Does sports need private equity? A conversation with Marc Allera

0:04Hello, 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, today as we record this, so, you know, we'll pull it up in the video. I'll show everybody. Today is opening day in Cincinnati for Major League Baseball. Those that don't know, it is a holiday back at home. My parents will be attending the game today. I get close to about 200 ,000 people all in downtown. You can take a look at it. It's great. Everyone loves it. there's a big parade um cincinnati's absolutely baseball town it's a bit unfortunate nick cincinnati the reds were the first ever professional baseball team um until money became more important historically the cincinnati reds were always the first game of the major league baseball season it's only been about in the last five or six years that they've started putting other um games on before them obviously largely for the broadcasters to have something because the reds typically first pitch is around 2 or 3 p.m.

0:57You know, it's not necessarily prime time viewing, but it's a very big day in Cincinnati. I'm not sure. I mean, I think the Reds won the World Series the year I was born in 1990. They've not won a playoff series since. So a little bit like the Bengals, but you never know. You never know what could happen, Nick. Every season could be different. It could be. It's a bit difficult at this day and age with the amount of money going into teams like the Yankees and the Dodgers to be able to compete seriously. but I don't know enough about MLB to pretend like I know what I'm talking about. You know how, didn't the Red Sox have a curse for a while?

1:34They did. Didn't the Reds have a curse? Well, yes, the Red Sox had the curse from when they traded Babe Ruth, the great Bambino, traded him from the Red Sox to the Yankees. And it was nearly, I think, 100 years before they finally won a World Series. So quite a long time. Nick, actually super interesting about baseball. I came across a tweet. I'll have to send it to you. I'll put it in the description of this. Basically talking about how private equity is ruining sports, which actually makes perfect sense because we're going to talk about private equity a little bit later on. But basically... And all the positive energy around private equity.

2:04I know, I know. It's not all doom and gloom. But basically they were talking about the Fenway Sports Group, who also own Liverpool as well, that it's actually more profitable to be a losing team than a winning team and went really in-depth into basically the business of baseball and basically really kind of like poo-pooed everything. So like, yeah, it's a really great one, Nick. It's about five, six minutes long to go through it. So I'll send it to you. I'll put it in the podcast description for everybody else talking about private equity. But the interesting thing, Nick, about baseball is everyone hates on the Dodgers.

2:32And I get it. And like, because they're kind of like the empire from Star Wars. I saw a statistic. They spend something like 95 % of their revenue on player salaries. So basically almost all the money they make, they're putting directly back in. So yes, they're spending heap loads of money. Like even their luxury taxes more than some teams just hold payroll. but like I said, they're almost spending 100 % of the revenue. So at least they're going all in. Whereas someone like the Cincinnati Reds and some of these mid-market teams, they're like spending less than 50 % of their revenue on player salaries.

3:01So I get the argument. Everyone's mad about how much money the Dodgers are spending. But you can at least make the argument they're not actually making a lot of money. Like they're putting almost all their money from TV deals and sponsorship directly back into the players. So like I'd argue as much as people talk about, you know, needing to add a salary cap, There's also an importance in having a salary floor that says, hey, like you have to at least spend X amount of your revenue on player salaries or something. So it's really interesting what's going on in baseball right now, Nick. We won't go into that because that could be a whole conversation in itself.

3:30But there's a lot going on with baseball. Private equity is in the mix. It's all over the place. Well, actually, I do think it leads into really a nice thing to what we're going to be talking about today because it links with a bit of the – I think when you describe it, it kind of sounds a little bit like what we see in European football, particularly like in the UK, right, where you've got this this amount of spend relative to earnings being such a hotly debated topic and basically these owners of uh teams both in europe but also indeed like like the dodgers no doubt are probably playing this game where they're happy to take losses year on year because the actual value of the club still continues to go up because of the um the actual multiple uh relative to revenue is is still increasing so their overall value of the club is going up enough that it justifies losing money year on year.

