UP471 UP Live at EBU: What the FIFA Club World Cup reveals about Free-to-Air in the YouTube era

Guests:

Mark Oliver, Oliver and Ohlbaum

Amy Lee, TV2 Denmark, EBU Member

Tomos Grace - YouTube

Context:

A live podcast recorded at the European Broadcast Union's Annual Assembly in Bratislava. 

DAZN has paid $1billion for the rights to the 2025 FIFA Club World Cup.

FIFA has sold the rights to DAZN for $1billion. DAZN is sub-licensing the rights, with a brief to build as big an audience as possible.

Many people in the room are the targets, as DAZN seeks to recoup some of their billion dollar outlay. 

Session Provocation:

So, a good time to ask the panel and the EBU audience: if you were DAZN/FIFA, what would you do?

How does FIFA view the role of Europe's premier publicly funded television platforms in building value for their new product?

What is the role of YouTube in their thinking?

What are the lessons of the 2023 FIFA Women's World Cup process?

What is the value exchange between major sports properties and the EBU's membership?

We use this framework to talk more generally about the themes of sport's relationship with free to air television in Europe in the platform era.

This episode of the Unofficial Partner podcast is brought to you by Sid Lee Sport.

Sid Lee Sport is a new breed of agency that combines world class creativity with deep sponsorship expertise, flawless operational delivery, and a culture of marketing effectiveness. 

We’ve really enjoyed getting to know their team over the last couple of months. They’re an impressive bunch, who believe that sports marketing can and should be done better.

They have a creative philosophy of producing famous campaigns and activations that build buzz and conversation in a category that too often looks and sounds the same.

And they're pioneering a new standard of effectiveness in sports marketing, using econometrics and attribution models to go beyond traditional media ROI.

So if you're looking for an agency to take your brand to the top, get in touch with the team at Sid Lee Sport, where brands become champions.

Unofficial Partner is the leading podcast for the business of sport. A mix of entertaining and thought provoking conversations with a who's who of the global industry.
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Transcript

