby expert, right? But I was asking these questions to what extent really is a sport that is kind of established a bit as a synthetic sport, kind of in vitro, right? You, you, you take it to what extent does that work in terms of creating outright a new sport? So, 3x3, one example, right? To what extent do you slightly modify the rules of an existing sport? Does that come from the ground up? Does it come top down? My personal belief, I want to think that the best chance for a sport to succeed, or for a new format to succeed, is if it really comes from the ground up. And then the Federation elevates it, to my point before, right? I've seen examples of federations which do actually think top down, as if, uh, Treat it like a product, product innovation or consumer product innovation process, right? Let's put it on the whiteboard and design something new. I believe less in that, but there are examples, right? That, that actually turn out to, to, to work. Um, I mean, LiveGolf was a McKinsey whiteboard PowerPoint, wasn't it? I think essentially that's where it started. Exactly. Yeah. Well, I don't want to comment on competitors work, but, uh, No, but anyway, so one, one point that I find interesting is I wasn't saying that was a good thing, by the way. Now, one point that I find interesting, just to expand on the new product, is we are here always insisting about engagement on or around the sports translated to media consumption, right? And I think that we always need to kind of do one step back and understand that ultimately sports is about all of us to engage with. The sport and actually practice it. And I think, one point that I, that I find interesting is, is a lot of the experience of the Olympic movement of the IOC honor one, these urban clusters of which three x three spot, but then you have climbing, you have, uh, breaking, et cetera, right? So, and you see a lot of following for that, right? During the Olympic, people get very enthusiastic. But why? There is a whole experience, there is an urban experience that is in the forefront. of why people engage with that, right? So, and people have a blast, right? They go, they watch it. It's great, right? Now, is that translating into, media consumption, right? Probably less so. No. Is that a chance to get, uh, to get people engaged with the sport? Absolutely. Right. And an example of, of climbing is, is a good one. So we've had an experience in Switzerland where we staged the world championship In our capital Bern, not one of the most exciting places, I grant you that. However, they chose an ice hockey arena to stage that, right? And nobody showed up, or barely anyone showed up now. Big success at the games, didn't work out in that format. Why? It wasn't integrated into, you know into an urban setting. It wasn't delivering an experience to the spectators. Hence they felt in their attempt to kind of engage with the people. And I think that that is something that we need to always remember, right? It's not about engineering. The perfect spectacle for TV is about engineering and experience, which then gives you opportunity to monetize through other ways of engaging with, uh, with people following. And I think it's important to remind us that. Yeah, absolutely. There's a sort of opportunity here to just throw that into the previous conversation in this room about the media consumption of it and how you go about selling this new thing. So you've got, you know, you've created a new format, a new product you want to go to market for it. And there'll be people in the room will have a view. What are the options? So the options of, we've talked about OTT, is it what, what works? Is it a broadcast product? Do you put it on YouTube? Do you, where, do you go where the people are or do you build an expensive D to C OTT platform? It's, it's very specific to the, to the sport or to the league and, and to the market as well and, and even the audience you're trying to reach and, I'll give you a good example. So like you look at formula One in the us. So Formula One in the US is available on linear network in, in ESPN. It's available on ESPN Plus, which is their OTT service. F1 TV PRO is coex exclusive with ESPN, meaning that they can show live races as well. And it's available in the US, and they've launched a fast channel, and they put out a lot of digital and social content. So they are literally trying to get any kind of audience that they can, anywhere. And, you know, I'd go so far as to say that they're not cannibalizing anybody by doing that. And I, you know, I'm a great believer that this, that where my 17 year old son is going to watch Formula 1 is very different to where I'm going to watch it. And so, when you're having that discussion with, say, Sky here in the UK, It's not about that you're, that you're going non exclusive. It's that actually you're not capturing my 17 year old through your subscriptions, and nor will you probably ever capture him that way, because he's consuming the content in such a different way. So it's trying to work out exactly who you want to reach, And then seeing what the mechanisms are that are available to it. And I use Formula One because it's kind of a fairly monolithic sport or mainstream sport. You know, if you're a smaller sport, you don't obviously have that opportunity. So if you're something like Squash, you launch your own Squash TV service because no broadcaster is buying it, right? So you're figuring that there is a bunch of people that are interested in