Media Companies Battle for Sports Streaming Dominance. What Will Separate the Winners from Losers?

What's going on y'all? Happy Tuesday and welcome to another episode of Experts Talk, MarketScales premiere debate and discussion round table where we sit down with the top voices in your industry to chop it up on big trends, topics, timely news, the major market movers shaping your that make it happen every day. I'm your host, Daniel Litwin, the voice of b two b. Thanks so much for joining us on another episode of the show. Today's is a special one. We were actually going to do this conversation back in May, but we had some freak weather here in Dallas that, basically shut down our Internet. And so we had to do a little reschedule. But the conversation is so timely and still so relevant, we decided to just give it another run. And so I'm excited to get into it here shortly. Before we do so though, make sure that you are heading to our website market scale dot com. Again, market scale dot com to tap into our previous episodes of Expert Talk where we cover every industry from retail to hospitality to building management, architecture, and design, you name it. And make sure that you don't miss out on future episodes of the show. You can find our upcoming programming and tap into, again, previous quality debates with top experts in your industry, only on market scale dot com. Alright, folks. So as you can see below, we're talking sports streaming today, so let's get into it and set the stage. Media companies at large, are all racing, I guess you could say, to plant their flags more confidently in sports streaming. Right? This is a sector that is still maturing. It's a bit shaky. It's still finding its footing. But it's ripe with eager viewership, and it's set up for success. Right? You have, for example, Disney plus planning to soon feature live sports, including ESPN content, live games, studio programming. Right? And there's a full stand alone ESPN streaming service set to launch in fall of twenty twenty five. Right? We'll see how how that goes. Sky is also planning to launch a new sports streaming service itself, Sky Sports Plus, to compete in this maturing ecosystem. We also see, for example, know, being refined, but is looming large for the industry as smaller players try to get a feel for how is this gonna impact the competitive landscape. But at the same time, we see some volatility in the established ecosystem. For example, ESPN plus experiencing a decrease in subscribers, three times over the last four quarters. Right? And you see, for example, the NBA renegotiating its long term broadcasting rights deal, which is throwing some uncertainty into the future of sports broadcasting. And so we wanted to pose the question and bring the experts to the table as major media players build out their sports streaming services, as they try to plant their flag and gain dominance in this field. What are the real market dynamics? Right? The the major movers like viewership, streaming technology, regional quirks, broadcasting rights, ownership disputes, etcetera. What is creating friction in the development of the sports streaming market? What's really gonna separate the winners from the losers in the next year, five years? Right? And what is making live sports streaming such a tough nut to crack in the larger streaming, evolution of media? Well, we're gonna let the experts talk here on experts talk and hash it out, really get in the weeds. And when you walk away from today's conversation, I think you're gonna feel a little better equipped to maneuver this evolving landscape for the next few years. So let's welcome the experts here on Experts Talk. Thank you everyone for joining us, and welcome to our panel of four sports media and sports business experts. Welcome everyone. It's great to have you here. Let's go ahead and go down the line and give everyone a brief intro. We're joined here first by Natasha Synagogue. She's a VP of local sales at Ampersand. Natasha, welcome to the show. How are you doing today? Hi, Danielle. Thanks for having me this morning. Ampersand is owned by Comcast, Charter, and Cox. So we are a media sales organization, and we represent the largest share of multiscreen viewing, and that includes ninety percent of televised sports. So I'm here on the the opportunity to talk about the inventory available on live sports and also a fan. So a quick fact about me is I am on a mission to be at all thirty MLB ballparks. I'm at twenty seven, and it's a big week in Texas for you guys with the all star game too. It sure is. Well, you're close. So maybe by the end of this year, I think we can crown you an MLB stadium winner. Let's let's make that happen. I love it. Welcome, Natasha. I'm really excited to pull from your perspectives today. We're also joined by George Perry. He's a professor of management and marketing at the Lueder School of Business at Christopher Newport University. George, welcome. How are you today? Thank you, Daniel. I'm doing great. Appreciate you, having us on today. Yes. I'm at Christopher Newport University, which is a small regional university in Virginia, Newport News, Virginia, teaching management marketing and, sports marketing. But also prior to getting into, higher education, I had about a twenty plus year career, in the sports, industry and in partnership marketing. And really, for the purpose of this talk, I've kinda seen it from a lot of different viewpoints, whether it be, from the media buying and sponsorship rights, activation side with companies like Visa and Starter and Rosetta Stone to, actually being a a content holder, from the Washington Redskins team formerly known as the Redskins, as well as the Penn Athletics and Penn Relays, to actually purchasing advertising, and and, again, with Visa and some of those other other companies, and and finally selling advertising as well. So and and, of course, like everybody on this panel, I'm a huge consumer, fan of sports and and sports media. So, hopefully, bringing those perspectives to this conversation. I think as we'll see, everyone here on the call is gonna bring their own slice of the sports media and sports business pie, but we all also bring that sports viewer angle to the table. I think that's inevitable. I think it's gonna be an important part of the conversation too as we get into the weeds here of what the future holds for sports streaming. So thank you, George, for joining us. We're also here with Jed Korenthal. He's chief marketing and business development officer at Phoenix. Jed, welcome. How are you? I'm doing great, Daniel. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it. So I currently serve as the, chief marketing and business development officer at Phoenix, Real Time Solutions. We are a technology company that has built a platform to enable content rights holders to stream content in what's in what we consider real time, which means, less than half a second of delay or latency in the stream to anyone in the world on any platform. So we help eliminate that delay, that nasty sort of spoiler effect that you get when you speak with a friend that has told you about a touchdown that he's seen or she's seen that you haven't yet seen. So, which we have solved those issues. We also, are new to the market with a real time ad insertion, feature, which we can get into a little bit more, which helps broadcasters, which is, helps them monetize their, monetize their streams, which is, as you can imagine, essential from the broadcasting community. Prior to Phoenix, I have a long career in media and and music and sports. I spent a long time at the music industry at Sony, and I followed that up by, running the integrated marketing department at the NFL for a number of years. So I have kind of a mix of of corporate and entrepreneurial experience. So looking forward to today's discussion. And thank you for being part of it, Jed. Looking forward to tapping into your insights here. And last but not least, we're joined by doctor Patrick Rish. He's the executive director of the business of sports program at Washington University in Saint Louis. Doctor Risch, welcome back to the show. How are you doing? Good, Daniel. Thanks for having me on this morning, and look forward to the panel discussion and learning from all the experts today. My background is I run the sports business program at Washington University in Saint Louis. And the business of sports media is always a topic of discussion in our introductory classes and our sport management classes. We've had the benefit of having both alums and friends the program who work for some of the major media players in the industry, whether it's ESPN, Fox, the Valley Sports Networks, and the like. So, obviously, in my role, I I follow the news and and try to comment. And and and one of the big pieces, of course, recently is potentially Amazon supplanting, TNT and discovery in the NBA coverage, and I'm sure that's something we'll get into. Absolutely. You read my mind. That's on the rundown. We're definitely getting into that today. So thank you to the four of you for joining us. Audience, let's go ahead and kick things off and start talking the sports streaming market. So panelists, I wanna start by getting y'all's perspective on current progress around the maturation of this slice of streaming. Right? We've seen streaming, you know, evolve to a point of, basically, complete dominance in access to media today. But sports streaming as a part of that hasn't, you know, grown at the same pace. And I'm curious y'all's thoughts on where sports streaming is still kind of struggling to mature compared to the growth and success of other streaming media and the audiences it's been able to curate and confidently keep on these streaming platforms. Right? Where are we seeing some of that struggle today and why? Give us y'all's pulse check on the, evolution of the market and where it's at today. So I'll kick it off. I think that there's a lot of discussion around cord cutting and streaming, but still sixty percent of all viewership of TV is on the big screen. And in some cases, the viewer doesn't know if they're watching what what we can call legacy linear ad insertion or streaming insertion. So the consumer doesn't really care how they're getting it. What they care about is they're getting what they want, when they want it, and how they wanna watch it. And I think that's been a frustration with sports is sports is appointment TV. It's live. They're engaged, and it's become more difficult to find. I put on my personal hat of us trying to find the tigers through the ballet sports, everything that's happened with Valley Sports this year. And sometimes it's on Apple TV. Sometimes we have to get it through, Fox. Sometimes we have to get it through a Valley app. And it it's become a a frustrating experience for the consumer and also for the advertiser that's trying to reach that engaged consumer. Natasha, can I jump in? And you mentioned the word frustrated. And getting prepared for today's discussion, I had a chance to look at some research that Deloitte had put out there. And Pete Georgiou, heads up their research division and the sports division of Deloitte, does a wonderful job. You see him present almost every year at, the MIT sports analytics conference in Boston. And one of the statistics that I'm looking at here is many sports fans and some of the challenges that they face, apparently, sixty two percent agree that they get frustrated when they can't figure out where to watch their game. So that is speaks directly to your point, and that's, you know, from my perspective as not necessarily an insider as each of you are in this space, but both looking at it both as an older person, I know that streaming mostly targets the younger audience. But even then, all the different ways and places that you gotta find this stuff, at what point do we end up circling back to some kind of a streaming bundle? This would make it easier for the consumer to be able to find everything. Well, you know, if I may, the the there's, there's a couple of things that I've noticed that, that lead to this frustration. One is the fact that you've got a number of streaming platforms, separate that each of which have separate rights. So the way that rights have been broken up and carved up, have become even more so lately. And you look at I mean, if you look at some of the more recent rights deals, the NBA is top of mind, but also NASCAR and the NFL and some of the other bigger properties are are you know, it used to be one or two or maybe even three platforms where you can go find a game. But now you're looking at three, four, five, six NWSL is another one. I mean, you're looking at so many different platforms to find games that it's becoming harder to, to justify these you know, for for a consumer, how many streaming platforms can they afford? You know? I mean, a lot of the research I've seen sort of tops out at about three, maybe four if you're a little bit more affluent. You know? And there are way more than four that are carrying the same sport. So I I think that, you know, in my opinion, I think we're due for a major consolidation at some point. I mean, these platforms can't survive with twenty