0:00

Hi, Richard Gillis here. Welcome to Unofficial Partner, the Sports Business Podcast. This is a special live episode recorded on stage at the European Broadcast Union's Annual Assembly in Bratislava. We had some great guests, Mark Oliver, founder of Oliver and Obar. Amy Lee, formerly Sport five World Rugby, the NBA and now TV two in Denmark. And Thomas Grace, who's, is head of Media and Sport at YouTube. So we thought it was a good time to discuss what is free to air television now in the YouTube era. And the room was full of the membership of the EBU in charge of sport. And there's a question, very current question, which is, if you were D Zone and FIFA and you were selling the FIFA Club World Cup, what would you do? How do you view this room made up of people running free to air television in Europe? How do you approach the job of selling, creating value for your new tournament and process that's ongoing? Obviously. And what's the role of YouTube in their thinking? What are their expectations and what are the lessons of the 2023 FIFA Women's World Cup Process or the U AFA Women's Champions League Sale and Process that was hosted both on D Zone and on YouTube, and what's the value exchange between major sports properties and the E'S membership of free to air television broadcasters today? It was a fun conversation and we covered a great deal of ground as ever on our unofficial partner. And uh, obviously hope you enjoy it. This episode of Unofficial Partner is brought to you by Sid Lee Sport. Sid Lee Sport is a new breed of agency that combines world class creativity with deep sponsorship expertise, flawless operational delivery. And a culture of marketing effectiveness. We've got to know the team over the last few months. They're an impressive bunch who believe that sports marketing can and should be done better. They've got a creative philosophy of producing famous campaigns and activations that build buzz and conversation in a category that too often looks and sounds the same. And they're pioneering a new standard of effectiveness in sports marketing using econometrics and attribution models to go beyond traditional media, ROI. So if you're looking for an agency to take your brand to the top, get in touch with the team at Sid Lee Sport where brands become champions. The first person you'll hear is NAR Osmo, who's chair of the EBU from the broadcaster NRK, in Norway. if you're interested in collaborating with us on events, big and small, get in touch. This episode of Unofficial Partner is brought to you by Sid Lee Sport. Sid Lee Sport is a new breed of agency that combines world class creativity with deep sponsorship expertise, flawless operational delivery. And a culture of marketing effectiveness. We've got to know the team over the last few months. They're an impressive bunch who believe that sports marketing can and should be done better. They've got a creative philosophy of producing famous campaigns and activations that build buzz and conversation in a category that too often looks and sounds the same. And they're pioneering a new standard of effectiveness in sports marketing using econometrics and attribution models to go beyond traditional media, ROI. So if you're looking for an agency to take your brand to the top, get in touch with the team at Sid Lee Sport where brands become champions. The first person you'll hear is NAR Osmo, who's chair of the EBU from the broadcaster NRK, in Norway. if you're interested in collaborating with us on events, big and small, get in touch. Good morning everyone. We are starting day two with an exciting keynote session, the leading sport business podcast. Unofficial partner is recording a special live episode in which media industry experts critique the relationship between sports and free to air television in the YouTube era. This podcast gathers tens of thousands of regular listeners from across the global industry to discuss the most important issues of the day with the people who make the big decisions. So we are thrilled to welcome our host for this live recording of the podcast, the founder of Unofficial, partner, Richard Gilles. We will moderate this dynamic brainstorm of the future sports media. We're thrilled to have with him, Thomas Grace from YouTube, Mark Oliver from Oliver and Alba as associates and Amy Lee from TV two Denmark, sharing their view with us. So please come up on the stage. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you Una for that lovely introduction. So yeah, unofficial partner, we cover all sports lots of different areas of the business, but the media question is obviously central, central to the whole economy. And I was preparing for this, session. I was talking to Glen about sort of interesting subject matter that we could get into and as, as I was having this conversation, I was watching Gianni and Infantino and Donald Trump in the, uh, White House talking about the Club World Cup, the FIFA Club, world Cup. And it was, it's quite an extraordinary moment. So you've got this trophy, it's made of Chinese gold, it's still in the White House. So he was talking yesterday about his tariffs. Is he gonna put the tariffs up? Are they gonna come down? Are they gonna be, are they real, are they not? Is it just chaos? Behind him was the club World Cup, because Trump liked it's gold. He was staring at his lovely gold thing, so he wanted it in the office. So that's. The setting and I thought, well that's quite a nice way in to quite a, a good subject, which is what is free to air now. What is the relationship between new properties? I'm define, and we're using the Club World Cup as a, as a sort of proxy for new things. And one of the things you notice if you've been doing a sport business podcast for sort of nearly six years is that you get a lot of people coming in from the rights holder side, from the sports side with new things. And this has just accelerated over the last, couple of years. So there is a live golf coming for every sport, disrupt or be disrupted. That's the the mantra and. Then you get to, okay, well what does that actually mean and what does that mean for everyone in the room? I'd love a show of hands. If you've had the Club World Cup pitch pitched to you in you are broadcasters, or you are an official rights, or you've bought the rights to the Club Rock Cup, could you just show your hands if you've had that experience? So we just sort of know where we are. Okay, so we've got quite a few people here who have some detailed knowledge of, what's going on. We are getting to the question of what is strategy now? And I thought it'd be quite interesting just to put our heads in the other side for 45 minutes or so. what is it that they look at when they see this room? How do you build value in their property? And what's the value exchange now in an era when free to Air includes YouTube? And we're lucky to have Thomas here from YouTube and we're gonna be talk talking to Thomas about what YouTube thinks of sport when it thinks about sport. First person though, I'm gonna get up on stage is Mark Oliver. Mark. okay. I