Unofficial Partner Podcast
Unofficial Partner Podcast
Inside Edge - Peter Hutton on Cricket, India and the rights market
This is an episode of Inside Edge, our series on the cricket business with regular co-host Mike Jakeman. Today's guest is Peter Hutton, and nobody knows more about the relationship between television and cricket than Peter Hutton.
Strap yourselves in, this is a masterclass.
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Hi, there it is. Richard Gillis here and welcome to Unofficial Partner. This is an episode of Inside Edge, our series on the cricket business with my regular co-host Mike Jakeman. Today's guest is Peter Hutton, and nobody knows more about the relationship between television and cricket than Peter Hutton.
Peter Hutton:What one of the things that was most damning. Was that there's a load of AB testing within Meta where you say, okay, person A received this content and behaved in this way. Person B received that content and behaved another way. And you saw no increase in time spent by people who were receiving premium sports content compared to people who weren't. It was just substitutional. You know, they spent the same amount of time on the platforms, and that meant you hadn't got a very strong argument for making content investments
Peter's career has run almost perfectly in parallel with the rise of the cricket rights market in India. He was the first IMG employee in the country, and then lived through a fierce bidding war that changed the marketplace during the late nineties, and, early noughties That was the starting point of the conversation. Get Peter Hutton on to talk about television. and it's a link to our previous podcast with Alex Balfour who were talking about the history of digital rights and cricket's relationship with the internet. But this is not just about cricket. Everyone needs to hear this. Strap yourself in. This is a masterclass. This episode of the Unofficial Partner Podcast is brought to you by Sid Lee Sport. Sid Lee Sport believes that sponsorship activation has lost its edge. Same format, same ideas, same old playbook. They call it sponsorship tumbleweed. Because too much work in the category just exists, it drifts by expensively, not offending anyone, but not making anyone feel anything. They're here to shake that up. They're a new kind of agency built for sport. That means combining world class creativity with deep sponsorship, knowhow, flawless delivery, and real marketing effectiveness, not just good vibes, and a lot of chat about fan culture. This is the agency. That makes brands matter in sport, culturally, commercially, and creatively. If you are tired of the tumbleweed, visit sid lee sport.com where brands become champions.
Richard Gillis, UP:Did you see, my
Peter Hutton:I did, yeah, it just made me feel really old. Richard.
Mike Jakeman:it was, um, it was extensive. Um, I've bookmarked it to carry on reading tomorrow because I couldn't quite get to the end.
Peter Hutton:Bit face much.
Richard Gillis, UP:Well see, I thought it was, it is because lots of people listening will know you and, actually this is a conversation about cricket, obviously, and I thought it was quite useful. So I prompted Claude to say, let's just highlight the cricketing bit of Peter's sort of cv it is substantial. And, uh, I'm gonna read a little bit of it out. I was hoping It's all right, Peter. I I've done this a couple of times now and. AI that is, is, uh, temperamental in terms of facts.
Peter Hutton:Yeah, no, I mean, you know, it's a bit generous to me, but apart from that, it's, um, it, it's basically okay. But, um, it misses out the, the key bit of the story and that my first bit of professional work, which it meant makes reference to BBC radio leads was reporting on a village game in, uh, Bingley, in, uh, in the Bradford League. So that was the actual start of my official media career.
Richard Gillis, UP:authentic. I'm just gonna run through this'cause again, we are gonna talk about cricket and television and media. So first, IMG employee in India. Head of production for IMG Asia Cricket Production for TWI from 93 to 99. Then we get to 10 Sports launch in the, in the nti, Fox Sports Asia, ESPN, star Sports. then closer we get to Euro Sports, CEO. And now right up to date we had the period at Meta, which a lot of people will be familiar with. And then are you current chair of T 20 World Cup
Peter Hutton:Um, I mean, officially it still exists, but only in the sense that we're getting through the paperwork. so it doesn't actually involve a lot of work at the
Richard Gillis, UP:Is, is that like a, it's a WhatsApp group essentially at this point. Is it?
Peter Hutton:um, we call yesterday, but, um, that's it. Yeah.
Richard Gillis, UP:So Mike. Let's talk about what we wanna talk about because we had Alex Balfour, talking about the sort of early days of digital and his, crick info story and we're using that as a route in, I thought it would be interesting, there's a sort of parallel aspect to this bit of the conversation, one thing that I'm quite keen on is just to sort of penetrate some of the cliches around the cricket market in India. Because I'm as guilty as anyone as landing on them, and I can hear myself repeating them and I would just, it'd be sort of interesting just to throw some of those around and just work out actually, do we really mean and what is it really like? So it's try to, part of the fun of this series, is just trying to ask slightly better questions than you normally get the time to do in a of sports business or, general media conversation. But uh, gimme your sort of two PTH on where we should start.
Mike Jakeman:Um, well, that's exactly where I wanna start. Actually. I wanna talk about India because I mean. Experience runs is, completely in parallel with, the story of TV rights in India, which has gone from, negative numbers, to the thing that powers the entire cricket economy. and I mean, my big question really is the one that's gonna come at the end, which is how big is this gonna get? Is anything going to exist? Is, is cricket going to be entirely supported by, the Indian broadcast market?
Richard Gillis, UP:Should we start at end?
Mike Jakeman:So my thesis is that, the only place in cricket with any substantial money is India. And in recent years we've seen, Indian IPL owners buy up 2020 franchises around the world, including most recently in the hundred. But next, the next dominated fall looks like it could be the, the Big Bash league. we now have an increasing number of the major cricket nations, basically living from India Tour to India tour, uh, because that's when they get the money, not necessarily even from their own domestic broadcasters, but from the money that uh, Indian fans are paying for the Indian rights to the tour. Lemme explain that. So when India goes to the Caribbean, the West Indies need the money that they get from selling the rights in India for Indian fans to watch. everywhere we look is India. And that doesn't have to be a, a good or a bad thing, it feels increasingly apparent. and how should we feel about the sustainability that market?
Richard Gillis, UP:It's quite a big question. it's.
Peter Hutton:Yeah. Nice to start off with an easy one. Right. But, um, I, I think, It is a simplification to say it all relies on India. You know, I think if you look at the UK market, you're still in the$300 million a year type of total spend on media rights and cricket. Australia's probably 180 to 200. You've got us and South Africa contributing, you know, decent chunks of money as well. you've also got, a Middle East market that is hampered by piracy, but is significant and I think it's really easy to ignore Pakistan, Bangladesh, which is huge media market, maybe not always organized in the same way as the India one. So, you know, there are big pots of money around the world as well. Clearly everything is dwarfed by India. but you know, those other bits do add up significantly and, and there's a lot of people out there as well that really care about the game. so you certainly see. on a curve of Indian influence, it, it clearly increases every year. But you know, there's a lot of people around the world that care about cricket and that community, that monetization of community, you know, I think is the counterbalance to, to that argument.
