Free-to-Air vs Paywall: What the Champions League numbers reveal

0:06Hello everyone and welcome back to the next episode of Streamtime sports name is Chris the community lead joined as always by our ceo nick meacham now nick are you familiar with the term hate watching hate watching uh i can guess what it means but i don't think i've heard anyone use it in a sentence before fine i'll give you what google has defined it as it is the act of consuming media like a television show film or video that you largely dislike or think is terrible simply because you enjoy laughing at its flaws mocking its absurdity or critiquing its short Cummings. I think in a sports lens, hate watching is watching a team you hate and hoping that they lose.

0:47That's the way I would, you know, perhaps define hate watching, Nick. I think hate watching in sports is definitely a thing. I can't think in this day and age, people would hate watch TV shows because it's so bad. Like there's too much content now to watch, to hate watch, but I could definitely see people tuning on tuning into what you know if they're a man united fan and what city lose a game against someone just because uh you know just because they're man city i could see that happening quite a bit uh i can't see it happening many other settings you say that any other settings i think like love island like people joke about like how bad the tv show love island is i mean that's a show here in the uk really bad dating show sort of thing um yeah but i agree with you because i was hate watching this weekend i was hate watching arsenal in the champions league final but i started thinking about like hate watching is actually really old because we we talked about the power of someone like tiger woods there were definitely people that hate watched tiger to hope that he would lose back in the 90s and the early 2000s like i i'm sure hate watching is an older term but i've only recently heard it um but i think that's probably been going on for a long time you think back with the bulls back in the 90s like hate watching is definitely of gotta be a thing yeah definitely it's definitely a thing whether or not it's been a turn of the phrase of hate watching is being used but i am sure there's lots of people who tune into stuff particularly around football and major sports where they're they're basically watching hoping that everyone's gonna fail basically at least at least their big rivals there's definitely definitely a thing i uh i'm definitely gonna see i'm gonna now pay more attention now if i ever start watching any sports to see if i have that like negative mindset coming like i hope he fails i had that i had that um issue watching golf sometimes i did there's a couple of golfers where i'm like oh i really don't like you i hope you uh hope you hit a hit a bogey here but uh not not a whole match of sport or a whole uh live event yeah well even with the hate watching it extends beyond that especially the creator economy you know we'll talk a bit about arsenal and champions league final stuff like that but like there's a really large argument for a long time that arsenal fan tv could actually be viewed as negative because their ratings got better the worst arsenal were because of the degree of hate watching so like there's definitely i think in the creator economy that's sort of shock jock sort of like um trolling type of stuff that i think is definitely linked to hate watching well the arsenal fan tv is a really good example i do find myself sometimes watching like creators which who i hate and despise yeah and i'm like why am i watching these people yeah uh and i'm hating what they're saying i'm hating what they're doing and here i am and I've just watched this full reel or whatever it's been and oh no I'm definitely going to get served some of that crap again sometime soon but it's my own fault so I guess that's another form of hate watching I suppose I know I'm the same way Nick I find myself watching content and I'm just like gosh the algorithm is going to send me more of this and I don't want to watch it but I got no one to blame but myself Nick I will blame I will blame I'm trying to be educated like why is this person so popular and I'm trying to get my head around it rather than like enjoying the content I think there is two different things there.

3:54So I'm giving myself a little escape clause. I agree. That's why sometimes, you know, Nick, I'm not going to get into politics. We're just going to pause. We agree, Nick. But anyways, Nick, this last weekend, I was hate watching. As someone that did not enjoy seeing Arsenal win, particularly as it came partially on their journey to see my West Ham United be relegated, I was hate watching this weekend, Nick. And there was a really interesting story that came out around the Champions League. And we will get into a little more detail around that. But today's episode, just want to focus around the Champions League final, specifically from a broadcast perspective, because one of the stories that came out was in the UK that almost twice as many people, allegedly, because data can be hard to find, estimated, I should say, almost twice as many people watched it via legal streams as through the legal means via TNT Sports.

