200 episodes in: How StreamTime Sports has tracked the past, present, and future of sports media

0:04Chris Stone:Hello everyone and welcome back to a very special edition of Streamtime Sports. I'm your host Nick Meacham, CEO of SportsPro, and I hope you had a wonderful Christmas and New Year's break. Now today's episode is what we're calling our episode 200. We're not really sure if it's actually our 200. I for one think we've done more, but I can't back it up as all the pods have been published across multiple back-end channels. but for all intents and purposes this is it and to celebrate the milestone my co-host chris stone and i thought it would be fun to take a step back to look at how this show has grown over the years reminiscing about some of our favorite episode guests and topics and how basically the sports media landscape has been changing and evolving over the years and of course what we should expect in 2026.

0:54Chris Stone:Now, this episode was recorded just before Chris went on leave at the end of the year, but rest assured, he'll be back with me again, and we aim to make 2026 our best year yet. Now, before we jump in, I just want to share a massive thank you to all of our listeners and viewers who've supported us over the years and who've reached out to share feedback and ideas through our various social media channels. Your support, whether that's through just tuning in, listening to the podcast as you at the gym or sharing a review on Spotify, subscribing to a YouTube channel, or just the messages you've shared to us directly, our actions and activity we do not take for granted in this very time poor world we live in today.

1:38Chris Stone:So thank you again. But without any further ado, it's time for me to hand over to Chris and I for this week's episode. Over to you, Chris.

1:47Nick Meacham:I was looking it up the other day. It's basically almost four years to the date of the original episode coming out that we're recording this. It is a special time, Nick. We've made it very far. I remember some of the statistics that I first heard when you launch a podcast. What is it? Like 90 something percent of podcasts never make it past three episodes or something like that. So yeah, man, we've been doing this a long time. Yeah.

2:07Chris Stone:When you told me that it was four plus years, I had like two in my head. I was like, I've been doing this for over two years. Then you said it was four. That kind of took me by surprise. But it's been fun. It's been a lot of, had a lot of interesting and amazing conversations and been doing it whilst the industry has been going such huge through such huge change there's been lots of interesting and exciting stories to talk about and almost like getting our heads around things like in real time while the industry is it's a

2:34Nick Meacham:really cool time to be doing what we're doing 100 i mean just to go all the way back and i mentioned this at the outset the very first episode there was an interview with rob shaw and i think his job title then might have been like you know head of sports sponsorships for facebook which is interesting as Facebook now goes by meta. And in that conversation, I think it's just to bring to light how quickly things change our industry. You had brought him on because at the time, the Facebooks of the world, the Twitters of the world, which is no longer Twitter anymore, just talk about how things change.

3:05Nick Meacham:There's a lot of talk about like social media was going to be the new bidders for live sports rides. And the conversation has changed a little bit. It's still the same. Like we were talking about advertising. Now back then they were talking about, you know, people spend so much time on their phones, you know, they're going to be the next place for sports media rights. And now we're kind of here four years later. And that conversation is basically virtually dead. It's not that there isn't some sports that's on social media, but I think again, just goes to your point. If you think about where we started the podcast, the very first guest you had on the topics we were talking about, some of the social media platforms have been replaced by Netflix and Apple.

3:42Nick Meacham:Advertising part has stuck around a little bit, but it just goes to show how much that has changed over four years. I guess, A, where it's kind of stayed the same, what things have stayed true, but also like how completely different things are as well.

3:55Chris Stone:That's a great example. And that's as good an example as you can think of in terms of how transformative the last few years have been in media, in consumption, whether it be sports or not. And then you layer in what we've seen from the big players, the Apple, the Netflix and YouTube along the way. Who knows what's next? And then you think about, obviously, when we launched this, a big focus is around what's happening from a direct-to-consumer, digital OTT perspective as well. And that's been completely rewritten in the last couple of years. So it has been a heck of a run.

4:28Nick Meacham:Yeah, absolutely. And maybe we'll just go to a little trip down memory lane, do some favorites, things that people should go back on. Because even though we've said some of the things in the industry have changed. There are things that absolutely still are true. Sometimes there's lessons to be learned and where things have pivoted. So maybe Nick will just kind of start like, is there a particular episode, one that sticks out for you? And we'll probably have a list because I've got, certainly have multiple ones that stick to my mind. But what's the first one maybe you want to go back on and say really sticks out in my mind is one that I really enjoyed or took a lot from or I still come back to?