Richard Gillis, UP:So you are Mike, you are flagging a sort of concentration risk question, I guess, is it, or a, you know, a sort of, there's that, the geography question, but also just amount of work that that Indian advertising market and the Indian consumer expected to do is doing. But in terms of the rights being based on that one model, that's essentially the, what we're getting at, isn't it? Is that it's, it's great that India's so significant for the game, but it is. If you were flipping this, you'd say there's a vulnerability there to the, game. It needs to be on a broader stool.
Mike Jakeman:I think it's a little bit, more detailed than that because what, what I guess, I suppose I'm really saying is that we're talking about growth. So, it's the Indian market that's providing the numbers going up. if we didn't have India, or if India, the growth in Indian rights was flat, you know, we'd be talking about the cricket economy growing by a small number of single figures every year. whereas the fact that the Indian market is, is doing extremely well, means that the growth is being provided by India, which means that over time India does account for a larger and larger share of the total market. and obviously with that share comes demand for greater influence as well. But yeah, certainly it. If you follow that logic through, if you end up with accounting for instead of 50%, accounting for 75%, 90% of the, the cricket economy, and then something structural happens to that market, then the whole of cricket is in trouble. So yes, there is a, there's a, there's a concentration risk. there's also an opportunity because obviously as this growth occurs, the economy is getting bigger, cricketers are being better remunerated, probably. and you know, as well as that there are more, there is more money available on the margins for smaller cricket nations too, perhaps not as much as they should get, but that is there too. So growth, I'm not saying growth is bad, but it is, being increasingly provided by one market. And it would be interesting to test out how sustainable, uh, Peter thinks that market growth is.
Peter Hutton:Yeah, good context. And, and I think, you know, I'm certainly bullish on the value of the IPL. I still think it can grow. You know, you, you look at some of those underlining statistics in the Indian market about, you know, how much people are paying per ad spot or, or how much the CPM rate is around the IPL. There's still clearly growth there. Um, so the underlying money is, is still increasing. I think you're about to enter an interesting phase where Geo and Star have merged and basically. You've removed a, a whole load of competitive tension that has driven up the rights prices in India. but then we've seen that before, you know, and, and I was involved, you know, back in the, uh, late nineties when ESPN and STAR were fighting over cricket in India, and that was drove the initial explosion of value and an ESPN star merged and the whole cricket economy panicked. and we went and launched 10 sports in Dubai, and lo and behold, the, uh, market came back again. and, you know, there's a, a definite sense of if there's a vacuum of competition and the dominant player tries to collapse. Rights, values, somebody else will come in, pick'em up, build it up again, because the fundamentals of the Indian market are so strong. and I think particularly because of the IPL, because of that hold, they have on the top Indian players who aren't allowed to go and play the T 20 leagues around the world. You know, what really drives advertiser value is premium quality cricket with the biggest star names and only the IPL really delivers that. Um, so, so I'm quite bullish on IPL values growing. that has loads of knock on potential for the rest of the sport. but it, it means that, you know, long term, you certainly can be quite positive about the value of Indian cricket. I think there might be a short term dip in terms of media rights because of the Geo Star merger, but the fundamentals are still, you know, very strong.
Richard Gillis, UP:Do you think it's, it's, it's quite often the comparison, the IPL and the NFL in terms of it's just this, this dominant within that country and both of their, and we had Lala uh, Modi on, and he was making a point, and he was making several points, as he always does, but about the, the hundred and the nature of The marketplace. But one thing he said that stay with me is the, is the small num, uh, you know, percentage of the international rights as a total. And they're very, very similar. I can't remember what they are. You'll know two, two or 3% in both cases in terms of the, you know, selling the IPL And again, it you then land on the American story, which I know you're very, you know, involved in as well. And how much of that is a diaspora? Again, we're following the, following the Indian consumer around the world and trying to sell cricket to them. So is that, do you see it evolving in that way? Because obviously there are sort of, there's economic stuff, but there's also the sort of non-economic, there's the, the, what the sport will look like in 10, 15, 20 years. And Mike has made the point a few times about the, just the sheer quality and number of Indian young Indian players that are coming the IPL and how that's changing. And so you can see, and we've just had the ICC, you know, in town talking about this in terms of trying to work out what, what the, the, the 20 year outlook might look like. But you are a cricket fan as well as a TV rights expert. So what, give us a, give us that view in terms of how that, how you think the product itself is gonna evolve.
Peter Hutton:I mean, I think, you know, the IPL domestic income is 97.3%. Um, and, and you could certainly argue that the, the 2.7 is largely an Indian diaspora driven number as well. Right? So, um, that, that's a huge reliance on Indian income, but that's always been the core strength of the IPL in that, you know, IMG Lale, the people who. Did all the work before the IPL started, they spotted that potential for a dominant Indian, um, domestic sport that really hadn't been properly exploited until that point. Um, I think the comparison with NFL is not bad because you've also got the idea that both of them are actually relatively short windows. Um, and if you increase the size of the window or you had a second window, um, that potentially unlocks a lot more money. You know, one of the things that I think is fascinating in India is the numbers where there's 57 days approximately of home internationals a year, and a much smaller amount of overweight internationals a year. And the number per day is dwarfed by the IPL, you know, so you could certainly see a, B, C, CI. argument that says if we played less home international cricket and had more days of IPL, actually our revenues would go up. and that's a fascinating equation to look at for the implications on world cricket.
Richard Gillis, UP:Yeah, yeah, yeah. And what does it look like from the states? Just let's tick, let's go there first.'cause I want to go back'cause I love going back into the thing. But you are so at the center of that story, and again, it's, it feels like an obvious place to jump into.
