Fifa's World Cup 2026 vision & industry trends from SportsPro New York

0:06Hello, everyone. 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, hopefully there's a few more listeners after Sports Pro New York after me shamelessly plugging the podcast on every occasion that I could get Nick. But the last time we recorded Nick, we were on the 57th floor in Times Square, absolutely gorgeous venue um but we were in tiktok's offices and hopefully if people are listening they'll listen to that podcast release but nick it got me thinking they were talking about tiktok and content and one of the trends that's recently come up is basically it's like dad what were you like in the 90s and it's all these kind of you know heartfelt moments looking back at their fathers but then there's one on tony hawk and it got me feeling really reminiscent nick because you know growing up in the 90s i used to love watching the x games i played a lot of Tony Hawk's skateboard video game.

0:55Although myself personally, I never touched a skateboard. I've never done it in my life. And it just got me thinking, Nick. And I'm curious to know, like as an American, Tony Hawk was huge. What I want to know is like, was Tony Hawk also massive in Australia? Because like my litmus test for is someone really a celebrity is whether or not my mom knows them. And my mom knew Tony Hawk. And I think what's even more impressive, like that happened before social media, YouTube and all that stuff. So I think for someone like Tony Hawk to be the levels that he was at, at least in America. I'm just curious to know if he was a global superstar as well, or if it was just an American thing, or it's just my own nostalgic memory.

1:30He was pretty big in Australia. I think he was, he sort of definitely transcended skateboarding. I think he was one of the instigators of really, when I was a kid, skateboarding became quite a big deal. And I think he was the face of that whole movement. I would say I spent a lot of time actually playing basically the Tony Hawk game, which was an awesome awesome video game i have to say i probably spent more time on that game than i think possibly anything prior or after post my super nintendo years where i used to play hours and hours of relentless mario karting and a couple other games as well i remember once when um uh i was playing so much of the mario kart game uh then i took it i took it over to my cousin's place and i'd finished gold on every single level right all the different cc's and i was like so proud of that and my cousins played it for so long the console got too hot and it wiped all the memory and I had to start again and I was devastated because I could never get that final gold race.

2:31But anyway, Tony Hawk, yeah, huge thing. Definitely created a movement in Australia. It was at the right time. Australians really are, particularly where I grew up where there's a lot of surfers. So surfers and skateboarders, they kind of go part and parcel. Obviously different traits, but definitely there's a lot of them to do both walks of life and it was pretty pretty popular for sure what i need is for anyone that's in europe listening to let me know if tony hawk made it over across the atlantic because like i said i just i find it we spend so much time these days talking about like content creators and athletes becoming content creators like i just imagine like it's a completely different world right but like what if tony hawk had social media back then like it's just it i just find it crazy how at least in my opinion tony hawk got so big for you know a niche sport like especially during like the 90s and early 2000s but like the x games was really awesome like we need to talk about the x games just as a historical thing at some point but i've just you know i just i was trying to figure out if it was just me or if everybody else remembered tony hawk is a big deal back in the day well yeah he was he was massive and uh the x games was also really big in australia i'm not sure if was because of Tony or just because the whole idea of watching skating and different tricks being done on bikes and so forth was definitely big in my era growing up when that was they came to prominence I had a quick look and this is going to make us feel old because you talk about like 90s trends well I think that the pro skater Tony Hawk game came out like 98 so right the end of the 90s so uh it's actually only only 26 or 27 years old uh and there was an interesting story i heard where um he was offered i think something like 300 000 to buy out basically his name and likeness for the game and instead he chose to take a percentage of the sales and that earned him well over 100 million dollars uh of revenue basically taking royalties after the launch of the game and the subsequent years of it being one of the best sellers in the world.

4:35Another story, a bit like the things, the Michael Jordan story, right? Where they took the royalty instead of the check and it paid off incredible, incredible dividends. I'm not sure. I haven't heard many stories where it goes the other way. And I just wonder if there is more of those than you actually hear because they're often like failures. You know what I mean? Like if someone agrees to the royalties and they really should have taken the upfront check because it was a massive flop, there must be, you know, the other side of that because otherwise everyone would just be asking for royalties all the time.

