Unofficial Partner Podcast
Unofficial Partner Podcast
UP477 The Bundle: 'The others are addicts, Apple just haven't been given the hard stuff yet'
The inside gossip from the sports media and streaming business, with co-hosts Yannick Ramcke, the general manager of OTT streaming service OneFootball.
And Murray Barnett, founder of 26 West Consulting, formerly of Formula One, World Rugby and ESPN Disney.
This episode is sponsored 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.
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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Hello there. Welcome. It's Richard Gillis here, and you're listening to Unofficial Partner, the sports business podcast. this is the bundle, our regular series on sports media and streaming with Co hosts Yannick Ramker, the general manager of OTT streaming service OneFootball. And Murray Barnett, founder of 26 West Consulting, formerly of Formula One, World Rugby and ESPN Disney. 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.
richard_1_05-08-2025_171136:Have I got Sky? I've got it. Funny that you should say that. I don't, but I do a monthly every now and then around things. Since they stopped doing the weekly on now, it's basically now tv. I don't have the full Fat Sky package. I just.
murray_1_05-08-2025_171136:if you get the full fat sky, the there allows you to navigate like off platform to Netflix and to Amazon and Paramount and other services. And it's quite interesting how sometimes the UX is quite clunky or the transition is quite clunky and in other, and in others it's a bit smoother. And so I, it's, I think it's just quite fascinating how longer needing to be the owner of all the content and they're quite happy to act as their kind of, you know, the central hub
yannick-manuel-ramcke_1_05-08-2025_181136:yeah.
murray_1_05-08-2025_171136:you go to get everything and you have the content recommendations and all the rest of it.
yannick-manuel-ramcke_1_05-08-2025_181136:I think by now this has become best practices aggregation play, right? That you don't have to own the content to deliver, keep them in the ecosystem.
murray_1_05-08-2025_171136:This is where we're gonna get into with the French League though.'cause this is where like all of a sudden if it's, you know, there was something that Roger Mitchell posted that, that was talking about. It's no longer about exclusivity, it's about ubiquity. And I thought that's kind of an
richard_1_05-08-2025_171136:I.
murray_1_05-08-2025_171136:way about thinking about sports.
yannick-manuel-ramcke_1_05-08-2025_181136:I agree to the extent that as long as you are not like. At the top of the pyramid of sports rights, then you don't maximize revenue nor reach if you go exclusively. but that makes those who can afford exclusivity in terms of the sports and the leagues who can afford remaining exclusive to one single or two licenses, they become all the more important and valuable.
richard_1_05-08-2025_171136:Okay. Is anyone else real we'll get going? Is anyone else running all over the place at the moment? I'm, I am. So we're in Lausanne when this goes out, I'll be in Lausanne and then I come back. We've got the Sport Industry Awards and then Sports Pod on the Friday, and then there's just see like events keep coming. I mean, I'm not complaining, but I suppose it's that time of year. But is that the same for everyone?
murray_1_05-08-2025_171136:I think it's getting to the business end of a lot of leagues as well, so there tends to be a lot of, you know, you've got, obviously, you know, the. Champions league, Euro League conference, league finals and stuff coming up. Pointy end of PRL season. it just feels like there's a lot of announcements coming out as well.
richard_1_05-08-2025_171136:Yeah.
yannick-manuel-ramcke_1_05-08-2025_181136:I think like Richard, you are like the guy who is complaining each year that it's getting dark early. But this has been the case for as long as we have been living.
richard_1_05-08-2025_171136:Is that like a German parable of some sort that we've stumbled into? What's that? I've never heard that before.
yannick-manuel-ramcke_1_05-08-2025_181136:not. The only thing I'm making and point that I'm making is that it's seasonal as always. And fast forward five, six weeks, you will be in the summer break and you will miss your conferences and different
richard_1_05-08-2025_171136:True enough.
yannick-manuel-ramcke_1_05-08-2025_181136:on the road. I mean, for me personally, it's as long as I can stick to my resume of having at least every second week really being based in Berlin and get stuff done, and not being back to back weeks on the road, unless for very important reasons, I think you can manage. But it's seasonal, right? It's each year the same, and then heading into fall, will all, it'll all pick up again.
richard_1_05-08-2025_171136:Very wise words from someone so young now and talking about being on the road. I was in Bratislava without you two talking about sports media. I felt very naked, but we were at the E's annual assembly with Glen Colan as chief exec there, and we had Mark Oliver on stage Thomas Grace from YouTube and Amy Lee from the Danish broadcaster TV two. That was very, that was excellent. And Mark made a quite an interesting comment about the return of TV reviewers, which I think was, it was a sort of offhand thing, but. They have come back into fashion.'cause there was a sort of time when they just went, they went away. And now I, it's finding my way through the various sort of, it's not just tv, not just programs, but channels. It's almost like a channel reviewer that's come back, that I'm trying to navigate all of these various streaming outlets, which I've got, and I'm sort of perpetually in this state of worrying that I've o I'm overpaying for something. Like whenever Apple TV's thing comes in, I think, oh bloody, I forgot to, and then something else new comes out and I think, oh, I'll keep it for another month. That's, this is the lot isn't it, of the TV viewer.
yannick-manuel-ramcke_1_05-08-2025_181136:I mean, the more convolute and disorienting like the landscape is, I guess the more value is there in like someone providing guidance or like watching something on your behalf, like in order to either recommend or not recommend things. But on the session that you mentioned can't comment specifically, but what I can say is that you did a good job in market and promote because it for sure made my backlog of episodes to catch up on. But.
richard_1_05-08-2025_171136:There's no higher praise. Yannick,
yannick-manuel-ramcke_1_05-08-2025_181136:That's
richard_1_05-08-2025_171136:How can I best, I'm on Yannick backlog given you listen on times three on your podcast. I think I'll take that. I'll be on your backlog any day.
murray_1_05-08-2025_171136:But
richard_1_05-08-2025_171136:Uh, Mrs.
murray_1_05-08-2025_171136:you bring up an Point because, you know, way back when, and we're talking in the dark ages, when ESPN had Premier League in the uk, talked very seriously about actually wanting to promote the Sky Premier League games as well. we felt that as a Premier League holder. But with a sort of a duty to the fan that we should actually be working out like, okay, can we direct people to what's the next game on tv? Or on a Friday you would do some kind of menu board saying, these games are on ESPN, these games are on sky, et cetera. And if I remember rightly, there was a lot of kind of pushback, not just from a marketing team, but also from sort of legal and various other departments about sort of. Doing that and what that would mean. And it just struck me at the time as being so counterintuitive because surely it should be about what's good for the fan, right? what is wrong with promoting your competitor when it's a match that you don't have. It seems like that's what you need to do more and more. And I still get caught in this thing of, you know, I'll be watching the Champions League to, or the Europa League tonight, but I'll still instinctively go to where I would expect the home to be. And then remember, oh no, it's on a different channel. I've gotta go to Amazon. I don't even know where it is. Is it on Amazon tonight or is it on TNT or.