4:18If they keep winning trophies, then the valuation goes up proportionally with it. That's not, not everyone can play that game, unfortunately. And that's the problem. I do think most of the other leagues in the US have a baseline on spend, don't they? But it's baseline, they all have a salary cap and they all have a base, like have to spend a minimum of. Is that right? Yeah, I believe it's just a minimum. It's not necessarily like a ratio percentage of like revenue versus salary. But yes, like the NFL has like a minimum cash spend you have to do um so that's why teams like even like the miami dolphins for those of all the nfl i don't know if you've been following this nick i think they've got something like 120 million dollars in dead cap this year because of players they're paying to not be on their team this year they still technically have to go and spend some money they can't completely blow it up so yeah there is some degree of that you know football finances whether the whether cap space is real and dead money is real like that there's some really interesting stuff in american sports the way they do salary um and balancing those things out nick like there could definitely be a whole podcast and that a whole podcast i think there's people out there that create content endlessly around this stuff and there's good reason because it is complicated and those that find the edge on like a little loophole to get around have been the ones that have been successful quite a lot you know it's a bit like money ball in some ways but purely around the finance side yeah absolutely but nick talking about this going in the direction we're going to you have the opportunity to speak to Mark Alera, who is, what is it, the chairman now for SGS, which is the GSG Global Sports Group, which is part of CVC.

5:53I guess, Nick, just to kind of paint the context for those that don't know, I'm sure many of our listeners do know, but CVC worked with the likes of Formula One, La Liga, La Liga, Volleyball World, Rugby Six Nations. They've been in the game for decades. You know, they're not a new group, but the global sports group is new. Could you perhaps just maybe paint a little bit of a picture, kind of give people a bit of an understanding where we've gone from CVC to GSG and sort of how it fits into that whole group? Yeah, sure. Well, CVC first, well, one of the first movers ever in the private equity space to come into and invest into sports heavily.

6:26They did that with Irene in and around F1 and then also with MotoGP. Both were very successful products or propositions that they acquired and then subsequently sold. I think from memory, the reports are that they spent something like$2 billion on F1 at the time, and then they sold it for about$8 billion many, many years later. And I think just the deal alone to Liberty Media was something like nearly$5 billion at the time. So they were one of the first movers into basically private equity spending in sports. And CVC generally is one of the biggest investment firms basically in the world, investing in all sorts of different sectors.

7:10But they've launched this dedicated, they basically took all of their sports assets and then have lumped them into this global sports group. And that's now this new operating, I guess, entity that sits above all of those investments they make, which you know the message is that they're looking to make further investments have worked as well and have recently with the equine network reportedly worth a couple of hundred million i think 300 million is the report that they made in the u.s uh this year as well so they are looking to spend more and keep building out this portfolio i suppose of sports properties in the uh in the organization now with those investments they have largely been around or feels like there's a lot of it around media rights you know we we just saw media rights constantly going up and up and up and they were particularly looking at things like La Liga and Lagoon, particularly investing on the idea that the media rights would continue to go up and that's where they would invest in.

8:05Does that still, you know, you mentioned it last week that there was still optimism that that's going up, where we've talked about there is a bit of a concern, the stagnation with media rights in Europe, that maybe that isn't just, you know, they used to say, oh, you can invest in property because property is always going to go up, Nick. You know, sort of I think maybe that's a similar mantra for media rights. but it does seem like there is still a bit of that same optimism despite maybe what we're seeing a little bit from the european rights perspective well yeah i don't want to give it all away but you definitely hear mark's view on it in this podcast which given they have most of their investments have been linked in some way with media rights value if you look at ligand developing the lfp media business la liga was directly built around media rights revenues and volleyball world they created a dedicated commercial entity and took all of that in-house and launched a ott platform and have done all the broadcast production internally and acquired other leagues rights it's a big focus for them and i'll give you a little hint he's pretty bullish about the future of media rights which obviously goes a little bit against what we have been talking about in some instances but um he'll be able you'll hear a bit more about his views uh on that um in in you hear more about his views on that uh quite shortly um but and there's the other thing that you hear a lot of which is basically either meteorites are going to go up or sports is just going to figure it out at some stage and again i got a little bit of that from mark as well you'll get again he'll give more more eloquent points than that but basically that because of sports intrinsic value in society and the fans and audience audience development and engagement they're just going to find ways of driving up the monetization to keep it growing uh at the rate that's needed to make it worth while investing into and that's obviously a big big topic of debate not only by people like us who if those who listen will know my thoughts about that sort of mindset but also if that is true then where is the growth actually going to come from because uh i'd love to know and i'm sure the rest of us would love to as well particularly outside of the u.s Because last time we talked about that, that there is still a lot of general buoyancy in the U.S.