4:46So we're going to talk through sort of what that means from an industry perspective, not just necessarily specifically about piracy and combating piracy, but more about what happens when so many fans simply refuse to pay. But before that, Nick, we are going to talk a bit a little bit about the Champions League. I'm just kind of painting the picture of where they are from a media business. I don't know, Nick, if there's anything you particularly want to say about the Champions League before I kind of run through some stats and figures, but just how you sort of view the tournament that UEFA has.

5:13Sure. Well, I think it's an interesting thing to discuss because what might have flown a little bit under the radar is since they stepped away from having team marketing lead all their commercial operations and strategy, they've lent into relevant sports the US-run, operated and owned agency who's been doing their media rights work. That company is owned by Stephen Ross, who's the owner of Miami Dolphins. And since they've taken over the rights, they've done some interesting moves around their media rights strategy. And in this cycle, sort of the sales cycle they're currently in, it appears to be paying off.

5:49They appear to have seen and bucked the trend we constantly have been talking about of increasing media rights revenues in a number of different key markets. So it is an interesting one to look at given, I guess, the global or at least pan-European nature of the competition. They seem to be doing quite well at the moment in this current new phase of its meteorite sales. So it does add some more question marks into where we're going as an industry, I think. Well, speaking specifically around Relevant, they used to be a team marketing, I think, for nearly three decades. In that space of time, handing that over to Relevant, just to add some context to what you discussed there, looking specifically at the US, because that's a major market we sort of talked about.

6:33The US really is a driving place for that. Actually, Nick, if you think back to our first Sports Pro OTT USA event, we went down to Atlanta at the Turner Studios, and that was at the same time that they were having conversations, because that would have been in 2021, just before the pandemic, which is actually just before their Champions League rights came up. And they were talking about whether or not they were willing to get in a bidding war with CBS. But at the time in that deal that ran from 2018 to 2021, Turner Sports was reportedly paying$60 million a year for the Champions League. CBS then took it from 21 to 2024 for$100 million a year.

7:08But in the most recent cycle where relevant have come in, their new deal runs from 2024 to 2030, which is now up to$250 million a year. So we're talking about some very significant gains in a U.S. marketplace. And then you also referenced the wider scope of what they're doing. If we look at the U.K., where we'll focus a little bit today, just given the story comes from there. In the previous cycle, they had been with TNT Sports. My understanding was that was around$1.36 billion for their overall deal. I think that ran from 2022 to 2026, where we are now. The new deal with Relevant is running from 2027 to 2031 for$2.3 billion.

7:51So they've not quite doubled the amount, but we've gone from$1.3 billion to$2.2 billion. So just from a financial perspective, they are seeing their media rights grow. And whatever it is working with Relevant has led to some success that they agreed. So the Champions League does seem like a product that despite other stagnation we've seen in European football, is continuing some of the trends we've seen with the Premier League being able to grow in the US. But they've also been able to buck some of those trends of being able to continue to grow their media rights values in Europe as well. yeah they have really shown that there is a captive marketplace for those rights and willing to create a bit of a bidding war i think it definitely helped and i wonder if this was something they were aware of um you know before they did the deal with uefa that paramount was going to be looking for a way of coming into into europe and using sports as a tool and it's clearly whether there was luck or whether it was all sort of the stars all aligned nicely for them and it was kind of something they saw coming through perhaps relationships that maybe relevance leadership had with paramount they've come in really reset the marketplace in terms of what those rights are valued some would suggest they've overpaid quite significantly in a lot of markets others will be thrilled that that money is coming into the ecosystem it's going to be being spread across more of the top teams, across more of the top European competitions.

9:17But it's a huge win for UEFA, an immediate validation, I suppose, of them taking the big step away from team, which many were, I guess, not skeptical of, but were asking a question, how could they make that move when there was a team in UEFA or kind of seen as connected at the hip, very much intrinsically connected together? Yeah, well, there's always going to be concerns after something that long and then it ends but looking to this specific champions league final and specifically looking at the uk i kind of wanted to be able to use this as an opportunity to take some some bigger questions about the sports industry itself now this was a landmark game nick you know particularly in the uk having arsenal there regardless of how i personally feel about arsenal i'd be lying if i didn't say that they are you know arguably one of the biggest clubs in the country they're globally recognized and they had the game against psg again another internationally large brand.

