UP554 The Bundle World Cup Special

Richard, Murray Barnett and Yannick Ramcke convene for a World Cup special, using the 2026 tournament as a lens on how sports broadcasting is shifting beneath the surface. The conversation moves from Qatar-to-2026 comparisons (more accelerated change, more fragmentation, but a still-basic mainstream default) through the "AI slop mountain" that the expanded tournament and unfriendly European kickoff times will generate, into the rise of creator- and personality-led shoulder programming — anchored by Goalhanger's Netflix deal for The Rest Is Football.

The panel pushes back on the easy consensus. Yannick's central argument: free-to-air, creator-led distribution cannot sustain the economics FIFA needs, and the real risk isn't broadcasters losing matches — it's the complement becoming a substitute. The trio then dissect FIFA's failed India and China deals, separating intrinsic value from negotiating theatre (the "aspirational vs delusional" exchange), and the structural mismatch between billions of eyeballs and uncertain monetization in "numbers markets" rather than "willingness-to-pay markets."

They close on FIFA's designation of YouTube as a "Preferred Platform" — which Yannick reads not as value creation for broadcasters but as a short-term revenue-maximizing tax on platforms that hadn't paid before, a net new nine-figure sum with little practical change to the ecosystem. Throughout, the recurring tension is reach versus revenue, and whether risk-averse broadcasters will actually use the first-10-minutes rights they've been handed.

This episode is sponsored by The Institute of Sports Humanities (ISH) 

ISH educates sport’s current and future leaders around the world, as the leading independent provider of sports leadership education and insight.

Their Strategic Sport Leadership Masters (MA) is for sports industry executives to study alongside their careers – designed for professionals who want to build on their experience, strengthen strategic thinking, and connect with a global network of peers working across sport.

Applications for the next intake on the 2026 Strategic Sport Leadership MA, starting September, are open.

Visit sportshumanities.org for more information

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Transcript

Speaker 0:00

Hello, welcome. It's Richard Gillis here and you are listening to Unofficial Partner, the Sports Business Conversation. Today it's the bundle and we're doing World Cup special just 'cause we felt like it. the Bundle is our regular series on the sports media and streaming marketplace with my two co-hosts, Yannick Mka, general manager of OTT at Streaming Service one football, and Murray Barnett, founder of 26 West Consulting, formerly of Formula One, world Rugby and ESPN.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner 0:26

This episode of Unofficial Partner is sponsored by our friends at the Institute of Sport Humanities. I-S-H-I-S-H ISH educates sports current and future leaders around the world as the leading independent provider of leadership, education, and insight for the sector. Their strategic sport leadership masters. The MA is for industry executives to study alongside their careers, designed for professionals who want to build on their experience, strengthen strategic thinking, and connect with a global network of peers working across sport applications are now open for the next intake on the 2026 strategic sport leadership MA starting in September. Visit sports humanities.org for more information and there'll be a link in the show notes. ​I just quite fancied doing a World Cup special, the Bundle World Cup special edition.

Murray Barnett 1:28

It's like all these things. Before the tournament, I think you're... There's always kind of the negativity leading up to every single tournament, and then when that tournament actually starts, then you will get excited about it. Albeit that, it's interesting how FIFA have done the timings of the matches to be very much focused on the domestic market and also maybe for some sort of health reasons with, temperature and so on, but it makes it a lot less time zone friendly for us in Europe. So, be interesting to see how that works

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner 1:56

Yeah. I am... I think I'm looking forward to it. I think it's one of those where we'd be, y- you talk about it so much in advance, and then Once it just got once it gets going, it's always like, it's like an Olympics. It's like this. It's always the stories, and particularly in the sort of sports business media of area, that all the stories are, quite a lot of them are pre, aren't they? So you're talk- talking at broadcast and sponsors and blah, blah. And this one has obviously been very politically charged, but if we just sort of move beyond that, there are quite a lot of themes from a broadcast point of view. So, I guess there's a sort of comparison piece. Murray, it'd Four years is a long time in sports media, but it feels like looking back at Qatar 2022 and what the model was there compared to what this is. Can you sort of summarize for us? What do you think are the main shifts from '22 to this one?

Murray Barnett 2:45

There's lots of different elements to this. So I think the first thing is that there's always this risk when you have an event every four years, and we faced it with the Rugby World Cup as well, which is on the one hand, you want it to be the pinnacle in terms of the way that it's presented on TV. but at the same time, you're conscious of the fact that it's an event that happens once every four years, and so the most important thing is that it's got a robust technical infrastructure that sits underneath it. So you don't wanna innovation to break the system, as it were. But at the same time, I think we're seeing s-such an accelerated of change in terms of the way that people are consuming media, that this w-really feel quite different to some of the events that have gone before and, everything in terms of the way that it's presented right through to the to the v-video that's available from it and, certainly looking at how to attract a different and maybe, obviously wider, but also catering to that younger audience that consumes things in a different way. And I think that'll manifest itself in lots of different ways, which we can kinda dive into.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner 3:49

Yeah. What do you think, Yannick, about this shift? Does it, is it always like this? But to Murray's point, it feels like there is a sort of acceleration, and it just feels like there is more happening here that feels different than it was before