Squash, but they're fairly niche. And by the way, it means that I can be more flexible by giving away Some of the best events to broadcast TV because it allows people to sample my content. It allows people to, um, see it in a different way, help sponsors be, uh, keen on it. And, you know, gives you a, uh, a different way of thinking about traditional broadcast. But then to take that one stage further, I think it's also looking at the way that people think about things like fandom, because again, I'm going to keep using my 17 year old as a focus group of one, but, you know, I'm a Tottenham Hotspur fan, as are we all. Um, he is nominally a Tottenham Hotspur fan, but he's actually, you know, a Harry Kane fan or a Son fan. And so all of a sudden it's, it's interesting to see how he's not now much more interested in what's happening with Bayern Munich or watching clips about what's happening with Bundesliga. And it's had, how can you capture somebody like him who's following the protagonists rather than Premier League or Tottenham. And is there a different way to think about how you're reaching them, which of course there is, but then the next question is then how do you effectively monetize them? So I had read an article a few months ago, which gave me a bit of an aha moment, right? Very simple, right? So I'm inventing hot water here, but we're still having a lot of the business models that we have right now on our own media distribution, still based on an old assumption, whereby you have grandfather, father, children. Spouses all watching a big screen, right? So then you have models fundamentally revolving around exclusivity that are based on the fact that basically there is one large community and there is a lot of communication between, you know, these different communities. Today, we live in bubbles, right? So it's an algorithmically driven bubble. Everyone is on its own phone, hence having a hybrid strategy, right, is a must. You can no longer assume that through one community that owns the rights exclusively you can reach all of the potential users, you're just not going to, right? So that's why it's really very much about, in my view, product differentiation, right? Not the core on the field product, Here we're talking about the media product differentiation and being in a position to transact and engage. With these communities through their gatekeepers, through their gatekeepers, hands, all of the partnership with influences, uh, you know, publisher publishing houses and so on and so forth, to be able to address those communities, we, we, we can no more work with, uh, a monolithic kind of approach to it clearly. And, and for 1 0 1 shows, shows a way, right? And the partnership of NBC and, and the likes actually, that the Olympics shows the way. And actually, it's interesting if you look at the market in the States, because somebody like the NBA has national, multiple national packages, local packages, all for linear TV, but then inside its NBA TV product, it has, I think at last count, something like, what, more than 45 different Pricing mechanisms for how you can watch their OTT. It's a good example. It's everything from, uh, follow your team, all you can eat, right down to, I only want to watch the last two minutes of the game. And what they're doing is, and again, you know, going back to the point about iterative in a different sense, they have thrown a whole bunch of different pricing mechanisms and they get this instant feedback. Hey, if we charge a dollar to watch the last two minutes of a game and nobody's buying it. It's either the product is wrong, the last two minutes isn't the right length, or it's the price is wrong. Hey, if we drop that to 50 cents, all of a sudden do we see, you know, a big increase? And it seems to me that the U. S. leagues are much better at trialing stuff. And wanting to do things differently, you know, having worked a lot in European sports, there's a lot of, Here's the model, and we're not going to change it, and we're not going to listen to what you're, the feedback that we're getting from you as a partner, Because we've spent all this time and energy to create this piece of paper, which says it's got to be like this. sounds expensive, the, Formula One solution. And Formula One has lots of money, and the NFL has lots of money. Is the question, Okay, we need to pick one of these, or two of these, and be really good at it. Is that, is that going to be part of a solution for people who aren't, you know, in the sort of Mount Rushmore group of mega, Rights holders who are just going to get bigger and bigger and the rights will, you know, they'll be fine, we don't need to worry about them, but it's just, it's everyone else who's trying to work out their media, what media strategy looks like further down. Look, I can take this one, um, coming from a rights holder. I guess we're, we're not the NBA or NFL in terms of revenue. We do quite well, we can afford my salary, which obviously helps me greatly, personally, but leaving, leaving that aside, it's We, we take something actually a very similar approach to what Murray's described there with the, with the Formula One. And obviously this depends on your market power and your interest levels in each market. There'll be some in which it's a struggle to get anyone more than a pay TV broadcaster to buy it. There'll be others where you can essentially divide rights between, in a lot of territories, we will have a leading free to air partner, whether that's a