Unofficial Partner Podcast
Unofficial Partner Podcast
UP515 Other People's Money @ EY: Why is Big Sport so hard to disrupt?
This is a special episode of Other People's Money is our regular series on sports investment which was recorded recently in front of an invited audience at the London headquarters of EY, the Big Four accounting and professional services group.
Joining Richard and regular OPM co-host Matt Rogan were John Fallon and Vikram Banerjee.
John Fallon was CEO of publishing giant Pearson during the white heat of digital transformation. His book Resurgent is an essential counter balance to the cliches that gather around the much discussed topic of disruption.
Vikram Banerjee is managing director of The Hundred, and previously led the strategy, insights and business operations functions at the England and Wales Cricket Board. A former professional cricketer, he has played a key role in setting the strategic direction for the sport, including the creation of the ECB’s strategy for cricket – Inspiring Generations – and the South Asian Action Plan, which was launched in 2018.
The other voices you’ll hear include questions from our audience including Alan Noble and Sarah Hanks, our hosts at EY, plus Gessica Howarth of Sphera Partners.
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Hello, welcome to Unofficial Partners, Richard Gillis here. And this is a special episode of Other People's Money, which is our regular series on sports, investment and finance. And we recorded it in front of a small invited audience at the London headquarters of ey, the Big four Accounting and Professional Services group. And we thank them for their hospitality up there on the top floor at uh, their London Bridge office. It's very, very. Convivial joining myself and regular other people's money. Co-host Matt Rogan, were John Fallon and Vikram Banerjee. John Fallon was Chief Executive of publishing Giant Pearson during period of intense digital transformation, and he wrote a book about it called Resurgent, which counters some of the cliches that gather around that topic of disruption. And it's very relevant to sport as you'll hear. Vikram Banerjee is managing director of the hundred and previously LED strategy insights and business operations functions at the England and Wales Cricket Board. A former professional cricket who played a key role in setting the strategic direction for the sport, including the creation of the ECBs strategy for cricket inspiring generations and the South Asian. Action Plan, which was launched in 2018. The other voices you'll hear at the end are some questions from our audience, including Alan Noble and Sarah Hanks. Our hosts at EY Plus. Jessica Howeth of Sphera Partners, This is a conversation which brings together quite a lot of the threads that are alive in this sports business currently, and it's about. Disruption, but it's also about why major sports rights holders are so difficult to unseat or to disrupt. What are the defenses that they have? And John Fallon's book goes into that in some detail using other examples. So it's a really good framing for what's happening in sport. We're obviously seeing it in different sports, golf, rugby, cricket. And we get to the question of what what does the money want? Where is the money going to go? What's the risk and reward of the investment question in sport in 2025 where is the money going and what does that tell us about sport?
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:Welcome everyone. Thanks for coming. There's a question that I've been wanting to get to for a while and it's to do with disruption, which is a word that has become sort of overused. Let's use that, that's a cliche. And one of the questions is what does it really mean and is it happening to sport and in what sense? And where is it happening? And then there's a bigger question, which is about what the money wants, which again, I think we'll get to at some point. Unofficial Partner is an umbrella. We cover lots of different bits of the, uh, sports industry, Other people's money is where we sort of drill down on finance and money and sport and investment. I do that with co-host Matt Rogan. So I'm gonna bring you in. Matt, just, I saw, and this is a little bit of scene setting, not irrelevant, but MTV closed down. I, I mentioned this'cause Matt, he will tell you anyway, used to work for MTV.
Matt Rogan:Yeah. I spent, um. A formative part of my career, which really ages me to say it was the turn of the century. Working at MTV in the days there's, was there no one looking at Acal at that fact in the days before the bull patch and in the days where they showed music videos and still remember sat in the office as Christina Aguilera's dirty played and everyone went, bloody hell. Let's do some work now. I was a bit
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:surprised that it was still going.
Matt Rogan:Yeah, it's um, the day I left was the day McKinsey came in to re-engineer the organization, which was the point that the production and creative wing of MTV was fused with the creation of the UK version of Nickelodeon, sponge Rock Squarepants. So the people producing the music awards were also the people creating brand extensions, sponge rock, squarepants, and selling ringtone videos. And that's when it all began to go a little bit wrong.
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:Well, you know, no shade on McKinsey. They, well, they've been there for 20 years. They've been grinding away, first of all, let's just go around the table and get people's voices on the, recording. Vic, can you just sort of introduce yourself, tell us who you are and what you do all day?
Vikram Banerjee:Of course. Uh, well thanks first of all for having me. My job is the MD of the hundred. So, running the hundred tournament, which if you dunno, is a cricket tournament that runs for about a month through the school holidays. And we've been going for about five years. And of note over the last 12, 18 months, we went through a big franchising process to, uh, sell stakes in the eight teams, which has just recently completed.
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:Very much so. Right. We're gonna talk about that in some detail. John, same question for you.
John Fallon:well, I. Live what I would somewhat grandly call a portfolio life these days, which means I have absolutely no executive authority for anything which I, uh, I thoroughly enjoy. I did spend most of my, uh, full-time executive life last 23 years with at Pearson, where I was CEO and led it through what was a pretty traumatic digital, uh, disruption, transformation. and now I do a range of things, including, I think the reason why I'm here today. I've just written a book, which is called Resurgent, which is all about how large established organizations and companies are surviving and fighting back through. Disruption far more successfully than is generally supposed.
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:Right. And I'm gonna read Spare Your blushes. I'm gonna read just a paragraph'cause I think it captures what a bit of what we're gonna be talking about. So this is from John's book. John's book, resurgent, the Narrative in the Business press was all about tech companies in the traditional parts of the economy, from energy to industrial, to consumer goods, to travel to health. Rarely get a mention. Everyone was talking about the disruptors, the startups, and the entrepreneurs, and not about the incumbents. And we thought it was time for a reality check. So one of the questions I've got is the defense and the moat of the incumbents in sport. But we're gonna talk, talk about stuff that's broader than that, obviously. But that's one of the themes and it's one of the questions I've got. I see it, you know, we're in this era and one of the questions that I'm gonna come to Matt with is just to describe the era that we're in. Because at the moment when you got a sports business podcast, you get a lot of press releases and a lot of information, people coming on saying, look, we have the future of rugby, we have the future of golf, we have the future of swimming track and field athletics. there is a lot going on around the product. And to that paragraph sort of captured more articulately than I can, what's happening? Are these edge cases or is this actually something real? So Matt, I want you just to put some color on that because, and just fill in some of the gaps. What is happening out there.
Matt Rogan:So, as you say, there's, there's an awful lot going on in terms of the general investment landscape in sport. And I think a large percentage of the column inches, uh, if not perhaps the investment numbers is going into some of the insurgent organizations, some of the different types of organizations we're seeing. I happen to live out in the sticks, which means I spend far too long on trains that are late or don't turn up at all which I did this morning. So in preparation for this morning tried to build an A to Z of insurgent Sports Leagues.
