A Conversation with Deltatre: Platforms, Fan Data and Tech Fragmentation

0:06Peter Bellamy:Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the next episode of Streamtime Sports. My name is Chris Stone, the community lead, joined as always by our CEO, Nick Meacham. Now, Nick, it's very scary now that we are past Sports Pro London. That means we're officially into the month of May, which is ridiculous how fast this year has gone so far. But one of the things, Nick, that I see at the start of every May is May 4th. May the 4th be with you. and every professional sports team puts out some sort of star wars themed post of people with lightsabers or different funny outfits and nick were you a star wars person growing up

0:37Marc Watson:uh i wasn't a massive fan but i did i did what i've watched them all for sure uh but i wasn't like i wasn't a proper star wars nerd i don't think my wife has seen any of them actually which i found a bit of a revelation yeah did not see any of them um but no i wouldn't say i was a nerd but i've watched the first the first three multiple times i remember pretty vividly seeing well they're like a was it isn't a prequel so the first three are in the middle and then there's the next three were a prequel and then yeah so if you go by release date versus where they fit within

1:12Peter Bellamy:the story the original three yes are in the middle of the story yeah yeah so i've seen those

1:18Marc Watson:multiple times uh i think i've only seen the second three that were released uh once and then after after that then uh i think i've seen all the others so uh but yeah it's uh it's a long time between drinks for those things so it is a bit hard to get your head around uh the storylines like i think when you're watching those things it's like what trying to piece all those things together obviously star wars nerds just live off that stuff but uh it's a bit bit of a um um messes with the head a little bit yeah i remember and this is where it's going to feel

1:49Peter Bellamy:really really old school nick i remember going to my aunt's house and she had them on vhs um i used to burn through those things on vhs but i'm similar to you i wouldn't describe myself as a as an all-out star wars person i went and saw because the original trilogy came out before i was born um also why i was on vhs i don't think any of the other ones ever would have been on vhs i don't even know if the newest trilogy ever even saw physical copy you probably could buy a physical copy for like collectors maybe yeah the new stuff surely there's like collector dvd box sets but

2:17Marc Watson:like in terms of mass distribution do people produce dvds anymore i have no idea that's a i haven't having a massive revelation now you say that but like vinyls are making a really big comeback with music true true so like is it and like the blu-rays and dvds i i mean i work in me i have no idea uh if any of those are a thing these days i've got some just in the corner over there which i don't know if even they can i have a device that they work on i think my old playstation in the box i think playstation does yeah have it open for 10 years plays dvds that was like really

2:52Peter Bellamy:cool back then that was yeah yeah i'm sure there'll be collector's boxes like so like surely you would think so like i mean all that stuff's coming back like pokemon cards right now like i keep seeing jokes about how like pokemon cards are better investment than the smp um just like Like just I saw things like you bought a piece of cardboard with a dragon on it and it's worth more and you've done nothing. Yep.

3:17Marc Watson:Yeah, I remember when I was a kid, actually. I don't know how I ended up getting into it. I was quite young. I was collecting basketball cards, NBA basketball cards. And I think it was the 93-94 season. And I collected all 553 upper deck full season cards. I don't know how I could afford it. I think that was like my walking around the streets between where my mum was working and to this toy store where they were selling them. I must have blown so much money in trades on that. But I ended up with a full set, and I thought by now, 30-odd years later, they'd be worth a fortune. One of the few basketball sets that have not got up in value basically in 30 years because I think they were so popular back then that there's just sets everywhere.

4:05Marc Watson:so i've got i'm sitting on some cards there's a few that are worth something but nothing uh

4:10Peter Bellamy:that to write home about sadly yeah well not to get too off piece this is why i'm not completely dismissing nfts yet nick like people like collecting stuff i just don't think that the model has been quite right or the value probably like i'm still on so rare like it's not quite what it was but it's still well they claim they're making money um that's why i'm that's why i'm not completely dead on nfts i think i think there's still something there if someone can get the

4:36Marc Watson:model right yeah the problem is everyone launches a collectible of something digital collectible well they're not they're not that um that rare i guess you're ultimately yeah um i have been getting served lots of that stuff when i go into youtube and even on netflix the other day there's stuff on collectibles and pokemon cards and movie all this sort of stuff i'm like it still seems to be really big business but most of it is all in physical form not in the digital version so i yeah just saw someone doing a whole bunch of like obsessed with michael jordan and all these cards and i'm like oh i've got about half a dozen michael jordan cards sitting in a box somewhere in the on the east coast of australia which is probably may or may not be worth something i'm not even sure i've sort of given up on the value of that for now we'll see well next time you go