5:00Now that we're on the topic, Nick, I want to know what the strategy was during that time because you had Tony Hawk's skater game. You had Madden as the NFL game. You had Mike Tyson's punch-out video game. And there's even Ken Griffey Jr.'s slugger game for baseball. I'm curious to know where that strategy came from. Instead of calling it by the name of the league, they just named it after people. Now that I'm thinking about it, there's actually several examples of that. you know it feels like that is probably one of the first instances where i guess where we are today now where this is focus around creators and personalities being the lead for titles brands media companies etc maybe it actually they were so far ahead of it and so progressive back then that that's where it kicked off i remember there was another game dave mirror bmx it was a dave mirror yeah dave dave mirror bmx it was like tony hawk but that's basically with bikes uh like bmx bikes and i love that one as well uh sadly when i tried to be like a dave mirror and do a jump on a bmx i absolutely ate it and never went uh onto on a track again i had my first concussion on a pogo stick nick so maybe that's why i didn't do these things all right you win that's a that's one up to me for sure i remember having to ride home and i had like it was on a one of these sandy dirt tracks where you do the jumps you're just sinking into the table i think it was one of those subconscious things that you know when you get too high on a jump for whatever it is like i know you jump from a high level you kind of just want to get to the ground as quickly as possible i think i like dragged myself to the ground and then just decided to drag my face into the dirt uh it wasn't wasn't my best moment but i learned the hard way that uh i am a chicken not to do those sorts of things because it wasn't my bag well like i said for a european audience if you also in the 90s and early 2000s were a fan of tony hawk i'm just trying to gather how international he was so please let us know but nick i guess talking about content creators and that sort of alternative commentary fits quite nicely the first story we want to cover uh while we were out at tiktok's offices we talked to them a little bit about their deal with fifa and that preferred content partnership i believe is the the phrase um they're using platform preferred platform yes um but they've also now done that as well with youtube now we keep covering youtube but they keep breaking news left and right and expanding their coverage.

7:21But, you know, first of all, with TikTok, now we're seeing it with YouTube. What does this say about the strategy that FIFA is taking for this World Cup, given what they're doing with these preferred platforms? Well, it seems to me that they have unlocked another area of partnership. And I'm pretty sure that these deals will have some sort of partial component of sponsorship also related into them, you know, to be positioned as a preferred anything around FIFA, the Olympics, et cetera, you don't get that flexibility very often unless you are paying a little bit in return. So I imagine there's some sponsorship money involved in that.

7:54But I mean, there's two ways to look at this. One is it's FIFA. And we've talked about FIFA a lot where they've just been opportunistic and go, let's try and carve out a new niche and try and generate some income that way. But the glass half full on this is it could really revolutionize the way the ecosystem works if it pays off you know the the deal in essence is they you they're going to be having um so they're allowing media partners so media partners being the rights holders in those respective markets to broadcast matches live for up to 10 minutes through their own requisite channels that's obviously an unprecedented approach for any major media rights holder to you and to do and i i'm not sure of many others that have tried it even at the lower tier not that direct funnel approach and obviously one of the things we talked about with tiktok was this idea even before the preferred platform deal was announced this idea of creating a funnel like we use the club world cup as an example where they generate half a million on different people going to the the disown platform is how effective is that funnel to drive people from the quick twitch environment that is TikTok through to sitting down and watching a long-form match.

9:09And obviously what you don't get is the follow-up to that, right? Is that, okay, they generated half a million for the Club World Cup. How many of those stayed and watched and kept engaged? We won't find out anytime soon unless the zone is willing to share it. But this is pretty big. It could be a big moment if it works. um the other other parts would obviously have these archives going on the platform which i'm like well what a privilege but i think everyone does that now for visibility on the platform and creators will get to use some of the content but it's purely archive related content they're doing so i i have a bit more few more views on it but i think in general i'm i really really hope it works not just as a new commercial initiative for fifa but it works as a way of driving funnel and audience directly from these such essential platforms for fan engagement into broadcasters laps?