Yannick Ramcke 4:03

I mean, I think it's inherent also to the FIFA national team World Cup due to the fact that it's every four years, so you pretty much digest like four years' worth of like, technological or any any other kind of progress, like within like a four-week period. So I don't think it's that much different than in the past that there just has a lot of things happened compared to four years ago. And if you look at it historically, I think sports in particular has always been at the innovation forefront when it comes to also introducing new technologies, whether it's from radio to television or then television from black and white to c-color TV. And I remember, I think the World Cup 2006 here in Germany was the first one with HD quality. So I think it has always been like those pinnacle sports events have been or like sports in general has been at the innovation frontier in, in that regard. And I think it's not different this time around. I think the one thing to consider, or like one of many things to consider is that just as consumption preferences fragment, I think also like the experience, given that it's more tailor-made, custom-built fragments as well, which obviously has a bit of impact on like, communal events and feelings and all, experience the same thing at the same time. But at the same time, what I al- would also like the industry is that like a lot of that innovation sometimes is also just made for like a press announcement or like a two-slide case study, and it looks good and it looks shiny, but when you look at user and consumer adoption, it actually never makes it into the mainstream. I think nowadays, technological innovation is less cost-prohibitive in terms of really getting into different versions of the same event in different outputs. That just one thing that came to mind as we look at the different innovation things from multiple personalized feeds, AI-assisted production, I don't think we are in the streaming but at least streaming and linear television in terms of techno-te- techno-- and technological delivery is at least on, on even par. Passive versus interactive viewing data-driven sto-storytelling, all these kind of things, I think leads also to a lot of niche experiences where it will never be the mainstream, and it will never be the one thing that is consumed by most. I think the most common and default option is still quite basic compared to the c- past couple of versions of the World Cup

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner 6:26

Yeah, let's just take one bit of it, which is the sort of clipping, the industrialized clipping moment that we're in and the, a content mountain like the World Cup every minute of all of these games, expanded World Cup. I'm wondering how I'm gonna consume it because y- you're right, in the past I've always seen it and the cliché is that it brings everyone together. You're gonna watch it on the big screen or you're gonna go to a pub or whatever it is. And I'm wondering because of time, the time differences, but also because of the, just the way in which things are now present. That bit, the YouTube element to it, let's just talk about that for a minute because it feels like there's something...

Murray Barnett 7:04

we get onto the

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner 7:06

Yeah

Murray Barnett 7:06

that the key-- one of the key things here is is AI. Because I the ability that AI gives you to clip more and more content, trawl through more and more content means a-and with the sort of, if you're sitting in a European time zone, the timing of the matches means that I think there'll be an avalanche of slop that you're dealing with on a Monday morning. Like wherever you choose to go, whether it's, TikTok, Facebook, Insta, wherever it is, even TV, there'll be an awful lot of shit out there because everybody will be saying, "Well, I've got access to all of this, so I'm gonna do an alternative, different feed coverage. I'm gonna do clips this way, clips that way, data-led," all the rest of it. And I wonder if how much of it is actually going to be quality stuff and how much of it is just gonna be an avalanche of quantity

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner 7:56

Are you talking about the partners, official partners? Or are you talking about just the, TikTok and

Murray Barnett 8:00

we're gonna talk about it. I mean, whether it's YouTube or whoever the fact that people will e-either legitimately or illegally have access to so much content, I th- a-a-and everybody will be looking to feed off of this, whether that is, the sort of the watch the sort of watch-along short form type stuff where you get people commenting on clips as they're done and so on. I th- I'm fully prepared to wake up on Friday morning to find that even after just the opening game, that there's gonna be... Like, it's just gonna be plastered everywhere. Official, unofficial, interesting, uninteresting, but it's gonna be really difficult to escape it wherever you get your media from

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner 8:38

And I mean, yeah, this might be a very British angle, but the goal hanger thing, so you've got this moment where a podcast or a vodcast has then, Gary Lineker's got to a point where I'm wondering what-- how that is gonna impact on my behavior. This is purely as a personal thing, and I mean, every market will have a version presumably. But to Murray's point, if I am facing this sort of AI slop mountain... Is it a slop mountain or a slop lake or a wave of slop? But whatever the metaphor is, if it's there, a famous face, a critic plays to a sort of, "Okay, I need some guide through this." And whether the guide is, "I need an ITV or a BBC to navigate this on my behalf," or, "I need Gary Lineker," or, "I need someone that I trust to pick out the best." There's a sort of curation job, I think. Once you start to see and, I think it's true that we're gonna get an enormous amount of stuff, some of it interesting, a lot of it not. What do you think? What's the second bounce of this?

Yannick Ramcke 9:43

I mean, there are many different facets in there what you two just brought up. I think one point that I don't want to get too much into details, but I think it's worth mentioning when it comes to AI slop is that I would consider sports and the IP domain sports quite well protected compared to many other domains out there because and it ultimately starts and stop, stops with the IP owner and the rights owner in the form of FIFA. They need to be on top of this because they are getting paid a bunch of money by those who want to utilize and exploit the IP that they license temporarily from the FIFA. So I think number one in terms of AI slop, I think sports and the IP domain of sports is uniquely protected compared to many other facets of video entertainment or audio entertainment or whatever form of entertainment. Point number two is regarding authorities and help to navigate this abundance of content compared with, I think ultimately since everyone is fighting for the same limited resources or consumer resources in the form of time and wallet share, even sports, even like a pinnacle like the FIFA World Cup needs to minimize the engagement barriers. How can you make it as simple as possible, including Murray, as you said, in a completely different time zone for many fans around the world? How can you make some form of engagement as easy and as simple as possible? And this is where a lot of short form but also complementary shoulder programming comes in. I think the challenge for like, FIFA to that extent is that substitute or that form of content that engages users because they don't want to wake up in the middle of the night, for example, it monetizable to the same form and fashion, or is it like more empty calories, less monetizable eyeballs? So this whole topic of engagement barriers limit and minimize them to capture people around the world would be point number two. And then as you said, I think like, voices in that jungle of digital content are still pinpoints or like guiding lights to navigate this as an end consumer. So I think like, in your particular case with UK, like, an entity like Gold Hanger is not diminished in value with all the abundance of content that's going out there because it's an authority. It's like a destination that people seek out to maybe help navigating and identifying how to best follow along the World Cup.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner 12:04

