Rights and wrongs: How Sky and ITV might shake-up sports media; Fifa's World Cup shenanigans

11:51David Cushnan:Not long-term thinking and seen as a bit of a money grab, which is what none of them want. And that fundamentally is why a lot of people in our industry also talk about partnerships rather than sponsorship.

12:01James Emmett:I've spent a little bit of time with a few athlete representatives recently moving in talent management circles. And honestly, I feel like that role is one of the hardest in the sports industry, in the entertainment industry. It's cutthroat and it must be terrifying. You're constantly on the verge of losing your client and the amount of, you know, there can be sort of creepy, crawly, slimy, toady elements to it. But the way that the most impressive athlete representatives now talk, it's all in terms of carefully curating a business portfolio for their small, curated, selected group of clients.

12:43James Emmett:I've spoken recently to the likes of Duncan Ross, Farah Leff at UTA, Misha Sher, who's just started out on his own. And they all talk about sort of carefully assembling this group of companies for their clients to be involved with in lots of different areas, sort of production, media, other fashion, entertainment, music, etc. These athletes are becoming absolutely multi-hyphenate kind of business entities in their own right. And it's sort of an interesting pivot for one of the oldest professions in the sports business. Yeah.

13:23David Cushnan:And fundamentally, at the heart of it, though, remains the fact that in order to do any of that, you've got to be really good at what you do. And you've got to focus on performance whilst you can and maximize that. Did you see on Monday, the tennis went long? Went to the curfew on Monday night on center court and Roger Federer was a guest in the Royal Box. Did you see the shot of him on his own? Iconic. I don't think there's anything cynical about that, but as a sort of statement of Roger Federer's commitment to tennis, continuing commitment to tennis in his now sort of retired statesman-like ambassadorial form.

14:01David Cushnan:You look right. I don't think you could get a better example of that. And for Tony God's sake, that's probably another thing to put in his slide deck as he's going to all sorts of partners.

14:12Tony Godsick:Shall we do a quick round of what's going on around the industry?

14:15David Cushnan:Yes, let's start with a major new hire at IMG. Jackie Stevenson, formerly of MNC Saatchi, has been appointed to the newly created role of Chief Client and Operations Officer. Jackie will report into Adam Kelly. And this, remember, is one of two pre-announced roles announced by IMG earlier this year. The other is a change to Barney Francis's role at IMG. He is Chief Business officer. Jake Lush-McCrum has left his role at the newly sold Rajasthan Royals to join ACG Sports, where he will take on the role as CEO of the India Basketball League. And Barry Webber, longtime Crystal Palace executive, has joined Luton Town, where he will become the managing director of the club's new Power Court Stadium company, that new stadium in the works

15:08Tony Godsick:in Luton. What a man, Barry Webb, one of the very best.

15:12James Emmett:The Portuguese Football Federation has confirmed that Liga Portugal will go to market with a centralised broadcast package this year. Portugal was the last major European soccer league selling rights on an individual basis. So a landmark moment there. Saudi Pro League club Diria SC has hired former Toronto FC and Real Salt Lake president Bill Manning as its new CEO. And Versant Media Group, owner of the Golf Channel, has agreed to acquire golf sim business full swing from Bruin Capital for around$530 million. Bruin acquired full swing in 2021 for a reported$160 million. And George Pine, who runs Bruin Capital, is going to be on the podcast hopefully next week.

15:57James Emmett:And finally, NBA legend Pau Gasol has led a€55 million investment into Spain's top flight women's soccer league. Gasol, 16 Ventures and Fortified Partners led the investment round into Liga F, which recorded more than 25 million euros in revenues last year.

16:16David Cushnan:Good stuff. Some other big stories this week that we should probably touch on. And in media news, the much anticipated sale of ITV to Sky

16:28Tony Godsick:has been confirmed, a£1.6 billion deal. Is that big? Is that a big number? Sounds like a big number. Does it matter? I'm not sure. The number matters so much.