10:02Because again, that means a whole host of new opportunities off the back of that. Well, that's from the FIFA perspective, but perhaps from the broadcaster perspective, you know, I imagine FIFA is going to be selling this to their broadcast partners as, hey, this is going to be part of the funnel. It's going to catch people, bring them further in. So I guess, do you see that as an actual pro for the broadcasters? Or are there some negatives, perhaps that we're not talking about that are going to impact because obviously broadcasters have paid lots and lots of money for these rights they're now having to think about how that is a part of their equation yeah it's an interesting one in short the initial reaction i had it's got to be positive right broadcasters get the opportunity to try and drive audiences to their platform in a way they've never done before that's got to be quite exciting and i'll be using the live content so they know they'll be driving audiences that are interested in live content to their requisite platforms.

10:54And they're using their own channels for that. So they're building actually audiences on those respective channels. So YouTube and TikTok, they'll be able to drive followers and subscriber bases, see engagement on that platform, and then get a chance to win them over and push them onto their native offerings on broadcast. But the other side to this might be a little frightening, right? Like think about, well, what if loads of people do watch on youtube and tiktok what what happens if they don't yeah and what happens if they do but conversions really poor like the range of outcomes here are quite significant because if loads of people do watch on youtube and tiktok but they can't get them across to the platform then the argument's going to be and youtube will be able to say this yeah hey guys why don't you just publish the live match on our platforms and channels and then it comes back to the monetization question again um So there is quite a big range of outcomes here that not only about what happens with the result of this initiative itself, but the subsequent learnings that YouTube get, that TikTok get, and that the broadcasters might get, and maybe even FIFA as well if they get the data shared, as to what the next steps of how live sports is being broadcast or not broadcast on these channels.

12:10So I love the concept. Is there something to sit and watch and see where it goes? I hope we get insight into the data of this, but the range of outcomes on the back of this could be really significant. So we've seen, we've talked about the BBC and YouTube. Do you think there's the potential there that, to your point, that that might drive more traditional broadcasters to have to think in a way similar to what the BBC is doing? You know, basically in summary, if you didn't hear us talk about the BBC in the UK, basically the BBC recognized that something like two thirds of all adults are on YouTube, which is significantly the highest platform in the country so they're just going to launch 50 new channels on youtube as a way to you know connect with those audiences there'll also be some content created specifically for the bbc youtube audience but to your point nick say youtube takes off does that mean i don't know it feels it feels hard to imagine such a traditional system to be completely overthrown that way but like could that be the start of seeing some of those types of moves across the pond and not just exclusive to the bbc i possibly i think in but i think you'll never see a flip switch or a switch flip i should say um because also it's all going to be built around where the revenue is coming from in these instances now in in the us um obviously a lot of that's built around advertising uh we spoke to pete this dad on stage at the sports for a new york event and we'll probably have an exclusive interview published on our channels pretty soon from him but obviously their main revenue funnels are subscription but definitely advertising is a call revenue driver the conundrum with youtube and tiktok is the low cpms the low advertising return that you have by being available on those platforms so youtube's trying to supercharge the transition between low cpms for lower tier advertising in their current existence and the premiums of broadcast cpms and the high levels of advertising spend that are happening there and try to bridge that so they can get more of that coming into their ecosystem and so it's a bit chicken and egg but if we start to see more live sports premium live sports being available on those platforms that should lead to more opportunities for revenue generation and more premium advertising to be happening on the platform but you have the broadcasters aren't going to give that up too easily because it's a really important part for them so i think it's a little melting pot here of what could happen if it all works i'm just not sure it will like i'm not sure you're going to see i think you're going to see loads of people engage with this live first 10 minutes um but i don't think you're going to see the conversion at the rate they need to make it worthwhile to continue that funnel and if you're not then that conundrum is going to be well what should we be broadcasting where they all are rather than our own destination so again that's going that opens up the question on like well the big to the big broadcast and streaming platforms they already have critical scale there so they might still work but for all the others massive questions will be raised about that at that approach well certainly something we'll continue to follow maybe we'll get some stuff by the time the media summit rolls around in november nothing like an early uh sales pitch on that in madrid but you know might seem like you know that'll be four or five months after the world cup surely they'll have some feedback for us by then nick surely surely they'll have some feedback and if not we'll do some snooping around and see if we can get some uh insights from around the industry to uh to share in one place or another But in terms of the advertising, we'll stick with FIFA a little bit.

