Are strong viewing figures hiding the Olympics’ real problem?

0:04Nick Meacham: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, in the spirit of the Winter Olympics, you went on a holiday to show your Olympic prowess. So I'm seeing you right now. I don't see any crutches. I don't see any casts. I'm assuming you went on a successful ski holiday.

0:22Chris Stone:I did. I tell you what, it was incredible timing to go on a skiing trip by luck. I didn't actually plan it this way, but to go on a ski holiday whilst the winter Olympics was on. It was such a cool experience. So I went out, have a break because I went with the family, right? We're two couple of young kids. We had quite a few breaks and to go back to the way we were staying and then, oh, let's just put on some more skiing and got right into the energy of it all, which was which was really fun plus the fact that these days i basically have i have three teams to root for technically four i'd even say if you want to count jamaica in there when when they go on the bobsleds but that wasn't that wasn't on that with australia and great britain and sweden so always something to cheer on but it was a great holiday uh minus 20 something at one stage in one morning and consistently minus 10 but otherwise my first time so i've been snowboarding for years but to first time I went skiing, got the kids into skiing and stuff as well.

1:17Chris Stone:And, uh, yeah, came out the other side with no injuries and, uh, having a really good time and, uh, a bit annoyed that I hadn't tried skiing earlier cause I found it way easier than snowboarding to get up and running. So, um, you know, it was a lot of fun and yeah, got me right into the thick of the Olympic Olympic spirit and watching the winter Olympics. I watched more sports in that week, even though I was busy on, like on the slopes than I have pretty much for the last 6 to 12 months.

1:44Nick Meacham:Well, I was going to ask if you had the kids skiing or snowboarding, and I don't know what it's like in America. I've only ever skied in Europe a couple of times. I will tell you right now, there's nothing more humbling than watching a three-year-old French kid going through ski lessons, just bombing it straight past you as like a grown adult, you know, trying to learn to ski. You just see these three, four-year-olds just going by with absolutely no fear straight down the mountain. It is genuinely one of the most humbling things I've ever had, Nick.

2:08Chris Stone:Well, I had that. I had that to some extent, but not with that. not so young, but, uh, my kids are eight and five and, uh, um, my eight year old, like on day three, I thought I was doing pretty well. And he just, we got on one of these runs. It was like a blue run and he just bombed it straight down. He didn't turn, just went straight down. I was like, he's like, and he flew down.

2:29Nick Meacham:I did like, I was trying to catch him and, uh, I eventually found

2:32Chris Stone:him somewhere along the way. He's just there waving at me at the end of the run. That was a pretty good reminder of just to like how I'm not going to be able to keep up with them as they get better and better and uh sure enough it got uh more difficult as we went along but i got into it yeah loads of fun i'd say what i experienced in terms of the skiing versus snowboard debate because there's a lot of debate about that firstly when you've got a couple young kids you have to ski because you're going to be dragging them around on skis even worse with a snowboard so unless you go the right type of places with loads of lifts also there's loads of um the button lifts and anchor lifts which are just so much easier with a set of skis than with a snowboard they're not built for ski slopes aren't really built for snowboarders so your snowboarders are living in a skier's world unfortunately and i've had to deal with that for a long time so uh skiing was almost necessity just because i had to drag around a couple of a couple of young kids but uh by then it was a lot of fun and uh i did a couple of small runs even my five-year-old on uh one of the the runs where i went down that took the wrong turn and they're taking down a much more difficult run And they're like, all right, well, what's going to happen is anyone way we can do this is get down and do the best we can.

3:39Chris Stone:But loads of fun. So I had a great time and then got a chance to consume a load of the Olympics. And for my first time watching it from Sweden as well.

3:47Nick Meacham:Well, the nice thing about the Olympics is because it's so long and there's so many events and so diverse, you actually always get these really weird stories. You don't think are going to come up, Nick. I remember at the Paris Olympics, it was the Norwegian swimmer, I think, who went viral for rating all the chocolate muffins in the canteen area. Do you remember that, Nick?