five million users. I mean, it just it just, the the math doesn't work. So, you know, you've got ESPN plus. You've got Peacock. You got Paramount plus. You've got Fubo. I mean, the list is long. There's just no way that some of these can survive, especially now you've got Netflix getting into sports. Amazon obviously is is is is even ramping up more aggressively into sports. So, you know, I think that there's gonna be a tremendous change happening over the next couple of years because it it just it's not sustainable. And and I think to your to your question, Daniel, the the reason that kind of sports is is maybe behind on the streaming part of it is because of all these moving parts. I think, you know, you've got at least four major stakeholders here in the rights holders, the platforms themselves, the advertisers, and the consumers that, you know, all have their their own needs and desires and and objectives, and they're all trying to figure out how to how to reach those objectives while also partnering with all those other stakeholders. And so, you're going from a a an air at a, landscape that had pretty much everybody went to one place to watch their sports. That was broadcast TV. Now you got it digitally. Now you've got it, you know, this way. Now you've got it both, and and streaming came out. And I think a lot of executives are probably kinda sitting back waiting to see how it shakes out, while at the same time figuring out how do we take advantage of the current opportunity. So, I think we're kinda just getting going here, and it's not it's it's gonna be a long road because there's gonna be a lot of changes, a lot of consolidation, that just when you think you got it figured out, you don't. So it's gonna be an interesting interesting to see where that that And you MLS did did something unique. I mean, they're really the only property that went not exclusive, but, you know, fairly exclusive with with one platform in Apple. And, obviously, the the the money was there for them. They're not the most you know, they don't have the highest ratings or the the most viewership, but they opted for one platform to build you know, to help build their brand. And I think it's it's an interesting case study. It's probably still a little too early to determine if it's successful or not. But, you know, unlike these other properties that have gone to four and five platforms, they really have chosen one primarily. So I, you know, I, for one, am interested to see. I mean, we'll get it to the technology, and and that's, you know, a whole another subject, I'm sure. And and we'll talk about it, which obviously is near to dear to my to our company's heart. But, you know, that it'll be interesting to see how MLS and Apple prevail. Yeah, Jed. It's a great point, and, Daniel may be on the run list, but I think Major League Soccer, I think that this will prove to be a wise investment, a wise decision on their part because of the global nature of soccer, because streaming attracts a younger audience, and we all know Major League Soccer does have a younger audience. So as an MLS fan and a season ticket holder, for a team that's underperforming this year, my Saint Louis City SC, at the end of the day, I think this will prove. But, Judd, you two things I wanna ask you. You had a a made a comment that twenty five million subscribers won't cut it. I wonder what is the number that would cut it approximately. And the second question is because each of these separate entities are carving out their own streaming because they wanna go after the younger audience, how do we consolidate when you're talking about these rival companies? Yeah. The second part is I don't know if anybody has the answer to that yet. I think the finances will will determine how they consolidate. I mean, I just don't see Peacock, ESPN plus, you know, Hulu I mean, Hulu Live. The research that I've seen and and, you know, anecdotally, there's just no way you're gonna be able to survive under a hundred million subs. I just don't see how you could get to a to a long term sustainable business under a hundred million subs. And, you know, look. ESPN may be a little bit unique because they have such deep pockets behind them, But, you know, they're spending gobs of money on rights. And, you know, at some point, you know, the the the the the the bell when when the bell tolls or whatever that for whom the bell tolls, I mean, someone's gonna have to answer for all those rights. I mean, you look at DAZN, how much they have, say, spent billions on rights for boxing and MMA and all the rights that they have, they're not profitable, and and I don't think anybody sees them profitable anytime soon. So, you know, to your second question, how do they consolidate? I think it's gonna be three or four companies that are just gonna ultimately own all of the streaming, you know, whether it be the Disneys of the world or, you know, some of these bigger companies that are gonna gobble up the zones and the, you know, these other companies that just I I just I I just can't see that business sustaining itself long term. Short term, yes. But long term, no. Well, in general, in the fact of, like, the rights and the cost of obtaining the inventory, there's only two ways to make that money back. It's either through subscriptions or through ad inventory. Yep. And neither are hitting that mark. So Yep. Or a combination of both. So So in many cases, I think a frustration from me on the ad side is as I'm watching live sports on the streamers, I see a bunch of ad pockets that are empty. So they're not even serving ads. Inventory that marketers would love to be in that goes unsold in the most premium inventory. So for consumers that are now gravitating to the streamers, that cost is either gonna come back to them in advertising or in the subscription. Yeah. And and then Look. I mean, you're seeing every sorry, Daniel. You're seeing every platform launching an ad, you know, a second ad supported platform, Netflix and Amazon. And, I mean, to your point, it's I mean, it has there has to be I mean, you know, I'd rather there'd be no ads, but it's just not reality. There has to be a way for them to recoup some of this some of these rights fees. And you're right. Advertising is gonna be a major form of it. So with with that in mind then, I wanna get y'all's thoughts then on on what direction makes sense for the industry around this big question of, you know, broadcasting rights, the dollars that it's gonna take to secure those rights, to make that money back. You know, for example, there's regional sports broadcasting tensions with the whole ballet