Just pausing on Goalhanger just as a route into that creator question and how that is gonna evolve. And sometimes World Cups are moments and people look back and say, "Well, that... it started there," or it, but actually it's because of the money and the, just the size of these things. They're like magnets. And so something is happening here. You've got a podcaster. I guess there's a question about is this where podcasters or creators become proper rights-holding partners for the next one And I know you'll mention CazéTV on B- in Brazil or whatever, but it's b- been very sporadic thus far. But I'm just wondering about that particular category of outlet and what they look like to a major governing body like FIFA. So there's, we've grown up on broadcast media feeds and how Goalhanger looks to them, what they see when they see this

Murray Barnett 12:59

Well, w- well, The Rest is Football, and why we're talking about this is not because it's The Rest is Football, it's because they've done a deal with Netflix.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner 13:05

Yeah

Murray Barnett 13:05

And so Netflix is providing this unbelievably huge platform for the show, and it has a big foothold obviously in the US but here as well and multiple other markets. And so I'm not sure that... I think it is a bit of a tipping point, but I think it, it would've come regardless of whether it was The Rest is Football or or not. But the reason why we're talking about The Rest is Football is just because they've got this incredible broadcast platform it's accentuating this idea that started with the likes of Kaza TV, and we've talked about Goldbridge and others in the past is that the, it's increasingly becoming people following presenters or celebrities rather than the show itself. And y- you know, just as a quick aside, I've had conversations with UK broadcasters in the past where told me "Oh, the talent that we've got for our show is not the best broadcast talent, but they're the ones with the biggest followings or the biggest level of fame, and that is what's attracting people to watch our shows," which conversely is then allowing them to sell advertising more easily or get their ratings or whatever their important metrics are to them. But the point being is that this whole idea of, let's call it shoulder programming that is celebrity-led is, goes back to, the '80s even or if not before. It's accentuated now because it's being divorced from the live rights. So the conceit is that people are gonna watch something like The Rest is Football independently of the place where they watch the live rights

Yannick Ramcke 14:45

Yeah, I agree to the extent and just to double down on what you said, that's the reason why personalities and these are personalities like okay, l-let's be less UK-centric, like a Stephen A. Smith at ESPN is getting paid 20 million plus US dollars per year. That-

Murray Barnett 15:02

Mc- McAfee has just been announced as 60 million. It's incredible how much

Yannick Ramcke 15:06

right?

Murray Barnett 15:06

getting paid, right?

Yannick Ramcke 15:07

but but this is the difference between creator-led or personality-led and the platform that they are building upon. And I think you too know my stance on that free-to-air creator-led distribution cannot sustain the economics that like, for example, a FIFA is seeking for its IP. Those personalities like a Stephen A. Smith, like, Pat McAfee, they are building upon the ESPN platform that has like the economics and the economic engine behind it. In other words, I don't expect that the Goalhanger will ever be based on the platform that they're using today, which is YouTube, will ever be able to accommodate the economics and the rights fees that a FIFA would command. think the challenge for FIFA is, if that complementary content, which by the way is also driven in terms of price tag because Netflix is strategically investing into like, driving podcast supply, driving engagement, driving the advertising revenue stream. So it's like a strategic price. I don't think it's a price that would be justified if you look at pure money in, money out. This is where the challenge for FIFA comes in. If that complementary/supplementary content becomes the preferred option for consumers to follow along, if that becomes a substitute for the content that FIFA can highly monetize, which is still the IP-protected match footage. So I think this is also like speaking of tipping point, a little bit of point where we are right now, to which extent becomes the supplement the substitute. And I think that is like more of a fundamental risk to the industry back to ability to monetize certain things. But I don't expect any premium IP at scale showing up at on YouTube channels like Goalhanger or others any, anytime soon.

Murray Barnett 16:52

But don't you think that the h- the way that FIFA think about it is that if you're talking about shoulder programming, is that, it's a kind of Oscar Wilde-ism of anything worse than being talked about is not being talked about. And so actually they actually want all of this noise to exist it because somehow that's going to drive interest and awareness towards the broadcasters. And so even, if you take the conceit of the rest is football and, ta-talent, you could argue largely focused on a UK market that actually an ITV or a BBC is loving that because anything which is effectively building interest and previewing the games which are gonna come up on the BBC and ITV is a good thing

Yannick Ramcke 17:33

I agree, but here you are assuming that the net audience impact is positive. don't assume a zero-sum game, and I only say if it becomes a zero-sum game, if the complement becomes a substitute and like the noise and debates and results are not positively contributing to tune-in, but all the audience and the consumer wants, then I think that's the risk. If you do not consider this a zero-sum game, then I'm fully with you that the one can amplify the other, but that's an assumption.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner 18:02

I want

Murray Barnett 18:02

was really surprised that I wa- be- just before this, I watched the, they've done a preview show of The Rest is Football which I think just dropped today on Netflix, and I was surprised at How un-innovative the actual way that, that it was being presented. Bearing in mind Netflix allegedly spent 14 million pounds on on ac- on acquiring this. It's very conforms very much to the kind of way in which are done. And yes, okay, it's a lovely set and all the rest of it, but it wasn't... I didn't look at it and think, "Oh, this is particularly new or innovative or different." It was very much just the standard kind of sofa chat of kind of, let's pick our England starting 11. Let's think about who's gonna win the World Cup. It w- i-i-i-in either the presentation or the content, it w- it wasn't very different. I... And so it does talk to that whole thing about it just being about how you feel about the presenters, and I have a pretty strong view about Micah Richards, but, he's obviously got a big following and so that... In fact, all three of them I find quite not the most compelling.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner 19:04