16:39David Cushnan:I think the repercussions for the UK media industry in general will be quite significant and those will sort of ripple out. The deal has yet to close and that will be a significant process. There's some regulator approval work that needs to be done and some hurdles that need to be jumped there. But as those ripples from the deal move outwards, I do think it's worth us maybe zoning in on what this might mean for the UK sports rights market in particular. Sport very much, I think it's always important to say with these kind of big media deals, way down the list of the pecking order of priorities.

17:21David Cushnan:But sport did get a mention in the press release. So there was talk of more free to air sport on ITV than ever before, which is a sign that somewhere in the thinking there is, well, clearly we all know, everybody listening to this podcast, everybody in the media world knows the value of live sport to commercial broadcasters in particular and the advertising market that sits around it. Advertising and creating a scaled company that can not only take on other broadcasters, but streamers and also the big tech companies ultimately seems to be fundamentally the core of this deal. And I do think it could result in some interesting and potentially creative sports rights involvement from a sort of combined Sky and ITV.

18:08David Cushnan:Will they bid on stuff together, for example, in some shape or form, you would imagine they will, are there opportunities for simulcasts and shared production. And we've seen, I think, with the Carabao Cup in the UK, ITV essentially taking the Sky presentation, the Sky coverage for some of the live games that they've shown as part of the deal. And of course, there's where this new Sky ITV entity sits in

18:32Tony Godsick:amongst a bunch of competitors for the big UK sports rights. That's right. And worth saying

18:39James Emmett:that Niall Sloan is the longtime director of sport at ITV, one of the most experienced sports rights buyers in the UK market, at least one of the most experienced heads in the game. What becomes of Niall and his team as these two entities integrate remains to be seen. But yeah, interesting what happens in the rights market as a result of this deal. It's not just a clear-cut case of while they bid together or they you know potentially two bids becomes one there is one less obvious rights buyer in the market there are other interesting things happening in the uk market the emergence and the growth of channel five fueled by paramount uh backing um as a potential rights Aspire, Channel 4, they've got a little bit of change in their sports department at the moment.

19:40James Emmett:The head honcho is off to whisper.

19:42David Cushnan:Yeah, Pete Andrews and actually just in the last week or so, Louisa Compton, who has sort of for the last few years sat above Pete, has a new broad job title under new CEO Priya Dogra at Channel 4. So Louisa Compton will be director of news, digital and audience.

19:59James Emmett:Yeah.

20:00David Cushnan:audience trust, I should say. A job title that doesn't include sport, but a remit that it clearly states does include sport. So I think that is maybe one to watch as well. Channel 5, I think really interesting, as you said, owned by Paramount Global. We can come on and talk about Paramount maybe, but they've taken on a highlights package for the Tour de France. Also, they will be the free-to-air highlights broadcaster for the Commonwealth Games coming up. They've taken on other sports rights as well in cricket and various other sports and darts, I think. And clearly with the Tour de France and Commonwealth Games have ended up in a sort of, you know, good working relationship with TNT, Warner Brothers, Discovery, who are the live rights holders for those two events in particular.

20:46David Cushnan:So there's a lot going on. And I was just thinking actually about Sky and ITV. What were you thinking? Well, I was thinking, you know, in some shape or form, when this deal closes, it gives a Sky group, a suddenly access in some shape or form to the two things that they've never been able to get their hands on, which are... Ant and Dec. This Morning and GMTV, or whatever it's called, Good Morning Britain. No, World Cup rights and Euros rights, which are always, you know, obviously protected as free-to-air assets, but they're sort of in the conversation there now. And it also gives them access back into sports that actually from Sky Sports' point of view, they've really pulled away from in recent years.