10:13One of the things that was really interesting that came out of this, Nick, was the fact that there were 7 million viewers that watched the game legally via TNT Sports, and it's estimated that 16.2 million viewers came from illegal streams. I think they've said there's somewhere around 3.7 million ISP accounts that they found watching that. So, Nick, I think one of the crazy things for me is that over twice as many people watch the game illegally versus watching the game legally which is why this is such an interesting story and i think just some context of this situation nick and it's also kind of a big deal here in the uk this is the first time the champions league was not shown free to air historically even though it was owned by tnt sports and before that bt sports they still showed the games for free access whether that was through the platform or via streaming on youtube this was the first time it was ever behind a paywall so one of the things we will eventually to talk about, Nick, is like how much of this had to do with the fact that the game got moved to a paywall between being free to air and whether this is causation correlation, whether this is the reason why more sports should be on free to air.

11:20We'll kind of go through all those things. It is worth some additional context. I did mention that Paramount Plus will be the new broadcast partners for the Champions League. So for TNT Sports, they had no reason to really be concerned with scale because there's really no future monetization for it. So you can make the argument, just go behind to paywall because you don't have a long roadway for this product anywhere beyond this. But Nick, it was just really, I think, damning those statistics, whatever reason you want to cut it, dice it, splice it, whatever, to see how heavily the viewership was towards illegal streaming for this.

11:55Well, I've seen different numbers shared with regards to how much people watch illegally versus legally. And some of the studies I've seen around pay-per-view, if I remember correctly, were at least triple triple the amount of people watching pay-per-view events were watching illegally so three times as many were watching illegally to watching it legally and this number I mean it depends on how you want to look at it looks like four million roughly four million unique IP streams so let's assume that's roughly four million devices then you've got a couple of extra million people watching assuming a couple people per household tuning in then obviously another eight million people watching illegally, which dwarfs the number of people watching through traditional and official channels.

12:42It's a pretty massive number, isn't it? And look, I would say the legacy of this a little bit is that BT Sport originally and then TNT, but BT Sport, I remember talking to the leadership there and they were always so proud of the approach that they took with those rights where they had them free to wear through YouTube and through one of them, traditional free to wear linear channels. was available it was a bit of a no name the name of it's my tongue but basically they was always made available so they were always getting that reach and i always assumed it was actually contractual that they had to be visible that way but it sounds like from the language we're seeing come out of that that it wasn't contractual but it was kind of rec highly recommended let's say by uefa as part of keeping the relationship strong but obviously it's a bit of a screw you to a UEFA it feels like doesn't it to TNT to say well you know what we're not going to do that because we haven't got to deal with you anymore we want to try and basically milk this opportunity for everything that it's worth and they I guess if there's no legal reason for them to have a free to air they've got every right to take the approach that they've taken whether it's driven the amount of subscriptions they want I did see some press releases coming out from TNT talking about all the other amazing sporting events they were having that weekend to try to build out this narrative around now's the time to subscribe to TNT.

14:09But innately, these things don't go down well with fans, even if they have subscriptions to these platforms, they don't like seeing the fact that they feel like the market's being milked in a way, which is not a nice way to frame it, but it is the reality of what it is. Yeah. And just to provide some historical context within the UK, the record viewership, which people thought could have been pushed for, just given who the finals matchup was. Because there is a degree, if you look at viewership of the Champions League final in the UK, if there's no team from the UK, the viewership drops off. But having Arsenal against PSG, there's an expectation that this could do really big numbers.

14:44So the fact that it only did 7 million, to give you an idea, the all-time record was 12.6 million viewers in 2022. That was Liverpool versus Real Madrid. So again, prominent UK club versus global powerhouse. In 2019, we actually had a Liverpool v Tottenham, so an inner UK matchup, came in at 11.3 million viewers. 2021 was another UK matchup between Chelsea and Man City at 9 million viewers. So we've seen these numbers be significantly higher, maybe not significantly, but not insignificant numbers in terms of viewership, where I think you could draw a bit of a correlation between the switch from free to air to being behind a paywall.