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:Blind me. How long was this journey? Yeah,
Matt Rogan:how long should it have been or how long was it? And, and I, I did get the whole way, but I'm not gonna bore you with all of that, but I'll give you a little, I feel like a poet doing a little prey. But if you start with a, so I came up with Arena Football League, which is American football. This is the last five years broadly, arena, football League, baller League, soccer, cage, warriors, MMA. Drone Racing league, drone racing, European Super League, soccer, fishing bass Pro league, slightly purist, but I think I've got away with it. Uh, GL Grand Slam Track Athletics. I thought I'd finish on h with the hundreds. Let do that. Let's get nervous, miss out. But um, so yeah, it's an awful lot going on and I guess the job we've got today is to make sense of all that and try and understand are they all trying to do the same thing and how do they relate to the status quo?
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:So are they trying to do the same thing?
Matt Rogan:My view would be, no. you've got all sorts of different bits of the jigsaw there. You've got some completely new ideas really, that that wouldn't have been a thing 10 years ago. It wouldn't have been possible 10 years ago. You know, you think about putting small cameras on drones. With kids around the world flying them, that's getting broadcast live on YouTube in the moment. And you think about having the technology that could get boring, having technology to see sense where the car fishing, go find them mate so you can actually film the catch and not just the fishing on the side bank. Barry is
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:very interested in car fishing, isn't it?
Matt Rogan:There's, there's all sorts going on in the space. So that you've got sort of effectively new, commercial properties starting from zero. And then you've got, you know, if you take that to the extreme of the European Super League, you've got incumbents trying to re-engineer and challenge the status quo. You know, we didn't get to well and live golf, but you've got something at the completely other end of the spectrum there that encompasses international politics and all sorts of things. So I, I think the underlying start point for today might be to say. Look, we need to go a little bit deeper and understand specifically what the money wants in different types of environments.
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:And just before we do that, the the different types of money. Again, it comes no shock to anyone that a podcast and my, you know, understanding of money is reasonably limited. So I need you to sort of go deeper. But there appears to me, again, a regular theme is there seems to be a great deal of money out there and a lot of it is pointing at sport. And we'll talk in a minute about the hundred and the money that's, that's flown in there. But you are looking at funds, walls of money that are being gathered together by some big city organizations. You've got CVC Atos, you've got, you know, Apollo almost on a regular basis, a sort of fortnightly basis. A new fund appears to. To come out the ether.
Matt Rogan:Yeah. But at different stages. I mean, if I think about the kind of things that I'm getting involved in at the moment, you know, on one minute you're helping a a startup business that might be raising a couple of million quid, looking to build a really niche proposition in an area of, of sports tech where it's kind of venture capital type level. Then, you know, trying to help a, a team that really, it's in the sort of series a stage of 20, 30 million quid, and part of that's about refinancing the stadium. Part of it's about some more development to support the women's team. Then the next stage. You are looking at a, brand new league, brand new sport, probably quite punchy going out and trying to find 70, 80 million quid in a very risky punt. And then as you say at the other end, you've got, you know, CVCs of this world trying to consolidate rights from a few sports that are getting squeezed in the middle a bit, you might argue in the rugby's and the and the golf and so on. And, and then at the very top end billion dollar enterprises in the States that the likes of our tasks are putting money down to buy 10% off for a stake in a much bigger game. I'm sure the a hundred fits somewhere in one of those where, where
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:does the a hundred fit in that sort of landscape? Does it fit in?
Vikram Banerjee:Uh, I we're probably somewhere between the, those last two. We, you know, we're not in the NFL size or scale by a long way, but nor are we at this stage something that's brand new, that's cricket is a very well established sport. Franchise leagues in cricket are established, obviously driven by the OPL, who has done, you know, you didn't mention them, but have done incredible things. Yeah. In terms of growth. So we are, we're probably somewhere in between. So
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:the IPL is probably the most, I dunno, in terms of just the, the cleanest example of disruption and that we've had in sport, not just about cricket, but just across the board. Do you think sometimes you look across and think it's sometimes hard to work out, get a, a real clean case study, but IPL feels like as close as we'll get to it?
Vikram Banerjee:Yeah, I mean, it is a fantastic case study in the way they went about. And if you look, what, what is also incredible is the timeframe. I mean, it wasn't that long ago. That the IPL came about and was there, and what they've managed to do in terms of changing a sport within, what is it, 18 years, maybe 19 years that they've done that.
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:What do you is talk about sort of offensive defensive positions. Again, I'm gonna bring John in on the incumbency question. Yeah. But to what extent is the hun was the a hundred a an offensive This is, okay, here's a market that we're gonna go after. It's gonna just talk me through that bit a bit. The strategy bit.'cause I think that's interesting. Yeah. So the a
Vikram Banerjee:hundred, the, the thinking about it came about probably 20 17, 18, that kind of period. the concept was that cricket in this country anyway, your ticket buyers had an average age that was mid to late fifties. They were 85% plus were male. They were pretty much all white. They were a, b, C one. It was a very narrow. Market and, and the sport had to grow. It had to find ways of, appealing to a broader audience. And that's where it started. And that was, you know, I, I don't quite know if that's offense or defense or where that is, but that was the kind of germination of this, of, okay, well if, if you agree with the concept that we have to grow and we have to find the new audience, we then went about and went what's stopping them? Why aren't they engaging with test cricket or the blast as it was then and, and the other products? And what's, what are those key barriers? And understanding really that audience and what they're about and what their likes and dislikes are and what their views of cricket were. Some of which for, you know, as Cricket fans was fairly brutal listening. But it was good to do because that then translated and morphed into the hundred. It wasn't as if we started with, right, here's the a hundred, now let's find out where we can take it. It was started with, with the fans and what they want and what does that result in. And that's the problem.
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:Okay. There's a few things there John, I
John Fallon:you said that, you know, the IPL is probably the most graphic case of disruption. And even there, the IPL now exists alongside of the formats of cricket. It has not displaced them. And if you go back to the original Clayton Christiansen Theory of Disruption, the idea is that the technology basically drives the existing format out the business. So the idea was we're all gonna go the way of Kodak or uh, Blackberry or Blockbuster, and, you know. I'm sorry, one data point from outside the world of sport. If you look at the Fortune 500 today, largest companies buy revenues. How many of them didn't exist in 1995 on cusp of the internet? Only 24. The likelihood of any large incumbent been completely put outta business. It's not impossible, but it doesn't happen very often and they're slightly cheap jibe. But I would argue that, you know, far more unicorns have turned into corpses than large incumbents have ended up
sean:proving to
John Fallon:be the dinosaur that everybody's said they were going to be. That's not to say there hasn't been huge disrupt, you know, like you talk about IPL you, we were talking earlier about music.
sean:Yeah.