21:32David Cushnan:And Rugby Union would be one of those. I think Sky has still have the Lions tour every four years, but outside of that, really scaled back their coverage. ITV this past weekend, the entire schedule from sort of 8am to 10pm was... Sport, sport, sport, sport, sport. Just sport, just sport. it was game after game of the new Nations Championship Rugby Union on ITV1. What a time to launch. What a time to launch. And so again, there's lots of different implications here and the dynamics will inevitably change.

22:01James Emmett:It's worth saying at a very macro level in sort of big media world, this is an attempt by Sky and its ultimate owner Comcast to compete more fiercely with the emerging global streamers, Netflix, Apple, etc. This gives a new combined power and audience in that fight. There is something going on as well, not necessarily relevant for sport, but essentially Sky is buying pretty much all of ITV except for the studios business. And Sky, the very successful ITV studios business, and Sky is committing to spend a couple of billion pounds, I think, over the course of a significant number of years on that studios business, which produces all of the sort of smash hits for smash entertainment hits for ITV.

22:53David Cushnan:There's also a news element as well with ITN, which supplies the news to ITV and Sky with its Sky News, which is sort of morphing into a bit more of a sort of digital output over a sort of period of time, are going to, for the moment at least, remain as separate entities from an editorial standpoint, but all sitting under the same group. And of course, you've got Comcast sitting above the whole thing from a sort of US point of view, in the sort of wider, more global media picture as well. So lots going on. And I think lots of opportunity for, well, lots of things for rights holders with rights to sell over the next five, 10 years to start to get their heads around what this means in terms of, as I say, more creative approaches.

23:40David Cushnan:You know, obviously rights holders are always looking to stoke the market for as many bidders as possible. Certainly feels like in the UK, there are still absolutely enough bidders, but maybe we are going to see more collaboration in certain areas, more creativity. The one we haven't mentioned, of course, is the BBC, which is doing its thing, but clearly under a lot of pressure financially and having to absolutely cut its cloth in terms of what it bids for and what it frankly doesn't bid for. Also under a new, relatively new director general in Matt Britain.

24:15James Emmett:Yes, Matt Britain. I'll reserve what I was going to say for a later point. David, did you see the Trump get involved in the red card?

24:22David Cushnan:No, missed that. What happened?

24:24James Emmett:Right, the World Cup continues. Yeah, well, we've got to touch on this, haven't we? Which is this thing that everybody's been talking about, the controversy surrounding FIFA's decision to postpone a suspension for USA star player, Folleran Balogun, after he was sent off in a game against Bosnia and Herzegovina in the round of 32 following an intervention from President Donald Trump, who called his good mate, Gianni Infantino, and talked openly about the fact that he had done that to say something needs to be done here. And lo, it was done. This, and as all sorts of commentators, pundits, anyone associated with football and beyond have said, this is quite clearly a case of political interference in the fabric of the game.

25:11James Emmett:It's worth saying that FIFA do have a fairly patchy narrative and sort of legal standpoint for this decision. They say that there is a provision in their statute to look at player suspensions like this. Cristiano Ronaldo is Article 27, I think, is the name of the statute. Cristiano Ronaldo benefited from this having a three-game suspension postponed to allow him to take part in this World Cup. And ultimately, their sort of legal defense rests on their insistence that Trump's phone call with Infantino, which they don't deny happened, had nothing to do with the ultimate outcome here.

25:54David Cushnan:And the implication being that, presumably, FIFA were keen to have a star US player available to play for the US as the home team for commercial reasons and for the sort of benefit of the tournament as a whole, to have the US team go as far as possible in the tournament. Now, as things have turned out, whether that was true or not, you have to say from a sort of sporting integrity point of view, a lot of damage, I think, has been done here. But, and it's sad to say this because I don't think it's particularly fair on the US team itself, but it's probably a good thing for the tournament that they were well beaten and there was no grey area, there was no uncertainty.