15:30One of the things you and I, we did a bit of a scene setter when we were in New York talking about just trying to give the audience a little bit of context of what's taking place, not just in their market in the U.S. where they're a bit more familiar, but try to contextualize what's happening in Europe, where things are moving in the same direction, where things are moving in a different direction. One of the things we talked about, the reason why media rights are stagnating in Europe is really kind of a lack of advertisement within game. Partially, you explain that's because of the sport. You know, the sports don't necessarily have breaks the way American sports have them built in.

16:00Some of the legislation around advertising, things like that. But FIFA have cleverly, I'll say the word cleverly. Some people might say greedily, but that's up for interpretation. Are introducing high. They're doing it for the athletes, Chris. They're doing it for the athletes, for their safety. Well, well-being, well-being. Yes, they are introducing hydration breaks for the well-being of the athletes who are playing a significant amount of fixtures over a small course of time during a very hot American summer. which conveniently will allow for the sale of advertisements during the broadcast. So basically, once a half, I don't think it's designated when.

16:34I'm sure it'll be typical football flow of play sort of thing. But we're now going to get basically TV breaks introduced by FIFA as part of this World Cup. So I guess, Nick, how much can you really make from this, these ad breaks? I mean, I guess the benefit is you're going to be able to do this over a significant amount of games. won't necessarily be a significant amount of advertisements you're just talking about two additional ad breaks per game but there is a lot of games and there will be a high level of scale of those people watching so how big is the potential opportunity for something like this do you think nick i think for the hydration break itself it's not going to be a massive massive needle mover for the broadcasters and the streamers just yet but for for the sport of soccer or football moving forward it could be really massive right because it could open up those floodgates to allow more flexibility around what advertising is allowed in the current state of play or game of play.

17:29Currently, there is legislated that they are not allowed to do things, particularly across Europe. I'm not sure about the global scene. And think about the premium value of those ads. There'll be so much exclusivity with regards to that because there isn't a lot going on elsewhere. I'm intrigued to see if they're incorporating ads in another way with overlay ads as well. I'm not sure what the rules are there. I think historically they weren't, but there was other ways to approach that, which we've seen, which include things like, okay, statistics pop-ups. It could be engagement games and so forth that could be branded and sponsored as such.

18:07So brands can be visible. But in terms of the hydration break itself, it can't be a massive needle mover for revenue. It must be like less than a few percentage points in the grand scheme of things I would have thought versus all the other ways of driving the revenue from the traditional advertising in between half time and of course subscriptions for those respective platforms. But Fox Sports has made a big deal about the fact they've got the rights to that. So they obviously see some serious value in having the rights on the platform and advertising is their main revenue earner. But I think going back to the sort of like what this could look like, if this works and people are kind of okay with it, I just think you're going to see more of those, particularly in streaming where there's more flexibility, eventually the move to ads served during free free kick setups corners goal kicks all those type of obvious areas where there's a stoppage where it can be like youtube it could be a five second ad it could be going split screen like in what they did with the rugby when there's a you know there's a scrum about to set those types of things which don't really impact the viewing experience in any sort of meaningful fashion and just kind of make sense to um to be using those those windows optimally.