richard_1_05-08-2025_171136:I dunno. We had this thing yesterday where I was forced to watch the Arsenal game and it was, yeah, I found it on, or someone found it on TNT. I wasn't in my own home at this point. But I don't have TNT, so, not because Arsen were on it, but it was just a I just, that's a that's one too far for me. I just, it is interesting. I mean, again, we've talked ad nauseum on about the Champions League but it sort of disappeared from my life in a large way other than the last few games, you know? So I watched the Inter Barcelona, extravaganza and then, you know, RI did Arsenal. I watched both legs of that, but I saw them in the pub. I think I'm not always drinking, but there is a I was in the pub for those. And other than that, I'm very picky about whether I can be bothered to watch a Champions League game, which was never the case when it was an ITV. I know it's such a stupidly simple thing to say,
yannick-manuel-ramcke_1_05-08-2025_181136:speaks to the fact that like more and more different things are competing for everybody's attention and seems like many other things than the Champions League have been winning. That fight for your attention. Unless like really the end of the season, like, 10 poll events, like finals.
richard_1_05-08-2025_171136:Yeah,
yannick-manuel-ramcke_1_05-08-2025_181136:just speaks to like the media environment in which we are,
richard_1_05-08-2025_171136:landman. See that's another one. Paramount is suddenly, I'm now paying out for that just because of one series. Like I wa I like the cowboy thing that they did. What was it? Yellowstone. And until, you know, the last bit is just nonsense. And they and Kevin Coston left and I'm like, think of why, you know, I'm paying for this. And the bloke's gone. I like Kevin Co. I've followed Kevin Coon's career for a very long time. Anyway, we are drifting off the point and I think we should get going with, so we've got a whole show list. I'm gonna just tee this up. We've got the French football saga, which is unignorable if you're talking about the sports media, and we've talked about it a lot and we've been, right, we've been ahead of the game, I think on the LFP D zone and various other bits, and Bold canal, plu, all of that. I think we've, or you guys have been leading the way. I see it gets copied a lot and I, you need to get more credit than you do in the general conversation. And then the second one is ESPN. Flagship, which I'm not quite sure what that is, but I'm looking forward to you to explaining what that is. Then we have Formula One in the us Is that future rosy? We've got a couple of stories. UFC, which I'm interested in as a, they've got the TV rights that are obviously coming to market. I say obviously only if you're inside the sports media bubble, but they are coming to market and there's a lot of speculation in terms of where they'll land and how much for and EA bought FC and MLS quite a nice little story there about mobile. But let's start then, and. With the French football saga. Now I'm gonna read this off. Inside World Football D Zone set to sever contract with LFP following breakdown of mediation, the bitter broadcasting saga between France's League football proficiency, LFP, see a little bit of a pronunciation there and streaming Giant D Zone appears to have reached its conclusion with LFP media announcing an agreement between the warring parties. Those specifics remain carefully guarded by both sides. Murray, take me closer to this story. What's happening?
murray_1_05-08-2025_171136:We've covered this quite a lot over past episodes and so won't go over sort of the history of it too much, but it's been reported that there is a sort of settlement in the offering that would allow to zone to terminate after one season, paying 100 million euros in compensation, plus 140 million in fees, which are due. So it leaves. French football in a very weird situation where, you know, they've kind of trumpeted this idea that they'd go direct to consumer conveniently forgetting that didn't work when they tried Yannick, was it three cycles ago with Media Pro and they've kind of been around the houses on all the different broadcast partners from Can Police way back when to be in, who's one of their current partners to Amazon to now DZ and it's not really working for anybody. So this much trumpeted idea of the going direct to consumer, it seems to be, you know, necessity as the mother of invention.
richard_1_05-08-2025_171136:Yanick coming on that.
yannick-manuel-ramcke_1_05-08-2025_181136:No, absolutely. I mean, I think the one call out that we always made and I think will out to be true is the fact that just because there's a break or there is this in available break in relationship doesn't mean at all that that is definitive. I said before, like compartmentalizing things is like part of the job description in the sports business industry. And I also said before that I. From a design perspective, it's mere fiduciary duty that okay, I update my business case. And if like, out of the agreement whether those reasons like lack of support from the clubs and the ongoing piracy is like, or are like valid reasons valid legal reasons to pull out is a different discussion. But if pulling out of the agreement with exit fees and termination fees all begged in is less loss making than sticking to the agreement for the upcoming seasons with all the ancillary benefits that come with being the primary broadcaster of the top tier football competition, then I, as a business decision maker, have almost a duty to pursue that route. Doesn't mean that they're completely punting on the French market, which is one of the biggest European markets and a global streamer. You almost have to play one role or the another or another in such a market. Doesn't mean they're punting on the French market, but there might be a more economic way to Yeah, play a role and do some business in the French market, which may or may not, it seems like it does will include the French League one as well.
murray_1_05-08-2025_171136:But yeah, I think the interesting thing about this story or the different take we could take with it this time round is. I think it's gonna have big ripples across the various football leagues and Okay. You've got very specific mark market circumstances in each market, but you know, this is basically close the door on major media platforms competing for sports rights in France, I think. And as soon as you see that happening in, in France I that they have to go direct to consumer. I can see that all of a sudden, you know, with the upcoming Premier League auction in the uk and with when the other major football leagues come to market, it could have some serious consequences on where those are going.
yannick-manuel-ramcke_1_05-08-2025_181136:I absolutely agree, and I think the trend of coopertition has been not only for a year or so now, it has been like for the past five plus years that and this, as you always said, competition, the marketplace is the single most determined factor for the market price page for sports rights and market price is, or maybe different than what the actual value of that IP is. But I don't think we can underestimate like how particular and how. what the specifics are to the French market. It is a particular market and it starts with like fundamental things like that OTT. So over the top streaming in France, it's just not a thing. The kos have such a strong gatekeeper function there that IPTV closed circuit by the kos. Yes, it is I IP based streaming, but it is not really over the top of traditional distributors. So the OTT market is completely underdeveloped. The Kos, first and foremost can improve are still owning and have huge leverage by owning the end consumer relationship. So we can discuss the quality of the French football product at this stage as well. Right. Which I mean it's probably like bad timing with just the semifinals in the.
richard_1_05-08-2025_171136:Well, I think it's interesting'cause the manager sort of was asked yesterday, I dunno if you saw this, it was in English y it was on um, sky I think. And the post match interview where he referenced there was a sort of, this is, there was a triumphal list, obviously it's just got free to the final, but there was a quite a marked thing where he was talking about, you know, they've knocked out all the Premier League teams basically. And he then referenced Farmer's League and we referenced, you know, the television deal and all of the noise around French football generally. So there was that sort of, you know, pity me bit to the French marketplace. But there's always, you know, the fact that PSG have got to the final. I dunno whether or not that's good or bad for, in terms of the brand of French football.'cause it's, they're so other in that league that I mean you can argue the same in lots of different leagues, but I think there's a interesting bit about, so did the zone overpay for this initially? Is this just a way that they're sort of, all of this argument is getting back to a more realistic price point for the product? Is that what's happening Because they were in a different place or maybe they're in a different place? When this first came up and they wanted to make a stand, they were, all of the signals from D Zone was, you know, Netflix was football, blah, blah, blah. And actually they were out there and they were, I dunno, were they mug punters first time around. And this is a way of
murray_1_05-08-2025_171136:Well, I
richard_1_05-08-2025_171136:getting outta that.