5:20Peter Bellamy:home you can have you can have a dig out you can have a check of that nick just to see just to see maybe because my mom was clearing out all my stuff back at home and there's a collection of pokemon cards and she's like i can't get rid of these and i was like just i'm coming home in a couple months let me just see what's in there because there just might be something well the

5:36Marc Watson:ridiculous thing is i is to get i know we need to get back on track here is that the ridiculous thing is that those cards some of them are worth nothing and then the next card over could be worth a load of money just because it's got the right person it's just a weird that weird dynamic i'm not really comfortable with the fact that one card's worth nothing and this one's worth loads but it's actually the frequency at the time was exactly the same it's just the novelty value of a famous person but hey that's the world we live in now anyway so maybe i should be so surprised

6:02Peter Bellamy:maybe maybe well talking on the business nick one of the things you and i did when we were at sports pro london we recorded a few different interviews things that we're hoping to to bring to the people that weren't able to attend the event because they are worthwhile insights that should exist beyond the event and you had the opportunity to sit down with peter bellamy who's the chief revenue officer at Delta Trey. Obviously, Delta Trey are a leader in the space. They work with a number of really impressive clients, but it's also a space that is seeing a lot of change, Nick. We may be covered on a future episode.

6:32Peter Bellamy:ViewLift would have possibly considered a rival or a competitor to someone like Delta Trey, just got acquired by DAZN. And we've seen these sorts of acquisitions, these types of moves. You start looking at the sport radars and the geniuses of the world, some of the things that they're doing in this space. It is a rapidly evolving space all the time, Nick. So, you know, having that opportunity to sit down with someone like Peter at a place like DeltaTrain, they've got some changes going on internally, new products, things like that they're launching. It is a space that seems to be moving quite a lot, Nick.

6:59Marc Watson:Well, yeah. And for those that have followed DeltaTrain's journey, they were sold and acquired by Brewing Capital, sold by Brewing Capital to Bain Capital. And now they've gone through a huge transformation, disruption, whatever you want to call it, over the last few years since that acquisition. The previous CEO has now stepped down. A new CEO stepped into a role there, Mark Watson, who is of BT Sport and DAZN and 11 Sports fame, I suppose you would call it, from the industry. And he stepped into that role. So it feels like quite a major dynamic shift in the business, someone that Andrea Marini, who was the CEO, wasn't as publicly in the public eye, I suppose you'd call it.

7:47Marc Watson:I expect Mark, who's been more of a front man in the respective businesses he has been, to perhaps be a bit more visible and out there and whether that's going to have an impact positively on the brand because I think people were a little bit uncertain what the future looked like for Delta Tray recently. Although whilst they have been bringing in some really strong clients and seem to have some really strong longstanding relationships in place that I think most vendors in this space will be very, very jealous of. So it's just an interesting time to look at Delta Trey. And I didn't get to talk too much on the business strategy with Pete, but I did talk to him a little bit about how they're going to market and selling themselves and promoting themselves at the moment, given the changing dynamic of the sports media landscape and just basically how they've been evolving their offering from what it was several years ago.

8:41Marc Watson:So definitely good to when you want to hear how someone's going to market, talk to the guys leading their sales and revenue strategy. That's normally a good place to start.

8:50Peter Bellamy:Yeah, and I think the challenge as well, because I have had opportunities to engage with Delta Trend, I think they understand the market space. There's only so many of what you call the tier ones, you know, the really big properties, the ones everybody wants to get. But then there's all those other properties underneath that are, we've covered our different episodes from all different types of tier twos, tier threes. that still need to be able to come up with these solutions and figuring out where their place is. And I think Delta Tray as well has talked about having to balance out that, as you say, approach to market, making sure that they have something that can be accessible for everybody, but still also kind of is the high quality that's associated with Delta Tray.

9:24Marc Watson:Well, that's, I mean, that's an important part of their evolution. I mean, a few years ago, they were largely considered, you know, one of the major players, but really something that only the bigger names might be working with. And now they have added a lot of different products to try and suit and serve the rest of the ecosystem and not just sports alone. And actually, they have a number of non-sports clients now and doing some pretty impressive work on. So they've definitely widened the scope of the business, but there's no doubt that the market is very, very tricky now. So how does someone like them who is sitting at the top echelon continue to deliver the growth that is expected of them when you receive all that sort of investment behind them.

10:09Marc Watson:But they seem to have really fleshed out productifying their business more effectively to be able to go to market on those types of things. And couple that with the fact that they acquired Endeavor Streaming recently as well. There's that whole journey they're going through of bringing all the clients of Endeavor Streaming into the Delta Tray ecosystem, which we cover a little bit in the conversation I had with Pete.