19:17So I think that's got to be the next step. I think soccer in Europe needs it, quite frankly. Yeah, I think we spoke about it a little bit with the introduction of advertising during the Six Nations Rugby Tournament. And yes, people complained, but they complained about it less the next week. And then the next week, very similar to, you know, NFL Red Zone, people complained about it and then they complained about it a little bit less. And ultimately, you just get on with it a little bit. Now, that's not to say maybe that's a little sad, but it's just what we've seen. And I guess with football, at the end of the day, like they are stagnating.

19:49They need to find a way to make money. I've seen some people feel a little bit hyperbolic or like, oh, it's going to go from two halves to four quarters. Like talking about a really short break. We're not talking about a 15 minute break where the team gets together and change tactics and all that. And maybe it's not a hydration break because that makes no sense in December in the UK. But I think to your point, Nick, I feel like that momentum is starting to build and change. and not saying people have to happily accept it but i think it just feels a bit inevitable feels like all the wheels are moving that direction yeah i think it is i actually think if i remember correctly qatar might have had some sort of hydration break because of the heat uh as well but it wasn't linked with at least i can remember that was linked with anything definitive around the advertising side of things i kind of think this might sound harsh it might piss off some uh part of my french uh annoy and frustrate perhaps was probably a better way to put it some traditional soccer fans and football fans but quite frankly i think having those extra breaks in play kind of will give it a little bit more of a new freshen up because i think 45 minutes plus stoppage time of a game for a new age of fan where we're we're scrolling away on our phones and so forth having a bit of a break might disrupt that that flow but in a positive way uh potentially so whether it's the you know the anecdotal addition of little quick commentary from people um from the pundits and so forth as well that can happen in those break windows it's not just going to be an ad an ad fest and those breaks no doubt i'm sure there's going to be some additional value out of it just breaking up an hour-long window of soccer, which I think the NFL has clearly seen a lot of benefit from having that stop-start nature.

21:33So maybe it won't be so bad. Yeah, part of my French as well, Nick. It's a lot less offensive than some of the other things I see in football, whether that is the way Arsenal goes about their corner kick tactics, the way whenever I watch the league of football, people are flopping all over the pitch. I don't know if you've seen Arsene Wenger's suggestion for a new offsides rule um like i said there's there's far more offensive things in football i think than potentially adding in a 90 second water break at some point in between a 45 minute half yeah i think i definitely think that that is the case and by the way have you seen that offside the visual of what that looks like because it's what what i saw a very good uh point on this which is a very simple one the same problem is going to happen like it will change then yeah same exactly the same problem just the guy's going to be in front of the where they were before and it'll be is back arm or leg that's going to be the thing they measure from not the front it makes it's just going to change the way the game is you're going to have people in front of defenders all the time and the same problem is going to happen i was like if this gets approved because i think it's is it in canada they're actually going to trial it can't remember if it's the canadian premier league or it's like a second tier canadian league they are going to trial it in canada i just forget which level um it's going to be trialed at but yeah to your point it doesn't it doesn't change the problem you're still going to have these moments where you have to freeze frame it So you're not, you're just changing the measurement.

22:52You're not actually changing the problem. I think it is the Canadian Premier League, the top league in Canada, which, uh, because I think MLS obviously has a, I think has a couple of teams and they do. Yeah. They have a couple of teams in Canada. Technically, I guess the second league, you could call it the first league in Canada. I wonder when, how these decisions are made sometimes. My gosh. I don't know, Nick. Um, we'll leave that argument for another time and for the football purist. but Nick we've we've made reference to Sports Pro New York a couple times so we are back from Sports Pro New York I would just say like this is you can say it's you know advertising the the brand but honestly Nick I thought that was one of the the best events we we've hosted in terms of just the vibe the energy just the feel around the room you know I'm not always a big fan of you know hotel events but like I thought the way the structure was for the event the size of the event the way it all kind of flowed through um the people were in attendance i i thought it was really genuinely one of the best events we've had just in terms of just the feel being on the ground yeah um i mean this is definitely a sales pitch for people for events and you know if events aren't everyone's bag but i think you've got to know what you want to get out of an event right and i i think well sometimes people lose is they're like they're only measuring its value by perhaps what they hear on stage or whatnot and i'll be honest even like me going to this event i'm like oh it's a long way to travel it's a lot of disruption to life and so forth but when i got there i'm like oh yeah that's right i forgot what this is like when you get to meet dozens of interesting people new and old and you just get so much value out of that concentration of time you're exhausted afterwards but it's such a great uh experience just to make loads of connections and just chat to people because everyone's up for a chat it's not like it's actually very difficult to go up and talk to people or people come in and talk to us because obviously they see us or hear us quite regularly.