am thrilled to get Mark on stage because when people ask me what do I think about sports media type questions? I quite often look up what did Mark say about this, and then I'll just steal it essentially. So it's nice that you've got him in person. I can just ask those questions direct Mark. Just give us a little brief so for people in the real lot, people will know who you are, but just give us a brief summary of What do you do all day? What do people want from Mark Oliver these days? Well, one of the things I do all day is look at the, the media market and the sports market. Both together and separately. Uh,'cause we advise media companies on their general strategy as well as about sport. And we advise sports on their commercial strategy. We're a particular focus on media. and I've been looking at that market I'm afraid to say for 35 years. So I've been through every revolution and I'm going through another one. I work on buy and sell side, not the same time. So I help buyers of rights secure them without paying too much or sometimes to push up the price of the rival. It's a long term game. And I help, uh, owners of rights think their way through the complicated media scene and how to, to maximize revenue or maximize a combination of exposure and revenue depending on what they want. And I design auctions. And I also respond to auctions, and that's part of what I do. I'm, I'm a secret game theorist. That was my economic specialism. So that's how I deliver. I love an auction conversation. We're gonna get into what the, the dynamics of an auction and, and what's going on. Let's just talk for a minute.'cause we, I've set it up as, as the sort of the club World Cup, just as a route in really to this conversation.'cause I think it's an interesting topic area. But there's a bit of an oddity about it, which is the D Zone question. What's happening? Just unpick that. What, what has happened and where are we now? I, I have no particular insight. There's obviously some people have put two and two together in terms of the Saudi successful World Cup, be it the Saudi investment in D Zone and D zone's, investment in FIFA's new baby, uh, the Club World Cup. And I have no comment on that except that's a possible thing that was going on. What the actual deal is, obviously there's a headline price, which is what. Uh, FIFA said it should be worth, and they were paid what they said it should be worth. So that was giving Infantino what he wanted. I don't know. And I would suspect that whatever the deal is for this club, world Cup, the Zone have got some kind of matching right. For the next one. I don't know, but I suspect they have. Uh,'cause if you believe this is a new tournament, which will build an audience, the value's probably in. Number two and number three. Uh, and then there's an issue about how much you pay in number one to secure that position. And there is a value to a broadcast and we associate with a new competition if it works. From day one, there's a kind of a two-way value shift and the, the broadcast can benefit from that. However, of course, given that the zone has, has been asked to secure maximum. reach, it's having to do three, two air deals. So how far it will get the association with the competition or not is so, so I think D Zone's probably playing a long game in terms of what happens to the next one and they went after that. And if you can say anything about Mr. Ble and Nick's Dione, they play a long game and they have the money to do so. So, so that's probably what it's about. But the task at the moment is to try and secure as high reach access as possible, which is why. So many hands went up in this room about who's been approached.'cause that's the first people you approach and that's, well, so a billion, so it's a billion dollars has been quoted. Is it worth that at this point? As I said, uh, if you play a long game, it might be especially you've got some kind of matching rights hold over. Subsequent discussions, just a one-off basis. It's, it's hard to make the numbers add up. But that's why I suspect it's a, a multi, even if it isn't, isn't officially a multi period deal. There is some link into the next period. Okay? So the, my other question when I saw this come through was if I am someone within European free to air television, and it's being shown on d. Presumably, I think the, the, yeah, it's not exclusive, so it will, it'll be shown on both. Uh, and whether they, whether they package it up with some matches on both and some only on the zone. I don't know. It depends on what the definition of a bit of maximizing reach. Does that mean for every match or just mean for the whole competition? So I don't know how they'll package it. And it's possible there will be civil casting it. Some level. Yes. And then the question is, why would I buy this and what would I pay if my audience can see it somewhere else for nothing? And that, I'm talking about it like it's FIFA's problem. It's the zones problem. Yeah. It's the zones problems now. Yeah. And as I said, I think they're playing a long game, so there will be a targeted recovery of money in this, uh, iteration. And then there'll be a plan about the next iteration. I mean, they will think about things they could add on to it. I mean, Deone makes a big thing of betting as we know, uh, betting in a live stream, et cetera, which is difficult to execute. But there are things they could add to it, which wouldn't be available on the free way partner. But yes, it's, it's difficult to see Wade pay for just access. If you've got free access, you wouldn't, you know, you can do clever things by downgrading the course. You have signal to free wear. But let's, let's face it, that's not gonna have that much effect. So, so I think, you know, it's, as I said, it must be a multi-year, a multi period rationality, even if it's just a one, a one off deal, as well as the politics around global sport. And. Who did who, what favor By buying the rights, which I won't comment on because I have no evidence. I mean, in the recent, another question which are, you know, people in the room will have, have a view on which was the, the FIFA Women's World Cup in terms of that auction. So he had that moment where Gianni and Fantino was, Demanding that this room get to a certain number or the people in this room get to a certain number. the threat there was that at the time was FIFA Plus a, as a sort of competitive tension. In the room. Do you think there's a legacy between these things? So FIFA are coming to market now with a new product, having over the last 18 months to two years had similar conversations about another product. Are they analogists those two products or is there something different about the club World Cup and the. The Women's World Cup? Well, uh, obviously the, the Club World Cup is a new competition, but an established framework of top men's clubs. Uh, a kind of addition to the Champions League, kind of, it's got a model, whereas the Women's World Cup is about building the audience for, for women's football. And I think the, the