sports, domino effect. Right? NBA renegotiating its broadcasting partnership. We see now even, like, Twins baseball toying with a direct to consumer streaming option. Rocky's TV, Diamondback's TV is doing something similar. What direction do you all think makes sense for the industry? And that's sort of a two handed question. Versus what does make most sense to try to manage the cost and the access and reach, of regional national sports and, you know, these streaming rights. What do y'all think? Well, you know, I think that, again, the challenge is is is the different stakeholders and what they're looking for. Right? Right. So there's a reason right now that that the streaming platforms are are paying big bucks for this content. It's it's live sports. It's appointment viewing. It's actually one of the only pieces of content where people actually maybe watch the ads. There's a lot of integration opportunities. There's a lot of opportunities to, enhance the fan experience within the program. But, you know, just like the the broadcast television companies did years ago, these streaming platforms may need to look beyond beyond, and maybe they are, just the advertising and the subscription revenue as as kind of a justification. There are maybe some other indirect benefits. For example, it's a great platform to promote your other content within your streaming service. It's a it's a way to hook people initially and then get them to be, you know, lifelong customers. So, I'm sure, you know, the smart people in those rooms are thinking about all the ways that they can sit in front of their board and say, hey. This is our return on investment. But, ultimately, we have to look at, okay. You know, the leagues are trying to make as much money as they can, and so they're gonna you know, there's a relatively low supply of live content, sports content, and so they have a lot of people that want it right now so they can make a lot of money. But then, ultimately, if the fans are unhappy and they're not watching it, and they, you know, move on to another sport or something like that, that's gonna be an issue. The advertisers, they're gonna now be asked to pay a lot of money, to advertise within these sports, and and they're going to, be like, hey. Wait a second. You know, we're not getting a return on investment. So, I think eventually, ultimately, as people have been talking about, it's gotta get to a point where there are less, you know, less people buying the media or less streaming platforms so that fans don't have to or more consolidation so that fans don't have to pay five different places to get it. Advertisers can be happy that they know where their money is going and how they're getting their return on investment. But right now, it's just it's gone from, you know, one one shop viewing to ten shop viewing, and and it's it's a challenge for the industry. That definitely needs to be figured out. And the challenge isn't going anywhere because you're always going to have a difference in how people wanna consume sport. As Natasha said at the top, you've still got sixty percent of the people watching through traditional means. And that's just something that maybe that percentage will come down closer to fifty percent, maybe at some point under fifty percent. But still, even if it's at forty or forty five percent, that's still a large number. So you have to be able to find a way to generate, monetize from all different avenues, and I think that's what makes this whole discussion so challenging. And and then going back to, again, what we mentioned in the earlier segment, how do you get competing entities to find ways to merge? And and and, again, I think there's gonna have to be obviously some some, you know, compensation and discussion to to be able to to make these, these mergers and transactions happen. Well, and from the buying side, from the agency side, imagine the complexity of having to put together an, MLB schedule with thirty different teams and thirty different apps that you need to call. You know, they want ease of execution. Our business is getting more complicated. They wanna be able to pick up the phone and call one person to put an automotive ad that's regionally served based on that automotive creative, let's say, and also the nuances of that region. So while it may seem, you know, interesting a team to develop their own streaming service, can they really sell the ads and command the streaming price for a consumer to make that successful. I think we're saying that from a consumer consumer perspective of that it needs to come down to three or four. But I also think from an advertising perspective of the agency HoldCoast, how do they actually buy media if it becomes so fragmented? Yeah. Here's the thing that just kinda blows me away. It's, you know, linear television is going away. I mean, we I think we all can can agree that at some percentage, it may go down, but it's it's not gonna go away, at least not in our lifetime. But on the flip side, how do you justify paying the numbers that that the NBA is gonna get for their new rights when in fact the ratings continue to drop for their games? So it's like it it to me, it's like ratings go down and rights fees go up. Somehow, that just I mean, it doesn't really make any sense to me. So, you know, I know a lot of the teams are not a lot. There are a handful of teams that are going direct consumer. The Utah Jazz and Dallas Stars just announced something with scripts. So there's a there's a lot of ways that people are trying to monetize the rights that they have, in especially in local markets with the RSN business just kind of in disarray. But, you know, Yes Sports' appointment viewing, and it's just it's mind boggling to me how the rights fees just continue to increase, yet the ratings, continue to decrease. I I I realized I mean, when I was at the NFL, we used to look at Monday Night Football ratings, and we realized that, you know, thirty years ago, whenever I was there, thirty years before that, you know, the the the rating was enormous. And versus where it was when I was there, it was much smaller. But it was still, you know, the one or two ranked show in of the week. So it's just, I guess, you have to look at it like, yeah, the ratings are down, but it's still it's still popular, and it's still live television, and it's, you know, destination viewing, and there's nothing else like it. So that's that's where the justification comes from. But it's gonna be interesting to see, you know, in five or ten years, are people still gonna pay for those those rights increases? I don't know, man. It's just I'm