Peter Hutton:Um, yeah, I mean, I, I'm fascinated by cricket in the US partly because it's driven by people I know. And, and it's been amazing to see their story. You know, we talk about the history of. Sort of what I've lived through in India and, and the rest. But you know, one of the early deals that I did in um, India was we sold the international rights for Indian cricket to a sort of startup, uh, techie company called Willow tv, run by VJ ASIN and Samia Meta. which is when I got to know the guys, they now live right around the corner from me. Our kids go to the same school. you know, they built it up. They brought an investment from Satan Gai in times of India, and Satan and Samir and Vij then started Major League Cricket. and fascinating to see them do that because they have the best database that the US market knows in terms of crickets. They really understand the space. so I've been a big fan of what they've tried to do, I think. Their type of growth is not like a lab. It's, it's more, building it up quietly. but they've brought in some remarkable owners into those MLC teams, and I think that's what really gives me faith. You know, I think e even the most optimistic person about cricket in the US would not say there is a huge cricket economy in the us but what you clearly can say is you've got an incredible demographic of cricket fans in the US who care about it more than any other sport. And I think you see that with a major league cricket, and I think we saw it with the Cricket World Cup last year. You know, the audiences in New York, you know, which, just inspiring the amount of people who came out. and the willingness to spend on what were expensive tickets was a real sort of signpost. and I, I went to a major league cricket game. At the start of the season, they, they now play in Oakland, the former baseball stadium in Oakland. And, you know, the, the people in the main stand that was just like a, who's who of Silicon Valley, um, who turned up to watch cricket. So there's something special happening here, but it's not necessarily the sort of, um, spots in dots economics that's driving the Indian market.
Mike Jakeman:Should we think about, major League crickets essay 20, the hundred? Um, you know, you talked about the fact that there is room for a longer IPL season, but you know, I've not heard anything about expanding the IPL to a, a second to a, let's say, a, a later in the year event for a long time. Instead, we've seen these strategic investments, by IPL owners in other tournaments around the world. If we cast our sort of eyes in the future, should we be imagining those as a series of kind of mini ipls, essentially, because we know these guys know how to run sports leagues. That's the, the number one reason why, you are bullish on MLC. And I think I agree on that too. and we've also seen that other countries, including Africa and England, failed to build competitive, interesting 2020 leagues that can hold a, a candle to the IPL. so where are these gonna be in, in five years?
Peter Hutton:yeah, very interesting question. I mean, I think, different answers for different markets and they solve different needs. You know, you say that about the hundred and the, and the UK market, but no question that the economics of the hundred have just basically pumped so much money into the county game. it's remarkable, you know, as a, as a Yorkshire fan growing up to see our debt just wiped off in one day with the sale of that franchise is a huge relief. You know, the, the county was clearly in trouble financially and, and, and got saved. So I think there's something very positive there. And, you know, I think Tom Harrison and the guys at the ECB that set up the hundred, you know, we're abused, right, left and center for doing it. But the financial legacy is now remarkable. You know, and uh, and again, you see what's happened with the CPL in, in the West Indies, you know, that has clearly done a lot to invigorate West Indies Cricket, which has been under so much pressure. Um, and had such a depressing sort of period of time. So I do see a lot of good, you know, I, I know that, you know, your, your book went into the, the, the negatives of the move away from test cricket to, to T 20. But, my instincts are not totally dissimilar, but, but the legacy of those T 20 leagues is already, you know, something very strong to see.
Mike Jakeman:The reason why I'm sort of struggling to go along with this reasoning is because, these sales of the a hundred teams, a one-off boost. So you've gotta, it's not like this is a perpetual income that just, you know, keep, they get a, they're getting revenue every year from this. It's a one-off hit that they've got to spend wisely. And given that so many of the counties were in trouble previously, that, you know, maybe we are not going to get some. Of this.
Richard Gillis, UP:But that, that's a, that's a sort of, I, I agree. I, I, I know where you're coming from and I share that, share that concern, I mean, it's sort of, we had, um, Tom on here and we were talking, this is three or four years ago, and we were talking about the hundred and, you know, the India market, and essentially what he said came true. And I, you know, that, amount of money, but I can sort of see what you're saying in terms of, because sport is littered with examples across lots of different sports. If you give them more money, the people who are owning and running clubs and things, I'm looking for examples of where they spend it well and spend it for the long term. And all the things that on podcasts, people come on and say, this is what should happen. And it could be a commercial question and, you know, invest into various things and then they blow it on players, you know, so it's quite a sort of, it's, it is difficult, but I don't know whether you can blame one for the other. Do you know what I mean? I'm trying to get to a,
Peter Hutton:Yeah. I, I, I think,
Mike Jakeman:None of us know how they're gonna spend it. Um, but what we,
Peter Hutton:yeah.
Mike Jakeman:I think instead of comparing it to nothing say that, uh, having the, the ECB done well in creating this competition outta thin air and, and selling it to a bunch of IP for, uh, hundreds of millions of pounds, I think you need to compare it to what could have happened, which is that the ECB creates a really exciting 2020 competition, which is what they almost did and, and sort of bottled it, and not let India in necessarily. But, you know, the 2020 was generated by the ECBs Marketing Department in the first place. They had first mover advantage, which they, in the end conceded. So they, what they were forced to do was to come up with this competition that was. Different enough from what else was out there. but also similar enough that it might potentially one day appeal to, uh, money bags owners from these other leagues.
Richard Gillis, UP:They had to separate what they could in take to the investment market. So no one is gonna buy, I mean, I mean, Brighton, Sussex are cut out of the a hundred, you know, and one, it's one of the other, the bigger ques, you know, questions about it is that like a sort of wasteland over there. You know, you go along and it's a, it's a very nice experience and, you know, some 2020 games sell out and you're at the county game, but it could be the 1980s. So it's sort of that problem. And the, you know, what, weight of the money has done within England, you know, within English, cricket is one question, again, it's sort of just trying to work through.'cause I don't think they could have got to where they are with the amount of money that's, you know, being spent via the blast. I just can't see it structurally how they would've got there.
Peter Hutton:Well, I, I think for me, one of the important parts of this equation is also the franchise expansion fees. You know, because if you look at the revenue that's come in for the T 20 leagues around the world, you know, you've got about 79% of the revenue is media rights. But then the second and third numbers are franchise expansion fees and sponsorship fees. Um, and again, with the hundreds you could see a, uh, an increase in the number of franchises coming, people having to buy into it, and therefore bringing new money into the sport. So I, I do like that franchise structure as something that, you know, I, I live in that world of the US where, you know, suddenly Major League soccer franchises seem to be being sold on increasingly huge valuations, largely due to the fact you are joining a limited club and the franchise expansion fees are. A very healthy as a source of revenue for the other teams. so the, there's something special about that franchise route. and you know, we sort of see what's happening in Australia now, and I think it was, Boston Consulting that just wrote the report for them that basically said, you know, this is the route you should be going down as well, is to bring in that private capital and, and sell them as franchises.