implicit, uh, position was there is public value in this thing, and surely public service broadcasters should recognize it. So there was a, there was a different kind of conversation as well as I want certain amount of money. It was, it's your responsibility to do this, a kind of embarrassing broadcasters. That dynamic isn't obviously a play with men's club. Football. It's a completely different dynamic. And so, so I think the conversation is different and obviously in this case, they've got an intermediary who's taken the financial risk away. So that's quite important. So that lever, that sort of moral lever that he was using or FIFA was using in that negotiation, isn't there because it's the most famous, the richest football clubs in the world. You are making rich clubs richer. That's right. Yeah. So it's making man city richer. Mm-hmm. Which is a less of an emotive lever than building. Well, well, the other thing you have to overlay on this, of course, is FIFA UA for politics. And again, that's, that's a long story that FIFA creating more events and filling up the quad quadrennial calendar and squeezing, uh, ufas assets. Let's get to this question about what free to Air means now. What do you, in your mind, what does that phrase mean? Well, uh, taking at face value three to air is something which is free At the points of consumption, uh, there is always a question of what, what equipment, what connectivity do you need for it to be truly free? And that's a kind of digital terrestrial distribution versus IP distribution argument, which is becoming less and less relevant. Kevin. The omnipresence of basic broadband, but there are, there is still a small percentage of populations in most countries who don't really have access to high speed broadband or don't want it. So there is a kind of, at the margins, there is a difference. But in general, uh, once you've got the connectivity, simply once you've got a TV area or a TV set that can receive DTT or you've got a broadband subscription, you are, it's available to you without any further. Price barrier. And in that sense there's quite a large range of options to 96, 90 7% of the population. Then there's, then there's you overlay on that. How, how easy is it to, and is it to access and find it? Which is, about EPG or how UX systems are designed and prominence issues, which is partly regulated. And that's a different layer of, yes, these things are all free, but which ones are prominent, which ones are on all, devices easily found and which ones are more difficult to find. So it says it's a much more nuanced definition and an old fashioned definition of there was free TV and there was pay tv. I. With a high sticker price. It's, that's changed completely. The assumption, again, one of the, the sort of questions is when you get to, and we we're gonna ask Thomas this question in a minute, but it's about YouTube, but people tend to lump the platforms, the digital platforms together. But actually that's flawed. What is the, can we discern a difference in terms of what they're trying to do? What the, the, the, the various, you know, you've got the Facebook metas, you've got Amazon doing various things. Is there an apple? what, what have we learned over this sort of period, this initial period that you might say about how they approach this question of sport and what sport does for them? Well we are in a bit of a soup of acronyms, whether it's a O Fast or SO and their business models are all changing over time. So what used to be certain is uncertain SVO had a price, it didn't take take advertising. The lead S four provides with Netflix and it didn't really take advertising. And then you have YouTube, which is ad funded and omnipresent and that, and, but now you've got things in between. Amazon's clearly in between. It takes adverts, it's got high reach'cause of. The prime subscription model, which is based on a completely different business model. And you've got the other s fos all trying to nip away at, uh, Netflix's position. All of whom, most of whom to some extent are engaging in some kind of advertising tier. So it's become. Much more complicated to see what is three, what is pay, what is somewhere in between the two. And that makes it more difficult. But in, in that ecosystem key, YouTube is the freest, uh, in terms of its basic platform and the most accessible, uh, across different devices. And that, that makes it probably the closest to what we call free two air tv. When you get to the sort of audience behaviors, is there a difference between. I mean, I, I just, this is completely anecdotally, but what, why I go to Netflix or why I go to YouTube compared to why I go, I'm British, I go to the BBC or ITV or channel four. That feels, it still feels different. I'm looking for, again, that view of the room and, and the marketplace. But when you get to audience behavior, it does feel different. It does feel different, and it is different. And people have their own hierarchies of where they go first and how they search the things and. When they give up the search and move to something else. And that's very different for different age groups. And that's just something everybody has to live with. And it's in some one ways. It's come more complicated to find what you want. It's, there's been resurgence in the TV review columns because someone who recommends what you should watch this week is a godsend. Otherwise, otherwise you've been, there was a recent study about how long people have to spend searching on each platform before they settle on. On deciding something, and it's quite a long time. It is when you've got a family or, you know, yes, it was, it is a joint decision. It becomes even more complicated. There's nothing my wife likes more than me fiddling about on the, you know, uh, searching for new programs on a streaming device. When we're sitting, everyone's sitting there, what are we gonna watch has become this incredibly contentious, uh, question. And it's true that the, the TV review, TV reviewers. That's, that's a sort of growth industry again. Yes it is. But, but where sport comes of, of course, is sport at the top level or even just secondary level. The audience will go and find it. I believe people were asking questions in this hotel about where they could find the jabs League match. So, so I think there's a slight difference. Obviously it happens with high profile TV dramas once they're known when there's a sequel coming out. But, but sport has that inbuilt that people. That's one level. We'll go and find it. And actually overcome quite, in, quite, quite difficult barriers to find it, including VPNs and piracy if they feel frustrated. And one of the main drivers of piracy is not, is not mendacious, it's just frustration of not being able to get it and being asked to subscribe to four different platforms to get the whole tournament. It's interesting, the piracy sort of question, and this is not about piracy, but there's a, all roads lead to one piece of research. Essentially it's ampere mm-hmm. Analysis, which. Puts the number of, you know, the pirated