10:32Peter Bellamy:And basically, the last question I'll ask you, and maybe you and Peter touched on a little bit, is this idea, very similar to what we did with the OTT Summit. We renamed it the Media Summit because we recognize that OTT is simply just one vertical. And I think there's probably a time Delta Trey would have been associated specifically with the streaming aspect. But we talk about now those digital ecosystems are so much broader. It doesn't just sit just with streaming and whether that's a reflection of the overall industry, sort of where you see these types of businesses and how they fit in, given the fact that streaming is just one vertical and perhaps you can specialize in it, but you might be limiting what you can do given all the other needs that you need at this point.

11:09Marc Watson:Yeah. I think one of the things I perhaps have faced is a bit of a misunderstanding of who they are as a business. I don't know what I would have, if you asked me that, I actually think the way Pete talks about it, you'll learn a bit more about it. It's kind of the way I have already seen this business. The difference is that they have, they've really focused the last few years on that more considered focus on the lower tier sports properties as well as the top tier. So they're working with streamers that the mass, some major, major streaming platforms. They're working for major sports partners, but they're also offering dedicated products that are easy to use, easy to get up and running much quicker than I think historically they would have been seen as being able to do.

11:47Marc Watson:So they've definitely made, they've been listening to the market and clearly improved some of those aspects. Recent announcements that they launched a new platform with DFB out of Germany. That's something I'm not sure we cover in this conversation, but we've got some recent coverage because they got up and running in only a matter of a couple of months, which is in this day and age, is what's expected or what's needed because most people don't like to make decisions with years in planning, unfortunately. I think that's something that most platform suppliers like Delta would love to have a little bit more of a runway on, but they've evolved their product and it's certainly a better position for the market than it was today.

12:24Marc Watson:So yeah, we talk a bit about all those types of things on this with Pete, which hopefully will be insightful for those that are interested in how Delta Trey is evolving. All right.

12:33Peter Bellamy:Well, we will hand things over to that interview and we won't see you on this other side. So I'll thank you for joining for this episode. I hope you enjoy the interview with Nick and Pete.

12:49Marc Watson:So Peter, you've been at Delta Trey for about 18 months now, I think if my math is correct. Yeah, spot on. How have you found the journey so far?

12:59Peter Bellamy:Great. I mean, hard work, exciting. Like we were talking before off camera, you know, so much of the market is dynamic in a good way and a bad way. You know, businesses are struggling. Some are really looking to accelerate. So it's exciting to be in. And we, you know, we work across the media and broadcast and sports sector with digital and OTT and data and graphics. So the surface area is quite wide. So never a dull day for sure.

13:27Marc Watson:Now you've joined at a time where there's a lot of change also happening with obviously Mark Watson's joining as the CEO. Mark is also changing along with it as well. Just how have you found the ability to come straight in and get straight into obviously the commercial side, which you'll focus on versus also balancing that change process that's also happening?

13:46Peter Bellamy:Yeah, of course. I mean, I've known Mark personally for about 10, 15 years now because there's a bit of crossover when BT Sport were a client of mine and we were running all the box office services for them, but also for a good three, four years when he was at 11 Sports. And again, when I was at New Line, we were running all of the direct-to-consumer ATT services. So, you know, we've known each other for a while, which is great. So there's familiarity from that point of view. Look, I'd say he's incredibly well-connected, you know, working at BT and 11 and DAZN more recently he's had access to amazing engagements with all the big sports properties leagues etc so I think his understanding the media rights market and then more recently with direct consumer with 11 and DAZN especially being more focused on on streaming I think has been fantastic so we're kind of we're picking up a lot there immediately and then I think to your point like like any kind of relatively wide complex technology business which ultimately we are technology product business there's a lot to get your head around you know so I think he's he's going through that journey at the minute I think he's on week seven at the minute so but no all good so far it's been it's been good fun your previous

14:59Marc Watson:employees in Devastream you're now part of the DeltaTrey business and ecosystem how have you found that transition bringing the technology bringing in the people and all that all that that comes with uh bringing in another business of that scale

15:11Peter Bellamy:yeah well look i um so i left endeavor streaming in summer of 24 and then it was spring time of last year 25 that we realized there's an opportunity to acquire them which you know was very exciting i always thought the vespa platform which is the underlying att platform was incredibly powerful uh but really one of the reasons why i decided to move across to DeltaTrait independently of that was I just felt that to really maximize the opportunity in the market especially with sports properties you had to be able to deliver that digital capability and and and DeltaTrait had that they had that with Forge and so I kind of made that move ahead of time but then really when Endeavor streaming became an opportunity it was like wow we can really supercharge this so again as we were talking previously before it's quite complementary so So we have our Vespa platform, which has come across from Endeavor Streaming, very much kind of end-to-end, highly productized platform, a great fit for sports leagues, teams, etc.