Richard Gillis, UP:I think what might, uh, it is interesting Mike, really hearing your question.'cause I think the question I asked when he was on this is, again, a while back and, and I've asked a couple of times, is there's a sort of institutional memory, I think, and I think that the hundred was a response to failures of an earlier ECB regime and that, two thousands moment. So let's go back to that in terms of you've got, we, you know, the 2020 launch. Then the IPL and in between, as I say, the accusation of the previous ECB regime was that they didn't capitalize on the, on that moment they never, you know, via Stanford and then various other things they have been trying to catch up. that's my reading of the last 20 odd years for what it's worth. And I think there's, I, I'm, there might be something in it. It's quite a nice theory. What do we think?
Peter Hutton:Oh, look, I, I think, you know, you, you clearly had a period where the ECB needs to find other ways of funding itself despite a very healthy relationship with Sky. Um, and I think this, this filled a vacuum.
Richard Gillis, UP:Right. I'm gonna, I'm gonna send, I've got a couple of questions. This is the perfect time to, uh, one of these in, right? This comes from, Matt Cutler, my old mate who, uh, I put this out on the, uh, WhatsApp group and he did too. And I had to edit him down'cause he was too verbose in the first one. So I said, no, you're gonna have to cut this down, but I'll just play this. See if you can hear this. For Peter. In, in England in particular, a lot of people talk about the 2005 ashes. It's the peak for cricket and definitely test cricket in England. And the link is always made to it. Being on Channel four IE free two air, uh, across the summer. But in England, the test cricket has been behind a paywall now for nearly 20 years, and I would argue that. in test cricket is quite high now, and the, the current test series, I guess India is a good example of that when it comes to lots of other metrics like ticket sales. So I guess the question is how much does he think that the link between free to wear and interest is strong needed? free to wear matter?
Peter Hutton:Good question. Um, you know, I think 2005 was a very long time ago in terms of media consumption. to my mind, media consumption is now intrinsically fractured in a way that has changed pay TV as well as free to air as well as streaming options. So, you know, obviously I, I sort of sit and advise a few different sports organizations and my sort of general advice is Look at the fractured nature of consumption and deliver the fractured nature of delivery. You know, you've got to speak to people where they're consuming. So actually I think free to air is really important, but free to air also means YouTube. It also means the social media platforms. It means, uh, a a multitude of different, uh, platforms to consume on. so I think that total reliance on pay TV is certainly dangerous. and that idea that broadcasters are going to do your marketing work for you is dangerous. and therefore sports organizations need to think across a multitude of different ways about how they bring new audiences in, how they talk to, people who are just simply not watching linear tv. so I, I think it's a more complicated question than free to air versus pay. Whereas that was the question, you know, in 2005.
Richard Gillis, UP:It is interesting the Off Con report just dropped out today, didn't it? Or yesterday in terms of the view in the latest viewing trends and that, again, it's a sort of UK lens into the question, but get into the role of the BBC, you know, in terms of the role of free to wear generally, and how people are consuming and one of, one of the, the red flags I've got when you talk to sort of NGB execs is if they mention grandstand, that's a, that's a sort of rose tinted view. They, they quite often reference 2005 Channel four Cricket going on Sky and they mentioned grandstand and they mentioned TWIs, trans World Sport. You know, this, this hallowed idea that you can. Force feed almost a sort of generation of people with, as long as they get it, don't pay for it, they're gonna enjoy it. And it's,
Peter Hutton:Yeah. I mean, you know, everyone wants simpler times, right? And, and, and maybe simpler times were never quite as simple as they were, as as you think they were. But the simpler times aren't gonna come back, right? It, that, that genie is out of the bottle. Um,
Richard Gillis, UP:There
Peter Hutton:we need to talk to people in different ways.
Richard Gillis, UP:interrupt. I, I completely, one before I let Mike back in. There's one, I was listening to Radio four this morning. They had the guy who was, who runs the side man, who was a Obviously, you know, big YouTube success story. He made a really interesting point about nostalgia and nostalgia for the monoculture, and he was quoting about the Oasis at Wembley scenes from Oasis. It is just astonishing, you know, scenes of people of a certain age mad for a band and it, and there's going band mad for the band, but they're also going mad for he, his argument is that actually a simpler time and it was, you know, that that nineties time was the sort of end of the monoculture before the media sort of, um, split up. Sorry, Mike, I, uh, across you there.
Mike Jakeman:I, I actually sort of love that point. Um, and I think part of the appeal, I mean this is getting a bit UK centric, but part of the appeal of, of still international football tournaments is that they, one of the few things that gets. Makes British culture monocultural again, one of the few things that gets people sort of all together watching the same thing. Um, what I was gonna ask Peter, which is sort of a different way into the same issue, which is if it's not as simple as uh, free to air versus, um, hey, are there other sports, not football, not NFL, that are the dominant in the UK and the us but are there other smaller sports whose models you look at and admire or think they perhaps got it right or that cricket could learn something?
Peter Hutton:Uh, look, um, I, I'm going to dangerously go to one that I'm on the board of in in professional triathlon. Um, and what I like about the triathlon model is the idea that actually the value of that sport is not about media rights. It's about customer engagement and people who really care about things being and unlocking their abilities. So one of the things that we talk about at the PTLA lot is the idea that if you deliver, stills or videos of an athlete running a mass participation athlete running, that they will publish that content on their social media account, and therefore the reach of the event is not about a broadcast number. It's about a broadcast number plus all those individuals publishing content about the PTO. You know, there's a firm called, uh, video Sites, um, which is a, is a brilliant tracking app that the NBA use and the NBA look at all the illegal publishing around an NBA event. And don't just stamp it on the head in a game of Whack-a-Mole. They aggregate the media value of all that publishing and then go back to their sponsors and say, actually this is our reach. It's not our official channel. It's everything. And I really like that as a philosophy because, you know, that genuinely is the value of the scores. So I, I like those organizations that go. Okay, our number is not the one broadcast number. It's a multiple way, and we want to encourage people to publish around our sport because actually that amplifies our sport and our sport stories. So I think that that's a really important attitude to bring.
Richard Gillis, UP:There's a question there about, how sports that a lot of, a lot of that depends on the athletes not making a great deal of money. So the cost base is more controllable and. you get from here to there. So if that is a, you know, and nothing is, there's nothing, there's never one solution. But if, if that is part of the solution, then if you are football, if you are cricket, if you are rugby, if you are, you know, sports that have grown on media rights, valuations, and therefore you've got certain economic factors of which player pay is a significant uh, amount, and that's market or a European market or whatever it is, how you get from there to a PTO model, which I can sort of see lots of upside to, but they're starting in a completely different place, aren't they?