murray_1_05-08-2025_171136:I, you know, I don't want to comment on, on, you know, whether Toone overpaid, because I think that there are, you know, non-public reasons as to why as to why they did it. I think it has done is it's inadvertently pointed out that there is a massive discrepancy. And this is by no means exclusive to the French League, between what consumers are willing to pay and and what platforms, whether they're zone style or whether their sky or whatever are actually willing to are willing to absorb. Because you know, the traditional argument was always that these are great marketing, vehicles for the likes of Sky. But as these platforms now mature, I think they're all of a sudden coming to this realization that then that they have been overpaying because of maybe it gave them these ancillary benefits of, you know, a subscriber acquisition tool, week in, week out must have must watch type programming. And all of a sudden they're saying, Hey, wait a minute. So actually I didn't need to buy cha. I'm talking about the UK. need to buy Champions leagues as long as I have a carriage deal for TNT and I've got Amazon on my platform and that saved me a bucket load of money and I still own the subscriber. Why am I spending all of this money on it? And I think the reason why Deone has shone a light on it is because Deone part, doesn't have multiple different revenue streams. It's ultimately a sports broadcasting platform. And yes, okay, Got, you know, advertising and a few other things, but it's not part of a wider a wider bouquet of entertainment, if you like that that you are able to sort of, on your perspective, either hide the true cost or
richard_1_05-08-2025_171136:Yeah.
murray_1_05-08-2025_171136:the cost over a much wider portfolio of products.
yannick-manuel-ramcke_1_05-08-2025_181136:I mean, there's a lot in there. I would suggest let's not open up the discussion around the. mighty revenue stream model and concept that design pushed over the past two years in the sense of, yes, the base remains the dual revenue stream of subscriptions and advertising, but there are so many other revenue stream that they can build upon. They are streaming business from betting to merchandise, to ticketing and all the other yeah, e-commerce, like, revenue streams.
richard_1_05-08-2025_171136:Do they work? I mean, I get them in, you know, I can get there intellectually, but I just don't know whether or not
yannick-manuel-ramcke_1_05-08-2025_181136:and that's, I think
richard_1_05-08-2025_171136:there is enough money in that.
yannick-manuel-ramcke_1_05-08-2025_181136:You are exactly pinpointing pin pointing it with conceptually, intellectually, or whatever you want to say. It makes a bunch of sense on a piece of paper. Practically, I think we have seen the limitations and they're all the way back to what has worked for decades, which is subscriptions paid by the end consumer and setting the end consumer's time and attention to the advertising industry and any growth. It comes down to this one and probably comes down to price hikes. Again. But with that being said, I think, I mean, and that's fair enough. I think like a year ago or more than a year ago, we said, look, this is a tremendous market entry opportunity for the zone, looking at the cost base that they had for like the premium asset in the marketplace. Normally, if you enter a new market, you pay a premium to get a foothold, right? Because why should like an established league, like the top domestic football league go with a new market end trend, unproven, unknown including among the end consumers when they could just play it safe for the same money. So new market, end-to-end, always needed to pay a premium and. considered looking at the rights fees, I mean, which has been implementing for three cycles now in France, that was a good starting point to build a sustainable business. So I also wouldn't say they overpaid in hindsight, they paid too much because they did not make up the money on the other side. But I think it's wrong to say that they overpaid for the beginning because objectively many people outside looking in there saying, that's a good base to work with.
richard_1_05-08-2025_171136:So, I mean, there's a, just to finish this off, I mean, Murray, you talked there a little bit about, I guess you would call it contagion. You know, in terms of this, the impact of this story, the ripple effect of whatever you wanna call it on other leagues in terms of other rights negotiations. And I'm wondering, I keep coming back to what is specific about this and what is more universal? What are, what if you were. Premier League coming to market, what would you look, be looking into this story? There's loads of mistakes that LFP made, it seems to me, in the whole process, but is there something specific in there that you think, yeah. Okay. I think that would be nagging away at them.
murray_1_05-08-2025_171136:I would be leaning into the fact that for the skies of this world, a anti churn tool. It's around that. It's something that Sky has always had. and therefore consumers know how to get there. And I'd be playing on a fear a fear at Sky of like, if we don't have Premier League. It's it devalues our overall proposition because it's such a tent pole that we've had from the very beginning that Yes, even offering it on our platform, ultimately you still have to bolt those other things on. And already I think that there is fatigue that now, you know, as you mentioned about Paramount earlier, you know, like you keep feeling like you have to add one more subscription just to get that one more bit of content that you really like. And I think it may end up having the reverse effect, which is actually sky without Premier League. People are gonna start saying, well, okay, if I'm gonna drop something, maybe it's Sky.'cause I get movies on Paramount, I get, you know, premier League on D Zone or whoever it is, you know, I get I get
richard_1_05-08-2025_171136:Or YouTube.
murray_1_05-08-2025_171136:Yeah, exactly. The but the point being is it's, I would be trying to build that fear factor up.
richard_1_05-08-2025_171136:Yeah. Yeah.
yannick-manuel-ramcke_1_05-08-2025_181136:I think
richard_1_05-08-2025_171136:Okay.
yannick-manuel-ramcke_1_05-08-2025_181136:would be a risky game for or to try to prove what has worked in the middle of the market with like mid-tier properties when okay, like it was also covid induced and so on. They didn't see an impact on the business. When it comes to subscriber signups or shown when they missed a Midtier property. The only thing that was different is that the cost savings went right to the bottom line. think trying this with the crown jewels of any given market is a risky game to play. And I would not what means advising against it, but I think it's just risky because there are those few properties that make a difference in the consumer's
richard_1_05-08-2025_171136:Yeah,
murray_1_05-08-2025_171136:the one other thing I would say is that it's also about what concessions can the Premier League give? So do, does it mean that they can find new time slots? Does it mean that they can do away with the blanket three o'clock window? You know, can they open up their Saturday three o'clock window? All of these things will have an impact on where that end price ends up. Because ultimately, if you are able to turn around to, I'm gonna use Sky as a proxy for all the broadcasters, Six different time zones sorry, six different time slots over the course of, say four days. There is value in that kind of thing.
yannick-manuel-ramcke_1_05-08-2025_181136:I fully agree. And I think the German Bundesliga, for example, which has been celebrated for the most recent tender for the domestic market, which was slightly up in that environment. I mean, we already say flat is the new up, but they needed to stretch a lot in terms of in, in the fine print. When it comes to like what is given to the broadcast in terms of access, in terms of flexibility, like this product is now fully optimized when it comes to media exploitation. And then those small little things, the leaks. A Premier League have to stretch itself, but I think it will result in yield, the desired outcome. But that is what Murray said. They need to stretch and further optimize to accommodate as much of the vicious and desires of the potential bids and licensees as possible.