John Fallon:Classified advertising, uh, you know, whole swat, you know, the industry that I was in. So it's mainly been in industries that are. Sort of virtual in nature that are sort of, you know, where they are driven by the bit and the bites. And there's no reason for that product to exist in a physical format. They've been the ones that have been most disrupted. And that in turn means the other side. So I said, oh, like, you know, those guys have survived much better, but we haven't broken out in valuation. So you look at like the, you know, the magnificent seven, you know? Yeah. And we're all familiar with who they are. You know, only two of them existed 50 years ago. That was, uh, Microsoft and Apple that were, were born out of the, personal computer. Those, none of those, or the five existed on the cusp of the internet, and they're now worth collectively$20 trillion, the equivalent of, you know, the whole of the European Union. And I would argue having quite a significant disruptive impact on sport, Champions lead looking at completely rechanging the format. So it can offer Netflix or, um, yeah. Or Amazon a, a, a, a package that, that works. So, how are incumbents surviving? Well, I think they're doing a number of things. One, they can sort of migrate away, which is probably not easy to do in sport, but the opt to give a simple example, Kodak went extinct. Fujitsu, its major competitor is now, has continued to grow.'cause it basically took its core technologies and you found different ways to apply them,
sean:right? Yeah.
John Fallon:For com, for sports in sectors, I would say you can really, you can fight back, which I, I would argue is probably what the hundred is. Mm-hmm. We are gonna take our product and come up with a new format. And in Clayton Christians' word, we're gonna disrupt ourselves.
sean:Yeah.
John Fallon:You can double down, which I would argue is what the Premier League or the Champions League are, are largely doing. You, you know. Add extra capacity. You improve the, the spectator experience. You bipole the best talent you offer. You iterate and innovate in lots of different ways. So you make more and more of the, the product, uh, or you basically do a degree of retrenchment, which is basically you look for the regulator to help you, and arguably you could say people are doing all those three. Then finally, just to bring it back, I've just sense check in. So does my, does my thesis apply to sport? I would argue that if you look at, you know, going right back to Bradford Park Avenue, if you just look in football, all the clubs that have gone extinct, it's not because they were disrupted, it was because of maladministration and mismanagement by the people who were running them. Yeah. So I don't know if that helps, but that's how I would think about it.
Matt Rogan:it's probably easier for me to say than ve, but. You know, walking around an enormous number of cricket pitches and cricket clubs over the last five years.'cause when kids play, um, it's one of the best examples I've seen of a sports organization sort of changing before it absolutely had to number of conversations you have where the old guard cricketers saying, dunno why they're doing it. Why didn't they just do it to 2020? Just a gradual change, you know, it would've worked. It would've worked. And the reality is it wouldn't. So just having the bravery to, to change before you have to, I'd argue the same at the fa when, you know, they put a lot of time, effort, and energy in building the women's super league when a lot of people were telling them just to not license clubs and just let the current women's clubs continue organically, uh, without any kind of support and challenge. I, I think what characterizes those large organizations, I'm not sure either of you guys think in sport that have gone with it and been ahead of the curve are the ones that have just been a bit braver. Grasp the net a little bit.
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:Is it bravery or was it money? Do you, where did the money come from for the hundred?
Vikram Banerjee:Uh, well, at the very start, it was a, effectively a partnership with Sky. Sky had been great partners for Cricket for 30 years now, but at the time it was, let's work together. We, there's a win-win. So the money comes, but it follows the objective was always pure in the sense of the sport. The sport needs to grow and if the sport grows, that, that stuff almost kind of takes care of itself. But the fact that we had a partnership, we had a, a relation that allowed us to have a bit of a runway. That's where a lot of people don't have. There was a, you know, a broadcast deal that was put in place in 2017 that put a, you know, some money to it. So there was a bit of confidence that we have a thing that can, that can go. But yeah, I agree with that. You know, I can say it's not me. It's other people that deserve a lot of credit for that bravery. A lot of people took a lot of stick and a lot of, you know, you know, all sorts from all sorts of people.
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:What was it like? Just'cause I, you sort of saw it from the outside and I ran a magazine in 2000. It was called Sport Business. Okay. QQ in the name and the ECB came, did a presentation to us. Okay. About 2020 Cricket. Okay. And I couldn't have been more patronizing, you know, if I'd have tapped them on the head and said, well, you know, good, good shout, well done. You know, good effort. But I thought, no, it's never gonna work. You know, and I, I've, my career is a series of these conversations where people have gone off and made, you know, billions and billions and I've poo-pooed them. it's becoming the received wisdom that it's disrupted from within the ECB has. It's almost like done its own Kodak moment. And that will be the case study, that history will look back on this moment and say, look, this is not live golf. It was them doing it to themselves. And that was, but just talk to me.'cause that sounds easier, but actually you've got a constituency of people, cricket fans who
Vikram Banerjee:Yeah. Didn't like it. And I think some of the challenges of the bigger organizations that for us we have, there was a nine, 10 million people that were saying, well, I'm a Cricket fan. And I like, by nature, like what we've got. And sports fans almost to the tee don't like change. They don't like, you know, this is what they like and they like it and they know what they like. I, I don't, the, the one difference of the disruption, I don't, it was never meant. To kill any other forms of cricket. Quite the opposite, right? Test cricket, I mean, it's thriving. We've just had an amazing summer, um, of test cricket with great audiences and, and engagement, and that's the symbiosis, that's that this is all about. You can have, you know, in the same way that Cadbury's make, have many different bars of chocolate, it's not so that one wins of those bars of chocolate, they all kind of support each other. And I think it's the same here. The test cricket is a product that some people love and that's great. And the hundred is a product that some people love and that's also great. And if they cross brilliant, if they don't, that's also great. The sport on the whole wins out the back of it. And that's thing that perhaps sport where other in the corporate world isn't quite as clear cut as that. But that's where sport can do things slightly differently.
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:Okay, so back to your list of things we didn't mention live golf. I think live golf is a really interesting one because my, again, I'm a big golf fan and I resent live golf. So because of its intrusion, and now I've come to think, so if I'm a fan, if I'm a typical golf cricket football fan, am I one of those people that people will say, oh, he just wants faster horses. He's just a, he's a conservative. He won't, he won't change. He'll never change his mind. How do you deal with that? How do you sort of take me along?'cause in sport, in some of your, you know, the, the case studies in your book, you haven't got those constituencies of fans and superstar players. These are two groups which I think makes sport as a difference in. But,
John Fallon:but it has forced the PGA to. To use the framing earlier to, to sort of, to double down, hasn't it? So, you know. Yeah. It's increased the prize money. It's consol and it's re and, and a bit of retrenchment as well. So the consolidation of the European tour and the PGA, they've increased the money. They've made some changes to the Yeah. To the format. And then you could argue, well, the analogy doesn't quite work'cause it's not the PGA that has launched it, but the Monday night indoor golf TG thing is the, is the fighting back, isn't it? It's like that's gonna sit alongside. So Liv tried to go head to head. So Liv's chances, I would argue Liv's chances of success have directly displacing and putting the PGA outta business was always a very long shot. And arguably, is that what the backers ever thought was really gonna happen? Or was it like, let's put a huge amount of money on the table and force people and force some consolidation and change and we'll
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:yeah.
John Fallon:Be, be part of it. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. I think that, I think. That's how I would think about it.