Peter Hutton:Yeah, but I think that the same attitude is right in that you want your, uh, stakeholders, whether those be fans or players or influencers or everyone to ban'em. You want them to be talking about your stories. And therefore the more that you can fuel them to talk about their stories, the better. You know, again, conflict of interest. But I have a lot of them. Um, you know, I work with this firm, Greenfly and Greenfly is all about the flow of short form digital, both video and, and stills to athletes and to influencers or from fans to organizations. And it's about. Getting the right content seen by the most people in the most authentic way. You know, if you can get, um, uh, a footballer to tell the story of his goal on social media or to show his life behind the scenes, that's got way more impact than a team or a league posting content. So getting it to people who care to post authentic show stories that show emotion, I think is a really important philosophy to put behind what my next media distribution strategy is. How I win people through, you know, we, we were talking before we went on about how, you know, eight to 13 year olds is always the key market. I remember sitting through a presentation with Manchester City where they were like, all our focus is on eight to 13 year olds. Because your tastes are so shaped by that period, and what you respond to is clearly. Genuine emotional moments told by people that you trust or care about. Um, and that amplifies your, uh, instincts. So, you know, the more that you can unlock those different ways of telling stories in a way that still feels authentic and natural, you know, that's how you build fandom and, and areas of interest.
Mike Jakeman:I, I that sounds really convincing. Um, I also wonder if that's sort of an easier strategy for a small sport like a triathlon to adopt where is not a lot of money in it, and therefore any kind of growth you can. At is kind of good growth. Whereas when you're a much larger sport like cricket, there's this, which I think is in a really difficult position as a large sport, but not a dominant sport outside of India, is that you start to worry about, well, if we don't, if we, if we don't police that and we let that go, then are we basically like, are we threatening our own, the revenue.
Peter Hutton:I, I think it, it's different to with respect in that, you know, you look at a lot of the broadcasters now, you know, and, and I hold up people like Dave Gibbs who's now at Sky and, uh,
Richard Gillis, UP:Hmm,
Peter Hutton:TNT was at Sky, you know,
Richard Gillis, UP:of
Peter Hutton:and, and, and, and they, uh, you get all the best people. But, um, and you know, they sort of wrap their arms around this idea of other people publishing because they know that it's driving interest towards the broadcast product. and that, you know, actually all boats rise if you can get more people to care about something. and while, I'm a bit wary of saying, you know, the broadcast right of X is dependent on how many people actually watch it.'cause obviously competitive tensions are a big part of it. The more that you can get people to care about a sport and its story. The more people will watch the live broadcast, the more that drives revenue. Um, so, you know, I, I use PTO as a very easy example because no one expects big media rights fees, although it's nice when we get some. Um, but I still think that same philosophy is right. In terms of how do you get people to post interesting content and interesting content is often emotional content where people care about something or you get an insight into an individual. Um, so, you know, the, the skills of storytelling are changing all the time. And one of the things that I loved about my sort of period at Meta was that I went in with all these sort of conventional broadcast attitudes, and normally I was a hundred percent wrong. Um, and I had really good people like Jerry Newman, who's now at PSG or uh, Dan Reed, who, who was the sort of my mentor at Meta. And they could point to the data that said, actually this is a much more efficient piece of content. You know, this drove the interest. And it often wasn't highlights, it wasn't teams and leagues posting one minute of goals. It was completely different types of storytelling. And, and that was a really great sort of learning experience.
Mike Jakeman:Before we jump into meta, which I know Richard is particularly keen to grill you on, I just wanted to sort of just sense check this and say you see examples of the governing bodies in cricket or Formula One, uh, hiring lawyers to take down what are unlicensed reproductions of broadcast coverage from years ago, or trying to stop drivers saying things and posting on social media. this the kind of stuff that makes you put your head in your hands and go, oh, guys see the bigger picture
Peter Hutton:Um, yeah. You know, again, I wear sort of different hats and I can sometimes see the argument on the other side.
Mike Jakeman:piracy on podcast? Um, yeah. Okay.
Peter Hutton:But, um, but, but yeah, you know, I, I, I saw a, a post, um, uh, I'm a big rugby league fan. Saw a post from one of the guys that I follow in Australia who's always posting sort of archive clips, and he sent out the note going, sorry guys, I've just been closed down basically. And you're like, really? You know, that, that was great content. And it, you know, genuinely helped me fall in love with some of the old stories of the sport again. and, you know, I think that is a waste, but it's more about, how do you find these guys and, and wrap your arms around them and say, okay, let's do this together. You know, you are clearly a very efficient storytelling. You know, that NBA video side story, the, the punchline of it in many ways is that the NBA, don't just look at what the numbers are, but they go, actually, who's the really good creators out there? And now how do we feed them? How do we bring'em into the system? Give them access to games, give them access to stories and encourage them to.
Richard Gillis, UP:It is, it, it's also a sort of a bit of a success factor, isn't it? I mean, there's a lot of sports that would love to be pirated and, you know, because it's a, it's a sense of demand in the marketplace that isn't being tapped. And we can have all of the sort of, you know, and we've had series on piracy about the, Spotify, Nat Sports Napster moment and all of these things. But actually when you fundamentally get down to it, there is something there about, okay, this is a barometer of demand and, and, know, yes, it's, it's sometimes it's problematic. Sometimes it's, you know, organized crime doing it. And sometimes there's, you know, it's someone doing really great things with Rugby league clips. So it's a sort of mixed picture, but actually actually quite focused on a few big sports quite a lot of the time.
Peter Hutton:Yeah, I think honestly it affects everybody in terms of every sport gets it. I, I think there's a big difference between a live stream being, um, pirated and, and clips and storytelling, you know, and clips and storytelling is often done by genuine obsessives who have a knowledge and a feel for the stories that just, you know, is, is way better off than the people who have official jobs in the space.
Richard Gillis, UP:Right. So talking of Genuine Obsessives, Alex Balfour, who was a previous guest on here, and he heard you were coming on the podcast and has put a forward a question, which I'll again, I'll, I'll,'cause it's sort of linking to what we're saying, so I just wanna get it in. we go. Hello, Peter and Inside Edge interested to hear Peter's telling of the story of attempts to acquire BCCI and particularly IPL rights. How close they got, how serious they were, you think they'd ever enter the market again.