15:25Now, it is interesting, Nick, that the numbers in France actually dropped despite PSG being featured in both of those from last year to this year. One of the arguments has been that the game kicked off locally at 5 p.m., which is just not prime time and how much that has had an impact on it. But, Nick, I know some people will point to that because the viewership did drop off in France. But it's hard for me to believe that the reason the numbers didn't hit in the UK was the fact that there was the move from a free-to-air broadcasting strategy perspective, whoever that was, to being behind a paywall.

16:00I mean, coming back to the concept of them starting earlier, I think it's a really interesting thing to talk about because they've made that decision for a reason. My theory is that they made it because they want to reach younger and family-led audiences and ensure that bigger groups are tuning in toward them having it too late in the evening. Otherwise, why, frankly, would you do it? It's too much of a risk if you've got less people. It's not in a key ratings window. It's not when the peak of TV audiences is tuning in. Why else would you do it? Now, the theory could be, this is just a theory, is that some of the broadcasters might have already had other content that works really well in that peak window anyway.

16:38because that is a peak TV window. So by having it at five o 'clock, maybe it brings audiences to TV that wouldn't be tuning into TV otherwise at that spot. So that's one of the theories that I think that maybe they're happy to have lower ratings from the broadcaster's side because it's actually delivering significantly more than what they would usually get in those time slots. That's a theory that I'm not sure has any substance or not, but I'll go with that. I think that the number I saw, which is 7 million viewers for the UK versus the numbers you shared. Now, think about that is through a paid channel.

17:13That is, I think, pretty strong. It shows the level of reach that TNT has, which is much higher than I guess I thought that they did have. I think I did some initial estimates looking at some numbers and was thinking that might get to five, but they get to 7 million with a platform that is primarily behind a paywall. It's, for me, really impressive. I think there are some asterisks along that, which is I think it was free for Virgin Media users. Now, Virgin Media is one of the leading telcos here. So that definitely opens up the number of people that are being made available to see it. But I'm not sure of the number on that.

17:50They'll never share those numbers. Or they don't often share those numbers, I should say. But if you then compare the record number, which you said it was 12.6, with that illegal number, then actually basically you're looking at a number that possibly is a record. But we can never compare apples with apples like that. It doesn't really play out that way. But it is intriguing to think, what if? And I do wonder, we were talking about this the other day, whether or not, if you're a brand, are you reporting the full reach that is being estimated here with the Pirate's Dreams to your board when you're sponsoring a competition?

18:21Or do you just stick to the official numbers? I know typically sponsor execs like to use the high end numbers when they can. It is really interesting. and someone's sponsorship's going to have to discreetly tell us what number they choose to use because I'm not sure even the broadcast partners would appreciate if they're using pirated numbers for the reach that they're getting. Yeah, I do really am intrigued by that. I know there's some interesting companies that help give visibility on the total reach, particularly on social media channels with content that might be repurposed. So you can track the analytics on that.

18:56But also through pirated content. Ripple Analytics is one of those which used to be video sites who we've had on the podcast before. They are really good at bringing that sort of intelligence to the table to get a sense of how accurate that reach is. Yeah, but I am intrigued to see how that reporting goes. I mean, sponsor execs will tell you it's not just all about the views and the reach and so forth, but those numbers, big numbers really helped justify budget spend quite a lot yeah so just trying to reframe this and talking a little bit about piracy but also just talking about the economics of sports from a broadcast perspective nick we know that this is growing we know that's part of the reason why league on has had struggles in france is because of how prevalent uh piracy is over there and broadcasters not wanting to invest too much into something they didn't know and obviously this champions league had provides some more statistics to that you talked about some of the pay-per-view stuff although pay-per-view who knows what's going to happen that with boxing and the what direction it's going but the point being niggas are we dangerously or scarily getting close to a point where the illegal audiences are the quote-unquote real audience for premium sports oh gosh that's a that's a juicy question uh look i do i do genuinely wonder how sports should really be looking at reviewing its its reach and its audience for those for those those very reasons And it does come back to the existential question on, can we find a way to strive monetization and value out of reaching mass audiences through official means that makes it accessible and still drives enough return on investment for everyone involved?