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:And it's sort of interesting. It's been going four or five years. Sorry. You go, but you go. I was
Matt Rogan:just gonna say, I think it's a, it's a very bold call for any financier to say that they can change, believe that they can change, the whole ecosystem of one top five or six globally. and you might argue that it's only with the political and financial will and international will that comes from the Middle East, that anyone would, would be brave enough to try that. You know, my personal view, um, with no vest interest at all is I think challenging the rugby ecosystem that's happening at the moment. Rugby 360 is just as braver call and it's interesting to see how the status quo are kind of reacting on that to try and sort of,
John Fallon:I mean, what I would say is, well, I think it's interesting, again, the analogy with other sectors is. Where companies get into trouble when they go through disruption is they sort of lose confidence in themselves and they forget, lose sight of what their identity and purpose is. And I know when we went through a massively disruptive transformation, we survive because we said, what is it that we do that is of enduring value to our customers? What is it that is of real value? Where I think sport has a huge advantage is because of that community identity, doesn't it? You know? Yeah.
sean:Yeah.
John Fallon:Back to football sport, I love, you know, every other Saturday or now four 30 on a Sunday afternoon ly for those of us who travel to games, it's like you're reminded why you're there'cause there's 50,000 fans in the game, or do you know what I mean? Yeah. But I think it's, and I, and I suppose that would be my one caution for cricket. Is you've now got so many different formats, just make sure in all those different formats, you don't lose the, I don't think you have, do you know what I mean? I'm not, I'm not saying, but that would be my one caution. Just make sure that you don't lose what it is that is of enduring value and people really love. Yeah, I, I think that's right. It's the same as any, you've gotta balance what the current customers, fans, as we have, or with the new, and at the heart of it, for cricket, that battle between a bat and a ball is, is what it's at the enduring heart. And whether that's, that battle lasts five days or a hundred balls, that's what fans love. And I think, I, I think whenever you try and fight each other and, and forget what the purpose is and what the role and what the audience is. That's when you start to get in trouble and, and and being very, very clear for us as cricket as a whole of this is what test cricket's about and this is, you know, and that, and almost celebrating that heritage and celebrating the kind of the nature of that sport while celebrating the innovation and kind of maybe pushing some of the boundaries with the a hundred with a very different, new to the sport kind of, um, audience to it. Being very clear on that is important as is separating those two and making sure they don't blur. Yeah. And then you miss you kind of a bit weak on that side and a bit weak on that side'cause you're kind of halfway, but you've gotta try and build new team identity, haven't you? Yeah, of course. Yeah. I mean, I'm of a certain generation, so I will identify relentless in a way I never will with the Manchester original. So I would imagine trying to build that identity is, is one of your challenges.
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:I've got a stamp that says I'm not the target audience. Yeah. Well I bet I'm not the target audience pressure actually ignore. I do love it
John Fallon:as a format and I love of watching it, but it is that. Identity, I think, isn't it? That is the thing that you've gotta keep remained. Yes, And when you, we joke about not being a target audience, but I think all lovers of cricket, and I, I'll talk, obviously I can talk more about cricket than other sports, but the high caliber of the on field product is so important. And messing with that is when it gets, you know, a bit tricky. You know, we all watch, well I certainly watch lots of Olympic sports with, I have no idea what the hell's going on. But I can appreciate that whatever's happening there, that is athleticism at its very best. And in, in cricket, people watching men and women's smashing sixes, bowling fast, you know, at its heart, if, if that product is excellent, whichever kind of nature of fan you are, you get drawn to it and attracted to it. And then yeah, sure you package it up slightly differently to bring in others. But, um, I think the product has to be at the, at the core of what you're trying to offer.
Matt Rogan:For me, the, the. The clues in what Vic was saying around he was effectively the marketing director being able to say, oh my Cadbury chocolate bars, I've got this, this product that serves this segment, this product that serves this segment, this product that serves this segment. Some customers might buy all my chocolate bars, but, but some might. Just like one. So owning the whole supply chain I think was super important in that, in that journey. I guess coming back to our question around some of these insurgent leagues, you know, you are the chief exec of a baller league or a Kings League or share PKS property where they bounce balloons up and down, run and sort of try and make that one work. What position do you imagine you are gonna play in the ecosystem of the future? And if I'm putting 50 million quid into one of those, I sort of want to know that there's a position that can play around football that's gonna be sustainably profitable. Yeah. Or I've got an exit route to fifa. Like, well presumably those, what's my future? Look,
John Fallon:those are attracting very different types of investors, aren't they? So if you are, I mean, you were talking about CVC. Yeah. If you are sort of private equity, you want in a 15% IRR and a five or seven year exit. Yeah. You're much more going for the sustaining innovation and the consolidation. And I've seen it on the valued asset that I think I can do a better job of digital transformation over whatever the guys who are going after the Jared PK type thing. I'm assuming that's much earlier stage venture capital type. Like I'm gonna invest in 10 things and I hope two of them are successful, isn't it? I'm assuming that there must be a different profile to some of those.
Matt Rogan:I, I believe that's true, but I, I also, I'm not particularly clear what they think success looks like. How big really is the successful balloon balancing or for Baller League in that relatively. Static football environment where any real innovation's gonna get quashed. And you would argue that FIFA and U AFIS competitions are probably game over. Uh, if I was a, was a mid-market firm putting money into a starter league, I'd be asking myself some real questions around, well, there's actually any room.
John Fallon:It comes to the
Matt Rogan:what,
Vikram Banerjee:why, why is this there? As a governing body, it was almost easier to do that because of the remit. As you say, we are here to grow the game. This is how we think we should and can grow the game. For some of these, you know, it's casting no asperges to any of them.'cause I don't know enough, but I don't know why they exist. And, and that's no shame. If it's a, it's X at the moment and we wanna make three x and then we'll exit and that's fine. I don't really bother where it goes from there. Um, or if it is to knock over the existing. Which to your point is, is a big shot to say that in football or rugby, we're gonna knock over the incumbents. And I think if people are really clear on that, that will then help them attract the right kind of partner for investment or whatever it may be. Uh, and you don't get those things down the line where there's a bit of tension because people's views at the very start with 2% off, and that gets bigger and gets bigger as you go through the years. Yeah. I I think probably a couple of other trends I think are probably relevant to this conversation that you think about from what other sectors and industries are going through. One is the, the shift in business model and how you earn money and the, presumably the, the sort of diversification of revenue stream. Yeah. Yeah. So I mean, we were, we were talking about music just before we started talking about this and you know, music went through a hugely traumatic
sean:Yeah.
John Fallon:Industry, uh, transformation, what 17 years of industry of revenue declines, stabilized, and now they've had eight years of, of growth and everybody wants to be back in the, the music business. And that was the challenge of going from an ownership. To an access model. And that's now very attractive to investors.'cause it looks like something much more like a, a software as a service type business model. You can see, I mean, again, as a, as a consumer, you can see that that's what football clubs are trying to do now, aren't they? They're trying to build much more diversified revenue streams and see you not as a purchaser of a one off match ticket. Yeah. I mean we always had an element of it with season tickets, but something much more, it's an ongoing relationship. It's a subscription like, and therefore your social media strategies and all that become very important. So I'm sure that's probably what's driving people is what's the sort of revenue model. And the other point is very quickly is around, you know, I mentioned the magnificent seven, the power of the platform. Yeah. So every company in the world is trying to think, how do I survive in a world that is dominated by the big platform players and can I build my own platform? Uh, maybe quite rare for a content company to have a a, a platform that is gonna be big enough to attract lots of users. So how do I play as part of that and presumably given that television rides drive so much of the revenue in sport, how do I make sure that I'm not overdependent on Sky, I want to lower Netflix in, but I don't want Netflix to get too dominant.'cause then they'll start dictating terms to me. Yeah. Yeah. So do you mean I think there's a whole platform debate presumably as well that people are having to think about?