glad I'm not seeing I feel like I feel like we've been saying that for for thirty years. I know you know. No. Right. Our team's gonna be team's gonna be sold for, you know, billions and billions of dollars. When is that gonna stop? And True. When are people gonna stop paying the the price of tickets? You know? Those those keep coming up and how much it costs a family of four to go to a game. The money is crazy. But but to your point, I I do think it kinda goes back to I remember back in the day, you know, Fox would always say, look. We don't we don't make money on, the rights you know, we don't get the return on investment on those rights fees alone. It's about the fact that, you know, all these people that were watching the the the NFL football game at four o'clock, this would be CBS, are going into, you know, sixty minutes, and that increased their ratings. And the fact that we've got pods where we can promote, our comedies and our, you know, weekly shows and etcetera, etcetera. So it'll be interesting to see what the benefit is on the streaming side. Do they have similar benefits? Certainly, there's an acquisition opportunity there. You know, just like you they have some, new content and they try to acquire people. Sports is a way to get someone to at least try their platform out. And, you know, can they provide a better experience? And so it's gonna I think right now, they are rolling the dice to, hey. Yes. We've got ad revenue opportunities. We've got, you know, subscription benefits. But I think that they also view it as a way to kind of all this the fact that we're talking about Amazon and and Hulu Plus and ESPN plus and potential merger between these two, there's some value to that as well. So, I'm a big believer in, you know, there's more than just the the the financial revenue. There is or the direct revenue. There's a lot of indirect, ancillary benefits that that that I think they're counting on. Remains to be seen if it'll be worth it, but but I think that's what they're they're looking at at the moment. It's a bubble theory. Right? The the the bubble we've we've been expecting the bubble to burst forever, and and it hasn't. And it it it's just as you say, it's amazing to think of that. But we have to also consider that as was mentioned earlier, it's the live aspect, the FOMO, the fear of missing out, the knowing that people are gonna have a captive audience and bringing in the advertisers, and let's compare this to non sports. Let's remember that the top one hundred programs in most years, I think ninety percent of those programs are sporting events, be it mostly NFL and college football. But that is a huge factor in non sports ratings have tanked even further than what's happened with the general sports ratings. So, yes, sports ratings have been level or slightly diminishing because there's this this this swath of all these different options. But nonsports programming has dived even further in terms of their declines. And so that's what makes sports so but my last comment on this is maybe private equity is the elixir as it's seemingly the elixir for all these different getting into sports media more than it is presently to help prevent a bubble? I wanna bring that point just to the, prevent a bubble. I wanna bring it over just to the, Yes. Well, just to just keep the conversation going on on the advertising side of things. And I wanna start with Natasha on this one, but definitely wanna hear from everyone. Once sports streaming, you know, I guess finds more of its footing or maybe centralizes a little bit, I'm curious how making money back on some of these, you know, expensive rights deals, how the advertising portion of that is going to change? Does that equation, does the actual content and does the formula for a mix of evolving as sports transitions or at least as bifurcated between linear and streaming as a destination for viewing, and how might that influence the development of the market? What are your thoughts? Yeah. Absolutely. It's gonna it's gonna grow. So there is a huge appetite right now from advertisers to be in sports, and we've touched touched on this throughout this this call around it being live, engaged. People are doing dual screens, so they're responding to the ads in real time. So there's a huge appetite from advertisers to be in sports. Buying sports on linear legacy TV is fairly easy in the fact of like, for our company, Ampersand, you would call up and work with us to place ads across the two hundred and ten DMAs. Right now, the easiest way to get streaming sports is to have it through a network or national buy with the streamer. They don't have as much local inventory. So that's why we see these breaks with the pods saying, we'll be right back, or we're seeing continued, the streaming platform. We haven't seen the streamers open that inventory up as much for traditional sales channels such as ourself with Ampersand. So, to that question, there's a huge opportunity. I think the other area that we haven't touched on that has a growth in ratings, but we have not seen the revenue grow with the ratings is women's sports. And some of these non, we'll say, tentpole events that have become very, very popular over the last few years. So that's an area I'm very passionate about is how do we get, advertisers to follow the viewership of women's sports and begin to back that more in a meaningful way. But in WACC, actually, one huge benefit of streaming and streaming platforms is the ability to get content more content out to more people. You know, before before this opportunity, women's sports I mean, they were fighting for positions on broadcast TV and and or, you know, maybe doing their own little streaming service. So I agree with you. There's a there's a great opportunity for for women's sports, for nontraditional sports, to at least get their content out there. Again, there's a limited number of ad dollars, to support all of that, and rights fees dollars. But but there is some opportunities for for other sports to to get more exposure. Want to to intersect the tech side of this too. You know, once you're showing, live sports over streaming platforms, the type of user data and user profiles that you can use to maybe personalize advertising in the future might open up opportunities for these, you know, media entities to maybe raise the ticket price on advertising dollars. You know, it's like, hey. Your advertising is gonna be more valuable, the more personalized it is. Maybe that's how this strategy evolves to make some money back on those expensive rights deals. I'm not sure if y'all see that being a piece of