richard_1_05-08-2025_171136:Okay. Right. Let us move on to our next story. So, this is ESPN Flagship e ESPN Tee's Vision. This is in Front Office Sports Eric Fisher's story, ESPN Tee's Vision for its biggest bet 2020 five's flagship platform. E ESP n already has a big presence across many forms of media that is being distilled into network, into the network's forthcoming direct to consumer service and is the foundation of rebranding the network as a much more interactive entity. We should go to you first for this Murray, I think.
murray_1_05-08-2025_171136:Yeah, I mean before we started recording, Yanick and I were kind of, sort of disagreeing on this and I feel like this is a pretty big deal, but Yanick, I think you didn't feel quite the same way about it, but just to pick out a couple of things as to what flagship is gonna be, kind of building it around. We kind of touched upon this earlier, like four key elements, so search and discovery. So not everything's gonna be on ESPN, but. To ESPN flagship, you will be able to find where those things are, trying to reduce some of the friction in finding when it's on different and other networks. And plus being able to sort of have that personalized. We touched upon other revenue streams, the idea of an ESPN wallets, so it's simple transaction for betting and ticketing and merchandising and all that, and digital collectibles and all of that kind of stuff. And of course that comes with some additional data benefits in terms of being able to understand the consumers more. The sort of traditional watch parties and creator commentary and fantasy and all that kind of live polls, social and community type stuff. a sort of fan id, which I guess, revolves around this idea of that actually the engine starts to understand you more and better, and starts to be able to help you navigate between the different devices that you own. I thought the quote that was quite interesting about this was they call it a an operating system for sports. So they see it very much as. Less about ESPN owning content, but more and more about ESPN being the place where everything is aggregated, whether it's ESPN owned or not. And I think that's always been, you know, ESPN's philosophy way back when was to serve fans like wherever, whenever they watch sport to serve fans. And this kind of does reinforce that man, that mantra. But that doesn't necessarily mean it's all gonna be plain sailing or there's not a lot of headwinds that they'll face, which I'm sure Yannick will dive into.
richard_1_05-08-2025_171136:It is interesting though. There's been a few, we've had a couple of people on the podcast actually. The guy from, in fact it was who's the infinite athlete? Guy? Father was NBC. Stick Episo and his name, the, so the son's name, he run, he runs Infinite Athlete, but there shtick is the operating system for sport. There's a load of people congregating around that term.'cause it's obviously quite a nice phrase and it's, you sort of talk about the Everything app and on all that sort of type of language. And you can see that flowing into this as, you know, the media and the tech further collide. Before I bring Yannick in Carlo Dimar, a friend of the podcast, the man in the scarf, a guy with a scarf, sorry, I've got his brand wrong there. But yeah, he's got a scarf and he's a very nice bloke and knows a lot. He wrote a very good piece. I'll put a link to this which is. Called ESPN's flagship Switch, the Dawn of director fan sports or Cable's swan song. You ask a question about whether this is the first chapter of a rebuilt sports economy or the closing scene of the bundle we all grew up with. But and he's, I'll point you towards that. It's really really nice stuff and there's some really great questions in there. Yannick.
yannick-manuel-ramcke_1_05-08-2025_181136:I feel like that more you started with all the bases and whistles that are attached to the actual product that
richard_1_05-08-2025_171136:I love it when you say bells and whistles.
yannick-manuel-ramcke_1_05-08-2025_181136:I mean that I must admit that I just quoted like, I think Bob iga mentioned that in the recent earnings call that our D two C product will come with all the bets and whistles, and that is where I'm a bit skeptic, but let's focus first on the business outcome that this product is supposed to deliver. It is pretty much supposed to manage even better, the linear to streaming transition for the for ESPN by, for the first time ever making linear ESPN pretty much available outside of the traditional ma. Video distributors. So outside of the traditional pay TV bundle, you can now actually sign up to ESPN, direct to consumer on own operated ESPN. This is like the big news. This is the big product that as part of this, and I don't know if you have to be A-E-S-P-N subscriber or not, that they help you to navigate the digital landscape by telling you also not only ESPN broadcast, but also events broadcasted by others. We have to find it. Or that you can have a watch party or that you want to become the central hub of any given sports fans experience. I don't think that is like really, I. Impacting business one way or the other. My focus would really be on, okay, we make our ESPN programming available and untethered from the traditional pay tv system. And here I think we overestimate the mass market relevant or appear of such a service. The service will be conservatively priced to not further undermine the pay TV bundle because this is still the single most revenue model that has ever been. And objective number one, two, and three for ESPN right now is to give, I'm not saying life support, but sustain the model as long and as best as possible so they won't like. Super aggressively price their own D two C because it would undermine their golden goose to some extent. And if we are here speaking about a service that within, I don't know, two years has 5 million subscribers, and as of today, ESPN still has 70 million plus, I think our latest numbers do. I would be surprised. I think it's a niche market product.
richard_1_05-08-2025_171136:There's a question I've got, which is, again, this bounces off Carlos's piece, but I'd like your views on it, which is the, a couple of people in the comments refer to linking out. So, and there's this idea that it's, rather than an everything app, it is a passport in out to other sports, which is sort of echoes of what people immediately jumped on Apple's app, sports app. They thought that was going to be a sort of version of that. And there's a couple of things. One is the global complexity question. You know, so Cricket in India, formula One in Germany, or they're just, how you get to those rights from ESPN's sort of front door.
yannick-manuel-ramcke_1_05-08-2025_181136:can answer this question pretty fast for you.
richard_1_05-08-2025_171136:Okay.
yannick-manuel-ramcke_1_05-08-2025_181136:are data providers out there who do nothing else but 24 7 to make sure that their database is up to date in terms of where is what shown and what is needed to get access to this. You just
richard_1_05-08-2025_171136:I suppose it's less the technical question. I've got a question about the competition element to it. So you are linking out away from ESPN into a competitor's who's got rights for something that you haven't got. There's a, I dunno, how do I just, I'm trying to get there in terms of how this would work. It's almost like a, this is a Google for sport
murray_1_05-08-2025_171136:I think the
richard_1_05-08-2025_171136:rather. No.
murray_1_05-08-2025_171136:Amazon Prime video, right? So you can go and subscribe or you get a bunch of sports direct through Amazon Prime video, but then you can also upsell to buy, they also upsell to buy various other different sports. And that's a very simplistic way of looking at it, but it's ultimately that, right? It's like you've got a subscription package, there's a bunch of stuff that's in it, but then it's also directing you where you can pay more for it. And I mean, I also think that the key thing, and it's a very much an ESPN philosophy, which is you can faff around and try and come up with the perfect thing and you can keep tinkering with it. or do what ESPN does very well, which is like throw stuff at the market and see what sticks. And this is a pretty big thing that they're throwing out there. I'm pretty sure that what they're saying flagship is today is gonna be very different to how flagship looks in two years time. you know, there's a couple of points, Nik, but before you jump in, like first is, you know, they're hemorrhaging two and a half million households a quarter. So it is managed decline on, cable. And that's why they're pricing it at the, at a very similar to cable right now. Because they don't want to completely kill that. It's still a very valuable revenue stream that they're bringing in. But the timing is really key.'cause if they don't get the timing right, they could end up losing billions and billions of dollars. And I It'll be incumbent on ESPN to push the market this way in order, or actually, let's say that a different way is it'll be incumbent on the Walt Disney Company to really push the market to be going this way as quickly as possible. Because otherwise, if they're left isolated, they could be in this weird situation where, Yannick says, they end up with only a few million subscribers, massively declining revenues, nobody fo nobody, let's call it, partnering with them or helping them out in this particular environment. But,
richard_1_05-08-2025_171136:yeah.