10:14specifically around, I guess, media values and where that's going. Well, that's the part that's concerning to me, Nick, is that I agree. I believe sports is unique in its ability to bring people together and create a sense of emotion. You know, we talk about AI slop and things like that. Like with sports, you know, the amount of times we talk about this, Nick, like you see comebacks like Hollywood. If you made that in a movie, you wouldn't believe it could actually happen in real life. If sports has that unique ability, that's where private equity scares me a little bit. It's the same thing I mentioned with the Red Sox.

10:44You know, there's more money in not winning than there is in winning. To your point, it almost takes away a bit of what makes sports sports. And if my personal opinion, if too much private equity becomes involved, if making money becomes a priority over winning, sports may lose a little bit of that shine. And even other things like the, you know, accessibility to sports. You know, this is not a direct stream time thing, but Nick, if you follow in America, it costs like an arm and a leg for your kid to play sports these days. And just like the amount of access to facilities and things like that, that I think are driven by private equity because they're making investment in those sorts of spaces.

11:23that yeah i think it's a bit of a it's a double-edged sword you know sports is great but what makes it great i think is uh not to get too emotional about it but is that connectivity it has with the fans on a more raw level that i don't think private equity cares about when they're more concerned about you know sort of the bottom line ultimately that and that is their job though the people that run private equity organizations their responsibility to investors is to build build up the the investment that they've made and walk away with a profit and then it's up the sports and the stakeholders that are that are running sport to balance that if they're willing to take on investment then it's up to them to hold that whilst balance keeping true to the roots of sport because you are right like i've been living in this more of lately with particularly having a couple of young kids and i think it's just it's not talked about enough the and it's just not value enough for that role of grassroots and driving fandom and driving just interest in sports generally it does start at such a young age and if you lose some of that because the focus is just at the professional end or it's just neglected or it becomes too cost prohibitive you are going to lose interest in your properties and the fact of the matter is most of these people that are having to make decisions on this sort of stuff they don't they're not i don't want to say they don't care about it but their priorities are not the long term their priorities are the short to medium term because that's what they're going to be judged on they don't have to you know have a 25 year plan in place because they're not going to be judged on them ultimately new people will come in and take over responsibility as will private equity and so forth as well and those people who are leading the charge they just have to show that they're delivering today and in the next year or two not 20 years from now so it's a really tricky conundrum i think it is private equity is a little bit of a poison chalice in that instance although i do think it can provide some value if it's just managed correctly which we've seen a lot of examples where it hasn't been so far and just before we hand things over to your interview nick for those that maybe don't know mark maybe just a little bit of a background because i i shouldn't be surprised for how much money he's responsible for looking after he's got quite an impressive resume of things that he's done in his career before he even got to cvc yeah i had a good good chat with him off stage and his background um those can can look into it he had nearly 30 years or so in the telco uh space in the uk where he was ceo of of bt's consumer business and also of ee so he's come from a very customer-centric background there he was part of the growth and development of bt sport and tnt sports and what that has become and was involved with that journey pretty much not from beforehand but right when it sort of kicked off so he's got some first-hand insight into how platforms can perform and you know negotiating rights deals and those types of things as well um and so he and he's also had quite a bit of work in private equity linked with some of his other projects so he's definitely got you know a quite rounded uh that was a set of experiences that would give him a different perspective than i think perhaps someone coming with just a pure sports background look and i think you have to take a step back and go like why is the global sports group sort of set up in the first place i think that's the bit that we're all trying to get our heads around because cvc has made some important investments over time and some would say look the official lines out of cvc and indeed gsg here and it's probably what mark says i can't remember the exact wording but it's to consolidate all their investments to track everything centrally to unlock shared expertise and synergies and to create some separation from CVC.

15:05But it's also no doubt, and many will point to this, that the market is volatile. Some of their investments have performed pretty poorly. I've had some major challenges along the way. I asked Mark about those in like Ligon in particular and Rugby in particular. So why are they bringing this all together? Is it to basically put together some of the underperforming businesses and hopefully that this new set of assets is going to be more valuable as the sum of its all part all of its parts rather than each on its own and as i make it easier to invest into one portfolio rather than into each individual sports property if they are looking to divest some of their investments in sports um so there's a lot of question marks as to why this exists but i mark's background he's been through it all yet managing i have i've done a separate interview and which will probably publish through other channels where he gives us a bit of a look into his background.