4:05Chris Stone:I don't remember that, but that sounds like something I would do.

4:09Nick Meacham:I'm telling you went viral. Go look up a Norwegian swimmer and French pastries. It was the fun thing. And I think this Olympics, what I've covered, it's a sport I'm very passionate about only once every four years. but the Canadians both the men and women's team have now been implicated for cheating in the curling and just like you know again not one of these stories we predicted coming out of the Olympics but you know it's all over.

4:32Chris Stone:It has been all the news here and the Canadians have been absolutely mocked by every creator, social influencer, broadcaster, network, expert whatever you name it they are copying it from all and luckily they probably don't understand what's being said about them because it is pretty ruthless in the Swedish media here. And obviously it's keep manifesting because there's been more instances since, which is being speculated of being cheating. But yeah, I actually wonder, this is definitely, there's a risk of recency bias here, but just, I feel like I enjoy the Winter Olympics more than the Summer Olympics.

5:12Chris Stone:I'm not sure, it could be recency bias, but you know, the curling's great. some of the skiing stuff you see is just some extraordinary some of the tricks and thrills and spills and every single um winter event that i can think of it has such jeopardy attached to it like one little slip of the ski or the skate or whatever can end in disaster i don't know it just feels like there's something more to it um than some of the summer events but that could absolutely be because I just was immersed in skiing on the slopes and whatnot. And also seeing Australia do it pretty well, actually. I got a few messages from people saying, how was Australia so good?

5:54Chris Stone:Most people don't even realize there was actually ski fields where I came from. That's actually when I went skiing or snowboarding the first time. There's a nice little pocket in Australia, which has, I think, one ski field that has over 50 lifts at it. So it's quite a big setup. So yeah, definitely enjoyed it. Now, what I would say is I have a darker side, a more negative side around the Winter Olympics that I wanted to bring up, which was linked to a couple of things going on here. I have started reading Michael Payne's book. I don't know if you're familiar with Michael Payne, but he was the media and marketing director of the IOC for 20 odd years.

6:34Chris Stone:He was pre-Timolume, who we've had on the podcast before. um many role initially around the sponsorship and the evolution of the commercial proposition and how they monetize the IOC it's a been a really interesting read and reading that plus and all the nuances around the media rights deals and the sponsorship deals that happen and how those events have been delivered over time whilst being able to watch it live and then whilst experiencing skiing live has been quite a full like immersive experience I would say uh consuming it all what has made it so successful has been its presence on free-to-air tv you know it grabs the whole nation the patriotism behind it um and without and with that in place has allowed the olympics to absolutely immerse itself into all of news conversation particularly in where i'm in sweden i'm just you can't get away from it it's all people are talking about but over time it's got me reflecting a little bit of what's happened with the olympics and then some other stuff that's been going on so firstly there's speculation around where the olympics is going in terms of its commercial growth or lack of lack of it the last financial numbers that came out showed a massive dip in the sponsorship revenue that they were creating um and i won't i won't go into too much detail because i could go on forever out that alone but the top sponsorship model uh is being used hugely regarded by across the industry for its success up to this point um but But over time, you link with what the success of that was, again, that global reach, and then the growth of pay TV and the fragmentation of those rights has created, I think it's sort of led to the IC, I think the Olympic movement, perhaps losing a little bit, not all of it, but like just a little bit because I'm still writing to it, but a little bit of its like impact.

8:30Chris Stone:because maybe those rights and the visibility aren't what they used to be because there is more money coming from the pay tv sort of world and my experience in sweden has been a bit of a challenge so when i was watching it i think this is coming back to something that i think might be interesting to the audience is how they've approached it here um firstly there's two of the major public broadcasters have a good chunk of the rights i i haven't actually looked it up i I think HBO Max might have some because of their links with Discovery. But so TV4. So firstly, I was watching in the place I was staying, and they only didn't have a smart TV.