5:03Chris Stone:Yeah, there's been so many great conversations and great podcasts, many when we're together. Obviously, I think we've had a lot of good conversations over the years, but guest-wise, the ones that really stand out, was the first part we did with David Guinan. I think when he started firstly talking about his background, which was a heck of a journey to get to that point, some of the crazy stories. I can't remember what country it was in. Was it Senegal?

5:29Nick Meacham:Uganda? No.

5:31Chris Stone:It was somewhere in Africa where he had some of the crazy stories that involved some tribes and... Pint tribes and dictatorships. Yeah, that caught me off guard because I wasn't ready for that. I thought we were just ready to talk about a direct-to-consumer platform and its performance. But then when he got into the detail and really was able to articulate what it's really like to go through that journey of launching a platform and leading that through and then giving some insight into the partners they work with, it was just refreshing to get someone to give a full picture of themselves and of the journeys they're going through where sometimes we can have guests that let's face it um are very cautious about what they want to say but he's been a real uh shining light

6:15Nick Meacham:and obviously we've had him on more than once now yeah and just to recap that those don't know or don't remember haven't seen that episode definitely go back was when he launched the cowboy channel and he talked about basically launching that from scratch and at some point you know reaching close to 100 000 subscribers but he talked about along the way you know the headaches of all of a sudden they launched this platform and you know they had tens of thousands of people trying to log onto the platform all at the same time and they just they didn't have the servers to do that and the system crashed and he basically told the story I think there were only like nine or ten people working there and he had all of them basically put a pause on their day jobs and they went and physically manually called every single person from a customer service perspective to rebuild the trust and I you know we just I imagine there are things like that happen more often than we're aware of but very few people that are like that can about like hey this is what failed this is what we did afterwards and he's launched table tennis tv and just from david you just it's hard to find a lot of people that are that candid um and open about so definitely both of his interviews

7:11Chris Stone:stick out yeah and also this is a good reminder about how important that personal touch is because it ultimately did deliver great results and i love how his accountability on that is like it's my job to make sure that if this 70 year old person is trying to log on that i can make get them get them across the line as seamlessly as possible and do whatever it takes even if it was giving his phone number out to all their customers, which I found quite funny. But that was one of my favorite pods. The Pauk FC one is definitely a standout. And I think when we did that one, I knew the story going, but again, what I've liked about those is I knew a bit of the story, but when you start hearing it talked through in detail, your eyes start lighting up and you're like, whoa, that's actually a really, really cool story and bigger and better than I expected.

7:56Nick Meacham:Yeah, that's our friend Peniatis. I just apologize. I'm not going to butcher his last name. But yeah, Pauk out in Greece, one of the major football clubs out there. And he was explaining the story. And actually how it came up is they had won one of the media awards, but they had won an award for Best New Platform. And that was the whole thing as they launched it. And at the time, again, looking at things that we used to talk about four years ago, and we're still kind of talking about today, was if you can't get the media rights that you think that you deserve, can you use the threat of going direct to consumer as a way to basically drive some of those negotiations?

8:28Nick Meacham:And basically the story in the Pauk one, and I believe the name of the podcast is called something like David vs. Goliath. So go search it so you can go watch it. It's still relevant today. But he basically talked about they didn't get the rights on value that they thought they deserve. And then Greece, the clubs could individually negotiate those deals, unlike at the league level, like the Premier League NFL. So they went and launched the DDC platform. But from his story, they basically launched it like two weeks before the season started, very short term. Like, how do we go from having no platform to be able to take on subscriptions?

8:58Nick Meacham:It was similar to David where they were having to explain to people, like, this is how you pay for it. This is how you subscribe to it. How can we get it on smart TVs? And, you know, it ended up being a real success, but lots of crazy things happening along the way. and then sort of, I mean, spoilers, but it's still worth listening to. The next year, they basically ended up shutting it down. And part of it was because they said UEFA wouldn't count it towards some of their financial fair play money, but also they ended up getting a deal with the broadcasters, which I think they said was like double what they were offered the year before.

9:26Nick Meacham:So then it goes to show like, can you always use DTC as a way to threaten broadcasters to do it? In their case, they were able to do it.