20:33that is still not achievable at the moment. And therefore this approach where someone like TNT is willing to put it behind the paywall to drive acquisition and miss out on millions and millions of viewers on their channel is a more effective approach to monetizing live premium live sports events. The reality is we know that is not necessarily a sustainable model. It hasn't been for some time for the wider sports industry. And that's where things do need to change. So look, not everyone's pirating sports streams. The ones that are getting most pirated, the ones generating the most media rights revenue.

21:07So it's a really intricate, weird ecosystem. But I do think if, frankly, if sports are focusing on monetizing the maximum reach they get, and it's genuine reach, you know, as people, whilst it is illegal, people are watching because they want to watch the content. They want to consume it. It's just an interesting, like, predicament that I don't know how you can turn into a ways of working. Because we all know the realities of piracy. It ain't going away. And it's probably getting harder and harder to fight before it's getting easier. Yeah. And one of the things, you know, it blew up on your LinkedIn, sort of your dreams and realities for the sports industry.

21:43And a lot of people commenting on that. You've republished it in a couple of different ways. One of the things you talked about is we as a sports industry need to stop talking about owning fans. So again, I'll use the word own in parentheses. So we kind of, if there's more people watching illegally than legally who actually owns the audience you know like that that's a bit difficult like you know again we we have a bit of a weirdness about saying own fans but you get what i'm saying well i do get you saying but i get on my high horse a little a little bit about this because i think we have to emphasize that no one owns uh their audience no one owns a fan despite the language we like to use we have owned and operated platforms where fans might come and check out our content, but we don't own the fan.

22:29We don't own even the fan relationship. They come to us in different instances because they want to consume something that is relevant to them at any point in time. The privilege of having them come onto the platform and consume and watch our stuff is their way of paying us for the right to do so. And that is the tricky predicament, but that has been the way that sports has been monetized for a long time, primarily through sponsored revenues because of that mass reach, irrespective of how people are consuming it. The opportunity to be connected with sports, the most powerful piece of entertainment from an emotional connection perspective there is in today's modern media landscape.

23:10That association is everything to be part of that. And frankly, that's why we have to find better ways of monetizing through that approach rather than thinking that we need to own this relationship. Getting data points to better understand what people want 100 but don't pretend you own them you don't own them now there is an there is kind of like a different type of relationship that exists between clubs and fans than it does between leagues and i think i could give like a little bit of a leeway to some clubs that you know have season ticket holders and fans that live and die by the club like that's probably as close to owning a relationship as you can you could classify but go to the fan and ask, do you feel comfortable that the club says they own you?

23:54You'll know the answer. Yeah, very much so. Very quickly, you might find out the hard way. And in terms of piracy, Nick, in terms of what's driving in, you know, using this as a particular example, how much if we got a pie, you got to split the pie up. How much of it is around cost versus sort of fragmentation? And I just, I guess, barriers to accessibility and how difficult things can be. Because I think almost like pay-per-view back in the UFC boxing days, that could be like, at least in the U.S. because it was prime time, it could be like$100 plus to do something, like not a cheap price. I don't think that's quite what this is, but like it's more just how many different apps and things you have to have.