I think it's sort of, I think what-- it's interesting you, you-- 'cause what you're getting at is there's a sort of what is it? What is the category that is emerging? And how, how is it gonna evolve? And at the moment, its value to Netflix and to YouTube is as cheap television or it's, it's television, sort of television. It's podcasts have evolved at the top end. We might as well call them different things because actually what they are is, are TV programs with TV producers and, production budgets, which is gonna be available for a very sort of small number in any particular genre or vertical. And that's fine because they're sort of competing for ITV ad money. They're going for, that's a, it's a different market. Now, it's quite an interesting question that you've raised there about, well, actually, what do we do with that? And do we evolve into actually a TV show? 'Cause you can sort of imagine people saying, "No. Okay, well, now we're now getting paid enough to have a proper production." Which actually you start to say, "Right, okay, well, what's the difference and what's the point other than the distribution mechanism?" Then it becomes much more like television. And so one of the questions I think is actually does that what the audience want? Because quite often you might say, "Well, actually I went there because it felt like an authentic other voice. It felt like Gary Lineker talking in a different way than he does on Match of the Day with his makeup on and, in the studio." If he's turning back into a Match of the Day version then what's the point? So I think because tel- that's a fight that television can get into, and they can, probably win it. So I think there's a question there about what these things are gonna be. And in any particular market, you can see now that people are adding production cost onto podcasts and then looking to sort of monetize in that way. And I wonder if that's the route for most. I think there'll be a 1% that will get that sort of product away and make a lot of money. Whether or not that actually stands for the majority, I'm, I've got my doubts, but that's a, that's a sort of ongoing question. So in terms of, well, what is it? What's the point of it? And again, that idea that you're sort of tapping into something authentic, which is a tricky word to, to nail down. But it's what is it that the audience has signed up for? And is this a journey that the audience has actually signed up to do?

Yannick Ramcke 21:22

I think all these products are competing for the same limited consumer resources, time at the very least, and sometimes money. How can you innovate as a product? You either can be a superior product can be a cheaper product. You either buy, compete based on price, or you compete based on quality. And if you can satisfy the same consumer needs a significantly lower cost base, this is per definition innovation. This might be the way for those kinds of programs to go, that they still fulfill the need of a big chunk of the consumer market, but at a significantly lower price point because they can do it without the fancy production set. They can do it without the I-IP rights to the match footage. And they come with a built-in audience that you should also not completely disturb by all of a sudden losing, quote-unquote, authenticity because you are like doubling down on production

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner 22:16

Yeah

Yannick Ramcke 22:17

and come up with something that is not where and why the audience came from the first

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner 22:22

We had, I had I've just-- It's not been published yet, but we've just had a conversation with Jonathan Licks, who's in charge of Sky Sports in the UK. Now, one of the questions for him was the Gary Neville question in terms of, well, what-- I'd love to know what a contract looks like now, because you've got there a major piece of talent, Sky talent very well paid by Sky, creating effectively a competitor in the marketplace, in the digital marketplace. And whether or not that's a sort of generational thing, it's happened and they're gonna try and retrofit it, or what does the next generation of talent sign up to, and what does Sky do and the BBC? Because, these people are created. If you've got that sort of profile, chances are it's been created on television in those situations. Of course, there's a MrBeast example that is created, more organically on- online, but actually that relationship between the TV producers and the talent, I think is... This is quite an odd moment that we're in because you're seeing businesses being built, very successful businesses being built by the talent that are effectively competing. Now, we saw in the last World Cup, Lineker got into trouble for breaking stories on his podcast, which you know, that the B- that not on the BBC, and the BBC then was starting to question, well, what, what the heck? So that is a challenge, and it's a problem that's embedded in this at this particular time. And I don't-- And it's always been there and, like the BBC is, people are always moaning about the BBC doing corporate events, news presenters suddenly picking, getting lucrative news corporate events, but this feels at a different scale, or is at a different scale. So there's a sort of odd moment I think that we're in

Yannick Ramcke 24:03

And I think it's a matter of leverage between the talent and the corporate company in the sense of nowadays it's much easier to directly connect with an audience to also, as you said, monetize it one way or the other as a talent. As a corporation, you obviously want to retain exclusivity to the full beneficiary of that talent contributing to your ecosystem. again, taking Stephen A. Smith and Pat McAfee as an example, they have the leverage. They are granted certain rights to do things outside of the whether then outside activities are limited to non-sports genres like politics or whatever. But ultimately, I think what you correctly identified, it's like a conflict of interest that the one obviously want to accrue and capture as much value as possible from the talent. talent probably wants to realize and also capture as much value and spreading their wings might be also in terms of future leverage to not be fully independent on the platform. And again, I don't think we should underestimate the platform that given talent is operating on,

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner 25:04

Yeah

Yannick Ramcke 25:04

That you become more independent and doing your own thing. But it's a matter of leverage. Both sides have a clear preference, and then it's a bargain

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner 25:11

Okay, let's move on to India and China. One of the stories running into it has been, the blackout of vast proportion of people in the world, i.e. India and China hadn't been, hadn't signed a rights deal with FIFA. Is there just something specific to those markets at this moment? Was it just a tactical thing? Were FIFA too greedy in what they're asking for? Or is there something that we should know about the specifics of those marketplaces that, that is worth pausing on? Murray, what do you think?