16:00He's been through all, so nothing's going to phase him, I would say, basically, in terms of managing this, being in this role and having to manage so many different stakeholders, ranging from private equity people through to sports leaders, through to performance experts, you name it. But I think he's got a tricky task at hand to make sure they can ride the wave through and ensure that the league, a league, a rugby, be somehow correct to their path and become valuable to the level they needed to provide the return that they need for investors. Because otherwise, some might say there's some pretty troubling waters ahead for some of these properties they've invested into.

16:39Well, stay tuned to listen to the interview Nick did with Mark just on the other side of this. And we thank you preemptively for joining us for this episode of Streamtime.

16:50Thank you. Thank you very much. All right. Mark, thank you for joining us today. You're chair of the Global Sport Group. Let's talk a little bit more for those that aren't familiar with it, for it's a fairly new organisation. Give a bit of a description on what the organisation is. Now, for those, most of you should be familiar with the company and organization CVC. Now, this is a dedicated sports investment platform you guys have launched last year. And it brings together a host of CVC's sports investments, ranging from La Liga, League Earned, Six Nations, rugby championship, premiership rugby, WTA Ventures, an IPL cricket team, although I think you've exited from that, Volleyball World, and most recently, Equine Network.

17:30It'll be a pop quiz if I missed any later. So very international, very competition-centric as well. And since about 2018, the organization collectively has invested around$1.8 billion into sports and appears to be looking to do a little bit more potentially. So that's a bit of the scene setting, one of the major investors into sports globally. So, Mark, welcome. What's the reason CVC decided to create Global Sport Group, a dedicated sports sector division? yeah i mean the cvc started the journey in sport almost 20 years ago with with formula one um so they are a blue chip investor one of the largest private equity organizations on the planet but and brilliant investors uh having having worked with them over the last couple of years you know i've just i've just seen the quality of the people and and the way in which they really think about adding value to investments in all categories actually.

18:30But sport specifically, we're here to talk about sport. I think as an investor, they understand sport really, really well. There's deep expertise there. They've been investing in the sector for many, many years. And as we all know, anyone involved in sport knows it's different to other businesses and different to other industries. And so to be working with an investor that's backing us, that gets sport the highs, the lows, the ups and downs, and the need to think long term, I think is really important. I think the rationale for why have we created the platform now and not had all these individual investments managed separately, I think really points to the big trends that I see happening in the world.

19:17And we're all experiencing, we've got a global media market that is changing rapidly. the global streamers coming into sport now. It's a relatively new phenomenon, but already billions of investment from streamers compared to a few years ago. And we certainly see that trend continuing. We see sponsorship and the importance of global sponsorship deals, the importance of data and analytics, the need for sport as an industry to focus more on cost and the cost base is really important. And so when you have a platform and the ability to act as a platform with an aggregate set of leagues to work on both the revenue generating deals, could be media or sponsorship or data aggregation, as well as the cost synergies.

20:08I think that is a real advantage for the leagues we have and the ones that we will acquire in the coming years. I think it's going to be a really important trend because the industry is incredibly fragmented and needs to consolidate. And we will be an important part of that consolidation story, not the only one. But if I look at music, video games, TV, media, those IP industries have been through pretty significant consolidation and sport has not yet. But I believe it will. And therefore, a platform like ours will be an important catalyst for that journey. So, Mark, you've been brought in to chair this new organization.

20:46Now, for those that aren't familiar with Mark's background, Mark, you've been CEO of BT in the UK, one of the biggest, the biggest unbroad telecommunications company, also of EE as it changed brands. You launched, helped launch BT Sport, which turned into TNT Sport recently. You were previously at Seeger on the gaming side. so a couple of decades not to age you there a couple of decades of experience uh give or take uh across gaming and telecommunication and indeed with broadcasting so what's the remit you've been brought in why have you been brought into this organization to lead it given is it to do with your background or is it just because it's a new challenge an opportunity for you to to get your teeth into well firstly unfortunately it's three decades so i'm older but so i think the the the The creation of a platform and a business opportunity like this does require new people to come in.