9:11Chris Stone:So it was only linear channels. So the first time I'd watched just linear for, gosh, I don't know how long. SVT, channels one and two, and then TV4 on channel four. But then there was other channels on TV, on the 7th channel and the 12th channel where there was also broadcasting. And then sometimes SVT had another channel which used to be sometimes the child's channel and sometimes a channel they had I think this time I watched they had the Swedish rally because the rally's also going on at the moment. So there was six different places for me to look what was potentially on TV and what was not.

9:46Chris Stone:And sometimes there'd be live Olympics, sometimes there wouldn't be. And so I was getting so lost trying to find where to watch that stuff. But that's one thing. And then I was like, okay, well, when I got home, I was like, let's put on my smart TV and see what the experience is like on the apps and on the platforms. And then TV4 doesn't have the live broadcasting of its channels available on the app. And in fact, they were charging a premium subscription, a plus package to access the live feed of the Olympics on their channels but i was watching that for free on my own linear tv before so it just creates this like this mishmash of like okay well there's some rights here being protected that aren't available but they are available on linear if you have an old tv you can watch it or just a tv that's connected to other channels and it's just really fragmented really bitty and i think in this day and age you have to make everything as accessible and easy to navigate as possible.

10:45Chris Stone:And I found that just incredibly frustrating and difficult. Now, I need to look up quickly if HBO Max over here does, if anyone else does have the rights to the Olympics, because if they do, I've not seen it marketed once to me other than the public broadcasters in TV4 and SVT. And that for me just feels like a massive missed opportunity. I should be a perfect person they should be targeting for this stuff right you would think um so i found out i walked away being just very frustrated that i wasn't able to get my head around where and how to watch stuff it was just all over the place surely there has got to be a better way this day and age and i think the knock-on effect of all of this is that the negative uh the downward trend that the IOC has seen lately in sponsorship is a little bit linked with this bitty nature of their rights being visible in a bunch of different places.

11:46Chris Stone:And I had a quick look, by the way, and Wooden Brothers Discovery do have it. But for me, not to have seen them market it once is bonkers and such a missed opportunity for them.

11:55Nick Meacham:I find that really interesting because I don't think the Olympics is alone in that because I remember last summer, completely different broadcaster, completely different sport, completely different in terms of legacy. I don't remember seeing any or much of all of any Club World Cup advertising in the lead up to it. And even the World Cup is currently, you know, we're still four months away from the World Cup, but it still feels like I've not necessarily heard a ton about the World Cup either. It does feel like some some major events. The marketing doesn't seem like they've necessarily been there.

12:26Nick Meacham:So it is interesting you mentioned the Winter Olympics on this, but I felt very similar about the club world cup that like i followed it because i'm really into sports but like i don't know how to casual would have ever found that from just what i experienced in the uk exactly and i

12:39Chris Stone:think that is this comes back to this fundamental challenge we are seeing across the industry and i think it's almost a naivety that there's a general growth in content consumption in the world every statistic shows that right across whatever medium you want to talk about if you aggregate all those mediums, more content is being consumed than ever. So different services see that growth and think they are succeeding right now. But my perspective is this issue here, this example we've given about the lack of advertising and marketing of the fact that it's visible in multiple places, is something that I think I've consistently seen.

13:15Chris Stone:It's almost like these broadcasters are just relying on the fact they've got those rights as the marketing investment for them to get people on the platform. And to some extent, I get that. But by not further investing in heavily and heavily marketing to people who consume sports content on social channels and other channels alike on a regular basis, how am I not getting it thrown in my face at all times to be consuming it on HBO Max and to just to know where to go and how to consume it? I think that's where, again, it's just like creates a little bit of user tension that is going to push me away from consuming it.

