Paramount wins Champions League rights: What it means for Europe’s sports media landscape

0:03Hello everyone and welcome back for another edition of Streamtime Sports. I'm your host Nick Meacham, CEO here at SportsPro. And today I'm being joined by editor of SportsPro, Steve McCaskill, to talk all things that are happening across the sports media landscape. And my gosh, there's been some big things happening of late, not just the media summit a couple of weeks ago as we're recording this, but also some big news happening across Europe. Europe. So Steve, again, welcome back to the show. No, it's good to be on here next. Let's dig into the first one, which was a hot topic at the media summit, was what's happening, what the heck's happening with UEFA and the Champions League rights and all the European football stuff going on.

0:42And the fact that relevant sports is now leading their first tender on behalf of UEFA after securing that responsibility from team after it was the 25 odd years. I think we talked about this at the time when it happened. um a little company by the name paramount's popped up out of relatively nowhere uh and really sort of shaken up the the landscape um across a whole host of different markets just talk us through what's some of the key outcomes that have eventuated off the back of this um right cycle at least to date anyway yeah so we've been kind of across this since decision was made to go with relevant rather than team and we're hearing snippets of information and even even in Madrid and even so this took us all by surprise my phone went off literally as I was on the air bridge going on going back to uh to London and it emerged that Paramount had won the majority of the Champions League rights in in the UK it's also the same in Germany with Amazon having first pick matches in both those countries um it's also got first pick uh games in Italy although So Paramount's not one that writes their list still with Sky.

1:55And it's the UK one that's taken the headlines just because it's completely taken everyone. It's come out of nowhere, basically. Paramount does have interest in the UK. It has some paid TV channels. It has Paramount+. Although that's bundled with Sky at present. I wouldn't say it's a mainstream streaming service in the UK. I'd say most people probably do get it as part of their Sky Cinema subscription. and it has channel 5 um and it had of course it has pluto tv so that's his interest so the fact it was paramount was a surprise and then i think the the money involved is is also um not as we're taking people by surprise because i think everyone's expecting an increase the champions league has done very well uh recently but it represents quite a big increase in the the combined deals with between Amazon, Paramount and Sky, which is interesting.

2:48Sky is back in the fray. It's got European and Conference League rights. Those have been unbundled. It's£2.2 billion over four years is what we understand. So it's the scale of that fee. It's the fact Paramount's come out of nowhere. Essentially, I think there's a lot of discussion now about what consumer propositions look like in 18 months. But yeah, we had no idea that Paramount was coming. I think we thought TNT would go back in for it, given it's arguably their marquee property, at least it's their USP in the UK. So yeah, exciting times, but I didn't have a clue this was coming. Now, Paramount's a really funny one at the moment to watch and follow.

3:32Obviously, they've been acquired and been involved with some pretty major international rumours, as well as an acquisition itself. and also came into the market and mopped up the UFC rights, which was obviously a really big move for them in the US. Now to see them spread their wings outside of the US and make a move like this, your power bounce have always been an enigma for me. I'm curious to see whether, now that they have these rights, how they also do lean into those free-to-air channels that they have. Will Channel 5 get any access and have games available free-to-air or will they all be stuck behind the paywall?

4:07Do you have any feel on either what they're going to do or what you think they should do? At the moment, I think Paramount Plus, I think it's something like$4.99 a month in the UK. It might be a bit more than that. But again, like I said, most people, they do have a bundling agreement with Sky. So I'm a Sky Cinema subscriber. I get Paramount Plus as part of that. I think it's obviously going to cost more when the Champions League comes. I think how much it'll be, I don't really know, but I think it'll probably be more affordable than TNT Sports is on Discovery Plus. quite simply because they don't have all those rights to pay for.