commercial broadcaster, a state, um, state public broadcaster, then we will have, um, a broader range of games that sit on a pay TV partner and to capture Murray's son and anyone else that we have, product called Courtside 1891, which is an OTT service that we run in partnership with Two Circles on a global basis. And that provides essentially an OTT proposition for a, you know, a premium subscription every month that will give you access to all games from the, the world of video games. So we have definitely different entry points. We'll also do a lot of what David was just talking about before in terms of we have a digital publisher program, an influencer and celebrity program in which we're trying to not necessarily get live feeds out through, through these organisations or individuals, but certainly circulating content whether around the game or highlights, clips and the like. So, um, I think it's less about I think that you know, the price of, price of running OTT services has come down. There's a lot more knowledge of how to do it. It's probably a lot more understanding of how difficult it is in some ways to make it a major success. But also when you're running OTT products, you've got to be very clear as to what your objectives are. That, too, I mean, ours is partially to, You know, it's super serve fans who want everything. It's partially to help out in markets where we don't have as much broadcast circulation of content as well, but it's also an incredibly important part of FIBA's essentially direct consumer relationship objectives. So it is one of the, one of the most. Prominent ways that we actually create direct, you know, data-driven connections with fans, that that doesn't necessarily happen in other parts of our operation. So our judgment of success of that is not just completely predicated on how much revenue is it driving, or how is it helping us to create, I guess, competitive options in the market. We look at it a little bit more holistically than that. And I mean the question obviously, you know, we call our podcast The Bundle and it there's a sort of irony in that it's a sort of joke, but the existential question? I'm not talking about FIBA, but we're talking about for lots of sports rights holders is The money replacement where is the money going to come from when the bundle starts to or you know as it starts to unravel? And obviously we've got different people say, you know, Jerry Cardinale, you know would say that Invest in IP and you can ride out whatever the distribution problem will be. That's one solution, but what do we think about this? Where is the money going to come from? That's the you know, the big question that's facing lots of different sports. Anyone got an answer for this? I wish I had. I wish. I think we all wish. Because I mean I'm hearing a lot of cost. Well, I'm not hearing much. I think, I think Andrew mentioned a point that is important is that today, but I think that our hosts here have probably more to say to that is that today, the question is not should, should, should you have a direct to consumer OTT on an operated platform? The question, the answer is always yes. The question is how big and how much are we able to scale it down, right? So you have a minimum common denominator you can build upon. Today, there's a number of federations that run OTT at the very, very, very modest cost, and they're still able to achieve their goals, right? I think you don't necessarily need to spend, I don't know, 50 million a year of, uh, some have. To your point on the money, it's very hard. We are at an inflection point, quite clearly, right? I think Jerry Cardinale in its interviews identified clearly that, you know, Netflix indeed has killed the bundle, right? Single handedly, right? I don't think it has. I mean, I think that the bundle is always going to have a place to play in the sporting milieu, you know, like if you are a The NBA liked the bundle, they're still working for the NBA. But you know, if you look at something like, uh, It's a good example. So like ESPN, right? So there is always going to be a case for somebody subscribing to a service, which offers them multiple sports, the zone does it as well. There's a bunch of other people who, yes, if you're a massive, uh, formula one fan in the U S and I'll keep using this example, you will. Subscribe to F1 TV Pro, you'll be a cord cutter, you'll say, I never watch ESPN, it's the only sport I care about. But I'm willing to bet that probably 70 percent of the people that subscribe to F1 TV Pro in the US also subscribe to ESPN in one way or another because they appreciate that they're duplicating their coverage, uh, or their Formula 1 subscription, but they're getting it with a different commentary, and they're also getting a whole bunch of different sports with it. So I think there will always be a place for the bundle. I think the question is, it's now giving consumers the choice, which they've never had before, of either being part of a bundle or not being part of a bundle. But the key is that you're offering a differentiated product, right? So if you want, you can just go out and put the same product out on your OTT services as you're selling to somebody else, or you can offer some added value as part of your OTT service, which is what FIBA does, right? So, you know, with Courtside, Courtside is all about, it's the only place where you can watch everything, right? So there is never a situation, or I can't think of a situation, Andrew, where