24:37What do you think is a bigger issue at the moment between pricing versus just the experience, the fragmentation and just, I guess, like I said, accessibility? Well, I think that's one of the big issues here for any, let's say, Paramount coming in and wanting people to sign up to the platform. I think they're going to have to spend more than anyone to get people to come to the platform because I just think there is subscription fatigue really right across the industry and not just for streaming platforms, but also with even on your phone. how often are you downloading new apps today i really ever download something unless i have a real definitive utility for that app otherwise i'm spending more time uninstalling to create some more space on my phone more than anything um but think about that and then think about these other subscription products we go back a few years ago i would i would check download apps much more regularly just to see oh what's this like and do i want to you know is it worth my time basically now i just don't do it i want to get off my phone i don't want to stay on my phone for for no reason and that's why i think anyone coming into the market now is going to find it difficult to push people into subscription unless they've got something that truly moves the needle so yes if you're a an arsenal fan and you want to watch them in champions league you probably will buy a paramount subscription next year but if you're a an entertainment fan an interested a football fan are you going to buy just to watch the champions league i think it's less just it's so much less likely that you're going to make the effort to subscribe to a new service if you have all the other ones already available to you um and that's the predicament i think that many are going to struggle with so if i was paramount i would keep spending frankly and try and win some more of those rights away from others who can move the needle because otherwise i might fall a little bit short on their expectations um in some markets where they've really gone hard at champions league rights i will come back to paramount nick and what they specifically should do next year for the champions league final once we start talking a little bit more about monetization models but just kind of one last question on piracy and i think actually i don't think i know i've had people message me and talk to me and say they feel like i downplay piracy sometimes that i don't take it seriously enough um or that they think my opinion you don't that you're downplaying it no but what they think that i they feel like my language is normalizing piracy is what that was what the argument is which i just think like that's just that's just your perspective um that maybe you might be you might think i'm in denial or sorry you might think i'm normalizing i might think you're in denial um but is this friends or is this people in the industry people in the industry i've had people message me when we've done podcasts on um but i can understand that i can i can understand that because we've been talking about it for so long though and i think i don't know i'm gonna put words in your mouth i'll put words in my mouth and say it on our behalf or at least my behalf is that we've been talking about this for ages and everything points to that piracy is normalized in consumer landscape and that's the problem we and we don't have the solution to get over it if you've got a solution to solve piracy we are all ears because it's a huge problem for the industry it's the biggest one the problem is i can't see the light at the end of the tunnel so if anyone knows what the light at the end of the tunnel is I think a lot of the, a lot of, at the end of the tunnel is a fundamental change in how content is monetized digitally, moving away from subscription.

27:55So for it isn't trying to solve piracy because it is, you can let, you can, what's it called? Damage limitation. You can limit the damage of piracy. And there's lots of great companies that do a really good job with that. I probably don't point that out enough. There are, these numbers would explode even further if there wasn't for those companies that do work in the background, making that happen. But the problem is there's a consumer mindset problem. There is a technology gap. There's a lot of issues around piracy that we have covered and I don't think normalized. I think we have talked about it.

28:28There's a real predicament that is not going away. And that's why I think I feel a little bit defeated by the whole notion of trying to solve piracy rather than through other means other than let's come up with a new way of working. Yeah, I think for me, I don't think you can police a market product problem. That that's sort of my take on it is like, I just I think we're kind of at a point now, like technology is incredible. I've not quite really seen any technology that stopped at this point. Like, I don't think we can. So I think trying to release a market product pricing issue is different than trying to do it in a different way.

29:01So yeah, it's not that I'm normalized. It's just I feel like, so for example, the reason I brought it up, Nick, is because there was a recent survey where it said 58 % of the UK population thought that piracy was acceptable. So I guess the argument is when that many people believe that, like, have you lost the moral argument? And I don't mean lost the moral argument in the sense of that I am saying theft is a moral thing. But if people don't believe it, it's hard to use that as a stance in the sense of people don't care. So I guess the question is like, have you already lost the moral battle if that many people really truly believe that?

29:36Well, I think you're definitely losing the moral battle. and the thing I haven't worked out, I've not seen any good examples of really is a communications approach that lands with the consumer, with the fan to say, hey, by you watching illegally, the result of that is X. Because frankly, what they see is athletes getting paid more, owners getting richer with higher valuations and basically the numbers going up and up and up, right? So I can understand from their point of view why it makes no sense for them to do it if they can get access in a pretty straightforward fashion. And frankly, yeah, so that's really it in a nutshell for me is that there's that divide there that we need to find a way.