or illegal streaming market at something like 28 billion for sport annually. But there's a, there's a data point in the middle, which is that 52% of people who pirate sport also pay, which feels right, doesn't it? Which makes it a dangerous statistic to trust because that there's that Yes. It feels like a story. Yes, exactly. It's self-reinforcing. But in, in terms of free TBI said it's a, it is a very graduated scale of what is, what is free, uh, at what level and how easy it's to find and how much it fits into the lean back kind of broadcast experience versus lean forward, uh, internet experience. But you know, it's, it's just a gray area, just live with it. But there are some that are more like broadcast and some which are less like broadcast. Okay. Right. We're gonna continue the story. I'm gonna ask, Thomas and Amy to join us on stage. Again, a a, a polite ripple of applause of you all. Amy, let's start with you. I'm gonna ask you the same question just so a lot of people in the room will know you, obviously, but just give us a, a line or two about what do you do all day. I'm at TV two Denmark. I sit in the sports department looking after our rights negotiations. So I look, I buy rights at the moment. Previously I was on the other side of the table selling rights at the NBA and, uh, did actually work on European championships and also fever tournaments as well. So, and your background, you've, you, you were sport five and then was rugby. Yeah, I, I started my career at Sport Five. There, uh, it was during that time that I worked on two of the European championships where I sold the rights on behalf of ufa and then uh, and I moved across to the NBAI. For five, six years and I was at World Rugby after that as head of media. So you've been on, around the table at different I've had different hats on different hats. Right. Okay. Excellent. Thomas, same, same for you. What's the day job? Well, day don't day job now is, uh, a mixture of things. So I look after strategy and operations for connected TV sport, and then a number of sort of what we call responsibility areas. So these are news, health, youth and so on. Uh, but my background is actually with a number of people in this room. So I started my career at Canal PLU in France, uh, and then worked at Eurosport when Eurosport was part of, of the EBU. And I see a number of very familiar faces from, from that time. So I come from that broadcasting. TV background, uh, and I've been at YouTube the last 13 years. I'm quite nostalgic for Eurosport in Britain. It's what, what's, where is it now? It's, is it, is it gone or is it in certain markets? It still exists. Well, it's now part of the, uh, you know, the Warner Network. But you know, they, they still have that, the core sports that they've always, uh, done. The, the cycling and the tennis and so on are still very much a part of, uh, of the strength, uh, of the channel and that offer. Let's talk about the club World Cup. Let's, let's just use that as the, as the routine. Do they want you to. YouTube to screen it? Have they come to you? Is that, have you had conversations about that? Are you part of the answer from their point of view? Well, I think so, and I think that the reason for that is that we do provide a complimentary audience to what a lot of traditional broadcasters. Provide. There are a number of statistics that show that whether you are in France has shown that for 15 to 49 year olds, we have greater reach than linear tv. Barb and Evan Shapiro's data demonstrates that over all four screens, that we actually have greater reach than linear TV channels combined. So that younger demographic in particular is on platforms like, like YouTube. And so if you are a rights holder and you're looking to establish a competition, especially if you're looking to establish fandom and we know that fandom is established early for younger or amongst younger audiences, then I think that YouTube is a logical place to come. And so whether, and you spoke earlier about live golf and there's a live golf for everything, you know, I'm not saying that the Club World Cup is, is a sort of, is a live golf equivalent, but we are often pitched new sports because that global audience, that younger audience, that more innovative. Uh, more innovative approach to sport is something that YouTube is prepared to lean into. There's a few things there. So the assumption, again, you're right with the new sport, particularly the assumption of a global marketplace, I. For sport. Amy, what do you think about that? I'm just, I'm, I'm wondering, we're getting to the question of what's the difference between freeto wear television and YouTube? If everything, you know, you can become a bit fatalistic about YouTube, say, well, it's just such a massive thing in the market, in the in the center. What do you think about that question? What's the difference? What are the differences between. Free to television and YouTube. I think mark mentioned it a little bit earlier. There is that lean forward and lean back difference where Yeah, free to air television, which is more lean back kind of experience. Whereas YouTube, you, you sort of have to know. Where you wanna go to, which channel you're gonna go to, what you're looking for. So it's more lean forward and I think also free to air, especially with my colleagues in this room. The relevance is that on free to air, you typically get the appetizer, the main course, and also the dessert. Whereas on in a YouTube universe you, like, you, you, the rights holders will put the match on like stream, live stream on YouTube and then for the appetizer and dessert, you may actually have to go to a different channel for it. So whereas like on free to air television, you typically get everything in the same place. And that's actually, I think it's becoming more and more important in terms of like building fandom, building connection, building association, because. It, it's, I, I use a Game of Thrones uh, analogies, like when I watched it on, on Sky in the uk, they had like a program called Throne Cast. So you kind of also talk about the show after the show. I'm sure it's done in many different forms right now in podcasts and podcast, before and after the. You know, big program series that you kind of get people to, to talk about a little bit, a little bit more, so that you create this sort of, uh, in, in Danish it's called scape. So you basically that everyone's talking about the same thing. So I think that is actually quite important in building this fandom, which for me, is it, I think the digital platforms offer a different way of doing it through technology. Data perhaps like, uh, interactivity, but I think free to a television do it in a slightly different sort of way. Do you agree with that, Thomas? I think of YouTube as a very personal experience. A one-to-one experience. It's like a sort of the, you know, I feel very atomized by that experience. just to build on Amy's point there. Yeah. So I, I I think that there, so you are certainly right, so Amy's right that there is a, there's an enormous