there's more on a, Pay TV broadcaster in a market than there is on courtside and that's the USP. Yeah, no, certainly certainly and to pick up your part about the bundle I guess it depends on what bundle you're talking about we always refer to the Bundle as though it's some magical thing that has here to be honest you know has driven a lot of particular major valuations in sports right into major markets over the last sort of 25 years but There's almost no You know, whether or not you look at the, you know, someone like Evan Shapiro now who talks about the need to create almost lifestyle bundles and actually that is probably the best chance for whether all of those within the content ecosystem of the United States to actually What is a lifestyle bundle? So looking at, you know, bundles that have internet connection content through whether it's through cable, IPTV or ITT services. music, you know, health and fitness type products and the like, almost everything that you could want wrapped into a single subscription proposition and the ability to have that managed at a single point of service as opposed to having a whole range of different, different points of contact. So he'll talk About that as the best way of actually those within the existing ecosystem to be able to fight back against, the giant tech modelists that are coming for every piece of attention. On the flip side, you've had, you know, whether it's the recent Disney and DirecTV carriage dispute or what's going on with venous sports at the moment that that. Bundle is, seems to be being renegotiated in the way that it's traditionally been presented in the United States of, you know, some of the content, content programmers have had to relax their restrictions of not having MVPDs taking essentially all of their channels, some of which they don't particularly want. but at the same time, them also bundling in, you know, ESPN plus or HBO max or the like. So it's, it's almost a reformed bundle of a collection of services and benefits. And obviously to the extent that there's greater commercial, commercial choice for users, then it's not going to be the same stock standard product that it was, but that concept of getting more at a single point of service, I think still has some relevance. So maybe one point to clarify. So of course, bundling is more alive than ever. as a business technique to be able to extract value. I think nobody questions that. When I say the bundle is, you know, Netflix killed the bundle, I'm referring to the traditional model that we've had for 20 plus years, 30 maybe, going, um, going whereby where we extract a tremendous amount of value through aggressive bundling, right? I think the court case on around venue is a good example of really having that really crumbling from the bottom up, right? And when I see that, I, I remember what happens, what happened in 99, 2000 when we killed the 13 or 12 to 15 songs bundled the album in music, right? And, and I'm wondering whether we're, we're not really killing the baby to a certain extent by just, just accelerating forward. Of course, bundling continues to be relevant. There are move, movement right and left to try to keep that as a monetization avenue, right? But I think that we are, you know, we are take, grossly unbundling, tendentially, right? Without necessarily having a clear idea, and here, to come back to your question, so where is the money going to come from? I think we don't know yet exactly. The industry is trying to multiply the avenues for monetization, hence this hybrid distribution strategy, but where is that really, you know, what's really gonna work in the future? I think the jury's out. Just one point on the venue thing, I mean, venue is misunderstood, because, yes, it's a court case that Fubo brought against venue, But what it is, is that it's actually just anti competitive behavior because Disney is offering to sell its own channels to its own entity on an a la carte basis, it's not permitting, Fubo to acquire on the same terms and conditions. So it's actually, it's not, it's got nothing to do with the bundle. It's just got to do with anti competitive behavior. I would likely disagree to. I, I think we are, we're starting, you're right. You're a hundred percent right. I think, however, we are, we're creating a breach in what we've understood as being a traditional bundle. I think. I think we're, we're feeding the arguments of those that actually really are fighting against the bundle in, in that form. And I, so I don't think we're making ourselves a fa They're not making themselves a favor, right? No. I mean, they're, they're doing the wrong thing. I mean, they're doing the wrong thing, but they don't, they're not incentivized at the moment to do the right thing. Okay. We are. About 10 minutes away from a free bar and I I know a room when I sent it. so, any questions? Yeah, one real question's crystallized in my mind today from today's session is to David's point earlier about paddle potentially not being a TV sport and everything what Alex Balfour was saying earlier about content that really resonates and emotions etc in in the fan. So Controversial, but do you think that potentially all sports without context and relevance to drive these emotional responses are just a bit boring? I think,, of course, any, any piece of content needs to be able to have, it's a funnel, right? We're exposed to content and that generates an emotional reaction which, again, will bring us either to consume more of the