30:22If you're ever going to try and try and shift people away from piracy is how to communicate to them. I think in reality that is nearly past the point of no return. And instead it is about finding another way altogether. Yeah. So Nick, we're talking about sponsors. You know, we talked about sponsors want reach. If you're putting a paywall in front of things, are you ultimately undermining the sponsorship value? And I guess sort of the other thing about this as well is, you know, if you're putting the biggest matches behind a paywall, you're sort of battling short term revenue versus arguably long term sort of audience erosion loss because, you know, they might look for other means.

30:58It's just obviously, Nick, we're not saying we're anti paywalls. Like there's lots of, you know, very good businesses based around subscription. So we're not doing that, but I think specifically talking events like a Champions League final, like I couldn't imagine if the Super Bowl all of a sudden went behind a paywall, like stuff like that. Like more is talking about those really key premium moments, whether or not you should be putting them behind a paywall, Nick. Well, look, I think it comes down to there's a couple of things. One is that PayTV, Payworld-based platforms like TNT and the like, have been the driving force for innovation on the broadcast product, particularly in UK and Europe and many markets where PayTV is so prominent.

31:40So without that investment, they've been able to receive by people paying a premium for their services. They've been able to transfer that into building a better product than what, say, you would get if you just watched a live stream of a tier two or three competition through YouTube, right? It's a better premium product in a lot of different ways. So that has allowed it to be invested back into building up the quality of entertainment we all receive today. A decision has to be made by every broadcast, sorry, every rights owner, how they want to monetize their, basically the operation to make it successful.

32:15Now, you can go with a model which is as much front of the paywall and free to access and in many places as possible and monetize purely on a sponsorship-led, reach-led approach. But typically, that is more as leaky, let's say, or inefficient to instead having a more blended approach. So, you know, monetizing some of that through making sure there's enough critical mass and reach to give you that visibility. So brands are interested in that globality and that reach that they can't get anywhere else. And through services that need a premium product like sports and live sports to move the needle to drive our subscriber retention and acquisition.

32:58And as we've seen for a long time, it's a blended approach that seems to drive the most value. It leads to fragmentation though. But that's the reality of the environment we have. and sports has made a lot of good money out of that for some time. But given the content trends that we're seeing, I just feel like that's going to be trickier and trickier unless you are a true needle-moving event like the Champions League final, like the Super Bowl, like other events that do get people's attention no matter who you are, not just the fan, the top-tier fans. And that's typically what people look at it through that lens is the people that would go to watch any Arsenal match.

33:39Well, how do you get me who doesn't watch Arsenal, who doesn't watch PSD, who doesn't watch EPL, who doesn't watch League Earn, how do you get me to watch your game? It ain't going to be if it's paywalled and on a platform I don't have access to, right? It's got to be something that's a bit more accessible. And that's the predicament of why having free-to-way can also reach a much wider net of audiences, which is we're appealing to major global brands. So, Nick, let me put you on the spot. You're the head of Paramount Plus in the UK. You're coming up. it's um you know it's march of 2027 and you've got to pull the trigger on whether or not you're going to put the game free to air on paramount plus's uh youtube channel so you're at least trying to stay within your are you going to keep the game behind a paywall or are you going to put it back free to air just putting you on the spot nick knowing what you know now um uh okay assuming there is now ad breaks allowed by fifa in the finals hydration breaks then i would go with going for it free to wear i think you get a resurgence of audience good marketing for paramount that they've made it accessible so tnt is basically giving them like a little olive branch now yeah to say uh look we're nicer than them we're giving you this free to free to access but i suspect they would make it free to access perhaps on their platform maybe so you are driven on the platform maybe make a decision a bit like disowned did with the club world cup to try and get people on the platform first but for free yeah all right so nick let's talk specifically about media rights doesn't have to necessarily be the champions league and talking about the impact from a piracy perspective on this if if significant percentage of fans are not willing to pay for subscriptions can we make the argument that rights are fundamentally mispriced