amount of choice on YouTube and that can be quite hard to find exactly what you are looking for. But where I think YouTube is changing is in the relationship with the living room. So with the biggest screen. In the house. And we are seeing that as, and we have done for many years as the screen with greatest growth and in a number of markets now, the US in particular, but European markets as well, that is now the single biggest screen where people are watching YouTube. The single biggest screen, bigger than mobile, bigger than desktop, and so it is more of a lean back experience. But is a lean back experience with a difference, and I think this is where the complementarity of YouTube to a number of the broadcasters here and across the world is really, really important. IT broadcasters have a huge established audience. YouTube has a huge established audience. They're not necessarily the same, but if you really wanna reach everybody and you really wanna be free to air, then you have to be both. And so we would encourage broadcasters everywhere to make available fantastic content that they do better than anybody else. On their traditional channels, but also work with us. And there are a number of different ways that people can work with YouTube, whether it is a straight, live, live broadcast, whether it is a creator commentary broadcast, whether these are delayed highlights. But live broadcast, there are a number of different ways that actually that YouTube audience will engage with live content in complement to the traditional broadcast that the people in the room and across the world are doing. Mark, do you agree with that in terms of that complementarity, if that, have I said that right? Co. I love the word. Yeah. Complement territory. Yes, that one, there's a difference between you. It's an I or E, but we, I'm going into that. And uh, yes, it's, it is a complimentary decision. So, so in large part, it's about doing two different things, uh, to maximize reach and engagement. And they, they sit quite well alongside each other. There will be arguments about whether any of it is exclusive or non-exclusive, but that's, it's comp what it, obviously, what it isn't complimentary with is pay in terms of YouTube not paying. Well in, in term, in terms of YouTube being in, in Europe, largely a free platform, uh, not having gone the route of in the US yet of it being a premium service uh, that's a different issue. But in terms of the three to air, it's, it's complimentary. What is the difference then is it age? I mean, I'm, I'm, again, I lapse the cliches of it's gonna be a, it's skewing younger than traditional television. Be one assumption. But is that true? I, I mean, I'm an avid YouTube. YouTube is now my television, choice. So it's, it's that blurring. It used to be on my phone and now it's the thing in the, in the lounge. So I, I think it is a question of demographic. It's also just a question of style. I. And, uh, and production. And the example that's been quoted many times because it is the most striking. So we had a creator live stream, Brazil games in Brazil at the World Cup. It doesn't get any bigger than that. So this is ca a TV and the live mode example that a number of you will be familiar with. And the interesting thing there is the data. So. When Cze first started live streaming, his commentary, his production of these Brazil live games, the first game got 8 million views and live TV got 44.1 Frito Air Live tv, 44.1 million views. By the last game of the World Cup that was also broadcast in exactly the same way. Kase was up to 13, 14 million views. Threeway broadcasting. 44.1 million views. So this was an additional new audience that he had managed to bring in Frito Air Live. A different audience. I would suggest a younger audience, but different production, different demographic. It's interesting that, in terms of the, do you think that's a, is it a blip, is it a proof of concept of something, or is it a, is it part of the, is that where it's heading? In terms of the, again, go back to the rights holder. The choices facing them are now dizzyingly, you know, complicated. But I mean, Ronaldo's YouTube channel was streaming paddle live. Is that a direction of travel? Is that gonna be part of the product set for sport? I, I, I think so. But you know, we can't be certain. And I think it's just for everybody to try different things. And that's one of the joys of, uh, of YouTube in the internet, is that you can try things and you can fail, and you can fail quickly and move on. But the evidence that we see is that this, there is real demand for this. There is real demand for sport, not necessarily sport served in exactly the same way as it has been for the last 50 years, and to engage that young audience who loves sport. But they don't necessarily wanna watch live in the same way. They want to consume it in different ways with different voices. People their own age, talking their language. Then yes, that applies to live as well. The main issue facing free square broadcasters isn't really about the main channels showing it and YouTube, which is complimentary. It's how do they engage with things that look like YouTube? So do they actually have their own presence on YouTube or do they allow YouTube to have a presence? How does this fit into most broadcasters sort of versions of iPlay or on demand or social media activity? And there's a big debate obviously in free square broadcast. You know, in the uk. Channel four and ITV have done deals with YouTube that they're embracing it'cause it's a platform they need to be on to reach their audience rather than trying to get audience find, find ITVX or, or the four. For on demand. And you know, the same issue will be for the BB, C when it gets found. So that, that's the real issue. I think not the main broadcast or even the secondary channel broadcast and YouTube. It's, is it worth broadcasters trying to be YouTube in their own ecosystem, or should they just be on the YouTube platform, or should they just allow YouTube to do that bit of it? That's the choice. Because there was a complementarity, but who engages in that complementarity is really the choice. Yeah. And I think YouTube's pretty flexible about whether they do it or whether they just carry someone else's signal and do a deal. So, Amy, what, what's the situation from in Denmark in terms of that question? How do you work with YouTube? at TV two at least, we, we don't actually put very much on YouTube. But I think like we, we have a highlight strategy across our platform. Our digital, our, our website is actually mimicking a social media kind of experience. So we're trying to, we understand that that's what young people are attracted to. They like that they like the vertical format, they like their snackable content. They wanna, they want to get like five, seven, second clip and then just kind of move on to something else. So we try to deliver that experience to them throughout platform. We often have the debate whether we should actually utilize YouTube because that's actually where a lot of the