same, um, All will give us an idea to do other things. And that can be all the forms of, uh, engaging with the sport. So, undoubtedly, if we have a sport that doesn't generate that, that reaction, uh, it's just not going to work. And there are certain sports that, and I think my example of climbing is, I think it's a telling one, right? So obviously that product per se on me, it just doesn't, doesn't generate particular, uh, Resonance allegedly. Right. But it does actually, when people experience it live at an event in a specific setting, and it, it does create that kind of, uh, broader experience. And I think that mso, we, we are after experiences, right? Uh, MSO after Covid. Right? That's, that's something everyone, everyone seeks or, uh, yeah, I, I, I could see that, that, that assumption being, being true, I guess. Well, I, I, if I could add two things to that, like. Firstly, it was interesting working with, Football Association of Ireland and their own, uh, League of Ireland, which is their equivalent of Premier League here, and, we operated an OTT service which covers every single game, uh, a number of the games are televised on TV, but we were getting some games where, frankly, the numbers were in the, in the tens or even the low hundreds, not thousands, just, uh, So, yes, you could argue, well, that means that everybody's finding it boring, but actually, it's becoming so cost effective that even if you're just serving it up for a couple of hundred fans, um, who are choosing to pay you a small subscription to watch that It's it's still worth it for them and and conversely because of the way that pricing is happening now There's been some interesting experiments and it's growing about and there's one that comes to mind in particular Which is a lot of the ice hockey stadiums in Sweden have now been rigged with cameras which then film everything that happens in there? So if I can't be bothered or I'm not in the same city or I'm you know just I could watch my son's, uh, high school hockey game for, a couple of quid rather than go there. So I can call him up afterwards and say, I know you scored a goal because I, is it a goal in hockey? Um, you know, because I watched it, right? Um, and vast majority of people would say, well, that's incredibly boring. But for that particular person, That's really important, right? And it's become, uh, the cost benefit model is, is, has changed a lot. It's funny, I guess, where we sort of got a con question about context when we've just had a few discussions today around the Olympic games, which is probably almost the ultimate sports rapper in a way of taking a range of events that, you know, for the most part, don't necessarily get a huge amount of attention every, every four years. But for, for that period, we have. You know, 30 million people on average watching in the USA on NBC on a daily basis for it. So I think, I think it's not that, you know, but you could counteract that by saying there's a lot of football friendlies that are, you know, probably don't have great resonance or context for people in the UK. On the other hand, you take a couple of Premier League teams, put them in a major Asian city, put them in Melbourne and the like, and you've got 80, 000 people who think it's the greatest day of their year. So context is almost in the eye of the extent, but, but. My word, having, having those things that give them resonance and meaning is certainly a big advantage. Thank you guys. Uh, this is more an observation than, uh, than a question. Uh, we talk about going after different audiences, different products and how we monetize them. And I think there's, we've spoken a lot about cost. One thing I think as industry we've not spoken about or not heard about is, I think we don't give enough time for how do we scale those and what the competencies are. And I think there's loads of ways we can. Go after different audiences in different formats and different distribution methods. But I think it's the long term vision to scale isn't there and how it gets bigger, right? Like, we could always have the 200 people who want to watch that particular sport, but that's never going to go to 400, 2, 000, and that scale. Like, it's, I think the focus should also be there on that rather than just like, how can we make this cheaper? And I think it's embedded into the scale because Scale, the bigger the scale, the cost is lower. It's a really interesting point. And I was talking to somebody at a, at a major federation about having a long term media strategy around new audiences. And, uh, his very frank reaction was, uh, I'm up for election in four years time. So I'm not interested in a long term strategy. I, I need to know that whatever I put in place now is going to get me elected in four years time. So sad, but so true. Hi, with that one's going over old ground, you talked about Paddle earlier as just being something that was made for, uh, broadcast, but, oh, sorry, it wasn't broadcast quality, but, um, high participation. Do you see situations where that model is flipped and actually something that doesn't really have a huge participation aspect but could be done as a broadcast or more made for content specifically and without wanting to lead the crowd I'll throw something like Slamball into the mix there where it's something that isn't really viable as a mass participation but could theoretically work from a content point of view. What is Slamball Rob? Sorry. It is full contact basketball with trampolines