the equation. Well, I think right now a premium CPM is around addressable advertising, so serving the ad in addressable manner to the home. Mhmm. And that makes a lot of sense for for, non sports. There still is this huge demand for that live loyal viewership, and it's because it is live. It's because it's engaged that I see less of that targeted ad and that addressable ad and see more just people looking for sports fans and or putting their brand against sports content. Also with sports, there's such regional nuances that that's still a large factor of in the Midwest. Right? Hockey is gonna be a higher ticket item for Midwest advertisers than it may be for, West Coast advertisers. And in the South, it may be more around college football. So there still are regional nuances of where advertisers wanna be in sports, due to those nuances of of viewership. Ship. So let's jump over to the big partnership on the horizon. Right? We see ESPN, Fox, and Warner Bros. Discovery discussing a joint sports streaming app and partnership. That's a a titan if it, you know, it comes to fruition in the industry, and would probably set a new precedent, for what y'all have been talking about, which is a likely trend towards centralization and consolidation of sports streaming. I'm curious y'all's thoughts that, you know, with this launch, how do you think this would affect the competitive landscape for existing live TV streaming services as well as linear? When we see things like Hulu Live, YouTube TV, Fubo, right? If we see this major partnership launch and launch well, how do you foresee that's gonna mix up the competitive landscape and strategies? Well, you know, venue, which is what it's called, is, I think, slated to launch in the fall. And, you know, it'll it'll still it will have a ton of content, but it will still not have all the content that users, viewers, and fans want. So you'll still be somewhat forced to purchase multiple subscriptions because, you know, you can't like anything, you can't you're not gonna be able to find everything in one place. So there's still gonna be a, you know, the confusion, if you will, is I don't think is gonna go away. The people in my mind, the people that are gonna take advantage of this, this combined platform or what they call cord nevers. The people that, you know, don't have haven't had cable even to start, And so they're kind of jumping into the market. And maybe, you know, it's a it's a first foray for them to purchase a subscription to see what, you know, what content they can get, versus having to look at everything individually. So this is a sort of mini bundle, so it will give it will give those types of people an advantage. But the one thing that we haven't really talked about much is the technology of streaming. And, you know, it is a major factor because every single one of these platforms deliver streams at different times with different delays, with different quality levels, with different everything pretty much. So if all five of us were watching an NFL game on Peacock, we could be sitting on the couch next to each other, in fact. But even if we were in different rooms, it didn't matter. We would all be watching that same game at different times. So there's one thing that, you know, certainly we feel that at some point needs to be addressed a little bit more seriously, and that is the actual technology of the streaming. So, you know, the delays and the buffering and, you know, the outages, that has to stop. And it does stop. You know? That's what we built ourselves for. We we've solved all that. So, you know, the education of the consumer and, in fact, the broadcaster has to happen in a much bigger way for them to realize that, wait a second. You can deliver a much better fan experience as though the fan is at the stadium, but only on their, you know, mobile device. So, that that that mentality of this sort of old school, you know, well, we have it. It ain't broke, but it's still thirty or forty or fifty seconds delayed. You know, we'll stick with it for now, and then we'll deal with it later. Fans and consumers are starting slowly but surely to to push back on that, and I think that's gonna be a much bigger, a much bigger play. And do you think consolidation will improve the reducing, these lags, because companies are going to maybe pool resources to ensure, Jed, that that we're going to see better. And and perhaps if we have another group of companies forming their own consolidation to combat venue, we've got this extra competition. A A thousand percent. Yes. Because I think that once you start consolidating, you have to build a new tech stack, and what are you gonna build? Well, if you're gonna build something, you know, from scratch, build the best that you can. And if it's available to you, why wouldn't you, you know, why wouldn't you? So, so, yes, I do believe that as the consolidation increases, the need for better technology, the need for reducing that delay without latency in the stream, is is absolutely, you know, mandatory. I think from from my point of view, I also thought the streamers would be more innovative as they got the rights to these, sports Welcome to my world. Right? So it's, like, been surprising. Like, you look at these legacy TV companies and some of the amazing things they've done to grow their viewership. So, you know, Nickelodeon and what they've done to do, simulcast NFL games and make it the slime bowl. ESPN two with the Peyton Brothers that are getting ratings, you know, near what ESPN is getting. And I haven't really seen that with the streamer. So I'm interested kind of from you experts on on your thoughts on that. And if you've you've seen anything interesting that these streamers are doing around, future trends in technology. I will say one thing. I I think you're right a hundred percent. One of the things that we we are one of the things that we're seeing with streaming is it can be a lot more interactive than linear television. So you can literally interact with the screen with other users. Of course, the latency has an effect on that. But nonetheless, one of the things that we work with, with a lot of our clients is what we call multi view. And what it basically does is it gives fans the ability to watch a game from, you know, multiple different camera angles. So if you're watching a football, do it with the NFL. We've done it with the NBA and a number of leagues where you can you know, on your mobile device or on your big screen, whatever, you know, whatever platform you're watching on, you can watch a game from five different camera angles. You can flip around. You