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:Absolutely. And there's a, there's a question of you know, the fans in terms of what that, that, the answer to that question and what that does to our experience as fans because of the, you know, we're just seeing at the moment where it's a live conversation is in terms of ufas rights for the next round of Champions League. Now they're, relevant are, have repackaged and it looks like there's gonna be something for the streamers. A Netflix, it's an obvious sort of place to go, but also lots of other places and lots of other packages and, and the life of a, you know, a football fan, a rugby fan, a cricket fan is a spreadsheet and a packet of ine. Trying to work out where your team is sort of playing next and where, where I've got what subscriptions I need to, to have. And at some point when sport becomes just another entertainment product, there I see real risk because you've got the core audience, but then you've got these others who are flaky, more promiscuous, but everyone wants them. Everyone is trying to chase them and wants them over the line for subscriptions. So it's a, it is a difficult sort of to see the way out. I can see immediately if we looked at rugby and I saw, like this week the NRL have come out and last week the unions have said the players can't. play for the country. They, you know, that was an entirely predictable response. I would've thought. Having read your book and having sort of looked at this sector, I can't think that that wasn't modeled in the initial disruption. It wasn't a problem for you guys, presumably, was it in terms of that, lever was
Vikram Banerjee:no. Well, when you do it on the inside, and we worked very closely with players from the outset to make sure it's, you know, they, if you're a sport, they're the asset. They're the thing that people come to see and so you need to get them on side. And so I was surprised, uh, as I'm sure you were, when, when I read that, that, again, not everything in the, in the press is, is as it is, but it felt like that had been kind of, it was a surprise to everybody, which perhaps shouldn't have been, isn't it? I mean that yes, that works as a short term holding pattern. You could probably buy yourself a bit defensive of time by yourself a bit of time, but ultimately. The consumer will decide what I mean if,
sean:yeah, if,
John Fallon:if rugby fans or you can grow with the rugby market and they want that, or they want something different. I mean, it is the le you know, back to music, the lesson from music. People thought the Napster moment was that everybody wanted to, you know, everybody was happy to have music for free rather than pay for it. That wasn't actually the lesson from Napster. It was that people wanted to be able to access music as they wanted it when they wanted it. They wanted to disaggregate the album and just be able to, you know, have music as a service. Yeah. And so consumers drove that change. So ultimately, presumably you know, what do rugby fans want and how are they gonna think about it? And what are they going to want and pay for?
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:So what's the play beyond that then? if we are now in this situation and Rugby's alive conversation, we'd move through to the, we are in the period of the defense. What happens after that? You're saying the fans there is a route through to a direct to fan. I suspect
John Fallon:there needs to be some form of consolidation. So probably the north and south need to get themselves organized so they fi you know, so the, the fixtures work better from a, from a spectator point of view, and I would argue learning the lessons from football is, um, it's iterative development. So, you know, the Big bang is the massive disruption is unlikely to be successful, but it's less likely to be successful if you continue to iterate and improve and, and over time make a hundred different changes that, do you know what I mean? Yeah. I think that's probably the way that, that's what the lessons of other sectors would tell you.
Matt Rogan:I guess the natural extension of that, I think probably telling me I'm wrong in a minute, but if you think about the world of cricket where you. Ultimately have some of the most influential owners of sports franchises in the world and the IPL owners have now bought into the English system. Uh, one would hope that therefore there's more of a guarantee of the best talent coming to play over here, um, through the hundred as well as the other competitions. Um, and you therefore, I assume get into a space where the players who might leave to do something where there's a bigger paycheck actually end up in an ecosystem which thrives and works, where the calendar gets itself a bit sorted out and you end up in a, um, maybe I'm being a bit utopian here, but a T 20 environment that works, or a hundred environment that works globally, that dovetails with a, with a sort of a, a global test setup that works, that works for women, works for men. And, and what we're seeing is the sort of DCB being one of the instigators of a disruptive process that should end up with a, with a more modern contemporary cricket environment, just might take. A bit of time. I'm not sure. How am I being utopian? If
Vikram Banerjee:you're expecting it overnight. Yeah. Um, yeah. Look, I think uh, with the kind of, with the way Cricket is working at the moment, if you look at the men's side of the game, there are, I think 18 franchise leagues out there at the moment. There are constant international fixtures. There's kind of a World Cup pretty much, you know, or an ICC event every year. Um, I don't, I don't personally see that as being sustainable. Yeah. Because ultimately they're all after the same, I don't know, 40 players, maybe 50, but it's a small group of, of men that they're after. Uh, the women's game's slightly behind that in terms of numbers, but it's catching up. Yeah. Um, as, as more and more people kind of see the opportunity. What's interesting now is how that plays through. Um, it was important for us that, you know, in terms of world cricket at the e ccb, we're at that top table when disruption happens and the split happens, what that split looks like, whether some go away completely or there's a bit of a tiering between the different countries in the leagues. Uh, people smarter than me will, will be able to tell. I'm, I'm not sure, but I think it will, something will happen. And does, does that mean that more and more money flows to the talent? So, I mean, one of the things that you've seen in football is a, you know, a, you know, compared to 50 years ago, a disproportionate, you can argue that a bigger, much bigger proportion of the revenue created is actually going to the talent. Is the same gonna happen in cricket? I think so. I think so. I think if you do the comparisons of different sports. Percentage of revenues that get to that top talent. It's probably not great for what, you know, my, it's not as high as your, your American footballs and your, and, and obviously football in this country, especially things like championship is, as you could argue, unsustainable the other way. But I do absolutely see more and more money going to those in demand players that drive a lot of the value. We'll certainly do it in the a hundred. I can see it happening elsewhere as well. It's
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:interesting you put the number at 40 in terms of, the question I always ask golf agents is how many tickets, how many players sell tickets? And it's much less than 40. It's much less than 10 actually.
Vikram Banerjee:Oh, yeah. In terms of moving the needle on ticket sales. Very small number. Yes, I totally agree. You know, you could argue whether he even gets into double figures. Yeah. I say 40 just'cause you need to have 11 aside to play the game and you, you know, so Yeah. In terms of, you know, I'll buy a ticket to watch him or her. That's a small number. That really is a small number.
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:What does it say about a market, if the incumbents are impregnable, what is, it feels to me that bad companies need to go outta business is the, you know, economic theory. if that isn't happening, if there is something that makes them impregnable. If the moat is just not, you're not able to sort of take on the incumbents in foot in the big five sports globally, what does that mean over a longer period of time?