9:33Chris Stone:And obviously there are these examples we're sharing of let's say challenger businesses doing so, But they're great stories about what can happen when you do it right. And I remember that example that Peñatas gave. I think they did it for like 30 ,000, 40 ,000 euros or something crazy cheap where you think about the millions that's been injected into some platforms. You can do it on a shoestring and prove out the case. And I think that's been really the learning that I've seen across the entire industry is there's been a lot of what sounds great on paper, this idealistic long-term play when launching a direct-to-consumer platform.

10:07Chris Stone:book this real success stories are the ones that have taken a very pragmatic very bottom-up approach and they've got amazing results off the back of those another conversation i had that really stands out for me was uh when i got to chance to speak marie donoghue who at that time was obviously at amazon and prime video and leading their strategy there um and it was interesting just to hear um about how they approached at amazon how they approached decision making around around big decisions like sports rights. And it's just like bring a one-page paper document, put it in front of Jeff Bezos, and he'll give you a yes or no is all that was required there.

10:48Chris Stone:But to hear how thoughtful and how strategic they were with trying to get more value out of them, just those rights. And she was great to talk to on and off the stage. She's now, I think, at DraftKings, if I remember correctly, or Fangio, one of those big players that, again, basically didn't have one on our radar a few years ago.

11:05Nick Meacham:No, yeah. Yeah, and that happens quite a bit where you see some of these stories blow up. And I'm just thinking, you know, there's some of our favorite episodes. I'm thinking maybe now more along some of the personalities, the particular individuals. And I think for me, you know, again, we're going down memory lane, is one of the people I have an incredible amount of respect for and sort of just kind of opened my mind was Peter Scott, who at the time was at Turner Sports. And that was kind of off the back of the first Sports Pro OTT USA event. We hosted down at the Turner Studios in Atlanta, which was really great because they had the NBA on TNT Studios with Shaq and all those guys.

11:40Nick Meacham:They weren't necessarily there, but we got to do the content on those stages. At the time, Bleacher Report had Champions League. So we're doing the event on these real-world stages and things like that. And that was the first time I got to meet Peter. And then we got to bring him on for a podcast. And one of the things about Peter Scott, if you've met him, great. You'll agree with everyone. If you haven't, go find him on LinkedIn. Reach out to him sort of thing. Peter Scott was just such an incredibly intelligent individual. I think one of the things I find is there are some really smart people, but they're not always able to communicate things.

12:10Nick Meacham:The thing I love about Peter Scott is I'm not a tech guy, but he can explain things for me to be able to understand. I think people that had that gift to explain a foreign concept to someone in a way you can understand is a really special thing. Peter Scott, he's just a really smart guy. The thing I took away from him, and I think you're starting to see a little bit of it now, one, he talked about highlights are going to be more valuable than live rights. That was a comment he made. It's a comment he made two or three years ago. And we talked about, you know, Adam Silver got a little bit of heat for saying that.

12:39Nick Meacham:We just talked about the ECB was talking about that. So this is something Peter said two, three years ago. And then one of the other things he said that's coming out is he was like, what I really think is valuable is how many ways can you redistribute the same piece of content to a unique audience? So I think at the time he said, you want someone that's just really into football? Okay, we'll have a football one, but maybe someone's really into betting. So how how can we simulcast something that's directly for the betting? So it's talking about live odds in real time, but then also how can we do something that's geared toward kids?

13:05Nick Meacham:So then that's like the Nickelodeon broadcast. And his thing was like, I'm looking for technology or ways to basically take the same sports stream, but how many ways instead of a one-to-many approach, how can I have a many-to-one approach? And I feel like you're starting to see some of these simulcast, you know, alternative broadcasting with sports creators. Like there's a lot of stuff Peter Scott talked about sort of three years ago. some of that stuff does seem to be what's kind of coming to the fold right now.

13:33Chris Stone:I mean, you literally listed every major change and trend that I can think of in the last few years. So yeah, you pretty much nailed it. I think I need to go back to listen to that, see if there's any other nuggets there so I can take them from my own for the next podcast. But yeah, Pete was great. And he's good at like just simplifying something. I think he could be that ideal conduit, I think, between like the business and the tech side. If you need someone to explain how is this tech going to impact us, and he can just distill that into something really valuable. So he was great. One of my favorite personalities we've had was David Gandler, who we've had on the podcast a couple of times, who is the CEO and co-founder of FuboTV.