Murray Barnett 25:43

Well, just to give it some context, and albeit with a much more favorable time zone, Qatar figures in China meant that they accounted for 50% of digital and social reach and 18% of linear TV reach for the Qatar World Cup. from a purely numbers perspective, certainly China and and India to a certain degree are important for the overall numbers. But it's also this thing about... I think there's an assumption that, you increase the size of the tournament, get more nations involved, albeit that India and China are not in the tournament, but that, more teams in means more extra money. And actually the size of the audience, you do the, the famous sort of, Coca-Cola China thing of like if everybody in China bought one can of Coke once a, once a week, all of a sudden it's a x, x billion dollar business for you. And I think FIFA have applied some of that kind of logic. And by the way, they've always been late in markets like China and and India, or frequently very late to market. And they s- y- you can argue it two ways. You can either say they set this sort of carpet bazaar idea of, we, we need to get between, 250 and 300 million in China, knowing that they're only gonna get a very small subset of that. But I think the truth is actually in the middle, is that they genuinely believe that somewhere like China is worth that kind of number, but they don't understand the economics or they're not willing to understand the economics of how it works in China, and what's effectively a quasi-cartel operation in China with, everybody from, Migu right through to CCTV sort of... or I should sort of say it the other way around, like CCTV effectively controlling what the others are allowed to do, especially when you've got these big scale events. So I don't think it's a surprise that it's so late, but it seems odd that we just keep having this same issue with overvaluation of these markets and that there's, a lot that needs to change in order to fix that going forward, I think.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner 27:44

I remember we used to talk about China and the IOC used to say sort of quietly that, that China paid less than New Zealand in terms of rights fees. And they're, they've always played that game of, obviously as you would, leveraging the biggest population in the world and those numbers that, that can then be put onto the into the central pot. Sorry, Yannick

Yannick Ramcke 28:05

No, I think Murray was describing two fundamental things that are underpinning of these discussions. One is the intrinsic value of any given IP or, like, competition tournament, whatever, where kickoff times has a material impact. And I think easy to underestimate how much this is impacting actually the audience reach potential and the potential for monetization if something happens in the middle of the night. It's just, like, fundamentally different to if it happens at daytime, whether the national team is participating or not. China and India are huge consumer markets when measured purely in the number of people. what is actually the popularity of football? I question this less in China, more so in India, where it's quite a single sports environment with with cricket. So we have this intrinsic value of what you are trying to sell. then at the very end, and Murray you referred to the competitive tension or scenario in the marketplace, then there's a market price which can differ from the intrinsic va- intrinsic value given and depending on how much competition is there in the bidding process all the different tactics that you-- you mentioned how to increase the intrinsic value. If you have more matches, you have more exclusive broadcasting windows. World Cup now stretches over more than 30 days, so if you're like a subscription business, you as a consumer need to sign up for at least two months. So all those small tactics that ideally from a rights owner perspective are adding up to increasing the intrinsic value aka how much money you can make with that property. But then it also depends on the competitive scenario, and I think especially China is fair to say not the most competitive market. Also in the Indian market, there has been a lot of consolidation in the marketplace. At the same time, football is by far not the sports number one, and it might be number two, I don't know. But if it's number two, it's a huge gap between one and two. So I think there are a lot of market specific things, and it starts and stops with, yeah, kickoff time, competitive tension that, yes, I can put out a demand and what I would like to see, and maybe it has some positive impact through the anchor effect and stuff like that. I think it has been far from reasonable from the get-go, the demands that the FIFA put out for those,

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner 30:18

So the

Yannick Ramcke 30:18

markets

Murray Barnett 30:19

there, there was a nice in doing the research, there was a line that I really liked, which is "This creates a fundamental mismatch with FIFA's expectations. Fe- FIFA sees billions of potential viewers," and in this case India, Indian broadcasters see uncertain economics." Be- for that exact reason that, like, you can't just look at the number of eyeballs. It's the propensity of those eyeballs to care about that particular sport. And as we've discussed, India are obviously very cricket-dominated, very reliant on advertising, bad time zone for all of the matches. And so all of a sudden, all of those things, as you said, Yannick, kind of play into just making that equation of billions of people equal billions of dollars is not, doesn't work.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner 31:03

So the numbers that were published, and again, you'd be careful a bit with these, but FIFA supposedly originally wanted 100 million from India. JioStar made a bid of 15 to 20 million and then walked away. Sony didn't bid. And then Zee has finally s- Zee Entertainment stepped in at around $40 million and sealed the deal for two cycles. So, and that mismatch between expectation and the reality. There was a, I mean, there was that moment around the Women's World Cup as well, wasn't there? In terms of... And that was about the European broadcasters, and there was a sort of standoff. How long are they gonna not have a signed up rights holder? There was also a FIFA+ question. I thought this was, I thought FIFA+ was gonna be the answer to these types of issues that you could then plug in and everyone in the world can can watch FIFA competitions. And there's also the other question of who's doing the advertising for the tournament, whether or not in those countries, if it's not the broadcaster. So there's sort of non-financial as well as the financial stuff as well em- embedded in this.