John Fallon:Well, doesn't it depend what you defining as the, you know,'cause you can argue that the Premier League and the Champions League, the mos around there, but within there. Clubs can go up and down and perform better and, and not do as well. And as a sports fan, that's what, you know, that's what it's about. I'm city to win the Champions League every season. I don't really care, you know, I'm not really bothered whether there's a live golf setup equivalent of the champions. Do you know what I mean? I mean, so I think it's what, what actually is it that you are, you know, I mean, and clearly the challenge in footballers in other sports is making sure that there's enough jeopardy that one team, city, the city doesn't win area, win the Champions League and Sorry,
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:but city it's important, it's important that city don't win area. Exactly. Well, you know,
John Fallon:exactly. In that sense. Yeah. Yeah. So I think that's where, probably where the issue is, isn't it?
Matt Rogan:I think I'd argue that the, um, you know, the ultimate example of impregnable lives in North America, you know, something like the NFL, which has Jeopardy written into its model as a result of things like the draft system, which, um. It is democratic insofar as you have the most affluent funds and owners in the world, all with stakes in this perpetually, um, profitable, um, continuing innovative now looking internationally to own its footprint. It's, it's not only built the castle, it's almost brought the drawbridge up, I think, in terms of where that's moving. And, you know, I, I think they've done a lot of smart things very quickly and you look at the NBA too, international growth has been probably the last bit of their jigsaw as well as data and digital. I don't see anyone catching up there. Is that good for sport, for those two sports? I'm not sure.
Vikram Banerjee:Go. I, I was just, you know, for, for any sports to succeed, as has been mentioned, you need the very best athletes. You need jeopardy. You know, people can't know that man city, you gonna win every game, otherwise why bother?
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:Yeah.
Vikram Banerjee:And then you need connection to those teams,
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:me and Sean, a Spurs fan, so we know about you.
Vikram Banerjee:I'm a Villa fan, let's move on from football. Um, but it's, you need those two things. And you talk about, I think if, if any, of even the NFL over a long enough period, if you say, if they stand still today.
Matt Rogan:Yeah.
Vikram Banerjee:I don't see them as impre within them. And, and, and it's those little, they, they'll do little steps every time to keep the jeopardy to make sure the best talented athletes go to NFL as opposed to other sports. And, and, and, and so they keep moving and we might not notice it year on year or month on month, but I think, I don't think there is such a thing as, as you know, they, they can never be changed if, or impregnable if, unless they do change and, and, and to clear, you know, in other sectors, incumbents have survived, not because they are impregnable, but because they are. Paranoid every day.
sean:Yeah.
John Fallon:That they are like, you know, so there's this disruptive mindset, this ability to think, well hopefully things will be all right, but we could go outta business tomorrow. And that forces that learned on guess constant iner innovation, constantly iterating, changing, you know, so, and, and I would argue, you know, football, the Premier League's actually a good example of that in the fact that it is a very, very different product from what it was 40 years ago.
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:And one of the sort of, sorry, one of the interesting bits about the sort of what happens next question, if you are one of the incumbents, because you've got this odd situation where, so the live thing is interesting'cause they're sort of now running into the same question. They're sort of problems that they were supposed supposed to solve. You know, you've got players that aren't particularly valuable or interesting. They're paying, being paid a lot, enormous amounts of money. It's because it's got. Sovereign wealth, Saudi sort of state objectives behind it. It could be there for 10 years, it could be there for 20 years or whatever. Just hanging around, not doing much, but just being in there, you know, because they don't want to step back from that because it's, there's more, more than money involved. So you've got this weird picture, but what has happened, as you mentioned, the TGL, it's kicked them. So the PGA tour has responded and then what it's trying to work out. Well, okay, I can see that. That was a good thing. Phil Mickelson was always moaning about his digital rights, you know,'cause he was betting them away all the time. But it was, again, that would be cut. But there's a, uh, there's an element of what the, the stars are short term. We always talk about stars. We always say the Namar case study. You go to a club, he takes the fan base with him. All of that just too neat because actually the city. Question. The team level is really important. I think it's very underplayed. Players are transient. They're greedy, their agents are greedy. They want more and more and more in the short term. So would I in their position because it's a, it's such a perilous career. So actually I'm trying to work out where the, say where I would invest in football, for example. And one of the things that we've sort of bumped into on this series is private equity is going to pick it up at the bottom. So it's buying up player agencies and, and networks and, and taking the money at the bottom end. So to Vic, you know, that money that's coming into the IPL is now liquidity into a whole load of other stuff. Minority partnerships in franchises, in various leagues around the world, or bits and sports tech or whatever it is. So the money is, is gathering it again at the bottom end. I can see that working, but in the middle, I think. Teams are really important, but everyone says, oh, that's a really risky bit. I wouldn't put, put my money into teams or Doesn't it depend, which, it depends on whether they're controlled. Yeah. It depends on l franchises versus NFL or, I'm talking about European football, aren't I really The championship? Yeah.
Matt Rogan:Yeah. Uh, it depends where they're operating. My understanding of the majority of the European soccer markets is equity growth comes from a world in which sort of rising tide lifts or boats forecast rights in most parts of Europe are not exciting right now. And the only places really, which, where investment seems to be happening now, is part of feeder clubs to Premier League clubs, you know, Strasberg except as Chelsea fan working really successfully hand in glove with Chelsea. But, and that's working for Clear Lake and the PE firms in the, in the States, but I'm not sure there are too many examples of those in mainland Europe. So isn't it something like 90. Seven, eight, 9% of professional football clubs in England are loss making. So you've gotta believe either the rising tides can lift or boats or there's a broader purpose for it somehow.
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:Okay. Right. At this point, that microphone over there is, uh, Sean is about to make live in his magic sort of sound engineering way. Anyone got a question
Alan Noble:A lot of this conversation's focused around the risk of challenger leaks and disruption at the, at the rights holder level. When I speak to a lot of private equity investors that have also said outside of the specialist funds like the arc toss of the world, they've all said, well, we don't wanna be exposed to that risk. We're gonna invest into the ecosystem. Which parts of the ecosystem do you think are most ripe for disruption? Is it, you know, the agency models there? Does rights holders insource more of those activities? Is it. The broadcasters, there's more moves to YouTube. Where do you think the disruption's gonna come to individual business models within the ecosystem?
Matt Rogan:Good question. I, I guess, so maybe I was sort of helped out on one of the disruptors in the model, which was two circles, but I don't, I think actually what we were doing was just helping rights holders who are a bit ahead of the curve and realize the challenges ahead changed before they had two, like people talk about two circles being a data agency or a digital agency. They were, we, all we did was change management, just the data and digital was the change. We were trying to support rights holders around, um, a really big admirer of what fanatics have done in terms of just re-engineering supply chains in sport as well. So some of the work they've done around merchandising, I thought was okay, but some of the work they're now doing now, they have that customer data set to. Uh, re-engineer the collectibles business in North America. Think differently about betting, I think is a superb example of, of some of the, the opportunities that exist in, in the sports space. Um, so for me, actually, there's so much inefficiency in the supply chain in terms of buying, not very exciting stuff. Actually. There's services businesses that evolve in supply chain, like how many LED boards have bought in this country, and everyone buys'em independently and sorts out themselves. Like there's just, there's so much in the running of the business, in sport, I think still a bit amateurish that that just is right for disruption.