Peter Hutton:Yeah. As, as ever Alex asked the awkward question I have say, I, I just want to do a bit of sort of fan girliness that, in that, um, I'm a massive fan of Alex, have been since slightly early days of Crick Info. And listening to that podcast you did with him was just such a brilliant, um, sort of moment for me because I'd sort of grown up as one of those early quick info users and obsessives and you know, what, what a period, um, uh, that I, I've now completely forgotten the question, but, um, in terms of meta and, and, and IPL, I can happily put my hands up and go, it was all before I, I joined. Um, which is certainly the story of everything that meta everybody did that was wrong. It was all before I joined. Um, uh, I, I think, you know, there clearly was an interest and meta clearly looked at acquiring sports rights and we did a little bit bits and pieces as trials, but. It definitely didn't fit into the meta business plan. You know, where Meta fundamentally is a platform, it creates tools that it wants people to use. It doesn't see itself as a content company. If it was a content company, it would be policed in a different way. and they don't want that. But I think fundamentally the advertising sales is different. And, and this is where it's fascinating to see some of the things happening on Google now, in that meta fundamentally sells by audience and demographics. So you can buy a 14 to 16-year-old who lives in a certain postcode. Maybe you shouldn't be buying 14 to 16, not a very good example. But, um, you can buy a certain demographic in a certain postcode and you can't buy the content that they publish against. So when we bought, for example, champions League rights in South America for meta, we had a major problem with Heineken who are like, we always advertise against Champions League. We were like, actually, technically we can't do that. But you can buy football fans in Brazil who like the Champions League. And that is a really big hole in terms of sports monetization because the value is in that brand association with the premium sports brands. So. Circling back to the question, I think instinctively for now, I don't see meta doing that. I don't see them being a buyer of sports rights because it changes their whole to the financial advertising structure. You, you could see them making investments as they are doing around things like NBA and vr, which is in the xAd app in the us or you could see'em doing deals with the UFC or you could see'em deals with, with sports that could use the, RayBan glasses. The meta RayBan glasses. So there's marketing deals there, but that's not content acquisition deals. And if content is part of the deal, it's not the bit that drives the deal. Um. I hope that's clear. What is now possible with YouTube and the Casa TV example in Brazil, you know, I think is a absolutely different route and actually is fundamentally much more exciting, because it starts to give rights holders or agencies representing rights holders the opportunity to sell advertising against a sport in a more traditional broadcast sense. And therefore you can unlock premium monetization, which is why ca a TV in Brazil just basically bought FIFA rights to put on YouTube. and so that route I think is, is definitely possible. I don't see it in the DNA at Meta, but Meta is an incredibly smart company that read the data, that change direction all the time. So you also shouldn't write them off.
Richard Gillis, UP:Did you go in thinking one thing and coming out thinking another?
Peter Hutton:Oh, totally.
Richard Gillis, UP:'cause I remember when you went there and people made a whole load of assumptions of which you'll be very familiar in terms of, well, this is gonna be okay, Peter, with his backstory, they're gonna open a checkbook, they're gonna become more like a television company. And you had to answer questions around that, around every conference and every, you know, area. So, and I was always interested what sport, what the conversation was the other way, what, what you were talking to internally about sport and whether actually you were selling sport into meta. And if you scroll back, what cricket, you know, selling cricket into meta seems like a, an interesting, uh, pitch. Uh.
Peter Hutton:Oh, look, the, the good thing, and, and again, I was able to use it a little bit in this last sort of Cricket World Cup period, was that you saw incredible data about what sport people liked and what sport people were engaging with. And one of the reasons that I was always quite bullish about cricket in the US was that, you know, we looked at numbers that clearly said that Cricket was in the top 10 sports in the US by numbers of people who cared about it as their primary sport. And you know, and that was heavily about students and it was heavily about quite a younger demographic, but also a successful older demographic as well. So, you know, meta was brilliant at, at showing you what people cared about. And you know, someone like Alex does a load of work now looking at that sort of data. certainly I think, you know, the sports group that we built up, which was about 50 strong at one point and now is probably about 10 people. we were permanently advocating for things we could do with sports. That's a tiny amount of people in a company the size of meta. and the business model is so strong, very difficult to make people change their opinion as to how meta made money. and fundamentally it's an engineering company driven by people who care about engineering and therefore, decisions will be made for those reasons and making the platforms better and seeing the data that drives those engagement. You know, Alex Schultz, who runs marketing there, you know, genuinely one of the most impressive people I've ever met in terms of his knowledge of how to, look at data, come to conclusions, take the right steps on the basis of that, and we couldn't convince that sport was meaningful enough. What one of the things that was most damning. Was that there's a load of AB testing within Meta where you say, okay, person A received this content and behaved in this way. Person B received that content and behaved another way. And you saw no increase in time spent by people who were receiving premium sports content compared to people who weren't. It was just substitutional. You know, they spent the same amount of time on the platforms, and that meant you hadn't got a very strong argument for making content investments as well as all the other negative reasons for that space. it was a fantastic learning experience, you know, and, it was really, you know, I, I think it was necessary for me in that I'd worked in pay TV for so many years, and you could see the writing in the wall. You could see the decline happening. You could see the layoffs happening. And I think it was really important to sort of understand a little bit more about people's behavior, you know, and I instinctively recoiled from a load of it. You know, I remember we were in one meeting where they suddenly said, everything's gonna be about individuals posting content, not organizations. And from a sports perspective, you're like, what? Like, we are not gonna pay the NFL guaranteed money for putting on highlights. And of course they were right. You know, in that the numbers didn't go down. And the, the sports organizations largely kept posting the content anyway because they liked the results of posting content. So, you know, big learning experience and, and a fascinating thing to go through.
Mike Jakeman:that's really, uh, slight, its slight unsettling story, I think, and probably because I'm having the same reaction now as to you had in, in the meeting. So, um, can I just check a couple of things that I've understood them properly. So when you, because we've, we've fed this narrative of how basically sport is saving TV networks because they are one of the few remaining, this is the phrase, appointments to view, uh, you know, guaranteed audiences because of, fan loyalty to players or clubs. that didn't move the needle at, at meta at all.