built into the ground. Fantastic. Buy the baskets. I'm there. Sign me up. What's the sub? Confirmed. Is that, does that fall under the FIBA umbrella? Not yet. Not yet. But they may be, maybe the third Olympic discipline that will go in there. Who knows in future. Um, it's, it's going to, it's an intriguing point because we, and pedal is a great example of actually a lot of the hype of that has come from an expanding participation basis. When you go to the U S probably more pickleball, that is, that is, is getting that. And I think probably the point that David's making earlier is that, you know, just to. Big participation basis does not necessarily lead to, you know, traditional commercial revenues, whether sponsorship or media rights and the like. And there still has to be a product that is either aesthetically pleasing or, or gives, it gives people reasons to watch and some, some sports are more able to produce that than others. Absolutely. No doubt. Uh, I think probably to take your question directly, um, and I know it's on. Different plane than slam ball's trajectory. But, uh, you know, the NF L's a great example of being able to make waves in Europe where, you know, they not to disrespect the various national grid iron or American football leagues around the place, there are not a huge amount of people that are playing that game in, in the UK or Germany, just two countries where it has become, you know, a valuable media rights property. So I think the takeaway is it's absolutely not necessary to have. a player base to therefore get people to watch a sport. There are other reasons that you might might watch that, you know, fast paced physical confrontation. It's got a lot of those attributes which, you know, are familiar to sports, whether rugby league, rugby union over here. There's great tactics, almost like cricket and the like. I think it's very possible for a sport to actually generate commercial revenues and interests without a player base. I wouldn't have the numbers, but I would assume that mixed martial arts is a good example of, uh, of, what you just mentioned, right? So there are examples undoubtedly, There's also, it's quite a good question about we talk a lot about sport and, you know, as entertainment and that, that, Sort of continuum almost from a sort of olympic basketball and how far you go Towards entertainment before you lose actually it's still you know, is it still a sport? It's almost like a dancing competition or whatever So you've got that we're in that sort of weird moment where I imagine lots of things are going to come to market they might find an audience from a media perspective, but they've they're completely untethered to What would be a traditional reason for sports to exist, which, again, you have to then say, well, you know, does that matter? But, is the quest to monetize pure viewing a bit of a kind of a, a dead end medium to long term? You've got obviously the threats of piracy, which are eroding the Morales of people who feel like they need to pay to see what they want to see. You've obviously got short form content that gives you a lot of what you want for free. In esports, you've got a situation where a lot of the consumers don't want to pay for viewing because they're raised, they're the twitch generation where everything was for free. So you've got this wave of people who don't want to pay for the pure, Pleasure of viewing, eSports have answered that by trying to create digital inventory and assets that you can sell off the back of streams and you can, you know, you could interact and have badges, which I guess NFT came close to trying to do for traditional sports, but what's the long term play for sports where it feels like the trend is, I'm not going to pay for viewing, you got to give me more if you want to see a cent from me. Yeah, it's a great question. Yeah. I would say that the problem of, of piracy, let's maybe hedge onto that, right? So allegedly piracy, piracy, the size of piracy is about half the value. I've seen one figures 20, talking about 28 billion, give or take, finding the staggering figure. there is only, I think, are we, we, It's the only figure I've heard of. I think it's the only figure that's out there. So it gets quoted a lot. Maybe it's completely bogus. We don't know, but let's assume that is right. So it's about half the size of the global media rights business for, for, for sports, right? So that is a signal that there is willingness to pay, uh, either on the consumer side or on a partner site for on our own content, right? We don't know if that is actually the replacement for that would be, Kind of consumer paying or advertisers actually paying for that, but there is a market out there. So I would argue that first we need to solve for the problem of access. and transaction, right? I think you were mentioning the point earlier, right, uh, Murray? I think that is our first obligation first. We cannot kind of throw everything out before making sure that we give everyone an opportunity to engage and to transact on around the content. And obviously, that size of piracy shows that there is a, there is a gap, right? Uh, first and foremost. Alex, one thought was, It's a really interesting question that I was wondering about betting because I thought betting is is probably as you know analogous with what you're saying in terms of the way in which that generation of people went, you know, in within a gaming environment are encouraged to be buying, and That feels like that