16:10Peter Bellamy:And then Delta Trade, I would say the pedigree there is more lean towards big broadcast, big media deployments with the Axis platform. so actually the access platforms modular we act as the big system integrator and we power those services to the likes of you know rogers and bell and britbox bbc so actually you know we don't really need to go through any big complex integration we feel like we can we can attack the market across both of those and i'll come back to the kind of digital ott combo maybe later in

16:41Marc Watson:the conversation so when you're talking to the market talking to people across the industry In my view, I've seen Delta Trey evolve a lot over the years. How do you describe the business now? What is it offering? How does it fit in the landscape today?

16:57Peter Bellamy:So I think I can give you a very quick run through maybe product sets just to set the scene. So as I say, we have our Vespa platform, which is that end-to-end OTT-centric solution. We then have our access capability, which we've had for 15, 20 years within Delta Trey, pairing those big broadcast services. We then have Forge, which is our digital publishing platform. I think at the last count, we have over 300 properties there. We run four of the five major US sports leagues on that. So that is your kind of multifunctional news, editorial, ticketing, gamification, etc., all powered by Forge. Again, we act as that kind of system integrator to bring in those third parties to deliver that dot-com experience that you see with NHL.com and obviously how that flows through to the application experience.

17:48Peter Bellamy:And then we have a data and graphics division as well, which has actually got the longest pedigree going back 40 years. So the company has 40th birthday, going back to very, very early deployments of data and graphics for World Athletics and various others. So, you know, that's really the surface area. And then we have our kind of strategy and growth services teams that we wrap around those product deployments to hopefully try and give as much value for those clients on how to actually grow and hit their KPIs. So it's quite a wide surface area. We have increasingly more and more clients opting to take more of those product sets for operational benefits.

18:28Peter Bellamy:And that's a key strategic focus for us, is to try and do as much as we can across that client base.

18:35Marc Watson:Why do you think that is that they're going down the more product-specific approach? Is it because they're now more mature and they know what they need? Is it because they have already a matured set of products and are looking to rewrite it all and start from scratch rather than just improve and enhance? What's the dynamic there? Because historically, I've thought of Delta Tray especially as someone that will partner them with a rights owner or a broadcaster on quite a holistic scale. And then Delta Tray gets to work. But it sounds like you've adjusted that or to have more flex in that approach.

19:06Peter Bellamy:You know what? It really depends where you're coming from. So I think if you look at big media broadcast telco businesses, we are very confident that we will continue to build that vertical because I think a lot of them are struggling to continue to build and innovate the pace they want to. They quite often will have very large engineering groups. You know, they're potentially going through this big transition from the DTH subscriber model to, you know, direct consumer. They've got the big streamers to compete with. So we're going to continue to do a lot there with our Axis products in kind of taking the complexity out of their business, providing cost savings and then really allowing them to focus on some very specific areas around, you know, consumer engagement, CRM and ultimately how they go and have the best kind of content portfolio.

19:58Peter Bellamy:So I think they, you know, that's one market kind of vertical that we look at. And then I think when it comes to more of the sports market, the leagues, the teams, you know, sports properties, it's all about how do you centralize the fan data so actually we you know we're in the process of and we will be announcing more widely we're launching a new product called nexus which is actually a combination of our vesper ott platform solution and forge from a digital publishing point of view we feel very strongly that we're really the only provider in the market that can go to these sports leagues or teams or whoever it may be and instead of them needing one agency to do their content publishing system and an agency to be building out their front-end experiences for all of the normal engagement that you get around news and editorial etc and then having to have another OTT provider to build something on an island over there we're bringing all of that together so it kind of you know we look at it from point of view of what's the business impact you know how can we deliver contractual efficiencies operational efficiencies, cost efficiencies, but in actually in bringing it together then how do we deliver like the consumer facing impact, right, which is that I don't go off to a separate OTT service which has a very poor limited link from the core digital service, how do you actually bring that all together and you centralize it within a kind of a single sign on solution, that's really where we feel we can deliver an awful lot of value for these sports businesses because we all know this, but if you're a football club or a league, the more you can understand your customer data and standardize it across all those touch points, the more you have insights on where the value is, where the problems are.