14:12Chris Stone:and he's been someone that we've, he's been really honest and open in the industry about the challenges, about how other, the bigger players have been acting and he was getting a little bit of heat for how outspoken he was on some of these things.

14:28Nick Meacham:I believe he used the word cartel. Yeah, he used the cartel.

14:32Chris Stone:And actually, but all his points have been validated both by the growth of Fubo because people say, you know, Fubo can't work. Well, he's actually proved that out. They've delivered what they said they would. And now they've been acquired by Disney and going to be all part of that ecosystem. And he was even rumored to be one of the targets for a potential CEO at Disney. So who knows if that ever will play out. But my point is he was direct. He was specific. He wasn't afraid to pull punches. Actually, I think I mentioned this on a previous pop before, but he told us that because they went through this whole uh sort of case with those other major plays when they were launching the venue product that um our pod was one of the ones referencing some of the the court case materials and i looked on the uh analytics for those pods and they have a little bit of a spike for for normal um distinctly a few months after that pod was recorded but no he's been great uh great to have him great to see his his basically everything that he was saying has been validated because sometimes you you just don't know what's where it's going to go and he's at the proofs in

15:39Nick Meacham:the pudding clearly yeah and just we'll come back to guests and speakers and things like that but maybe some just some other bits you know you and i we've been doing this for four years now i guess you know funny moments behind the scene moments things you potentially learn i mean i think for me like people might not know this and they probably never talk about like when we set up the pod like i i've always described to guests like i'm the color commentator you're the analyst my job is to kind of keep things flowing inject a little banner things like that i feel like what It's probably like I'm usually more the free-flowing guy.

16:07Nick Meacham:And you come with the notes and prepared and like just sort of the way we go about doing our podcasts a little bit. You know, it's just I think we have a good relationship between the two. But I think sometimes just maybe a little behind the scenes, like you said, I try to give you the information. But I'm very much kind of a don't worry, Nick, I got this. And you're a little bit like, please, could you just provide me a little bit more information beforehand?

16:28Chris Stone:Yeah, sadly, I'm still never really comfortable in speaking in public settings, even though when we do these, it's more private. I'm conscious that I can babble on a little bit. So I like to be prepared, but you're annoyingly good at just stepping up with a bike in hand or just in front of a crowd and getting it done. uh so it's good that we have that yin and yang effect i suppose but um yeah i when i do find when i get the chance to prepare um my thoughts that i can articulate them a little bit better otherwise i'm just probably all over the place and uh thankful for anyone who's still listening

17:01Nick Meacham:uh to the pod after all these years yeah and in terms of like the speaking side bit like you and i obviously do the podcast together but we're also quite frequently on stage at events like How do you, just on your personal level view, doing this versus being on stage?

17:17Chris Stone:I remember actually what really kicked off doing content like the way we do it was actually COVID when we started doing all these online events. And that was really the first time I stepped into doing content generally, even on stage I'd barely done, done very little prior to then. And someone who is a mentor in the industry who told me, like, you need to be more active. you know you're the CEO of the company you have to be out there and public facing more so I took took that on and started to get more involved and I remembered how nervous I would get to do every single of those those sessions that we would do online for the various online events we ran and that was first my first taste uh test um and look it depends what role I'm playing if I'm doing a moderator role asking questions I'm pretty comfortable these days but previously I worried way too much about it.

18:08Chris Stone:Doing presenting stuff I find still incredibly difficult to overcome but that's where good preparation can help a little bit and not too much coffee beforehand.

18:18Nick Meacham:Yeah, I mean I was interested with both of you. I think the first time I did it was when we launched the Insider Series which again was a product of COVID and I can remember at the time like the first couple of Insider Series there were like 600 people tuning in virtually. Like they were pretty incredible numbers. I think we had one over 1 ,000

18:33Chris Stone:at one stage. We were like what? How was 1 ,000 people like watching this webinar that we're running uh but that was there everyone was looking for things to do at that time we're

18:40Nick Meacham:trying to work it out yeah and i can remember sat there straight holy shit like i was there's there's 600 people watching if we were you had our own youtube channel we're getting a thousand