Peter Hutton:Uh, no. I mean, you know, we, we certainly got some great numbers, particularly around the soccer that we showed in South America. but overall on a worldwide basis, looking at all our sports content, you know, it was generally, um, you know, it was, it was nice to show, but it wasn't neat to show. And I don't want to be seen as sort of decrying the value of sport generally, because I think sport does so much stuff that changes the way that you consume media and you move to platforms that show your sport in the best way. So, you know, it's not necessarily one simple story, but we certainly couldn't make a strong enough argument to change policy at Meta. and I think if we'd have shown that, yeah, and if we'd have shown that there was a real financial reason for doing that, then meta responds to data. so you know that therefore I sort of reached the conclusion we're at. I still think the, the platforms, you know, whether it be Facebook or Instagram, increasingly WhatsApp are, are really important for sports organizations to work with, uh, because they're brilliant ways of reaching audience. but it's not necessarily about being a platform for live rights.
Mike Jakeman:The thing I want to know now is, well, sport really move the needle at meta. What? did
Peter Hutton:it it's authentic personal content, right? And, and like Facebook groups is an incredible tool, right? Where you are in a group with your friends talking about something you all care about. Whether it's about, you know, your year at college or whether it's about, you know, all loving, making honey, you know, and those communities stick together and there's like this sort of, uh, desire to share what you care about. Cricket is a brilliant example of that, right? The amount of Facebook groups about cricket was staggering. and, you know, you see that shared love and, and the idea of building a community space, you know, that that's what really works. And it's talking to people you care about, about things you care about, and that authenticity is, is hugely valuable.
Richard Gillis, UP:there's The institution level, but there's also the sort of what fame is now question and the honey influencer to carry on your analogy, but just as in there is what it means for, players. You know, and we, again, people lapse to the Indian Superstars, the Coley case study of, you know, how many followers they have. But actually you can see other models evolving that play to, that, those communities in, in different ways. And there's a sort of, across the board, you're seeing interesting things happen to fame, sporting fame, where you've
Peter Hutton:Yeah.
Richard Gillis, UP:like a, it's almost an old fashioned fame of like a 1950s film star fame. They're just separate in another world. But then you've also got a much, the YouTube fame and, you know, Instagram fame is different. People feel much more connected to them in a way that, you know, there's
Peter Hutton:Yeah. I mean.
Richard Gillis, UP:And I don't, the answer doesn't have to be. And what do the ECB do about this, you know, or what do the ICC do about this? But actually it's quite an interesting landscape now.
Peter Hutton:Oh, look, I think one of the case studies I throw out there all the time is what the U-S-P-G-A did, right? Where they made a part of the prize pot relative to your social media engagement. You know, so encouraging their biggest stars to tell their stories. You know, having just watched Happy Gilmore two this week, you know, incredible to see Scottish Scheffler and Rory McElroy and stars like that as part of the story, but a brilliant way of touching another audience, hitting a younger demographic, you know, and all, all credit to, to golf for, for thinking in that way. And, and it wouldn't be the sport that would normally trip off my mind as like, you know, sort of being so youth friendly and forward looking, but great, great work.
Richard Gillis, UP:And, and would it have happened if Liv hadn't have come into the marketplace?
Peter Hutton:But the US PGA tour thing, the social media, um, money was before Liv. Right. It showed that they were thinking about it before Liv came.
Mike Jakeman:Okay. This is a really good, because I, I thought about golf while you were talking about it, so it's, it's great that you brought this up, and this sort of goes to the thing about authenticity, because instinctively when I hear that the U-S-P-G-A are, are linking prize money to social media stuff, it's just not cool, is it? meanwhile, I've watched, like everybody else, I've watched Bryson Bryson's YouTube channel and like the most authentic things, it comes across as a happy accident.
Peter Hutton:Yeah.
Mike Jakeman:I mean, am I just, am I, am I just an idiot here where I'm thinking that this
Richard Gillis, UP:I think those are two separate questions, Mike.
Mike Jakeman:Well, we can run a poll on that, um, at the end of the episode. But, um, uh, I was instinctively expecting Peter to say that to then go on to criticize us PGA and say, I think this is just what happens when governing bodies get involved in something that they really have no part in. But then actually went the other way and said, actually they, they are, they saw this early and that they're, they're, they're doing some good stuff. and it's just, this is now obviously just challenging another of my assumptions, which is precisely what we should be doing on this book.
Peter Hutton:Yeah.
Richard Gillis, UP:I do want to go back to almost like to the beginning where the question of what Cricket does, what the difference of cricket is in the sports marketplace and what it was and you were sort of patient zero for IMG in India then you've got this, you know, that that period of the sport, the, the sort of 20 years of pay television, essentially, what was cricket's job at that point. Compared to other sports, compared to football, there's geography in there, but it, it, it feels, it's a different shaped thing. I'm just wondering what the,
Peter Hutton:I mean the, the India story was clearly remarkable. and I lived through some amazing times there, you know, and, and yes, I was like the first IMG person on the ground, but clearly a load of work was done by people like Bill Sin Rich and Andrew Wild Blood, and Gary Francis and Simon Wheeler before I, I got there. you know, and I, I arrived as the first person on the ground purely by accident. in true sort of history stories in that, you know, I got sent out there as the add-on to a bigger deal where Sin Richard done this deal with. BCCI and then sold it to ESPN where we would cover all the cricket play in India. We would sell it to ESPN and we would also make a weekly highlight show about domestic cricket. And, and obviously in, in classics sort of built in rich fashion, he agreed to this and then thought, how on earth are we gonna do this? And, and the answer was to take me from producing football manal. And he said to me, you know, what do you think about India? Do you like cricket? And I'm like, yeah, I love cricket and I'm great with India. Obviously I'd never been to India, I'd been to Indian restaurants. That's the closest I've been. Um, and, and he is like, okay, go to India. And like three weeks later, a land in, in Mumbai. Um, and end up spending the next eight years of my life in India. And the, the bit producing Indian cricket was some of the worst shows I've ever made, particularly the stuff in the first year because there was no freelance cameramen, there was no freelance equipment hire people. There was none of those sort of tools that you sort of expect to find. And, and we sort of cobbled together stuff and, and there were some very generous people helped me in that first year sort of make anything happen. Um, you know, including Harsha Bogley, the commentator who worked on those first few shows. And we sort of got through it and pay TV in India exploded as Star and the SPN fought over the territory. We were in the perfect place on the ground and, you know, I ended up sort of living it. and, uh, Mark Lynch came over who then, who produced all the cricket out of Pakistan, and, you know, who now sort of has, has done all the biggest cricket events in the world as a director. and we built this sort of little team, with a load of people taking their first jobs. on Mish Patria was our first hire. uh, he and Butch came in, who's now directing the Legends cricket in the UK this week, you know, and just built this incredible IMG office, which exploded from being one person living in a backpacker hotel to mething like a hundred plus people within two or three years. And the value of cricket in that period just exploded because you've got this competitive tension and a belief that India was a future huge market and, and all of a sudden it worked.