24:41But, yeah, the dynamic and the buzz of that was, I can't remember anything like it. I think it's a concentrated experience, 800-plus people. Their first day was just buzzing in all corners. I came away with that just feeling really a good reminder of how events can be so energizing and also learning so much, but on stage and off stage. And again, another thing that people need to understand when they're thinking about whether or not they want to go to events. I'll be frank, even when we deliver a great agenda of content on stage, I learned some stuff on stage, but I learned loads off stage. You get these little sound bites and you start putting all these things together and you go, well, that is something that is not public knowledge or is not really known how that operates.

25:30And you get that from all the sources and just people who might even be like a service provider, but they're providing a service to someone who's quite big. And you get to get an insight as to how that all works out. It could be the way they're working with a major league or a team or the fact they even need that sort of service. It doesn't just have to be from the horse's mouth itself. So, yeah, it was really a great experience. It gave me a lot of energy. I learned loads from the conversations. And you get perspective of a market. I think I walk away going, all right, I now have a feel of what the US sports media landscape feels like.

26:09And I'll get that again in Madrid, especially around that event as well, around the media landscape and the trends and mindset of the key stakeholders. So, yeah, it was really worthwhile for sure. In terms of that, just the American side of things, what did you take away? Because we're obviously covering the news on a global scale, but this is an opportunity. sometimes we live in our bubble. It's you and I talking about it and people reach out to us. But particularly, we've spent a lot of time talking about media rights in Europe, sort of the stagnation, following the countless stories on League Un, going on and on and on.

26:42What was the sense you got in terms of maybe particularly talking about media rights from a European versus American perspective? There's definitely a different mindset and vibe around that. There isn't this concern that the media rights landscape is going to fall flat on its face anytime soon. And I think that is the legacy, quite simply the legacy of the ecosystem being built so much on advertising revenue generation. I think that really is the crux of it all. But there is a load of positivity around the media rights landscape. There is question marks about what is the future of local rights, though.

27:16That was a big thing that came out, RSNs, local rights. and I do think I started to get for the first time more question marks as to how the NHL, the MLS and even to some extent the MLB, how they're all going to come through this disruption. But it's not a media rights disruption. It's like an ecosystem disruption because of what's happening on the RSN and local right side. There's a bit of concern about what that's going to look like in a few years' time. All whilst you've got then the NFL basically getting ready to go back to market again after a run for those those those deals were locked in for 10 years and potentially reportedly asking for double the money of already sky high premium what they are what they're charging the market so it was just interesting to see the buoyancy the excitement the positivity around the ecosystem of sports and investors lining up to really look into spending money and investing into the space, whether that be from college, pro sports teams and leagues, but also to the ecosystem around it as well.

28:24So we've got the Sports Pro Investment event in July in London. We introduced that last year. But then for this New York event, we also included a pillar on investment because we found it such an important topic to the media space. You had the opportunity to speak to some people and they're on stage. But then also just generally, we've talked about media rights being a place that private equity has gotten itself involved in, particularly from a European perspective, looking at things like La Liga and Ligon, looking at their media rights. Were there anything you took away, particularly from an investment perspective, good, bad, indifferent differences between sort of the US and European approach?