murray_1_05-08-2025_171136:I mean, I've, every time we think that Disney or ESPN gets it wrong, they seem to be able to pull it out of the bag. And so I've said it before, I still think they're the smartest people in the room.
richard_1_05-08-2025_171136:By encouraging the market, you mean the supply side of the market? The other broadcasters you are looking for them to come in because you are, I dunno. I mean obviously it wouldn't be on trust, but your weight. Yeah.
murray_1_05-08-2025_171136:it's to partner with it not to see E-E-S-P-N as the enemy, but to see them as somebody that's offering them an opportunity to extend their reach and potentially acquire new subscribers for the services which are not like direct pass throughs or directly owned by ESPN. To be part of this new ecosystem, you know, is, and to a certain extent, you know, ESPN are offering a platform that is really gonna help a lot of those struggling partners. And there'll be some people who say, well, why do we need to do this? But I think there'll be a bunch of others that will be welcoming this with open arms as a potential avenue for increased monetization. And the key thing here is it's all about the first party data and the bit which Carlo mentions and has mentioned a couple of the other articles is. really the first dawn of a a comeback for the advertising business because the CPM rates that you can offer around sport coupled with, detailed first party data, I think we're gonna see a massive resurgence back in the advertising world for sports.
yannick-manuel-ramcke_1_05-08-2025_181136:I
richard_1_05-08-2025_171136:And away from subscription.
murray_1_05-08-2025_171136:Yeah,
yannick-manuel-ramcke_1_05-08-2025_181136:There's a lot in there and I want to focus on two of your points, Mauri. The one is, I think we need to be clear that ESPN is not building a channel business here. So the add-ons, it's not like Prime video where you can directly using the payment details stored on your Amazon account to sign up to a channel and then directly both transact and consume within the Prime video platform. What ESPN is trying with this TV guide feature is pretty much an affiliate marketing revenue stream.
murray_1_05-08-2025_171136:But how's that different to what Amazon Prime are doing other than the transactional aspect of it? Because he has, yes.
yannick-manuel-ramcke_1_05-08-2025_181136:Amazon is owning and charging the customer. This is an Amazon customer. If I sign up to Paramount Plus via Prime Video, paramount Plus knows nothing about that customer that has access and is an official Paramount Plus subscriber, they know nothing about it. channel stores are for content programmers. So for paramount lower margin, less data rich with limited flexibility.
murray_1_05-08-2025_171136:You are right. But I think there's a hybrid model here, because ultimately the first party data is gonna be shared because by definition, if they've come into the ESPN environment, they'll already, they'll know when they're handing that customer off to a, to a, to an affiliate deal. So it's, if you like, it's co-ownership of at least level of first party data. They may not know what that customer then goes off and does when they're subscribing to something else. But if you like, it's the best of both worlds for SPN. They're not having to take. The risk of actually hosting all of this stuff, but they're getting an affiliate fee and they're getting some data about what customers are consuming, which can inform their programming decisions for the future.
yannick-manuel-ramcke_1_05-08-2025_181136:I don't disagree. It's a good move to do but it's not for me. It's not this game changing move. There are so many TV guides out there. I mean, every simple sports sports app or sports publisher has a TV guide feature to
murray_1_05-08-2025_171136:You, you're right, but the also the brand strength that ESPN has in the US is so different. It's very difficult, I think when you sit outside the US to understand ubiquity of ESPN as a sports brand. You know, it's right up there with, maybe it's stretching it slightly to say Coca-Cola but it really is sort of the sort of in the DNA of sports fans at the US and so I think that's really gonna work in their
richard_1_05-08-2025_171136:It is quite an interesting test, though, has been betting, isn't it? Because the, that the,
yannick-manuel-ramcke_1_05-08-2025_181136:main point, Richard. Now
richard_1_05-08-2025_171136:yeah, the fa the failure of ESPN BET or the supposed failure. Has been that the, is a brand failure is my, or it is a product failure because the, you know, the, for
yannick-manuel-ramcke_1_05-08-2025_181136:Yeah. So
richard_1_05-08-2025_171136:various reasons.
yannick-manuel-ramcke_1_05-08-2025_181136:have any like exactly, but has been the brand brand strength when it comes to ESPN bed.
murray_1_05-08-2025_171136:It's it, you know, I think with the betting it was it's a weird one, right? Because don't think owning the betting provider fulfills the core brand promise of ESPN to serve fans. They come to ESPN to be, entertained and served up content. And in the industry that we work in, we talk about, I hate this euphemism of betting as being entertainment. Oh, that's adding a richness to the experiences to allow you to spend money on betting. I still think it's something where it's a kind of a very unique end of the market where it should be run by the people who know how to do that. And by the way, generally has not worked for broadcasters either, right? So all of these extra revenue streams that we talk about are not things which necessarily most sports broadcasters have managed to run very well. But the key is that if ESPN owns the a rich data set, it can then make that decision about. I'm making this up. Do I go off to fanatics and say, fanatics, you are now gonna be my exclusive e-commerce partner, or I'm gonna, I'm gonna white label fanatics running an e-commerce service, or whatever it is. that's, that to me is the secret.
yannick-manuel-ramcke_1_05-08-2025_181136:Yeah. Now you are getting into this. The traditional model has been a business to business model, a B2B model. Now. Requiring a completely different skill and mindset as they're vening into direct to consumer. So I mean there are a lot of challenges. Overall the one other point I just wanted to quickly mention is that in terms of being first or late mover, or part of the majority regarding going actually D two C, I think ESPN has been the long holdout among the sports broadcasters in in the US it has to somewhat glued together the traditional pay to B bundled. If you look at their peers like NBC, like CBS, like Warner Media, they all have already moved a lot of their most variable inventory, sports inventory to their streamers over the past two to three years.
murray_1_05-08-2025_171136:You're right, Yanik, but just on that point, they their opportunity cost was much lower. was already getting$9 in the cable bundle, so it is very easy for the others to move quickly, but when they don't have so much revenue that they're giving up.
yannick-manuel-ramcke_1_05-08-2025_181136:Absolutely. So make my po you make my point that I don't think they're late to the party. Because they couldn't afford to pull the plug pretty much on the traditional pay to be bundle before because too much was at risk. I was make the argument, I would make the argument that NBC and CBS and Warner Media were like free riding on the back of ESPN because ESPN made sure that the traditional revenue stream stayed intact for everyone while they already used their to also, it's not like they moved it from here to there. They just put it also. On their OTT streaming service in order to get this up and running. So I fully agree they couldn't afford to go earlier. It would have been too risky. And now, as a result, since it's the main revenue stream, they will price it, as we said, they will price it quite conservatively and everything, which makes me to believe that we are talking about, I don't know, within, in the next two years, one to 2 million subscribers to ESPN flagship. And that might be a good segue now again, doing Richard job to maybe the final question, because the biz, the bi the big unknown was the name. They make like a mystery out of it for like, it's like two years. So, Marie, I want to hear your guess how this is named?