4:41TNT Sports is positioned as, you know, it's pure play sports provider as part of the Discovery Plus package of content. Paramount Plus at the moment, if it's just a Champions League, would basically be an entertainment proposition with Champions League thrown in. So a little bit like how Disney has the Women's Champions League. You know, it's more sport if they're subscribers rather than being a sports service for sports sake so i think it'll cost more but i think it'd be more affordable um but obviously the you're just getting one property unless paramount decide to go for more in terms of the free-to-air component i think that really depends what's been set behind behind closed doors i haven't been able to find anything on this whether they decide channel 5 is a good shop window for this or if it will if it will stop people subscribing uh i wouldn't be surprised to see a couple of games on channel five i think the final possibly and that would make a lot of sense that would make sense in terms of getting advertising revenue so i don't think the final itself is going to be a major subscription driver you know more why not get a big audience for channel five get the advertising and then you know as a promotional tool for the following season so there is that element to it um but of course i think you know we talked about paramount being an enigma i think the biggest question mark is what happens with paramount and war and brothers discovery whether if if that merger happens does anything change i mean maybe all that happens is you have this combined paramount hbo mega streaming service that costs more than what it costs now to watch yeah that's it's an interesting why i call them enigma i guess is that they've also done some weird moves up until this point like sponsoring f1 and having their branding on on various races and try to get shirt sponsorship and i'm like yeah yeah i'm just It's like, not really, how is that investment?

6:33There's such an efficiency required in driving subscriptions. And that is a great needle mover to get visibility. But is that turning into anything really for someone who's running a platform like that, particularly when you don't have any F1 rights of significance in the key markets that you're going to be visible in? I found it a bit weird, but anyway. Yeah, that's interesting. Obviously, that whole conversation around Warner Brothers Discovery and Paramount is a real funny one, because let's just say hypothetically that deal does happen that means that paramount's probably paid way more than they needed to for the rights for something that they would have got anyway as part of that deal if they just kept uh kept can and carried on so uh yeah maybe in the grand scheme of things it just doesn't make doesn't move the needle for what could be a pretty big juicy billion multi-billion dollar deal if that was to play out i guess you've got to pursue an independent strategy no matter what i think is the other um the other thing we also have no idea how that that uh process is going to play out you know paramount do want to take the entirety of wd but equally wd could be sold uh to netflix or or to to comcast although to be honest i'm contradicting myself there because i think just the the tnt sports in the uk would be part of the Netflix and Comcast deals based on what I understand from how that, if WBD splits.

7:56So yeah, it's all, there's so many layers to this and I don't know if we're in danger of overthinking it by what can happen a few years down the line. But for now, I think it just, Paramount Plus, it's quite obviously, it wants to expand its presence in Europe. We're seeing lots of streamers, they need this global scale able to make the sums work and if you don't have that footprint on the ground and in in europe you know are you going to make it work and nothing's more effective than getting people to time for service than than sport yeah absolutely so it makes a lot of sense for paramount if they want to make that so make some waves get get into the market get some instant eyeballs and audience the sky is the other interesting part oh before i get jumping to sky i will say that the value has gone up which I think it will get a lot of people's um excited perhaps in the industry oh media rights are back baby let's see that these revenues are fly through the roof and never expect everyone to start spending more now a couple things I think to I think in context I'd be interested to get your take on this is firstly I believe there's more games now available for this cycle than there were previously because of collective conference league in Europa League and the new format than last cycle is that correct I think it's the I think it's the same Yeah?

9:13Yeah. Okay, damn it. That's one theory already busted. So if the value of that has gone up the way it has, is it as simple as just Paramount has really overspent to make sure they secured those rights? Or do we really think that other players like Amazon have put more money on the table given, let's be honest, the flattening of the rest of the market, particularly across football? Why has there been such a bump otherwise? um i'm going to give you a bit of credit for your first argument even there's no more games i think this current cycle has proved the benefits of increasing that that volume and increasing thanks for giving me credit steve but uh that's a good point i mean your point's better than my point it reminds us oh there's more games therefore you're gonna pay more but yours is actually they've proven themselves which i think is probably a good shout if it makes you feel any better i was trying to do the sums and i couldn't work out where all the games are coming from and i realized that the deal includes qualifiers so uh that was what i was doing yeah but um i think the changes to the format have been a huge success you're seeing um there's more regular games so instead of there being six game weeks there are now eight so that's basically live football every other week for you know between the start of season and christmas it's a lot it's a lot more regular you're also seeing more matches between the bigger teams so yes you can argue that it there might not be as much jeopardy but it's almost like test matches in rugby i feel like it's yeah yeah they're not life or death but they are competitive people do like to see it you saw last night as we're recording this arsenal playing by munich not much is on the line for either apart from laying down a marker i suppose so it's i think people are more interested in it i think um people at amazon getting involved certainly in germany italy and the uk has elevated the the prestige of the competition which i think was playing a little bit before in the uk um don't know what you know can't speak to the rest of Europe.