29:03Well, off stage, I spoke to a number of investors about their views of those things, and as well as that, people who work around media rights. On stage, I spoke to Mark Alera, who's the chair of Global Sports Group, which is CVC's basically sports arm that they obviously own and operate. They've wrapped all those global sports properties into that group now. It's worth several billion dollars as a group. And the theme was consistent. They are just unabatedly positive about the future of media rights. frighteningly so and it was quite funny because obviously in my present in our presentation we did together on stage to kick off the event we i explicitly pointed out that i can't believe i still see this sort of stuff and i did get the sense talking to people about that and that that is still kind of true for the lower tier challenger sports but in general the the thesis is still there's growth to come in terms of enterprise value at the top end of sports and it kind of does blow me away with everything we're seeing across Europe.

30:06It blew me away that Mark Alera would say that on stage to me, given most of their properties are having challenges around media rights, if you look at Ligun and La Liga especially. But they believe long-term it's going to keep growing. So that really kind of caught me by surprise. Because, I mean, they're all smart operators and obviously pay probably more attention to this stuff than we do. Maybe, maybe not. or they definitely should given uh given uh given that's what they're putting in their the big checks but there's definitely a discrepancy there basically between perception well u.s market activity perhaps and therefore the perception of the global media rights trends because of a couple of major operators doing very well yeah america's just interesting right because one of the the stats we'd shown in a previous presentation and I gave is just the actual like fandom of sports you know one of the key statistics that came out the first time we gave that presentation is like basically it's like if you have an affinity of over 40 % calling yourself a fan if you looked in the U.S.

31:11like NFL NBA Major League Baseball NHL like all kind of big there whereas you start looking to Europe it was the domestic football league and then maybe you know if you were in Italy, you might also be a fan of the Premier League or something like that. Like just the sheer like fandom across the board and not just being with one individual sport. And then to your point, there's the national coverage and it goes down to the regional coverage. It does it does it does not feel like an apples to apples conversation necessarily when we're comparing European sports and fandom versus what we're seeing in America.

31:46Although what we did come away with is Mexicans are actually the biggest sports fans. I think they had the highest affinity across everything. But yeah, it is sometimes difficult to compare the two. And I know we say sometimes trends follow the US over into Europe, but I think there are some unique properties about America that just aren't going to be replicable. yeah completely and then you add college into the mix and you've got um and then march madness which gets you know national following and focus given the amount of coverage and investment into that uh i mean we're going into some of the pubs and bars and you see all these different screens go and everything is has got sports on and it's all live it's all happening now uh like your life sport is is really everything over there and it is it is interesting to really compare that and contrast it with with what happens in europe because it is just so focused on one sport in comparison so uh i can see why people have the interest about moving into europe for those reasons but they will have to ultimately address that monetization gap and and the ecosystem challenges that we talked about around the fact that most that's built around pay tv and it needs to be much more free freely accessible and viewable ultimately um yeah so i i'm it's always nice to see the compare and contrast that um and i wonder whether we should do a flip version of that yeah you know what we did uh in new york what we did the compare and contrast europe and the us maybe we all almost need to do a flip version of that about giving people more insight into how how how exciting the us market is and perhaps how how much ahead and progress progressive it is to europe from the financial point of view well sportswear london's only five six weeks away I've already been asked to do a presentation at the media pillar of the Sports Road London event.

33:32So, yeah, Nick, we can do it. I'm still waiting for my invitation. I've been benched already after your performance or my performance in New York. I mean, I am the Jürgen Booster, so, you know. That is true. One thing I would wrap on the media rights stuff especially was I talked to a couple of people offstage about the landscape of that and how it is playing out. Really, to summarize the main trends in the US are, there is some softening going on in terms of spend and investment on rights at the lower tiers. So that is something that is happening. It's not as pronounced and definitive as what we've seen in Europe, but there is some of that going on.

34:12There is ultimately five tiers of rights deals that are still happening actively now. This is how I would describe it. One is the big check, right? One is a little check. One is free, but with covering of production costs. One is free with no cost covered at all. Just give us that content. And the other one is some still are paying for airtime because of the ability to sell the value of that reach to subsequent sponsors. So basically there are active deals happening of all natures right across the ecosystem in the us right now whereas in the in the in europe it is just very much uh you basically get a check or you don't kind of thing there is there is some nuance there there is deals of production but it's not to the same gravity that we're talking about here i think mainly in europe it's more big check there's no one getting a little check basically it's all big checks or bust and then it's much more of the the potentially the free and I don't know of anyone paying for airtime because of that whole ability to drive out value from sponsorship and advertising.