26:37David Cushnan:They went out well beaten by Belgium, the team that had felt it was, it had been wronged by this decision and were very strident in their protests about it, protests which were then matched at least by UEFA. And I saw the German Federation got involved as well. And clearly, this has been a damaging episode for FIFA. And I think there must on some level be, whatever the realities of this, there must be on some level a temptation in a fiercely commercial environment, in an area where there is money to be made, where success to a large extent is judged by the amount of money that is made to adapt, to bend regulations, to find interpretations, to try and see and jump through the loophole, to try and re-engineer in some cases to give the quote, the star players more opportunity to be on the big stage, because that translates into more viewers and maybe more attendance and maybe more, you know, more sort of more business, frankly.

27:45David Cushnan:It's good for business in this World Cup and as a result for Gianni Infantino if Messi, Ronaldo, Haaland, you know, all the stars Mbappe are in to the very end of the tournament. And I think you could add the US team to that sort of mixture in that cocktail. And you can see whether it's a reality or not, that on some level would be a temptation. Now, of course, what you have to balance that up is against the sporting integrity of the tournament.

28:16Tony Godsick:Well, it's not just that, David.

28:17James Emmett:And you're right. Obviously, the implication is at the behest of Donald Trump, Gianni Amfantino intervened to suspend a suspension, having a tangible impact on the USA's next game in the hopes that it would increase their chances of staying in the tournament, which is good commercially for the tournament. Yes, but you've got to think about Infantino's sort of stakeholder groups. He gets his power by being voted in by the football confederations, which themselves are made up of national football federations. And in some ways, this is a little bit like the ongoing Premier League case against Manchester City with these 115 charges, which stretches on and on.

29:08James Emmett:And Richard Masters, in this instance, the chief executive of the Premier League, finds himself in such a difficult position because ultimately it's good for business if nation states are investing all of this money into football, like Abu Dhabi, which owns Manchester City. But that's not the be all and end all. upholding a set of rules is absolutely critical. Because if you can't demonstrate that you can make the rules stick, what have you got, you know, for all of those other competing nations, clubs, whatever it is? Like, this is not a level playing field. Why should they compete and stick to the rules themselves?

29:49Tony Godsick:If FIFA has sort of patchily applied the rules to get to a result here, if what absolutely doesn't help is Infantino fielding a call from Donald Trump, who's been

30:00David Cushnan:briefed or whatever, has seen this.

30:02James Emmett:Who he's got to know will immediately, as soon as that call goes through, Trump's taking the credit for anything that happens after that.

30:09David Cushnan:Of course. And he did by talking about it in the Oval Office and sort of dumping FIFA and Infantino in it by saying, yeah, I made the call and Gianni's an intelligent guy and we got it changed. Now, what actually happened, perhaps we will never know. And it might just be that it just looks really bad. But the perception, unfortunately, is the reality in this case. And it's not painted FIFA or Infantino or the tournament, frankly, in a good light. Now, does that have any long lasting effects? Ultimately, probably not, because Infantino's power base is so strong around the world, Europe, sort of Belgium and then Europe and UEFA, and I suspect a lot of the federations in Europe have come out quite strongly against this.

30:55David Cushnan:And

30:55Tony Godsick:there is a FIFA-UEFA dynamic at play here.

30:59James Emmett:Well, UEFA is the strongest, is the most senior, largest football block to have spoken out against this, calling it a red line.

31:07Tony Godsick:But it can't oust a president of FIFA.

31:09David Cushnan:Not on its own. Not on its own. And I think it was very noticeable that when the Somalian referee at the start of the tournament was not granted entry to the United States, immediately, very sort of quick thinking, I suppose, UEFA invited him to referee the upcoming UEFA Super Cup game. And so you can see there is, you know, and sort of implicitly sort of saying this is a, you know, this is a bad thing that has happened, a terrible and fair thing that's happened. Let's see if we can sort of help and support you. And so there is a, there's definitely a FIFA UEFA dynamic at play. But ultimately, all the signs are is Infantino, unless he decides at the end of this tournament that actually he's, he's sort of peaked, he's produced the biggest and best World Cup there has ever been, the biggest event there has ever been, the most gigantic thing that has ever happened.