murray_1_05-08-2025_171136:I dunno, I'm not sure that I've come up with a very good one. I mean, is there a, is it ESPN ubiquity? I don't I'm
richard_1_05-08-2025_171136:Yeah.
murray_1_05-08-2025_171136:not sure that's, and even I.
richard_1_05-08-2025_171136:Never go into marketing. Never go into advertising. Murray just stay in your lane.
murray_1_05-08-2025_171136:I haven't asked, haven't had a chance to ask chat GPT what it should be.
richard_1_05-08-2025_171136:But I mean, venue is a pretty ropey name as well, wasn't it? I mean, that's, that was, we were talking about that six months ago is the future of, you know, television and now, so, I dunno, what do you think, Janet?
murray_1_05-08-2025_171136:MAX or something like that. I mean, you know, like May, ESPN, touchdown, you know, I don't know. What do you think?
yannick-manuel-ramcke_1_05-08-2025_181136:we over complicate things. I would just call it ESPN because that's what you are getting. There's no, you don't need to disclaim or limit or whatever you are getting, ESPN, that you are used to and associate with.
richard_1_05-08-2025_171136:ESPN one,
murray_1_05-08-2025_171136:I think ESPN home, I'm gonna go with the ESPN home.
richard_1_05-08-2025_171136:the esp n app, ESP n everything.
yannick-manuel-ramcke_1_05-08-2025_181136:And alternatively, but I think still be possible. I would call ESPN plus. I mean, ESPN plus as a standalone one has no future anyway. Especially, and we may talk about this, USC sweepstakes for their rights don't work out as ESPN would like. There is no standalone future for ESPN plus anyway, and I mean, it fits the bill, right, to get ESPN and more.
richard_1_05-08-2025_171136:yeah, we don't know. And we'll come back to it when when we we hear more. Right. Next story. We are gonna be talking about Formula One, and we are remaining in the US so so we've just had the Miami Grand Prix and Louis Hamilton rowing on the uh, on the, I I I keep calling it the phone, but it's not a phone, is it? It's a radio, but I'm not that old, but We are now at, where are we in this process, Murray, in terms of are we at Crunch tie?'cause we've been talking about the US domestic market and formula One is in the final year of its three year extension with ESPN, paying an estimated 75 million to$90 million annually. There's obviously a lot of mood music. I like that phrase. I'm gonna use that. So you've got the Formula One film, you've got all of the drive to survive stuff in the ether. You've got Cadillac coming in, which again talks to the whole American thing. You've got, you've had the Vegas race, the Miami races. Where are we, do you think, what's gonna happen?
murray_1_05-08-2025_171136:There's two little parts to this. So one is what's gonna happen with the next deal in the us, the next media rights deal. But then I think there's another one, which is a slightly wider question about what does Liberty do with Formula One? Is there an argument to say that. We can talk about it in, in con in the context of the media rights. But is, are we getting to the stage where actually drive to survive starts to, pla is starting to plateau or has plateaued a little bit. You've got a lot of advertisers or sponsors already locked in. They've got something like$14 billion worth of revenue tied up between in the coming years between sponsor commitments and a race promoter commitments. You know, if you are sitting there as liberty, do you take the view that actually you've, to use Yannick favorite phrase, you've got all the low hanging fruit and actually now is the time to say, is there somebody out there that would like to take this off our hands for a much, much larger sun than we it for? Or are they in it for the long haul? And I genuinely dunno the answer, but if I was a. A Liberty Media shareholder, that's probably the thing that would be vexing me, because even if they get this massive change in their US media rights, it's still a relatively small amount of money compared to the overall value of, formula One today.
richard_1_05-08-2025_171136:Yeah, it is a really interesting question because, you never know when you're at the peak. I guess some people do and they make a lot of money outta that knowledge, but there's a question of where we are in its sort of value cycle if it is a cycle. But the other question is I was listening to, ari Emmanuel on the Freakonomics podcast, and he talked about previously wanting to buy Formula One before he bought UFC. And why? Because there aren't many sports you can buy in your, in, you know, in, in their entirety essentially. You obviously, you know, it's a sports property, but that bit of it, I think makes it incredibly attractive to certain, you know, buyers in here and you can start to then, you know, we don't need to go through a shopping list of petite potential buyers for Formula One, but so one framing then your, you are putting on this is that the American Rights auction is the sort of, could be the final bit of the jigsaw for Liberty and then they start to move it. You don't, we don't know, but that's, I can see where you're going from.
murray_1_05-08-2025_171136:It could be the bellwether for it, right? Which is.
richard_1_05-08-2025_171136:Jigsaw or Bellwether. That's the headline.
murray_1_05-08-2025_171136:If they don't get the same increase that they don't get the percent the sort of the doubling of the rights fee that they would ideally like, that say that they've taken it as far as they can? Because I, I don't, looking at it, I mean, I think that Formula One is doing reasonably well in the states. You know, it's not the number one motor sport, I mean, gonna be negative now, right? So it is not the number one motor sport in the us. It doesn't have the volume that you have in basketball or major league baseball. It plays in various time zones, that, that may, or it takes part in various time zones, which can be very challenging. Like, does that, you know, does it really warrant the kind of number that's been put out there of doubling again? Right. Because, you know, I think I sent you guys the strategy guy, newsletter piece about this as well, which is, you know, a really interesting comparison even with WNBA and it's kind of saying, look, you know, WNBA very broadly speaking gets the same kind of rate, average rating as Formula One, they have like a ton more games
richard_1_05-08-2025_171136:Yeah,
murray_1_05-08-2025_171136:in the right time zone. They're getting 200 million from the market. So like if you extrapolate that out, it doesn't justify paying, you know, 140, 150, 180 million for Formula One.
richard_1_05-08-2025_171136:so it's quite a sort of, it remains a sort of exotic niche product in America rather than a cent. You know, we see it as quite a central sport, don't we? Whereas it still remains, I was looking at the AMPI analysis of the fans that you shared. So 62% of Motorsport fans are NASCAR fans and you know, you've got indie at 25% and F1 is just over a third. But that's still substantial. So the inventory question is someone I one that I always underestimate as well. They've tried to broaden the inventory, is that right? In to, obviously more races, but they seem to be taught, you know. The programming appears to have broadened and they've got other bits to it. So is that part of trying to just generate more inventory for the broadcaster as they go through?
yannick-manuel-ramcke_1_05-08-2025_181136:I don't even know where to start because there was so much in there on in your last five minutes of of discussion. Let's maybe start with the very last question that you asked so that we at least at least I Murray, you can ship in address it. Address this for a second. I think the enlarging of the inventory when it comes to Formula One in particular is more driven by hosting fees rather than like accommodating the vicious
richard_1_05-08-2025_171136:Sure. Yeah. Yeah.