can almost play director and choose the angle you want. You can go full screen. You know, if you're watching a golf tournament, in theory, you could watch five different golf holes. So it gives the fan a more engaged viewing experience for them to be more enveloped into, into the game. So they can, they can watch with their friends. It makes it more social, and that's kind of what we're seeing. It, yeah, It reminds me of, when I was at XM Radio and, the I'd only been there a week or two, and I see my caller ID come up, and it's the CEO. And he said, come to the conference room. I'm like, oh, boy. Am I am I getting fired? And I go into the conference room and everybody's, you know, popping champagne. And he said, you know, we just spent seventy five million dollars to for all the MLB games. Now I need you to come go make me seventy five million dollars, to pay for it. Get enough subscribers to pay for that seventy five million dollars. And my point being here is I I have a feeling that that's maybe what's happening here, that some of these streamers are, you know, they're buying the content because there's a race to get this content, and they're not really kind of working together saying, okay. What are we gonna do to to be creative and and and get this money? But I think and I'm not in this industry like Jed is, but I I imagine that people are they're starting to feel that way now. They're like, okay. We've got this seventy six billion dollar MBA deal or one billion or whatever it was for Amazon. We need to now kind of earn that money back. How are we gonna do it? So I I I gotta believe, I gotta hope that they're gonna they're gonna be forced to be a little bit more creative, and, you know, and and to turn that money back. Flying. Right, George? I mean, back in the day? Absolutely. Absolutely. And to add that's to that story, my first question to to the CEO at the time was, did you do a deal with advanced, Major League Baseball advanced media? Because at the time, they owned all the online rights. And he's like, what are you talking about? I said, well, if you if you didn't, then we can't do anything online. So we had to go and do a separate deal with them. But it it's it's and that gets into this question. To me, the first thing I thought about when I heard about this this big consolidation or this or this partnership between Fox, etcetera, etcetera was, oh my god, the rights fees. There's gonna be so many lawyers trying to figure out, okay. We've got exclusivity here. The advertisers have exclusivity here. We weren't expecting you to broadcast it here. How are they these are competitors trying to work together when you've got advertisers and leagues and I would be shocked if this happens this fall. Maybe even put a disclaimer on their website. Right. You know, venue sports. You know, depends on rights, fees, etcetera. Your point's a good one. And one of the questions that is still outstanding in that in that venue product is, is it necessarily the rights fees that that already exist? Because ESPN will bring what they have and WBD will bring what they have and Fox will bring what they have. But the question that's so outstanding is what happens for new negotiations? Will they go as a threesome together to try and, you know, acquire new rights for this platform. That to me is really interesting because is ESPN willing to sort of split, if you will, split the split the pie with their competitors when when historically, they have, you know, tried to beat them down and buy every right, you know, that's imaginable. So, you know, it's it's less about the existing. Everybody will bring what they have, and they'll figure out what cut each each, company gets. But it's the newer ones that that do come up, which, of course, there aren't as many now because a lot of the big leagues have been signed on. But still, you know, what happens with these new properties and how they're gonna address it, I think, is very interesting. Hey. The lawyers always win. I smell justice department getting involved as well because as we talk about these major companies, you know, merging together with respect to these particular plans, you've gotta think there's going to be some kind of, DOJ, you know, analysis of whether this is good. I personally think based on going back to the early part of this discussion, it is a good thing for consumers to have some consolidation, so there's not as many places we have to go for, all of our different streamed sports and entertainment products. But, we'll see what the DOJ has to say about that. As as long as it doesn't become a monopoly. Right? Right. Correct. Now last but not least, I wanna wrap things up then by, getting y'all's analysis on what is going to set apart streamers with that fan experience in the short term. Term. Right? I think y'all are on to something here. Even if we do expect that down the road or even by the fall, we see some major consolidation around sports streaming. I do still think that we're gonna have a mix of players in the field for a while. And with that, consumers may need to make a choice around, well, which sport do I pay to watch? Which one do I find a random, you know, Turkish stream on Twitter to watch for free instead? And, you know, that is going to probably come down to the streaming experience, the fan experience. Right? What are they doing to set themselves apart creatively through unique partnerships, through elevated media, original programming, even certain aspects of the technology. Right? The latency and how maybe that connects with, sports betting applications and partnerships. Right? So, what do y'all think is going to be one of the key areas of competitive strength in the short term for these sports streamers, when it relates to fan experience, tech, basically everything but the portfolio of having a lot to watch. What's gonna help set them apart? I I think the very first thing is just the personalization. That that is one huge benefit is with the ability to stream and get to know who your customers are, you can provide more personalized, service and content for people that are fans of various products. And Natasha earlier mentioned women's sports. That's just one example where if if you want to whether it's NWSL, whether it's softball, whether it's volleyball, whatever it is, you really can engage with and personalize and build relationships with that audience and then potentially use that data and that information down the road to help sell them on other products. So I think that's the biggest benefit that any of the streaming companies can gain is is personalizing the product and the