13:52Chris Stone:I gave up last night trying to watch it and I really wanted to watch it, but I just wasn't really, I'm not going to buy a plus package, especially from TV4, I'm sorry, when I know I can watch it for free on my linear TV. I just need to set up my linear channels and I couldn't be bothered to that point because I never thought I needed to. And I think this is a consistent problem that I think that I see has to deal with because they've been finding that balance between taking in the pay tv checks and getting those um free-to-air deals and maybe again this is that more existential issue just getting it to as many eyeballs as possible and doubling down on sponsored revenue as the core play again getting as much reach and making sure you've got a single destination that everyone can get and immerse themselves in the olympic movement because that's what i was looking for yesterday and I couldn't find it.

14:39Nick Meacham:And to be clear, this isn't just an Olympics thing. It might just feel exacerbated because the Olympics is only on we'll call it once every two years. But the each edition of the Olympics is every four years. There probably is that pressure to feel like you've got to get as much money out of it as you can because you don't have that cyclical nature on a year to year basis. But we've also talked about, you know, is the NFL potentially headed that way? Because it used to be the NFL is historically free to air. But now it's a Netflix subscription. It's the Amazon Prime subscription. It's a YouTube TV subscription.

15:08Nick Meacham:You need a Peacock subscription, like more and more of it's actually being put behind a paywall. And, you know, the money might be coming in. But does that create long term issues down the road that are harder to spot? Because in the short term, you're making the money. But, you know, I've made the same argument. I would love for there to be a one game a week on BBC for the Premier League instead of having everything exclusively behind a paywall. You know, is that part of the reason why European fixtures or European media rights for football leagues is going down? because so much of it's hard to see.

15:35Nick Meacham:I don't know. That's a little bit of, you know, lick your finger, stick it up and see if the wind blows that way. But I don't disagree, Nick. I think there's something to the fact that the more difficult stuff is defined that does just create more tension that maybe takes a longer time to see how that plays out.

15:52Chris Stone:Yeah, look, it's easy for me to throw stones here. But some context here is that Warner Brothers Discovery, they have the rights, the exclusive rights across Europe for the winter olympics and the summer olympics the olympics or in overall and then they have to sub-license those rights out to different broadcasters that's part of the mandate and their approach they wanted all those rights and then they're going to sub-license them out they've been doing that for a long time and they've got it till i think 2032 i think is the number that they've got to work with um and so they do they do deals with like the ebu which is connected with public service broadcasters and that's how that this this all comes to play and so i think Warner Brothers Discovery had a very smart approach to it all but I still think in this day and age the the Olympics is being so limited by this approach particularly across Europe that they are missing a big opportunity and could come out the other side of this right cycle with just some real challenges on rebuilding that inertia and then excitement and momentum around it in a really hotly contested marketplace.

17:02Chris Stone:But that being said, as I was pointing out before, every news outlet, every social creator, et cetera, that I'm across, across social media, across Sweden, is talking about the Lympho Olympics. So there's a load of conversation, loads of highlights being shared. So there's plenty of conversation being had. But I still feel like the issues that they're having back to the business side here more further is that the reason they might be having a dip with that sponsorship mix is that maybe, maybe sponsors might be a little bit disappointed with how their visibility is being made across those platforms.

17:38Chris Stone:Because remember that if you're a big sponsor of the Olympics, your brand visibility is not very high, actually. You have them on the back of certain media drops, but you don't have them on any of the signage in the venues during live events at all. there's no branding at all like imagine the value of those advertising boards if they decided to flip the script there gosh they'd be worth they'd be worth billions and imagine if they went to a geolocated uh model like they do in football where like supponer and those others do it but the value of those is clearly significant and they've been able to lead on the exclusivity play for a long time but who knows maybe that will let the tension and pressure might come soon where they have to flip the script on that.

18:21Nick Meacham:That's 100 % something I was thinking when you're going through that first initial bit, when you talked about like the TOPS program worked really well when linear was just the world. And, you know, the degree of personalization wasn't possible, but you start thinking about the day, you know, you're talking about the experience in Sweden is going to be different than the experience in the U S you know, one of the things I found really interesting is like, at least in my experience, the NFL game pass, they've yet to, you know, give me UK based commercials. They're still just showing me the American commercials.