yannick-manuel-ramcke_1_05-08-2025_181136:of the broadcasters. In
richard_1_05-08-2025_171136:But it's an ancillary, it's a, it's an additional benefit of doing that,
yannick-manuel-ramcke_1_05-08-2025_181136:it is but I think there are other sports
richard_1_05-08-2025_171136:but marginal.
yannick-manuel-ramcke_1_05-08-2025_181136:where enlarging the, in parenthesis media inventory is much more driven by this broadcaster than other motors like it is in Formula One with with the hosting fees. But with that being said, I think it goes back to what we discussed before. If you ignore the, all the intangibles and look at the tangible business metrics. Formula One has been punching above its weight much ever since the hype of a drive to survive started. If you look at TV ratings, if you look at rights fees, if you look at ma how much mass ma mass market appear the property has against like NASCAR indica and all of these kind of things it was always punching above its weight when it comes to our filter bubble of sports media slash sports business folks. So if I'm now a shareholder, and that I think was the original question, what do I want to see if not an full fledged exit? I at least want to see that all of those and awareness and quote unquote growing popularity of my sports translates into business impact. And that is why they are shooting for doubling. The right fee,
richard_1_05-08-2025_171136:If I was share, if I was a shareholder, I'd be hoping for a sort of petro state who had shown interest in Formula One was building a series of cities in the desert where you could host series of races and guarantee a relevance to this new audience that liberty have grown over time and I think, you know,
murray_1_05-08-2025_171136:You mean then
richard_1_05-08-2025_171136:can't think.
murray_1_05-08-2025_171136:had a ruler that was perhaps smack bang in the F1 target age range of sort of,
richard_1_05-08-2025_171136:yeah,
murray_1_05-08-2025_171136:late thirties, early forties.
richard_1_05-08-2025_171136:almost definitely a drive to survive viewer.
yannick-manuel-ramcke_1_05-08-2025_181136:but then let's look at it. If they say, okay, we need to double our right fee, they went from two circuits ago, 5 million slash web share, with ESPN to this 90 million per year renewal with ESPN. They now want. To double, we said before, right? Fee are primarily a function of competition or like right fees paid. So the market price primarily a function of the competition. You have ESPN. If you look and read the reports, Netflix is supposedly supposedly in there. And Warner Brother Discovery supposedly in there. I think for ESPN, it's a nice to have since it doesn't really drive distribution with the distributor. So it's not like if you don't have Formula One or you have Formula One, you are in a different tier. If you're ESPN, they are more important properties. So I'm not saying zero business value, but limited business value as well as for the other revenue stream, which is advertising. There has been this whole controversy how AD three Motorsport fans, especially Formula One, fence one. They are broadcast to be. So I, I don't think it's business critical
richard_1_05-08-2025_171136:i, I, yeah. But Yannick, I, and we'll finish off this, but I'm, you two have always warned me, and I, you've taught me over the years that phrases like, allegedly Amazon, Netflix, Warner Brothers, discovery and YouTube are all in the marketplace. I should be wary of sentences like that because they're planted by people like two trying to, or you know, you're trying to sort of, fluff the marketplace. I know. What's what's that? We used to be, it used to be great when Charlie sell used to run, you know, Facebook, he's gonna be in the market for Premier League rights. And I used to love those stories and so did he, by the way, did him on purpose. But yes. So I think there's a whole load there. Load, whole load of unknowns. It's fascinating. I'm gonna move us on to. UFC, and we'll be a bit shorter on this one because it's, again, I wanted this one in because it's, I've seen it referenced a few times. Again, it contains the sentence, allegedly, Amazon, Netflix, Warner Brothers, discovery and YouTube are all in the market for UFC rights. But Murray, let's what's,'cause I think there's a, again we know TKO is one of the stories of the, you know, industry over the last couple of years. And this feels like a, you know, obviously a big moment, but unpick it
murray_1_05-08-2025_171136:I, you know, we talked about betting a little bit earlier and Yannick, I dunno if you saw the thing in unofficial announcing where they've actually the betting odds for who will
richard_1_05-08-2025_171136:by the way, it's called awful announcing. You are conflating unofficial partner and awful announcing
murray_1_05-08-2025_171136:Awful announcing,
richard_1_05-08-2025_171136:I.
murray_1_05-08-2025_171136:actually put the, you know, the, like, the bet the betting odds for the likely future partners. And I thought that's a very niche, betting market where, you know for about the, a hundred or so people that that we all know who are really interested in all of this.
yannick-manuel-ramcke_1_05-08-2025_181136:Let's not, let's better not start this. Otherwise we go into sports betting, where the sports prediction markets, which for me, I went down this rabbit hole a couple of weeks ago, so let's not do this.
murray_1_05-08-2025_171136:I think Richard, you're absolutely right that the sort of the TKO aspect and the success, well certainly it seems like the success that WWE has had on Netflix. I. Points to the fact that it's not going to, it's unlikely that ESPN is gonna bust the bust the bank for UFC especially because again, you know, they, their current deal is roughly 1.5 billion for five years. It was extended for two years, which I think was at a bit of an increase, but not a massive one. But they're now looking at, you know, a billion dollars a year. So again, a massive uplift, which, you know, people like ESPN are just not in the market for anymore. I suspect, you know, cutting to the chase that it, that they will look to emulate what NFL and and others have, which is sort of multiple partners. retaining different packages on different partners to try and a bit of competitive tension, but also this idea that the sum is greater than the parts or the parts are greater than the sum rather.
yannick-manuel-ramcke_1_05-08-2025_181136:Richard, I was about to debunk all the reported contenders for the Formula One. Then you stopped me. So I won't start here with all the reported.
richard_1_05-08-2025_171136:No, we don't need, we don't need to debunk them at this point.
yannick-manuel-ramcke_1_05-08-2025_181136:Because
richard_1_05-08-2025_171136:As much as I like a debunking.
yannick-manuel-ramcke_1_05-08-2025_181136:it is as simple as thinking backwards from the alleged bidders can. UFC drive company specific business metrics for ESPN? I think there's a package in which ESPN would be interested. I think it's not the pay-per-view those 12 times a year, 10 pole events, but it's like the fight cards, right? They have like weekly fight cards. It's it helps to fill programming minutes on their linear channel. It helps to have like a weekly check in on E-S-P-N-D two C. So that's my prediction that the fight cards, which is like a weekly UFC event goes to ESPN. And then I think also for TKO. It's too attractive to not to do it to go with Netflix. Netflix turning the pay-per-view events into events that are baked into the flat fee subscription but which would massively increase the reach. And I think the Netflix economics can support the financial outlay required. So that's my prediction when it comes to USC. Flight nights remain with ESPNs to leverage both the traditional and the new distribution system and then the previous pay-per-view events. I mean, they are paying 70 plus bucks per event moving to Netflix to really have this, eventize playbook that Netflix is running when it comes to live sports programming, but make it part of the base base Netflix subscription and massively and multiply through reach for those events, which then TKO can monetize indirectly through other means as well.