35:14So it's new ones. And on the paid for airtime thing, there are some deals that are also happening

35:22where I think it's basically a rev share component comes into it from the portion of the right owner being able to sell advertising and branded sponsorship in the airtime that they're getting and then they share that revenue with the broadcaster so i thought i'd just share that it is just again another example of being very mature the ecosystem there even for the lower tier sports and there was a great stat i heard which was something like 90 the amount of premium live sports now available has gone up by like 90 in five years that's roughly the right stat it might not be perfect but it gives you a sense of how premium and live sports and it just keep going up and up and up in that market versus what we see in Europe.

36:08I was going to say, get rid of that 3 p.m. kick out or blackout rule. Get it to us. That'll help. Yeah, yeah. So I guess just the last thing, just any general key takeaways or things you experienced with the event. I think for me, just like one of the things I saw, I had the opportunity to interview the VP of product management for ESPN. Obviously, they've just launched their new D2C platform. So I spent a lot of time talking to them about something that is going to be as popular as that platform. how do you introduce it to market? How do you choose which features you prioritize versus what you push down later into the workflows?

36:44How do you add things without sacrificing quality of streams? I think sometimes you can add too much stuff you can take away from it. And then I also host our executive forums that are invite only, 12, 15 people in the room. And the thing that just kept getting pummeled over and over and over again was personalization and just how important that is going to be basically for everybody. And I think we've always spoken about personalization, but it feels like it's coming more to the forefront. There were some interesting examples. We spoke to some people where I still find it kind of surprising how, I don't want to say poorly, that feels a bit unfair, but how inefficient some organizations are in terms of having their data overlap.

37:25It still seems like a lot of people have that data siloed and it's not always easy to connect all the dots, even though they have all the data. And then one of the really interesting examples came up and our friend David Guinan mentioned in a LinkedIn post, but I'll mention anyways, he's just talking about, you know, they were just on X and they clicked on a tweet about the weather because, you know, the East coast of America has been having some terrible weather. And then he said the whole algorithm just instantly shifted to just sending them all these tweets about weather and almost we've taken personalization too far.

37:54It acts too fast, too strongly. And, you know, having to find that balance of personalization where it is correctly serving you, but not going so far that like, just because you click on something one time, it completely throws off your algorithm becomes overly reactive. So yeah, there's still a lot of stuff that is going on there. But I heard the term personalization used countless times while we were there for the two days. That's interesting. And it makes a lot of sense. I think the whole notion of personalization, I think everyone's expectation of personalization will be almost that personalization acts like and the algorithm like is in the social media algorithm in terms of how a manager like slowly nurtures but actually even that's a very imperfect product and that's one of the most mature levels of personalization that does exist um and what i like about the focus on personalization is it's driving efficiency from the audience and effective efficiency and effectiveness from the audience you've already got versus like trying to find new people which can be a very inefficient way of uh building an audience and trying to build up fandom so uh that was interesting i think the thing from my point of view that stood out is just the thing i kept hearing so much about was the college sports investment bit there was loads of discussion around that and i didn't really understand i intentionally am a little bit ignorant to college because i'm like well i'll focus on pro sports related stuff but you can't deny that it is a professional industry there is loads of money lurking around it now more than never, not just with media rights, but also the NIL situation.

39:26And now there's investors lining up to throw money into the space somehow, some way. I just can't see how investment can, again, work in those types of settings. But when there's a will, there's a way and people are finding ways to put their capital into things. But I don't really know what the outcomes would be. I don't, I'm sure investing into, I don't know, a college program might lead to it improving. And then maybe you can drive some return on what you get from media rights there. But it just feels like a very murky world if investment starts to filter into the amateur world, quote unquote amateur, that is college sports.