John Fallon:And I think on that, I mean, it's interesting isn't it, that yes, you're actually, you know, like in football, most clubs don't make money. But look at, you know, look, look at Fenway sports, look at Silver Lakes investment in city. Look at private equity coming in. And the other thing I find interesting in a world in which, you know, where everything's supposedly going more virtual and you can do everything online, a lot of investment going into physical capacity. You know, United talking about building what is a, you know, a hundred thousand plus new Stadium City, Liverpool Arsenal, all the major clubs are adding physical capacity. So even in a digital virtual world, the desire to be physically there. And I think that's what makes sport so sort of magical. And so why trying to make analogies from other industries is, has a, a limited appeal. Although you can argue the same's happening in, in music. But I wonder to your question, whether actually quite the smart money isn't actually going into a lot of the big premier club brands because I think there is an opportunity for them to really build big businesses.
Matt Rogan:Yeah. Some of the, the infrastructure around Stadia I think is, is super useful. Like, um, and a really interesting space. So I asked my, um, daughter what she wanted for her 16th birthday. I'm not just saying this could fix it. But she's desperate to go to a hundred game, but stay in the hotel at the util she can come up, get her breakfast, sit, you know, on the balcony and watch some break play. Like that's her idea of a cracking day out, not with her parents, to be clear, she wants her parents to get the hotel room to three or four of her mates can do the night. But that the sort of, the visceral experience is remains super important. In particular places like the uk I mean, we're still the market that, you know, we buy more sports tickets every year and there are people in our country and Britain's the only market in the world. Well, that's true.
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:Why has so much money coming to the a hundred franchises? What's, what have they bought?
Vikram Banerjee:Well, I'd like to think they've bought into the management team, but didn't have to laugh that hard, Sean. No, the, um, look, I think a lot of it's been discussed, uh, today. I think there's some core elements of, uh, experiences like sport and what sport is, and live experiences as a, you know, whether you wanna call it an asset class or, or whatever it may be, is something that's on, on the rise. There's not many of those out there at the moment that you can say, look, over 10, 15 year period, it will rise. So I think that's the start of it. Within that, I think cricket is growing and it's growing around the world. IP has done great things, which is a benchmark. But there's, you know, there is still a huge amount upwards, and I think cricket in this country has a massive ceiling in amongst that. Uh, we've got things that are, you know, we didn't account for in terms of our time zone and things like that. That means that we can access kind of global audiences. Plus I think, you know, the team and, and again, teams that, that deserve a lot of credit, not myself, have built a great product. And it was, and it was exciting product and it, it kind of showcased what could be possible and you put those all together. We then, you know, there was a bit of a, a scarcity value around English, cricket and, and, and Lords and Emirates, so Traf and, and so on and so forth. I think people saw something there that, that was worth. Worth investing in. And so I think that's what, what they've, what they've put in for. I think it's a long term investment. It's a passion play as well for a lot of people. But yeah.
John Fallon:And just building on that, you look at, you know, Netflix with Formula One. Yeah. Uh, the guys at Rex and Yeah. What they've done. You've seen this fusion of the sport with sort of entertainment. Is that, you know, is that a passing trend or is that the start of a new phase that actually one of the areas of growth could be this, you know, where you could get exponential growth? Is this fusion of the sport with wider sort of entertainment opportunities and all that sort of stuff?
Vikram Banerjee:Yeah, I, I think from our perspective, it was huge. It's hugely important. It's part of the hundreds DNA, uh, and, and we, I don't think it is a trend or a passing trend. Sorry. Uh, I think it's something that if you're looking to grow. What sport often do when they're looking to growth in your is just scream, you know, cricket, it's great. And you might be going, well, I don't like cricket, but it's really good. Well, I don't like it. And, and so it, that's never gonna quite work. And so the ability to enter into the, the zeitgeist, the culture of what is relevant to you, what is something that you find entertaining or important, whether that, you know, for us music was, was an obvious one there and then insert cricket into that. So you kind of, and that's how you can have multiple touchpoint that people can find. It could be the, on the day, the game is great or you like the, like the live band or on some games we motorbike shows and whatever else. This just gives you much more opportunities to attract an audience and for them to have a great day out. I agree with all that, but please stop trying to pre pretend The Champions League finally is like the Super Bowl. I mean the pretty much entertainment there just doesn't, but that's the exception. May it might be in America. Yeah, soon. So
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:hold that thought. The, I bit just on the. Part of Alan's question in terms of the, the international bit, the global appeal of domestic sports, so the IPL and the NFL, I think I'm right in saying the international rights are three, 2%, 3%. So it feels like if I'm looking at that, first of all, that's an, that's something that I would say, right? Okay. How does that number go up? It's obviously a, a factor of their huge domestic deals, but
Vikram Banerjee:Yeah, I was gonna say, I mean, 3% is a big number, but, uh, I think it's, there's a lesson there, and actually one of, for me, one of the, of, of many lessons that you can learn from the IPL if you work in cricket is what they did brilliantly was understand their domestic market and make a domestic first product. Uh, and, and, and there's a lot being made around, you know, in our process in the hundred about the global parts of it, which, which are true. And there's, there's upside there. But for anything to grow globally, it has to be really successful in its domestic market. It has to be relevant and resonant in its domestic market. Um, there are examples in cricket where that hasn't quite worked and they've pointed all their attention to India often and it just falls flat on its face. And so, you know, I think it's, if I'm right that the Premier League football is the only one where their global revenues outweigh their domestic revenues, but that only really came in, what was it, 25 years into their, into their journey. Yeah. It's
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:the last couple cycles.
Vikram Banerjee:Uh, exactly. So I think that's a really important lesson, uh, for a lot of these is actually kind of, and, and what's something we are looking to do is just establish and set ourselves in this country. So if you are sat in America, or India or South Africa, wherever it is, and you turn on the hundred. It's vibrant, it's full, and that kind of you brings you into it. Even if you don't have, you know, you're not in that country.
John Fallon:Even NFL trying to do it now. I mean, right back at Heathrow, eight o'clock the Sunday morning, the place was absolutely full of American football fans who'd literally arrived that morning and we're flying back out again that night. I mean, it's, yeah. Yeah, there's really big change
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:happening. The, um, we had Peter Hutton on recently, and he, it was interesting because he was at Meta, when Cricket came in the door, the ICC, and he was talking about what CR Cricket looked like to Facebook. Essentially. They were quite close to an ICC deal, as you know, and it didn't happen because they couldn't make the argument because. Uh, premium cricket didn't outperform cat videos on Facebook. So face, it's an engineering company and they don't care what's on. It's, you know, it's a complete sort of, uh, that's the model. So if it works, we are not going write a check for 500 million to the ICC. So that, that was part of the conversation. The frustration was that he then said, well, what they're fantastic at is knowing what people like. And in America, cricket scores very highly on meta's sort of outcomes. So, and that leads you to the American market. And the caveat to that is that it's obviously a very heavily Indian diaspora marketplace. So the question is what the global market for cricket looks like and America's role in it is interesting. But the other bit to it is actually we're chasing the Indian sort of, uh. Shopper consumer around the world. Yeah,
Vikram Banerjee:yeah. And, and, and America's, so they've got their league now. Um, you know, the MLC is, is set up and, and my understanding has made a, a good start. Uh, they've got an Olympics in 28, which could be, uh, and hopefully is a breakthrough moment. I, I think for cricket to break into the top four sports in America anytime soon is, is, is a way off. But to your point, I think for now, they're not trying to do that. They're trying to establish a sport, build some infrastructure start, which I think is the right move to, to, to the, the Indian diaspora of which there is a decent number. Um, and serve them something that they are, they are looking for. I, I think for the global sport. There's, there's pros and cons. Everyone has chased America as this kind of, you know, utopian dream if we can just crack America. But on the plus side, I think if we could, if cricket as a sport can establish itself even at a medium level, kind of that second tier of sports, I think it's great for the global game, uh, to be able to do that. There's not many sports out there that has America and India and everything in between.