21:43And hopefully the experience that I've got across many of these industries can be applied to sport. We've got a fantastic team at GSG, some really, really brilliant executives who have huge, deep expertise in sport and media. and my job really is to harness all of that quality that we have and make sure that we're focusing on adding value to our leagues where we can. We've got really great CEOs of the leagues we have in our portfolio doing an amazing job, but what they can't do at times is act as a collective where that's needed and that's really how I think about organising the brilliant team we have at GSG.

22:30So as I said before at the beginning, a lot of leagues and competitions you've invested into. Why not teams, sorry, not teams, but why not teams and why not say more into the US? Why has it been very international organizations and leagues you've been investing into to this point? Well, I mean, we really like leagues. I always say, you know, particularly when you think of football as an example, I like to sleep at night on a Saturday night, Sunday night, and enjoy the games and look at the results and not worry about whether any of our investments are going to get relegated or miss out on Champions League or there's huge jeopardy in some sports.

23:13And we really do believe in power of leagues and we can see that so many of the sports we have and some of the other ones we're also looking at premium IP. They've been around for decades. It's the world at the moment. Everyone's obsessing about this infinite content generation we're seeing and the disruption that AI is bringing to pretty much every industry on the planet, if you believe that. I certainly do believe that. But one thing it cannot disrupt or replace is the power of sport. Sport is such a power. It's the most powerful IP on planet Earth. It is the only thing that can unite a country in a particular moment or divide a city.

24:02It's the only appointment to view content that anyone will sit and watch in that time, in that moment, whether it's in the stadium, on the sofa, or couch, I should say, or in the pub or a restaurant where families sit together and watch things at the same time. It's so powerful. And these leagues have been around for decades and will be around for decades to come. And so to have the privilege to work with these IP holders that have such powerful IP in a world where that IP, I believe, will become even more valuable, even more powerful, and help them think through how they can grow it and how they can shape it and evolve it and turn it into something even more special for the next generation to come is a real privilege.

24:47It certainly is. Now, you mentioned about the growth opportunities with the monetization of IP and so forth. We set off at the start of this event today to talk about that a lot of investment has been around a big focus around the growth of commercialization of sports, media rights being a big part of that, proponent of that. What are some of the other aspects that you see that that monetization of IP can be brought to life in a way that drives enough return for making an investment into a league or property? well i i believe there's significant change that that anyone in the sport industry is going through and if they're not if they're not going through it they need to go through it which is how to drive more value from from the ip that you have and because as we touched on earlier the media market is changing beyond all recognition in pretty much every market in the world the sponsorship market will be changing significantly uh and we can we can touch on on on why um and that the importance and the need to have talent in your organization that can understand the consumer of the future the trends of the future the need and importance of data and analytics that will power pretty much everything i mean anyone that has got an ip that cannot understand their fans and demonstrate to a broadcaster traditional or streamer a sponsor or partner global or local and understand their fans is is going to be in in real trouble in the future and and some of that you can't yet see because the these contracts are multi-year contracts and and and you know many teams or leagues may be in them and therefore you can't see what's coming.

26:49But what we really do believe is working with our assets to ensure that they really do understand the importance of data analytics, understanding your fan, because that's how you will drive and demonstrate value to your streamers, to your sponsors, to your partners. And in a much more crowded media market, it's crowded enough today and it will get even more crowded with with ai being able to generate more content and consumers have only got 24 hours in the day um the need to understand them and deliver great content and partnerships and content that's relevant to them is going to be hugely important and and so that's how we really think about this understanding the fan and obsessing about the fan and the fans experience but all of that is powered by really important platforms of of data that And in many organizations, you know, still not spending enough time thinking about that, that we see in some of the conversations we have.

27:50Some of the relationships that CVC, now GSG, have, they look quite different in their construct from what I've seen and reported. You talk about some relationships are very much built around the media side of the business explicitly, launching a new commercial media arm, thinking Ligue 1. I'm thinking also La Liga's deal was reportedly around the media rights growth projected for the organization. Then there's more loans potentially against future revenues. And you've got new commercial arms of like Volleyball World, which were launched to manage all of their different assets, events and so forth.