service, not only for current benefit, but hopefully for future sales purposes. I think I think the gonna be loyalty. Like, you know, the fan's gonna turn in because they're loyal to that that, sports team, that market. And then if there's not a good quality around stability, they're not gonna continue to pay that. So, Jetta, I feel like you're in a great place, and I, cheer for your success because because stability is just so important from not only the consumer experience, but also from the advertising experience. And then I think the third thing will be customization, around the viewership. So they're getting ads that are meaningful. They're having experiences that are meaningful. They can interact in a meaningful way. So to me, it's loyalty, stability, and then meaningful interaction around the content. I think because I I think specifically, the other thing that we wanna look at is, you know, when it comes to subscribers, are the fans getting what they want? And we talked about how we've got older fans that are still watching linear TV, younger fans that were never, you know, never never had linear TV. And so I think the streamers that can come up with options, different options of of how to view the sports. Some just wanna watch it traditionally. I wanna watch the game. Others wanna watch Peyton Manning or somebody else talking about the game on another channel. But as well as all the access, the behind the scenes access, you know, Netflix did that formula one series, and and there's recent talks now there. They may offer as much as two billion dollars to to to get, a Formula one, as as a property. So, the ability for these streamers to provide what the fans are looking for. And that's obviously a great in game experience, the ability to watch their team, easily to find it, to to be able to watch it, but also a lot of that ex internal kind of behind the scenes, getting to know the players, getting to know the teams, etcetera. Yeah. I mean, look. I I I still think that certainly in today's market, we're living in a content is king world. And, you know, it's there's so much fragmentation between national and local content that it's it's it's tough to see anything changing dramatically, you know, very short term. But, you know, as I said earlier, and I think we've all sort of agreed that consolidation is gonna happen at some point. And and look. You know, we believe that technology will play a role in that. And the fact that, you know, somebody is gonna step up and say, yes. We want our fans to, you know, see it here first, if you will, to give them the ability to watch a game before somebody else can. And that's a valuable proposition from a marketing standpoint, from an advertising standpoint, from a sponsorship standpoint. So, so I think that, you know, we're we're all of us are positioned in an interesting, you know, positioned well to see how this, market changes and and what what are the, you know, what what stream what role streaming will play, as it as it changes, and it's only gonna get greater. So, it's pretty exciting, actually. Well, the strategy will be you you talked about the MLS strategy. That works for them probably because of the size of their audience and and the amount of money, you know, that they demand. Whereas in NFL or an NBA, there's probably probably not a streaming platform out there that could pay enough money for, you know, to be exclusive. But it's definitely gonna be interesting to see which of those models works and and how they work. And, you know, from my side of things, I wouldn't consider myself the, you know, most avid sports consumer, but I have been intrigued by the growth in attention to and, loyalty towards niche sports. Right? Not your basketball, baseball, combo, hockey, football. Right? But volleyball or pickleball or whatever it might be. And it might be in that more sort of niche streaming rights for, sports that are capturing the public imagination. That may also help set some of these streamers apart. So rather than just seeking, you know, if we get the NBA on there, we'll get everyone. Maybe building a coalition of smaller, more engaged, communities around different sports could also play a role here in having a competitive advantage while the field is still a bit crowded. And I'm curious to see how they handle that question too. Right? But I think till then, we'll go ahead and wrap things up. This is an evolving conversation and one that, you know, we walk away from today's discussion not really having total clear answers on the direction of the industry, but I think what is clear is that the fan experience is going to continue to play a key role in determining competitive strategies here for streamers. And so, even while rights are discussed, and even while new applications are in the works and getting close to launch, it's still gonna be how do we tap into that need for that loyal Eagles fan to watch their game when it's time. Right? And we get everyone locked into their couches, watching a game that they confidently know isn't gonna buffer out, and is going to give them, you know, the community experience they're looking for. So I'm curious to see how that develop. But we'll go ahead and wrap things up for now. Thank you to the four of you for your analysis today. This has been a fantastic conversation. I know I've learned a lot, and I'm sure our audience has as well. And I'm looking forward to further conversation as we see the launch of this partnership app, for example, and further maturation of this industry. Let's go ahead and thank everyone for joining us. Again, we were joined by Natasha Sanagoga, VP of local sales at Ampersand. Thank you, Natasha. We were joined as well by George Perry, professor of management and marketing at Christopher Newport University, Jed Korenthal, chief marketing and business development officer at Phoenix, and doctor Patrick Risch of the Washington University in Saint Louis Sports Business Program. Thank you to the four of you. It's been been a pleasure and I'm looking forward to future conversations. Thank you. Thanks everybody. Thanks everyone. And thank you, everyone, for tuning in to today's episode of Experts Talk. If you like what you heard and saw today, and you wanna tap into previous conversations, or you wanna make sure that you don't miss out on follow ups to this great conversation or other expert round table debates and discussions, make sure you're heading to market scale dot com to tap into that full catalog and future programming. I'm your host, Daniel Litwin, the voice of b two b, and we'll catch you on the next episode of Expert Talk.