11:06So I think that is one factor. It's become a bit more prestigious. It's almost become Super League light. And I think that has resonated with broadcasters. And then you look at the other games with the conference and the Europa League, that's also increased in inventory. Inventory is hugely important now. We'll talk about Sky in a second, but I certainly think that's been a factor there. So I think it's a combination of not... Obviously, Paramount's bid quite a lot for this. but you don't have that specific breakdown. So you've got that competitive pressure. Then you've also got just, I guess, an increase in perceived value of these rights.

11:43And if you're saying your media rights are back, baby, I think this could be a zero-sum game in some markets in terms of maybe prioritizing Champions League over domestic league rights is a potential knock-on effect. Again, it's about something else as well later. but just as a, I'm not saying this is the exact cause, but, you know, Canal Palouse in France, you know, that's retained the Champions League rights in France, but there's obviously other reasons why it's not gone with Ligue 1, but, you know, it could be a factor. Like maybe we have Champions League where the best French players are playing.

12:21We've got, you know, leading clubs, you know. So, yeah, I think the Champions League is probably the biggest growth property on this side of the Atlanta. I think it's just reflected in these sums. Yeah, I think that's a really good point. From what I've been hearing around the traps, there is a lot of frustration and concern about how much of UEFA is basically eating the pie of the big European leagues because of this expanded approach with more games happening that are appealing to the local audiences. The amount of money that broadcasters have to spend in most cases is budgeted and finite. So that money is just being shifted from one place to another rather than definitively expanding the total pot that all clubs get.

13:13Time will tell, but it feels definitely like that's a viable outcome or an impact of what's been going on. Let's talk about Sky. Sky has come back into the fall with Europe before. Well, they lost those last cycle. Or the cycle before, I think, if I remember correctly. 2015 was the last time they had Champions League. So that's the last time they'd wait for games. So, yeah, a long, long time. They come back in and now they've got a huge amount of games. I mean, they've got talking the 1 ,500 live football matches they now have available through their channels over the course of a season, which is just an extraordinary amount.

13:48Basically, games, live matches every single day of the year. So if you love football, it's definitely the place to be. they've obviously doubled down on the value of football that it has to their platform and in fact neglected a lot of others I think along the way in many instances as a result of that commitment to football did it surprise that they came back in for this or do you think it just they it gives them that solid uh market share and stranglehold of if you're a football fan in the UK you have to be a subscriber to this guy there's no questions asked yeah I was surprised they came back to it um but it makes a bit of sense the more and more i think about it now the reason sky went for the champions league i think it's back in 2003 was because they did have the away for cup before that but they saw that wasn't really shifting the the needle and that's what they went for the champions league they went when they went all in of course they've decided somewhere along the way that it's not worth spending that money on the champions league because it's probably not going to add many more subscriptions versus what they've got the premier league so that's their strategy there but what the acquiring um the conference league and the europa league does it gives you again it's more about inventory they can flood sky sports plus with with live games it probably you know again we haven't seen the breakdown so i'll be i'll be waiting on that you know i've been trying to find this out myself but it probably wasn't it's not obviously not going to be as high to get the europa league as much as would do the champions league um so you know it's probably lower cost to that there's also the fact that the premier league you have increasingly number of competitive teams in the premier league and only four guaranteed you might get one or two others as in this season can get in there through through other means such as england's coefficient and spurs winning the the europa league so there's gonna be some big teams dropping down into the europa league so that increases the value again that increases the value value to sky and then yeah i think being able to say we've got football every every day of the week that's that's gonna a great marketing hook isn't it and makes you wonder you know what else they might do i think it's probably just about done now in terms of what they might want to add i do wonder if they might go for ua for qualifiers just to fill that out and uh you know so even when it's i know they have league one and league two during international breaks they can and wsl but maybe they include in that so yeah it comes into that you know they've clearly prioritized football they've prioritized some other sports that have audiences to bring prescribers so golf formula one tennis is especially popular with with female viewers for example so but football's number one this is more football content it probably wasn't as much as um you know they would have definitely wasn't as much probably wasn't that much in the grand scheme of things to to get it on the platform and and yeah it means they're not missing out midweek anymore so looking further afield across europe some interesting just developments in certain markets a couple of the major ones here spain looks business as usual I believe Telefonica has held on to those rights.