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:Okay. Any other questions here?
Audience Question:Um, it's a question really for Vic, but it might be a broader question as well. It's about how you measure success against your purpose of growing the game in terms of the fan journey over a longer period of time. So if you were to look back and find that all of these new fans that you brought on board were. Hundred fans never as it were converted to test cricket. How would you measure your success against that?
Vikram Banerjee:it's a great question. Ultimately what, what we're looking to do, as I say, is grow the game. And what gives me kind of great pleasure when you're walking around these grounds is kids and families falling in love with the sport. And so if we get to a place where families around the country are watching on the television screens or on their phones and iPads are turning up to ground and having a great day out, the, the young boys and girls are looking up to their heroes and playing cricket. What's not to like, what's not to love about that Now, I think by natural tendency there will be a movement to the other forms of cricket. But I, I personally would be wary of kind of pushing that too hard, too soon. I think where cricket's at at the moment is we just need more kinda families and, and as I say, children to fall in love with the sport, play it and have more access to it. And so that's kind of talked about the KPIs, that's effectively what we're looking to do, bringing more people into the sport and then through the different channels. And then we'll keep tracking how they do convert. We'll keep allowing them to do that. And it'll be a bit of experimentation of what is the best way for them to do that. Is it through watching on Sky? Is it through their, uh, their local clubs where they give it a go and they play and then fall into sport that way? We'll, I think we'll find out over time.
Audience Question 3:In women's sports. Um, it's clearly at a slightly earlier stage of development in, in most, um, sports, but rapidly gaining momentum by introducing all these challenger formats, challenger leagues, et cetera. Are we risking fragmenting the, the core fan base and just as it's gaining this critical mass, detracting them from that so that the, the traditional sports become almost unsustainable in their own right. And should we instead be trying to evolve the, the core more traditional sport in different ways that might not be through format, that might be through how we package it, et cetera. In order to, to get the best of both?
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:Again, great question. Anyone cognize? I was just looking down.
Matt Rogan:Yeah, I was just, I dunno the answer, but I, I do care about it. And was just looking down my list of 8 0 8 on my alphabet. Um, and actually it's only the hundred really that I can see off that list that started from the in exception with a a, a entirely equal distribution of priority from a marketing and played in perspective female to male, which I think is, um, to me seems like it's succeeded in spades. I know that the, um, the grassroots club that I help out at before the hundreds we had about 80% boys to girls rocking out. And after the first year of the hundred, it's exactly even now. And that wasn't'cause the girls age eight to 10 were watching Tess Cricket. Um, some of'em do now, but they're getting older. Um, I would say. Um, in terms of servicing the, the women's market, I, I'm inclined to agree with you in so far as you see the throughput I'm hearing about in rugby clubs post women's Rugby World Cup, you see the throughput post both Lionesses victories. And actually that's falling in love with the court format. I think if I were an investor, it would absolutely be one of the places I'd be looking, but not, if I were an investor with a three to five year investment horizon, it would be a 10 year investment horizon.
John Fallon:I mean, sure, I I, to some extent you can argue the market will decide, couldn't you? You know, and, and to some extent the market is deciding, you know, I mean, tennis, football, cricket, rugby are sort of the women's sports that my sense of have got the most, have got the most traction. And presumably that's the judgment that investors will be making. You know, if you're trying to build a niche diversified sport, then that is gonna limit the amount of investment that you're gonna put. If you kind of build something of real scale, you're much more likely to focus on one of those areas because it's lower risk with a greater risk, greater chance of return. I would disagree.
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:It's also a really, it's a really interesting question because actually it, it sort of counters the, on Matt's list of disruptors, new things, new products, the absence of women's formats and products there, I think is really revealing. And I think it, one of the questions that comes back quite often is the big moments will take care of themselves. So you just had a women's world, you know, rugby World Cup. We've had the euros this summer, we, next summer we've got a cricket, uh, 2020 Women's World Cup in England. So, that will be exciting and there will be frontline, you know, back pages and the media will be kicked into following it and doing its job. It's the gaps in between. So you've got this weird thing where you've got the sort of major event tent poles. You've got individual stars. But it's the team levels. And I think this is where the a hundred is really important in terms of trying to be, that the really hard work is building brands, club brands. I think at a level where you are building exactly, to your point, a tribe that turns up on a, you know, a Wednesday because that's what they're into. And I think if you look across, we've got the guy who's, um, Martin Simmons who runs London City, lionesses, you know, they're Bromley base. They've been bought by Michelle, Kang And one Thank you. One of the, um, one of the questions is who's the, who is a London Lionesses fan? And because Arsenal have done a brilliant job at owning the London market, and so how they do that and why people are turning up in their thousands to arsenal and not to the other clubs. What's, what's the difference? And the money. When you come back to the sort of, you know, the investment question, why isn't the money going into women's focused baller leagues? Because that's part of the, of ecosystem what's gonna happen now to women's rugby? Is it just gonna disappear? Where is the, you know, and again, it's really hard to know as a, just a passing fan, I might watch a game, but then what it's really, it's a really good question.
Audience Question 3:And I guess something like R 360 is actually, it could be the turning point if they then take away all of the key players. Well said. Just currently trying to build the momentum in the PWR, could that be the, the critical point there?
Matt Rogan:Yeah, yeah, yeah. On duty bound, say with a wife who's non-exec, PWR, that. The metrics over the last two years takes either the World Cup in the right direction. The question is what you get to create accelerator. We had Genevieve Sho. Yeah, who's the exec chair on the, on the program. She was talking about that. Actually, the thing that will unlock it for them is patient capital, not just capital. Uh, I never know what patient capital means. It just means you've got a longer investment horizon. So, no, I know
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:that, but I don't, as in why? I don't know. Other than unless
Matt Rogan:you're a sovereign wealth,'cause you won't flip a return in three years from any fast growth women's sport play. I would say where your business case is about the size of the addressable market and like Gareth was talking about in the two circles podcast, you know, it's compound growth of 15% per annum takes you eight to 10 years to look a really interesting number. But if you're prepared to do the whole of the journey, we've not served half the world. So there's gotta be a market there. We just got, we'd give it long enough time.
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:Okay. Right. I am very conscious of the time. I think we're gonna draw a veil. We started out with some big ambitions. Whether we got there or not is always a question. but I wanna thank the, uh, the people around me, first of all. So, Matt, Vic, and John, thanks very much for your time. And can we have a ripple of applause? It sounds good. On a podcast.