18:50Nick Meacham:Like imagine to your point, whether the zone is doing that or the Olympics, to your point was able to all of a sudden start doing that. Cause in theory, you'd like to think the technology has got to be close to that. You know, we we've spoken to enough people in the dynamic ad space. It would tell you it's possible to do that. You know, what could you possibly do if you could all of a sudden, you know, especially for such a global event to be able to start personalizing them, just adding a little bit more advertisement money instead of just relying on those big global brands.

19:17Chris Stone:Yeah, because the global brand approach that the IOC has taken to this point relies on just big, massive deals being struck. And they have to really get brands to buy into being connected with the movement of the Olympics and that position that they've taken.

19:34Nick Meacham:And it's a really strong story.

19:37Chris Stone:but it means that there is innately a lot of revenue being left on the table a lot of inventory not being used and a lot of space to i guess for brands to come into the play into into play and now a lot of people will talk about the olympics being what's so prestigious about it is it such a clean experience there's no brands involved and i i do think there's definitely some value in that but i just think you're going to see more pressure as if revenue continues to dip on on the sponsorship program that you might need you might see the needing to make a change at some point and final point i'll make on this is that over time and again reading michael's uh michael's book which i'm halfway through now it is a really great read for anyone who's in the industry um what's it called i should i've brought it it's fast track and dark deals fast tracks and dark deals uh all right interesting title yeah yeah and it's been great but my point was going to say that back in the day when they launched a top program and and and were able to lean in that the messaging that they had then the sponsors what they were paying for back then were visibility and the ability to activate and tell stories around their connection with the property and the IIC did an incredible job of like protecting that at all costs so the brand's got immense value but now we've seen it in countless times brands are now paying for content they're paying for storytelling they're paying for moments and emotions and something that no advertisements or no brand positioning can buy alone.

21:06Chris Stone:And that's where I think you're going to have to see more brand connectivity into the Olympic experience at some stages. They want to keep growing that sponsorship hype because without it, I don't think there's enough there unless the ISE can really open up the floodgates on content creation themselves to really bring that to life and basically maximize the sponsorship dollars that they need to, to keep funding and distributing their revenue across athletes and national Olympic committees across the world.

21:34Nick Meacham:Well, Nick, that might be a really nice segue to talk about our most recent Streamtime Connect event. You've heard us talk about our Streamtime community in the past, you know, quick summary. It's something we've built off the back of the podcast, given how many of you have reached out to us and put on a series of events that take place, not only at our core events like New York, SP London, SP Media Awards, but also hosting smaller events. And the whole purpose of them is to be a little bit smaller, more intimate, give people the opportunity to really connect with decision makers. Because, you know, we recognize, hey, come to Sports Pro Madrid, come to Sports Pro New York next month.

22:07Nick Meacham:They're great. But there's also something nice about having a smaller, more intimate event. We just had our most recent one at the TikTok offices. And Nick, the big question around all of that and Nick wearing his merch branded, I didn't wear mine, I should do, but it's a big puffer jacket. It's too warm to be wearing inside. But what we talked about during that event, Nick, and maybe it's a nice little segue into this the the main theme of it was is social media and non-live content a value add or a value gap to live content basically the argument being does all the content around live sports actually create a distraction taking away the value that broadcasters are paying for or does it add value to it and i'll be honest i got we i think uh maybe a little um a little biased because this is what tiktok was wanting to talk about so sort of tiktok is obviously going to want to push across the message that, hey, we're a value add.

22:56Nick Meacham:We're not taking away. So for us, I think going into there's like, okay, we know what you want to talk about because you do want to, you know, frame yourself as adding to the value, not taking away from it. And that was sort of the purpose of the conversation. Maybe that leads to nice. We're talking about the Olympic side of things with the content creators and, you know, how do you drive value to the live content? And Nick, there are some pretty big stats from that. And I'll quickly run through some of the stats that they shared in a presentation they put together. They said in 2025, there were 5 trillion sports video views, which is just a bonkers number.