sort of convergence question, which we haven't touched on really about betting and where the money is going to come from the most blinding the obvious places is the betting marketplace and a lot of the inventory that we're talking about does become betting inventory and we've done a lot on sort of the convergence of sport and betting and the way in which media is changing to allow that or make that easier. One question, final question. Can I just jump in? I think Alex's point is really a very important one. And I, I don't have any empirical evidence for this. But I don't think that there, New generation is immune to commercial messaging. I just don't think that they think about it in this very dumbed down way of paying a monthly subscription. You know, again, I keep, keep using the example of my kids. I should start paying them. But they're used to watching pre-rolls. Mid-rolls. My son wants to buy a buy Munich shirt because he started watching Harry Kane do it. Now. That is a commercial value that is being transacted there. It's just that we are not doing a great job of. Uh, understanding what we're trying to achieve through our media mix, right? So it's really having the courage to say, actually, we're going to put, um, and I'm going to say it in a simplistic way. We're going to put this out in these specific avenues where we're not charging for it because we have it. We know we're going to get paid for it in another way, whether that's product placement, whether that's attendance at events, whether that is increased fandom, which makes them consume more. On Twitch or wherever, so that that becomes a sort of residual secondary income stream or whatever. But it's a much more complicated matrix and a very dumbed down pay your sky subscription every month. And I think the example of Copenhagen that we had this afternoon is a great example of that, right, of showing how they've been able to leverage a subscription to their media platform for wider purposes. I feel like I want to have a crack at this one too. I think it's a great question, Alex. personally, I don't think it's almost a race to the bottom where you're going to have no value coming out of, I guess the, you know, the, the two dimensional live broadcast of content. We've got more ways now or more reasons for people to tune in. And I think we have ever before, Murray's mentioned betting that it just seems to be coming more and more of a reason for people to watch content, whether or not they're emotionally invested in it. You know, for example, I do some work. I'm a commentator for the European Cricket League, which is not necessarily broadly known about the world of cricket fandom, but there's a couple of million people that tune in in India through fan code because there is essentially paid for fantasy competitions that sit off the back of it, and that is an incredibly successful business model that comes there. Uh, I think that that point about piracy has obviously proliferated because we have so much content that does sit behind a paywall and it's interesting to see what, you know, not, not even just younger generations, but what other people are willing to pay for today. I saw an interesting graph the other day where, you know, The inflation of tickets for live experiences, whether for sport or entertainment, has massively outgrown normal inflation and prices for many, many other things. So there are clearly people across the different demographics that are willing to pay the for certain experiences. We've sort of gotten to the point now where a large amount of human beings seem to be offended to pay for very well produced, entertaining, you know, visual content, whether or not we can ever turn that ship around. You know, I guess it's a big question of the coming 10 to 20 years, but people are still willing to pay to be entertained from sports contests and other forms of entertainment. It's our job to try to capture as much of that potential spend as possible. And the consumer stats clearly show that the willingness to pay in consumer research, the willingness, when you ask younger generation, across generation, the willingness to pay is there. But the other bit that the piracy stuff shows is it's about money, but it's not only about money. It's also about simplicity. And one of the, one of the challenges is just the complexity of the marketplace. Too many subscriptions, too many people trying to get. Me to subscribe to something and actually what they want you went you mentioned spotify They want one button to press and they want one check to write. It's the 150 quid pirates fire stick which gives you every single premier league game when you want to watch it Yeah, yeah, and when it goes wrong, it, you know, they send someone The customer service is better than when you get from Sky. Better than being on a Sky, um, phone. sorry, that was just a drive by for Sky, that was just in the We'll let that go. Right, okay, I think we're drawing to a halt. Thank you very much for your questions, but also your, interest and if you're interested in this sort of stuff, we talk about this a lot, and we're out twice a week, so Tuesdays and Fridays is when we put podcasts out, Unofficial Partner. Lots of different subjects, not just media. But, uh, tune into the bundle for the next one, and you'll listen to, probably actually, don't tune into this one, because you've heard this one, the next one. So just put a, put a pin in that one. But anyway, thanks a lot, and thanks to our panel.