Yannick Ramcke 32:04

Yeah, I think we have to be careful that FIFA is not delusional, right? If they put out a demand, it's not about that this is what their internal spreadsheet and bottom-up intrinsic valuation of the IP in that country says. is all about negotiation and gaining leverage. It's like the example that you brought with the big five European markets when it comes to the Women's World Cup, where there was like pretty much negotiating in public eye about that situation. It is FIFA Plus as a legitimate, viable threat or alternative to commercialize and distribute the matches if they don't see the bids that they not expect but want to. So this is all about negotiation. So when FIFA is putting out a certain price tag for the FIFA World Cup 2026 in, US, Canada, and Mexico, that doesn't mean that this is like what they would value that property in that market at that time. It's all about negotiation, and maybe it's just anchoring the conversation somewhere.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner 33:06

Sure

Yannick Ramcke 33:07

And in hindsight, you never know, but you can make the argument if they would have put out a smaller demand upfront, they may not end up with forty million for the next two cycles. So-

Murray Barnett 33:17

not I'm not sure I agree with you about the delusional part. I think it would-- I would rephrase it and say it's aspirational. The numbers that they've put out certainly where they would like to get closer to. But I do think, and it's natural when you're selling rights to have, a stretch goal. This is where we would like to see the rights end up.

Yannick Ramcke 33:39

Yeah, then let correct myself

Murray Barnett 33:40

I don't think it's, I don't think, I don't think that they fundamentally did a great research of saying, "We think we can get 200 million," I, I think, or 300 million in China. It's they literally just throw that number out and say this is what, where we'd aspire to reach at, and then we'll see where we end up.

Yannick Ramcke 33:59

Yeah, this is pretty much what I said in the sense of let's not assume that the guys or girls working at FIFA are delusional. is like put out for bargaining reasons. It's not like how they would value or see the fair value of that property in that market. So I'm fully with you.

Murray Barnett 34:14

I think that the-- we can debate this point for the rest of this podcast, but the... I think there may be some delusion in some quarters of FIFA, but I think you're right. They have smart people working in their media rights department who probably had a good handle on where the numbers were gonna end up. But that doesn't mean that they're not su-substantially encouraged or overruled to think that the numbers should be considerably higher.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner 34:38

Can I just ask a question which is sort of broader than FIFA, but in terms of the broadcast partner's ability to make the rights fee back in what sort of advertising market is it? 'Cause I've and I shared earlier a piece in the FT from the from ITV, and you've gotta be very careful about, ITV's or any broadcaster putting out pre-big tournament good news about, advertising and the advertising market but there were some interesting bits in it which suggested that actually, I don't know, is it a... You tell me what sort of ad market is it out there? And again, it might be regionally specific, but one of the points was the AI companies and the amount of money that, that they're putting into ITV. And ju- I just wanted to use that as a route in. And we've got, there's a quote from the head of commercial ITV. "We've got strong support from Gemini, Copilot AI, OpenAI, Meta, AWS, Apple and Dell. As audiences fragment, tournaments like this become more valuable," blah, blah, blah. And then there's a six-minute ad for Nike that are feat- featured in, within the broadcast schedule. And it just made me wonder what it's like now out there in the market in terms of the media sales market and making those rights fees back in, in an advertising industry that w- a lot of people are sort of very gloomy about

Murray Barnett 35:53

With ITV's case, it's also not looking at it in isolation of the World Cup because they're obviously setting ad rates on a quarterly basis a-and encouraging ad sales houses to buy X percentage of their-- or spend X percentage of their budget against ITV. So if they've got a bigger share of the market for that quarter, gives them a much better story to go and tell the a-ad buying departments about how much should be spent against ITV. Meaning that, yes, you could look at it binary of like, okay, how much are they generating from sponsorship and ad sales during the tournament? But in many ways, it's even more important than that 'cause it's, i-i-in-- it can be shoring up the whole quarter or the, even in some cases, the whole year of overall ratings points, if you like. So it's y- And not only that, like, okay, AI now, but you know, four years ago it was, something

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner 36:47

Yeah.

Murray Barnett 36:47

four years before that it

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner 36:49

NFTs

Murray Barnett 36:49

hosting or whatever. So there'll always be a new industry that values a big audience

Yannick Ramcke 36:54

I mean, I'm not familiar with all the in and outs and economics of every single rights-holding broadcaster, but I think it's fundamentally not an impossible challenge, but an uphill battle make such a rights acquisition profitable on an isolated standalone basis. And that's also not the point, as Murray said. It's often and always a mixed calculation, not only across advertising, but all the different revenue lines that you have. To which extent can you leverage this for fees or to get like per subscriber paid from the TV distributors, right? If you have the World Cup or not, it makes a difference. Many other contents don't make a difference in that regard. But here it worth paying a premium because you have this spillover impact there. In the advertising side, as Murray said, you can't book only one TV spot for one single match. You probably need to book like a pre-post tournament, a lot of other shelf space for that particular broadcaster. And then you can even, if you really want to stretch it, quan-quantify the impact on brand awareness, okay. You give a certain brand awareness point or a net promoter score point or whatever, you give a financial value. So unless you really have done a sweetheart deal, and I think there have been reports that in the US has done such a tremendous deal that they are actually profitable on a purely advertising revenue basis, doesn't even consider the leverage that they have with the TV distributors to hike the return transmission fees that they are getting paid from them. But I don't think you need to di- dive deeper into the Fox media rights acquisition of that particular tournament. I think there have been sufficient reports about that. So unless you have really a sweetheart deal, the margins are so tight that on an isolated basis, near on impossible to have this profitable. For that also, FIFA does too much resea- too much research, is too smart. What is the intrinsic value of that IP?

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner 38:45

There's a-- I just wanna, before we move on from this, there, there's the question of the, the three-minute ad breaks or the new inventory that, that-- how it was framed when that story broke. So we've got this, the drinks break. ITV has opted not to use the three-minute water break periods in each half

Murray Barnett 38:59

they can't

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner 39:00

because of Ofcom regulation limiting the number of ads that broadcasters can show per hour. So from a-- Obviously that's a very UK-specific sort of example, but where are we in terms of whether we think that was purely about creating more ad revenue, or was it actually about s- health and safety for footballers in a hot climate?