Richard Gillis, UP:It is interesting your, the, the way you frame the sort of history of it is a series of, competitive rights markets, isn't it?
Peter Hutton:Yeah, I think it's really important, you know, and you know, one of the things that galls me even to this day is, you know, you get some very expensive consultants, some of whom hire me, to write reports going, the value of our rights is X because of this advertising spot rate, or, you know, this amount of audience. Then, you know, the VA value of your rights is what a broadcast is prepared to pay for them. And it's nice to have a load of evidence going in, but if you are the only buyer and they wanna pay you$1, it's pretty difficult to, you know, build your own story maybe slightly easier in there.
Mike Jakeman:I've got one more question, which feeds directly off that, um, again, which kind of circles back to where we started. you talked about the, the potential threat of a, a lack of competition in the Indian Rights market. Uh, and we talked about the NFL as a possible comparator.'cause what they have done is their rights across insane number of packages, with different rights holders. What do you think the, the prospects are of, of a, something similar happening in Indian cricket?
Peter Hutton:yeah, it, it's a really good question, right? Because the, the sort of numbers that you need to spend as an exclusive buyer of an Indian cricket writer is so huge that it's pretty intimidating even to the Amazons and Googles of the world. and you can certainly help draw people in by doing smaller deals. You know, Amazon going into Australia and buying the Cricket World Cup rights. Good example of, you know, at least it allows'em to test the market, understand what the demand for cricket is, so, you know, that fracturing. It can help create a competitive market, but also help bring new buyers in for bigger deals as they learn from the data of smaller deals. as a fan, I find it intensely frustrating, and it's bizarre to be in the US where you've got this incredible major league soccer deal with Apple, where all games are in one destination, which in theory is great if you're a committed fan and rubbish if you're not.'cause you know, it's one big extra subscription. So I think you can argue for fracturing the market is sometimes very good because it can bring new players in and bring new audiences with them. And fracturing the market also has negatives in terms of if you're making it more difficult to follow the story year round, then you, you are going in the wrong direction.
Richard Gillis, UP:And just finally, just a, you talked about Facebook, sorry, I, um, meta and again, we are mo we are not now as we used to putting all the platforms together and assuming as you know, the same strategy when you look at YouTube and when you look at Amazon and Apple, you see quite marked sort of differences in some cases.
Peter Hutton:Yeah, definitely. And, and I think, you know, go Google fundamentally has a lot of the same instincts as, as meta in terms of it's a provider of tools and it wants people to use the tools. But I think what YouTube TV has done in the us which is basically a pay platform, has given them a taste for the other sort of business, and the way that they've allowed their rules to. Have an ability where you can buy out your own commercial airtime. I think that opens up all sorts of possibilities for influencers and for third parties. So, you know, Google's definitely a different look at it. the Apple situation, I'm fascinated by whether they get this Formula One deal over the line in the US'cause I think they need another sports deal. Otherwise, it's been very quiet for a long time. And I'm absolutely fascinated by, the way that Amazon work, because it's clearly far more strategic and they move in, they move out, they develop their prime numbers, they've got a clear purpose. and again, Netflix is, is a different story and timely, you know, in that Netflix is moving to a two income situation of subscription and advertising and sport is a brilliant way of bringing their advertising numbers in with. People betting on horses that you know, um, and you know, Netflix already has a huge audience in India, massive footprint, that they could potentially be out there long term. Although I think their instincts are still not a broadcast as instincts. They don't wanna do three, four year deals. They want to own things, they want to have a clear space. So again, very different attitudes from all of them. And the weakness of the sports market sometimes is that you want them to be who, who you would like them to be as opposed to listening to who they actually are.
Richard Gillis, UP:Yeah. It's interesting. It's a, it is a point that Murray makes on the bundle quite often is that it, it's not like negotiating with Sky or Fox or, and, they don't have to have sport. It is not like that, that there is a, just, it's a different animal and it's a different negotiation entirely. And there's a, there's a question. I think, just to finish this off in terms of, sometimes I hear, and you'll have heard it many times about, oh, well sports should wrap a walled garden around its own fans. It shouldn't have allowed the platforms in blah, blah, blah. And here we are, you know. One of the questions about Amazon, is it, you know, does it just come in, learn as much about as it can about fans and then just go, it doesn't need to hang around and buy other rights because it's done that job and will just sell stuff to them, because that's what it, that's, that's the animal it is. Do you, what do you think about that question when you hear sports, sort of data, arguments about walled gardens, pooling rights, uh, pooling data, audience data. Facebook knows more about Spurs fans than Spurs do, et cetera, et cetera.
Peter Hutton:Again, I, I think it's, you know, putting a genie back in the ball, right? You've just gotta accept they're there and this is what they do. And it, it's all part of your, your story. You know, I, I love the story Adam Kelly tells about the deal that they did with Netflix and WWE, where, you know, they got w to give up effectively copyright on a load of content because that's what Netflix needed. And it's that sort of flexible mindset that you need to sort of monetize these things properly, but you, you just have to accept this is a much more complicated world. We talked earlier about the desire for a simple solution. There is no simple solution. Um, and also federations and organizations clearly need to do a lot more heavy lifting themselves than a world where you used to sell your rights to a broadcaster and they would do the marketing for you. You know, those days are long gone. Um, so as a result, you need to be across platforms, not just. New but future, you need to be across hardware trends because hardware will, will drive consumption. Um, and it, it's a, it's a more complicated story. It felt pretty complicated in India going back to 93 and 94 when we didn't have the right to put a live signal out of the country. And Bill Sin Rich got arrested and put in Bangalore jail for a day for having brought in an SNG. Um, but it's still complicated now. It's just complicated in a different way.
Richard Gillis, UP:Brilliant. Okay. Well listen, Peter, thanks so much for your time, really, you know, and people listening won't, won't clock that you've got full of wisdoms behind there. So, you know, if there was any doubt about your cricket fandom credentials, which there are very few, they should tune into the, uh, into the video clips of it. Mike, thanks very much for your time again.
Mike Jakeman:Thank.
Richard Gillis, UP:Yeah, that was really good. And uh, yeah, come on again, Peter.
Peter Hutton:Thanks, Richard. Nice to be asked.