young people go to. So that's something that we are having ongoing discussions on. I think there's it's a maybe a little bit of philosophical debate on how do we transition from the very traditional way of producing content, which is high quality. I. Often more ca number of cameras and you have a host, you and, and et cetera, et cetera. A little bit like really curated kind of content to a more digital, slightly, a little bit more edge and not, not necessarily high quality production. I think it's that transition that I think everyone probably would share the, the same sort of debate like in the office on a daily basis. So, we, we try to ca we. We want to recruit a lot more younger people on our platform. And I think we have a, we have a digital strategy that helps us do that. Whether that's on TikTok, whether that's on Instagram or YouTube, or whether it's on our platform. I think that's something that like we are looking at, obviously the broadcast is not the only, and YouTube aren't the only players and this, there's the sports themselves. So if you flip it round and you think, what does the sport think? Okay, we want to, we want. Have some of our main rights on the, on the broadcast, and some will want it free to air, some not. But then where do we do, how do we engage with the social media audience, with younger demographics? Do we give those rights to the broadcast to do it on their own platform? Do we do it ourselves? Look what happened to WSL. They did it themselves. It wasn't working. Or do we put it on YouTube? And, and they have that three-way choice and that that's where the real competition is happening. Three versions of the same thing. Is it YouTube? Is it our own? Uh uh, which is, you know, there's a revolution in sort of let's go OTT and they realize how difficult it was to build traction, uh, especially for new events, et cetera. Or do we, do we give it to the, the broadcast partner, uh, to do their thing?'cause obviously they've got synergies with cross-promoting, et cetera, but I think that's, that's a hard choice. And, and, and there is a case by case basis for individual sports and where they are in their maturity and their ability to attract audiences. But that's where the real choice is happening. the broadcast versus YouTube is a false choice. It's how do you engage with a social media audience? How do you go younger audiences? Do you believe in the broadcasters version of that? Do you do it yourself difficult? Do, do you engage with two circles to find the audience, that kind of stuff, or do you just do it on YouTube and let the audience find you and do it that way? Yeah, Thomas, there's a few things in there which. the production question I think is quite interesting. It's quite underrated in terms of what it looks like and how much money has gone into the production and, and are there any trends there? Because are you seeing a general uptick in the quality of what you see, but when you get to a sort of Mr Beast type scenario where you hear, you know, the production budgets are, you know, enormous, obviously equating to, to big television, what have you. What it looks like and what people want. And sometimes I think of YouTube and what the, what it's taught me is it, sometimes television is overproduced. It's like the, it's a, I like, it's the, there's an informality, there's an intangible in there somewhere. So I think the key part is, are you telling the story as well as possible? And there are several parts to that. I think there are certain expectations when it comes to premium sport and whether that's on traditional TV or on YouTube, those expectations remain the number of cameras that you're gonna have, the quality of the video and so on. And we now support 4K, so we can do a lot of what broadcast is, is able to do. But I think the other part is. Telling the story with authenticity. And if you are gonna engage that younger audience and you are gonna have a creator who's gonna be telling the story, doing the commentary in their own voice in their own way, then it doesn't necessarily need to be as polished as a si shiny flaw sky sports, the, the, the kind of really high production values that you would see on, on traditional tv. If the story is there, if the engagement is there, then actually I think you can, you can do pretty well. there's a question I think which applies, we've talked about football and we, you know, obviously you purposely went in with FIFA and we are looking at there, at the, you know, very top end and we know that the market for sport. There are a few mega rights holders at the top, and we can name who they are and they're, you know, there's, there's quite often territory specific, but there's also some big global properties. A lot of the conversation is in the middle, a. Now sometimes, you know when you have people from particular sports, I'm just picking up on what Mark said there is five years ago probably, or even maybe a bit longer the, I sense the strategy has changed. There's that OTT question. We need to build a YouTube for tennis, for rugby, for handball, for skiing, for. We need our own walled garden. So people on podcasts like this would come on and that phrase would come in, we need to own the data. We need to own our own fans. We mustn't give our fans to YouTube. We mustn't give them to Facebook. Where are we now? Mark, do you think on that conversation, a few painful lessons have been learned? Very expensive lessons as well. It, it, it's part, part of also the, you know, the, the romance between private equity and sport. What sport thought they were getting. That's, it's one of the worst rom-com titles ever. Exactly. They, they thought they were getting investment in, in that kind of strategy, but that's not what private equity wanted. So that's a mismatch. They wanted reliability of traditional cash flows. So there's, there's a bit of learning. I mean, there are some sports that have tried it. I mean, I think of the volleyball example. They did build a platform globally. Uh, it does kind of buy up some of the rips itself. To get more coverage and it's probably the most advanced of that kind of business model, but it's taken a lot of effort for what was quite an underdeveloped sport actually, so it was also upside, but plenty of people find it's difficult to do as one sport. In this, you know, fragmented and con and very complicated world of, of, of media. And they've had, had to withdraw. And there are ways of understanding your fan and getting data about your fan, except which, which means you don't have to own your own it TT platform. Uh, you just have to, you have to do deals with other people's platforms and find other ways of them registering interest. Apart from the OTT engagement, which then gives you some information about them. So I think they're kind of, we just wanna build a platform. Is is over. I think even those who are building platforms understand it's not, it's just one part of what you've got to do. And that's changed. Thomas, there's quite often the conversation when it gets to, YouTube and other sort of