richard_1_05-08-2025_171136:Okay.
murray_1_05-08-2025_171136:do you think this is a good time for them to be in the market? I was trying to wrestle with this about whether. Actually now is a great time for them to be in the market because there's a lot of disruption going on, but also because there are a bunch of other rights which are already sealed. So this is, you know, this gives them a sort of, a little bit of a unique positioning in terms of, it's one of the few properties in the market that can really make a substantial difference to a service where when there's, you know, a lot of competition going on in the marketplace. But I think you counter that with, you know, NFL deals likely to come up likely to be reopened next year or the year after. Sorry, it's 27. I think that the deals come up, and also the sort of economic turbulence that's happening that, that actually, could be a terrible time because everybody's trying to keep their powder dry a little bit and kind of see how the market settles. I couldn't really work out which side of the fence I came down on.
yannick-manuel-ramcke_1_05-08-2025_181136:Obviously market timing is always an important input into ultimate market price paid. But I don't think it's an unfavorable time because they are not like someone who is squeezed in the middle. I think we can say it's like, one of the halves and not one of the have have nots and people will pay up for that one. And ultimately almost like, binary. Okay. If Netflix is seriously interested, they will probably a great outcome ahead is Netflix not seriously interested because as you say, they hold out until NFL comes back, is opting out and go, goes with a bigger domestic media rights package to the market. Then probably outcome is not that favorable. So I don't think it makes sense to pick times because it's so, tied to like small events. Is this or the other party interested? Or not? But I think we will have, and we'll see a huge deal because yes, NFL might come up, but otherwise yes, we have a small MLB package in the market right now and stuff left and right, but the big properties are locked up in the US so I think they will be happy with whatever the outcome will be.
richard_1_05-08-2025_171136:Okay. Right. Final story and let's we'll just finish off with EA Sport FC and the MLS. This is a bit confusing for me, so you need to explain it to me. Four MLS matches this season will be available by EA Sports FC Mobile. So, and the obvious question I've got is, I thought it was on Apple and how does this work and what is the Apple deal now, blah, blah, blah. But just explain to me then what's happening and why this is new, interesting, innovative, et cetera. Yannick, you are our gaming correspondent. How would I even make this work? Can I, what would I, what do I need? What hardware do I need to access these four games from MLS?
yannick-manuel-ramcke_1_05-08-2025_181136:So I think this has been like the continuation of a trend that we have observed when it comes to apple, in order to make that decade long agreement work after the. or once the messy hype in season one rained a little bit over the course of season number two, which may,
richard_1_05-08-2025_171136:it still, to me, it's unbelievable. They, there was a, that was a 10 year deal. It just feels
yannick-manuel-ramcke_1_05-08-2025_181136:I mean a
richard_1_05-08-2025_171136:like a weird thing.
yannick-manuel-ramcke_1_05-08-2025_181136:of opt-ins and opt-outs along the way. But obviously the headline of what made the headline where the 10 years now, I think there has been some course correcting ongoing by apple together with the MLS between the end of last season and the beginning of this season we have seen a lot of traditional and also more innovative initiatives and actions to just augment distribution. Okay, they have done some traditional things like being carried by DirecTV and other traditional distributors, and on the other hand, they have, done more innovative things like this distribution agreement with ea sports fd mobile to just get closer where the end consumer are, get closer, where they probably need to be. Because I think the one mistake that Apple made is you can be fully exclusive. You can say, okay, only on my terms and conditions, people can access the property that I have paid millions and millions of US dollars, euros, or whatever for. But that must be a big time property. The MLS is not big time in the US and Apple has taken an Uber exclusive approach. It's not only okay, only on Apple on MLS season pass, but MLS season Pass was only available on Apple devices for a long time. So I think it's just some cost correcting and, seemingly Apple has not lost. Its ability to be innovative because I don't have seen anything like this before with
murray_1_05-08-2025_171136:isn't it MLS? thought there was an interesting quote from MLS where they talk about the Apple partnership is described as a launchpad to experiment with various partners with the goal of leading fans back to the MLS season pass platform. to me that seemed like a very sort of well crafted you know, PR type release to basically say we are being forced to experiment a lot more.'cause it hasn't quite worked out the way that we hoped it would.
yannick-manuel-ramcke_1_05-08-2025_181136:absolutely to add asset.
richard_1_05-08-2025_171136:they do it Murray, do you think they would Apple do this deal over again?
murray_1_05-08-2025_171136:Well, no,'cause I don't, I, but I think that they, you know, the fact that they've not invested in other sports suggests to me that, you know, and obviously there are various reasons why they haven't been able to invest in other sports, but it's, they're not like looking at that saying, oh wow, that was amazing. So let's get some more sports in. You know, it's this weird one about like, everybody talks about like, oh, maybe Apple are interested in this, or maybe Apple are interested in that. I don't see any indication that Apple are getting any more aggressive in the sports market. If anything they're regressing and they're saying, I'd prefer to invest 250 million in an F1 film rather than, you know, 180 million a year
richard_1_05-08-2025_171136:Yeah,
murray_1_05-08-2025_171136:In the rights.
yannick-manuel-ramcke_1_05-08-2025_181136:The main reason why they have not doubled down on sports yet is because they don't have to, they have the luxury and the privilege of like, I. Standing up and leaving the negotiation table because they want to do it on their terms. And you know how Apple is like vertically integrated integrated owning things from sub to nuts from what is now I'm trying to have like this. There you go. No I, so they don't have to, they take, they can take that time. They can wait. Apple is not thinking in like right cycles or two year plans. Apple is thinking in like decade plus plans,
murray_1_05-08-2025_171136:I mean, I mean,
yannick-manuel-ramcke_1_05-08-2025_181136:so I think there might be more to come in the
murray_1_05-08-2025_171136:yeah, I mean, I think to say it a different way, Yannick, is that, you know, if you think of the sports business as being a drug dealer, they haven't managed to sell enough high quality drugs or given enough rocks of crack to, to apple to, to make them addicted in quite the same way that others are. Because now you couldn't imagine a situation where, you know. SPN Sky Pick, any of those sort of big sports broadcasters walked away from sports completely. And to a certain degree, it's even happened with Amazon, right? Like Amazon invested so much. I mean, 22% of Amazon prime's, but video videos budget is now invested in sports. And that's from like, nothing like a few years ago. So they, they have been successfully, you know, connected to the Sports IV and being fed the drug.
richard_1_05-08-2025_171136:They're just junkies, these people, right? Talking of which we need to go and find wherever Spurs are playing in, out in Northern Norway. So myself and Murray we are going to go and see Tottenham get beaten by some sort of team. We've never heard of. What they called again. Look. Yeah. Oh, man. Okay. So obviously it's a Thursday and this go, this comes out on Tuesday, so we'll know the result and we'll we'll go from there. But, so good luck all and as ever, Murray Barney, Yanik Ramper, thank you very much for your time.
murray_1_05-08-2025_171136:you. It was fun.
yannick-manuel-ramcke_1_05-08-2025_181136:Thank you.