Murray Barnett 39:24

It was serendipity, right? It was, they were, they had to take the hydration breaks for player reasons. And because it's a natural break in the action, why would you not offer your broadcast partners the opportunity to commercialize those? The same as that we're seeing, squeeze backs in, in rugby on ITV now, and, in, in actual fact during the Club World Cup it was, fairly prevalent, and y- you're seeing it in more and other sports. It's-- I think in this particular instance, it was very much a happy byproduct of taking of having the hydration breaks. And then it was an easy leap to say, "Well, let's just commercialize those."

Yannick Ramcke 40:01

I fully agree, and I think it also very unlikely to be taken off the table again, even in scenarios where the health benefits might not be required to the extent that they were required for the cases where this was first introduced. So I think now it's established, it's accepted also from the perspective probably, and I think for the sports of football in particular, it's like one of the inherent challenges, right? That you have this continuous play for forty-five plus minutes straight that differs quite significantly to some other sports around the world, which in that are much more monetizable with mu-much more na- natural, game breaks. You can say it's just a mitigation strategy to overcome your limitations as a sport, right? So but this is ultimately creating value and adding value for broadcasters. So this is like fair enough. This is like monetization potential that is real, right? So which then FIFA hopes to be reflected in the right bids that it's getting

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner 41:00

Okay. Right. Let us, so the... But what should we go to? Oh, okay. So you've got designating YouTube as a preferred platform. Should we talk about that for a minute? Again, this is a question which I'm wondering what this does to the sort of value of the broadcast partnerships and what is actually happening here. And again, I can see it, I get the idea. It's, it's-- that's where the kids are, blah, blah, blah, and that's where you're gonna then pick up or serve up a sort of taster for the World Cup. I wanna know what your view of the longer-term impact on this is, and whether or not this is what it's going to be now. Do you think this is an experiment that they'll, okay, they'll run it, it was in America, it's just a way of doing it? Or do-- that's just where we are now. We're gonna have to then almost tax these platforms in this way. Take a, take money off them, give them a small amount of inventory, and that's gonna be how we deal with them at this point. It's a bit like dealing with the betting industry, trying to work out how you take the value or extract some value from what they're getting from the sport. What do you... Just give me a sense of where you are on this

Murray Barnett 42:06

I think, Yannick, do you wanna lead on this? 'Cause I definitely have a sort of an opinion on it

Yannick Ramcke 42:10

know if it becomes a debate because I think you know my viewpoint and perspective. For me, it's a short-term revenue maximizing tactic applied by FIFA to whether it's taxing the platforms, whether it's capturing some value of they missed out on in the past. But to answer your very first question, Richard, I don't think it has anything to do with creating value for the broadcasters that could then be reflected back into the rights fees that the broadcasters pay. This is about monetizing in different, constituency part of the ecosystem, which has not been paying before, but capturing a lot of value. And I would say precedent set, and this precedent won't go away. And I think it's a program that's here to stay. I think the most interesting point for me was that would have expected more platforms to sign up but I think it also speaks for the fact that FIFA had little value to give since everything has already been licensed out to the actual rights-holding broadcasters. they needed to stretch themselves to come up with some value for the money that they are asking. And with YouTube and TikTok on board, I mean, for at least each eight-figure tickets good for them. As we also said before, now it's on the broadcasters to actually make use and find agreements with those platforms to do all the innovation that was praised and announced when those digital platform programs and partnerships were announced, like the first 10-minute live tuning

Murray Barnett 43:35

So, so Jannik, the bit that I didn't understand was, let's just say for argument's sake in the UK, ITV and BBC, for whatever reason, say, We're not interested in doing this." Does that prevent YouTube from doing anything to a UK audience or

Yannick Ramcke 43:53

because they don't have any utilization rights to the match footage

Murray Barnett 43:57

Right. So, so effectively FIFA is putting a gun to the heads of the broadcasters saying, "You'll look like the bad guys if you don't allow YouTube to do this."

Yannick Ramcke 44:06

Yeah, but I don't think it's an effective strategy in the sense of building a negative image or perception because I think the vast majority quite on the consensus that there might be more risk than reward. Because ultimately the question is: what's the net audience impact? Is it cannibalizing? it net additive? assume that you are tuning in the first 10 minutes, are you then actually moving platforms, which is quite, There's a lot of inertia, they are used to the platform, there's friction and everything. How does it impact their net on-platform audience on the on the rights holding owned and operated service? Or is it actually cannibalizing because they are satisfied by checking out those 10 minu- 10 minutes of each game, and they never make it to the broadcaster's platform where they would have gone if the alternative back to complement were the substitute. I think this is the calculation that each broadcaster has made, what's the net audience impact. I would appreciate just to get data in and to see a little bit that some broadcasters decide to experiment. But I think broadcasters when in doubt are risk-averse, and I don't think we will see too many cases of those like 10-minute tune-ins. But keen to see

Murray Barnett 45:20

The logic for me is that i-if you're a traditional broadcaster that's forked out millions for the rights you're allowing another media organization to retransmit 10 minutes or full games, whatever it ends up being for noth- effectively for nothing. Okay, you get to remonetize it through, collection of ad revenues and so on, but it's effectively you're legitimizing a competitor. And to me I get, yeah, I get the arguments about different audiences watch on YouTube than traditional linear broadcast and so on. But if you look at it from the perspective that sports is the last bastion of mass audience linear broadcasters, right? So it's the last thing where, along with news arguably, which you can get on linear broadcast TV that is appointment to view live content. Isn't it like completely legitimizing and canni- and cannibalizing at the same time, or encouraging that, that drift towards a YouTube audience? And I guess where I'm going with this is, interesting conversation with a friend the other day that's kind of m- more or less the same age as me, and he said his first point of contact when he switches his TV on is YouTube Premium, right? watch linear TV anymore, and I think that this is only encouraging that rush to YouTube being your default compared to linear broadcast. If you're saying that you get the cont- s- similar-ish content, whether it's, inertia 'cause you don't switch over or whatever, I'm sure that they'll deal with that in a very smart way about moving straight into analysis at the end of 10 minutes or something that like tries to keep the audience there. But it just feels counterintuitive to that content to a third party that is not paying anything towards the cost of the rights.