16:45You've got Italy, business as usual, Sky, the majority of stuff, and then Prime, keep their Wednesday first pick. France, as you said, Canal Plus, hold on there. UK, we've covered. And then Germany is an interesting one. I think that's, yeah, let's talk a little bit about that one. Obviously, there's been quite a bit of shuffling and then some change there with RTL, who's been the long-standing holder of the Europa League and the Conference League, now lose that to DAZN, but then DAZN have lost a bunch of Champions League and now Prime Video has gone from first pick Tuesday to first pick Wednesday and Paramount's got the lion's share of the good stuff for Champions League, a bit like they do in the UK.

17:32Does that sound about right? Have I missed anything? It does. And if you are confused, there's a handy table on our coverage on sportspro.com with all these uh all these uh these deals so yeah germany basically mirrors the uk um you've got you've got the free to our headlines on said def which the bbc have in in the uk the zone has got the european conference league rights just like sky has in uk paramount plus is now the senior rights holder and then you've got amazon with the first big game so germany's a little bit different to the uk in that it's again i think we mentioned this a few times on the pod it's never been a traditionally large um pay tv market is slowly going that way just because of i think um just in terms of international forces as anything so i think they've they've decided that again the best value they're going to get is by splitting those across multiple broadcasters and there's plenty of people who want a slice of it perhaps don't have the money to pay for everything i'm sure uefa are very happy that paramount have decided to to come in that market interestingly netflix performance were close in germany um from what we hear so they were they had a very competitive bid but were pipped by by paramount and i off the top of my head i think paramount tried for another couple of markets as well but were ultimately unsuccessful perhaps because you know it could be finances could be one thing but maybe uafer was also concerned about um you know handing over for streamer in a certain a certain market um in terms of getting to to end consumers but in in germany it hasn't had that that issue um partly i think because the zone has been so successful um or rather in terms of normalizing streaming and having that route to market um so yeah interesting that yeah uk and germany one side uh split you know unbundling splitting across different broadcasters france italy and spain not quite status quo but very very similar keep trying to keep it together as much as possible now it would be to your point about netflix if that is true um would be a pretty big step change from their current approach um being very event-based i could have seen them maybe go for a the first pick wednesday night tuesday night part of that package because that's a bit event style which kind of aligns with Netflix's mandate and what they do with maybe the WWE having the Monday Night Raw if I remember correctly as part of their mix but otherwise they've been very clear even in recent calls they're still focused on non-seasonal rights packages that they want to buy so things that can move the needle on an event or a one-off type of bases so it would be interesting to see if they were seriously that close to buying those rights because that would would have been meant a bit of a step change from that message now we're going to move the conversation on to the zone in a second and i think looking at what's happened in germany given they have now lost the champions league rights they had available in that market and now they only have europa and conference league given um germany's presence in the champions league particularly with Bayern and its other top teams, would be a bit of a blow for DAZN, at least from an audience perspective.

20:51No idea. What I don't really understand is the fact that the revenues, the net revenues have gone up. How much of that portion of revenue is coming from now? Has the proportions changed from Europa League and Conference League in the mix against the Champions League? Now, does that make sense? So basically, is that making a bigger share of the pie than it did before? Because it's proved itself, like you were saying earlier. That would be interesting to know because if DAZN has downgraded their approach there but still feel like they've got a good proposition for their audience because of the strength of the Bundesliga, sorry, Bundesliga's teams in Europe, then that might still be okay for them, I guess.

21:34Yeah, I think it's partly that. I think, again, you're going to get, you know, you're missing out on having Bayern Munich and you're missing out on having Borussia Dortmund or something like that. But, you know, the German teams, again, it could be a case of the Cargain, you're competitive in the Europa League and the Conference League. I think cost, yes, is probably a factor. And, you know, if you are looking to, it could be that they were, you know, priced out effectively or they decided it wasn't worth it. And if they have got Bundesliga rights, they might, you know, I think if we're looking, I think we can almost call it a big four now.