32:02David Cushnan:which has always been his sort of aim using that sort of Trump-esque exaggerated language, unless he decides, actually, I'm going to stand down, which feels unlikely, I think there's every chance he gets re-elected because of everything that he's done in terms of expanding the tournament, further expanding the tournament, more money to federations. That's his power base and that's his leverage and the leverage of anybody who ever gets the position of FIFA president. The interesting thing, though, is after this World Cup, this World Cup was, you know, and To be fair to Infantino, he has done the work.

32:35David Cushnan:He has travelled and travelled and promoted and at times been the sole vehicle for promotion almost of this World Cup. And he has put in the hard yards and he's done the work and he's whatever he thinks and you'd never know, but whatever he really thinks of Donald Trump, he's done the work to build a relationship there. At the end of this tournament, there is a question mark. And of course, he clearly loves the power and he loves being the statesman and almost FIFA as this sort of nation state in its own right. But where's his next challenge? Does the 2030 Men's World Cup in Spain, Portugal and Morocco quite have the same appeal for him?

33:16David Cushnan:Can he make the World Cup even bigger and even better?

33:20James Emmett:Well, he'll also be working on the 1934 World Cup in Saudi Arabia at that time.

33:25David Cushnan:Maybe that's the next thing.

33:27James Emmett:And then presumably a process to find the host after that.

33:30David Cushnan:Yeah, there's always challenges. There'll always be stuff to do.

33:35Tony Godsick:What are you saying? Jannie's going to...

33:36David Cushnan:I just wonder about personal motivation. And maybe I'm completely misreading that, and I probably am. And he just, he loves the status of the office so much. But Donald Trump's going to ditch him like a stone after this, isn't he? Because there's no... Okay, there's a women's

33:53Tony Godsick:world cup coming to the US in a few years time. Jannie's got projects, David.

33:57James Emmett:There's a women's of the Club World Cup, which is also his, you say he's indelibly sort of linked to this World Cup in the US. What he is most closely associated with as a sort of one man promotional machine is the Club World Cup.

34:14David Cushnan:Put it like this. I'm not predicting Infantino will step down after the World Cup. I'm just suggesting that it's... He might get bored of his power. I'm just suggesting that there's going to be a moment where he's going to have to regroup after this and, you know, to use some football parlance, find the motivation to go again.

34:28James Emmett:Well, do you know what usually happens in situations like this with democratically elected. It's like hers after leaders week with democratically elected sports officials is, you know, they suggest that they might finish when their term comes to a close. But, you know, you go round the conference hall and there are delegates speaking up for them to, you know, just stick it out for four more years. Please, Jani, do it for us, the confederation over here. And I'd imagine something like that would happen. and he's got to do it for his people, I think. Also trade. It's worth saying that this isn't the first time that political interference has come into play at major sports events.

35:06James Emmett:Obviously, the whole argument that sports and politics don't mix is bunkum. But in World Cups especially, there has been plenty of this sort of thing over the years, the 1978 World Cup in Argentina. Lots of rumours around not just how that World Cup was awarded, but how Argentina ended up winning it on home soil. And then 1982, I didn't realise this, but in the 1982 World Cup, France scored a goal against Kuwait and the Kuwaiti Olympic Committee president, Sheikh Farhad Al-Ahmaad Al-Jabbar Al-Sabar, physically walked onto the pitch to lobby the referee to overturn the goal, forcing the official to comply.

35:47David Cushnan:You see, it's just another chapter in a never-ending story and whoever said sport and politics don't mix had no idea what they were talking about.

35:55James Emmett:Right, that's the end then, David. I'm going to see you next week for another one of these. Yeah, you're going to Wimbledon right now. Yeah, I'm going to Wimbledon. Yeah, thanks very much. Goodbye.