Yannick Ramcke 47:11

Yeah. So I would say you picked an example where I would actually play devil's advocate in the sense of friend is already lost for the traditional distribution system. I think like if all the people out there would behave like your friend, then it would actually be a no-brainer because either you at least increase the odds and the chances that you can regain, re-win back that consumer for your distribution system because you give them a taste. you are not considering the others who would still have checked out the broadcaster's platform that now considers this not a complement, not a tastemaker or a teaser, but a substitute. And the other thing is broadcaster, because you have to overcome all the concerns that we mentioned. No broadcaster, at least I would say so, would put any of the live match footage on their YouTube channel without being financially incentivized by YouTube to do so. So I think that YouTube is just revenue share and all the economic risk is with the IP owner, not the distributor. I think that's standard terms and conditions, but this is also not how the real world works ultimately. So whether it's financially-- be financially incentivized or come up with a super performant off-boarding, user journey after the 10 minutes to drive this subscriber or audience acquisition funnel over to the other platform where it always looks nice on slides, but in reality there's a lot of friction in there. I think these are the different buttons that to push to get a couple of showcases to actually make use of those rights that are part of this preferred digital platform program.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner 48:49

I was wondering what the piracy numbers are gonna be like this World Cup. 'Cause again, the assumption is that it's about price piracy. And there's, it'd be quite interesting to know the level of illegally streamed stuff that is gonna go on. 'Cause I think it would sort of undercut the idea that it's all about money, and it's actually more about behavior now and about habit and rest of it. And,

Yannick Ramcke 49:10

and I think it's a challenge with multiple variables. It's not only the paywalls that are pricing out certain consumers out of certain offers. I think the navigation challenge and the discovery and information challenge is real. So yes, we are in this filter bubble. We can somewhat, at least when it comes to sports skillfully navigate the digital marketplace, that's not an assumption that you can apply across the mainstream consumer market. So I think there is indeed a navigation discovery information challenge, but it's a combination with being priced out and affordability because again it's a limited resource which everyone is competing for, not only within sports, but above and beyond. So only saying that piracy is due to pricing, I think it's a bigger factor, but it's not the only factor. And sometimes piracy is everything a consumer can wish for. It's free in one place,

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner 50:06

Yeah. I think it's just,

Yannick Ramcke 50:08

good

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner 50:08

it's just so normalized. I think that's the thing, particularly against amongst the... the reason I mention it is that it, this feels like a sort of Gen Z strategy in some ways, a YouTube teasing thing. But actually that, whether that works or not. And yes, it's about money. I think you're right, it's a tax on the stream, on the, on YouTube and TikTok essentially. But and the rest is noise. But, which is not, w- which would make quite a dull podcast.

Yannick Ramcke 50:33

And fair enough, I mean, it's net new nine figures on revenue, right? That the FIFA came up with by introducing this program. Whether that has any practical change or materially shifting how the ecosystem is working, mark, we will see. But in terms of just commercializing what you have to commercialize, it's net new nine-figure sum that they made through that program

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner 50:54

Not to be sniffed at. Right, okay, we're gonna finish off because r- I've got... I'm just back from Japan. Japan is my second team, and my bet is gonna be Japan semifinal You heard it here first. Actually, you didn't. I stole it from someone else, but where is Germany in your sche- scheme of things, Janek?

Yannick Ramcke 51:11

I still have more than 30 hours to get my picks in, so I will do my research between now and then. And then I will

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner 51:17

Such things like in national, national pride i- is just an emotion that has to be sort of eradicated from the model.

Yannick Ramcke 51:23

Call me when the semifinals are around

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner 51:25

Well, that's about four months' time, innit? Murray, where's your money?

Murray Barnett 51:29

Well, so I mean, it's difficult to look past France, but I think that's boring and sort of relies on the fact that Mbappé manages to actually play as part of a team rather than the team is all about him, I think. I think if I was going for an outside bet, I'm gonna go for Argentina to repeat

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner 51:47

Okay. Right

Yannick Ramcke 51:48

But then let me put my money where my heart is. So Germany, we've-- we will take care of J- of France in the quarterfinals, so don't worry about that one.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner 51:57

Aren't we in a period though that enjoyed by us is that this is not a great German team, is it? This is sort of periods of German football, we're in one of the lower ends. They're not g- they're not Italy, but

Yannick Ramcke 52:08

team, we are a team made for the big moments and tournaments. So, what you wish for

Murray Barnett 52:14

Well, the irony is that Germany actually stand much f- better chance of going far in the tournament if they are a third place lucky loser than if they win their group

Yannick Ramcke 52:25

I just told you we take care of France in the quarterfinals

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner 52:28

They're in J- and Japan are in that group as well, so they, that lucky loser route might be Japan. So again, my-- I'm looking good. Okay. Right. As ever, thanks for the bundle, and Yannick and Murray, till next time.

Murray Barnett 52:39

Enjoy the World

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner 52:40

Yes, I won't