28:23I think many of them have some of them are controlling. Some of them are minor investments into those organizations. So it seems to have evolved over the last few years. What is the ideal playbook or approach you have now that you're looking for talking to a league about how you would invest? You've touched on many examples of the great leagues we have and they are all slightly different. That is part of the rationale of the platform actually because whilst they're different sports, there are many commonalities between them all and they can all learn from each other. and what GSG really helps with is helping all of these different leagues learn from each other.

29:03And there are examples of excellence that we see in so many different areas. You've touched on some there where we can get those learnings to the other leagues and help them get better as well. In terms of what we look for, we look for premium IP. We look for leagues and sports that have been around for decades where there is an opportunity to partner with a management team that gets how the future of sport and media and sponsorship and data is evolving and wants to work with us on that journey. And we can bring capital back by the best PE investor in sport in the world and some expertise that we can bring from management and executives at a GSG level and bring that together, the capital and the expertise.

29:49and of course the learnings over almost 20 years of investing in sport across many different sports to drive more value for them and help them touch more fans and improve the fan experience and build their IP to be even stronger than it is today. Given the different leagues and properties you have within GSG, how would you state or summarize the performance of the portfolio today versus what is needed to make it deliver the returns that you're looking for? I think it's performing very well. Every league we have has a great plan. We've got great executives running them. They're all operating in different markets and different sports with different situations.

30:31and we also know there's more value to bring both at a league and a GSG level like any business, whether it's in sport or in any category, you're never done. There's always improvements you can make in how you drive the business and how you take it forward but we take a long-term view. We work with these brilliant management teams and good performance so far but many opportunities ahead because these tailwinds that we see in sport are pretty significant. You've got the growth in women's sport. You've got the power that data analytics can bring. You've got a changing media market, which is bringing stronger, well-funded new partners into the marketplace.

31:14You've got close to a billion people on planet Earth who still don't yet have a powerful smartphone and a powerful network to engage with their favorite content on. So everywhere you look, there are many tailwinds coming for sport and it's great to be working with them on these opportunities as well. So you have a number of investments in European football, which I alluded to earlier, particularly in the Ligue 1. Ligue 1 has had a tricky ride in terms of some of the things that happened along the way with regards to its media ride steals and having to go direct to consumer and launch a platform, which I referenced earlier in the presentation I did today.

31:53That seems like it's had a pretty rough journey. How do you see that coming through? Obviously, it's launched this new platform. It's getting subscriptions and so forth that we've seen covered in the media. But there's a big gap between what the expectations were on media rights revenues and what's been generated from the OTT platform that was created and launched. How do you see that playing out? Well, firstly, we take a long-term view. We don't expect the results to come through overnight when you're undergoing such a significant change as the team, the Ligue 1 team in France are doing. I mean, they've launched a direct-to-consumer product for the most popular sport on the planet, which is football in their home country, partnered with some other great distribution channels as well and achieved well over a million subscribers in their first season.

32:51And most of those came in the first few weeks of the new season, which I think is an incredible achievement. And not just our leagues in the GSG portfolio, but many other leagues are now watching with real interest as to how that product is performing and going back to data and analytics and the importance of understanding your fan and your customer, I think it's a really interesting case study in terms of a potential distribution model that can work. And I must stress it's not only D2C. It also is carried by local telcos and Amazon and so on. And I think the second season they'll be gearing up for that and we'll see how it goes.

33:37but I think it's off to a good start. As you say, it came through a period of adversity, but sometimes adversity creates more creativity, better ideas, bolder ideas and strategies for dealing with them, and that's what we're seeing from that team. And as I said before, we can take a long-term view on this because we have a portfolio, we have a lot of learnings, we've been in the market for 20 years, we'll be in the market for the long term as well, So we recognize that at times you have these moments and you've got to ride them and deal with them and support the teams to get through them. You've talked a lot about data and the importance of understanding audiences and turning that into a value for the organization.

34:23Given most major organizations across the US and India and Europe, that media rights focus is where the lion's share of revenue does come from. Our sponsorship does play obviously a meaningful role in other sectors as well. So given the volatility and the fragility of what can happen like a legal, do you think there needs to be a recalibration of focus on growing other areas of revenue more than – my theory is when we talk about data is that can lead to incremental gains. But can it be a needle mover to really ramp up revenues in legal property if media rights starts to become a challenge? I'm confident that the media rights landscape over the long term is still incredibly healthy and arguably even more healthy with global streamers coming in.