Silicon Valley platforms that's put them in, you know, that category is that fan relationship and. The, the point of devolving that fan to YouTube. And what does YouTube know about tennis fans, skiing fans, swimming fans that the federations and the governing bodies don't? Well, I, I mean, I'm afraid I would really push back on the premise of, of the question actually. We don't own the fan, the tennis organization, the broadcaster, fifa, whoever it is, they own the fan. And in fact, the data that we provide. I think is beyond anything that certainly other platforms provide, but it's almost beyond what our partners are able to really analyze and and use because there is so much of it. If you really want to know how many people on not just a mobile device, but an Android mobile device in Singapore between the age of 15 and 24 are watching a piece of content, you can find it. So, there's, I, I really don't think there is a problem of sharing the data. The data is there. It's, the challenge is actually understanding it, using it and, and being able to extract insights from it. I'll be, I'll be complimented to YouTube. YouTube does provide that data. There are some platforms. It's much more difficult. That's true. There is a divide between the platforms who are more open to sharing data and allowing. Uh, different kinds of commercial explanations and the more closed platforms of Facebook and TikTok where you basically can't get access. And that, and that's an opportunity for YouTube.'cause actually it's, it's much more beneficial for sport to be on YouTube than it is on TikTok Commercially. Yes, they need to be on TikTok for engagement, but YouTube is what they want to promote because that is much more beneficial to them. Right. We've got about, sort of well, some time for questions. So if, if any, if anything, any of this is provoked question Sean. We're gonna get him. Look here he goes. He's, he's had his hips done. He doesn't look very old. He's one of the, you know, but I get him running a lot. So his, his hips have gone. Here he comes with the, uh, unofficial partner, branded microphone. And we've got some questions here. Just put your hand up. Just make, make yourself, uh, sort of known to him. If you've got a question that you wanna ask the panel, we've got one down here to kick us off. And if you can just say who you are and some sort of positioning statement. I. Hi, uh, Glen Klan, uh, from, uh, the EBU. I think this is a room full of organizations and the EBU in itself that are very open to partnerships. The one thing that hasn't been discussed is the commercial model, because I think, I think the one imbalance here is. The people in this room are paying quite a lot of money for these rights and in order to, they're very open to working with YouTube. I suppose. It's kind of how do we crack the commercial model, whether that's through sponsorships or, or whatever, but, but I'd be very interested to understand. I. What the commercial model might be between the kind of the free, the traditional free to wear broadcasters and, and on our own platforms and say the likes of YouTube, but not just YouTube. It's kind of others. It's, it's kind of how do we, we have very successful partnerships with WBD, with two circles, with the, even with D Zone. But, but I suppose it's that kind of how can we lessen the burden of responsibility for paying for the rights on say the, the traditional broadcasters and then work, work together with, with YouTube and find, find new models that we can actually, uh, explore that together. Glen, that's great. Great question.'cause we often look at how, like we've had. Countless debates on like, do we do something on YouTube or not? Right? And I'm actually curious to see how many broadcasters in this room have a YouTube channel that you put your most prized assets, which is like highlights or live streams on YouTube. Have a show of hands. The answer to that question. Do you put highlights or livestream your. Your events or so not, not very many, but almost all the rights holders whom we buy the rights from, do so. The, the challenge for us is we always look at how do we commercialize on YouTube that makes, makes sense for us, and we just can't find a way that makes sense for us because the, the highlights are on the YouTube immediately after the match. We are often co-sharing the rights with like. Discovery, who, you know, have a wider reach and they can monetize a lot better because they're multi territory. So it is a very big challenge for a lot of us who are operating only on like, I mean, Denmark is the only population of 6 million. So how do we monetize that and make that meaningful enough for us to, to put the money there instead of maybe monetizing on our own platform and sell advertising on our own platform? That's a really interesting question, Glen. Thank you. Uh, interesting question for me, I suppose. So I would just, I would say a couple of things. First of all, I think that the additional reach that YouTube provides does give enormous leverage to negotiations with rights holders that you're able to go to rights holders and say, look, I'm providing a traditional audience. I'm providing on top of that. A YouTube audience with all of the benefits that come for the rights holders, sponsors and fandom and audience and everything that comes with that is a powerful argument, number one. Number two is there is direct revenue. Is it as much as. Classic pay tv. No, it's not, but it is significant and growing. I was, earlier this week, I was at a news conference and we were talking to a, uh, a live news broadcaster. They make 47% of their total digital revenue on YouTube from live. And the reason for that is we've got a lot better at products like digital ad insertion. So these are automatic inserts. Of advertising during a live stream. Now that's not gonna be interrupting in the middle of the first half. There are obviously ways of, of managing that, but the point is that the, the value that is attributed to Instream live advertising is increasing all of the time. So is work in progress and we recognize the value of the live and the challenge of monetizing it. But that's, that's how I would see that equation. I think it's, it's true that in some ways the sports need to decide what they want. They want reach, they want engagement with young audiences. They also want high fees and they want all and I think they're gonna have to be more proactive in exactly how they set the balance in discussions with broadcasters and, and YouTube and others deciding on the mix they want. and they will also decide the commercial model.'cause as you say, they've got a lot of sponsors that want exposure as well as advertisers. And there's huge opportunities to do more with that, but they've gotta take more ownership of it rather than just giving it to the broadcast and say, it's your problem because, and, and by the way, you want a very high fee and there's gotta be some reset there. Just the final message. Unofficial partner. Seek it out. It's good. You should listen to it. Okay. Cheers.