22:12I know we've called it a big five European leagues, but, you know, definitely in terms of media deals for obvious reasons, you need to have domestic league just to be, you know, just to be in the conversation. So we've talked about TNT Sports in the UK. The Champions League is their USP, but they need Premier League just to have their foot in the door there. The Zone has that. they've been quite serious about getting that so they much had to come to the same conclusion that they just don't it wasn't worth the outlay in terms of how they were going to get subscribers and this way the Europa League and Conference League give them that midweek football, give them that inventory and ensure they can still show some games involving German clubs so I think it will be very interesting to see the relative sorry, how much those Conference League and Europa League rights are valued within those deals what value they give to them that's something yeah i'm really trying to find out and i'm really trying to find i'm really interested in see how they are valued in relation to the champions league yeah i'd be super fascinated to see that has changed and have it improved because i i feel like it does make a lot of sense if now there's that validation of of the product that more would be interested in following europe because of that jeopardy that comes with each and every match once you get past the round robin stages but as i mentioned we're talking about the zone so they've they've decreased their investment into germany significantly with this announcement there's no question of that they have obviously pulled out of france um and much we've covered that at length on ligan and you're going to hear more about that in the coming weeks when we have ben morel who's a former lfp uh chief exec on the podcast um which has been recorded at the media summit.

23:51But now there's a news. I heard about this a couple of times at the media summit, but did not expect it to be the next couple of days later to be hitting the airways. But that's probably why I started to hear about it then was that the zone have now forced their way out of the Belgian pro league relationship they had. Yeah. Huge news because all of a sudden it goes from the outlier. That was the French situation to now Belgian. now Germany's reduction on the European side rumours that in Australia there might be some movement with their investment into Foxtel of stepping away from the AFL which would be massive Struth well good work I was going to say blimey but Struth's even better actually that would be huge repercussions for the marketplace and I looked online a little bit about that stuff in Australia I should say and there is a lot of negative sentiment around DAZN coming into that market and just what Foxtel are doing in that market.

24:53So more than I expected. I kind of thought that Foxtel's position was going to be a lot more positive energy. And I want to come back to the brand stuff in a second. But my point here is that it seems like DAZN is really sort of bringing, reigning things back now in a few different key markets, particularly around football. And this Belgian thing, I think, is super interesting because where does the Belgian league go from here and where does the zone go from here? So what's your view on them pulling out of the Belgian pro league? Did you hear much about this before it happened or was it a bit of a surprise?

25:26No, I've been hearing murmurs of this for a couple of months. I didn't realise it was going to be coming to a head so soon though. I mean, it is a bit mystifying in terms of you sign that deal and then you withdraw from it basically. I think that's you know both both France and Belgium you know there's already inklings within the first six months of the deal coming to effect so DAZN's previous deal I believe was inherited from 11 sports um so yeah and this current deal was significantly less than the previous agreement that inherited and it's just you know when you are a a rights owner you know the whole nature of that relationship is that you take on you know you give guarantees you then take on the risk and you hope to monetize it and acquire subscribers it's just interesting it's happened now twice in two different markets and in both instances distribution appears to have had a big impact on it so in in france um you know though as far as i can remember you know recall i think a kind of canal plus was a was it was a was a challenge um it has a carriage um i could be misremembering that after i will have to check they haven't got they haven't got a canal plus relationship and distribution at all uh currently and then um and of course in in in belgium they also failed to get carriage deals with the incoming telcos um so that's that's basically why it's come to head piracy has also been mentioned in france especially but as you say it's interesting that they are scanning back in some markets or being very careful in terms of what they're investing.

27:14You know, the zone we've seen, we're almost like in the third act of the zone. We had the disruptor stage, we had the consolidation stage, and now we have the platform stage. And, you know, it's working and becoming profitable. A lot of money has been sunk into that venture. You know, there was talk of, you know, an IPO a couple of years ago. It feels like they are now moving towards that. and it's a bit like you know a bit like when spotify was going for its ipo it spent months trying to sort out its deal uh well years even trying to sort out you know its relationships with the major labels it feels like that's a similar thing happening with the zone it wants to make sure that the deals it has are you know going to put it in in a favorable position you know if and when it goes it goes to the market we've also discussed you know how it's trying to become a platform how it's shifting towards becoming an aggregator or distributor of the party content and with its own first party deals out alongside that and the work them working together so it's basically taking the view that if the sums aren't working if we feel like the market conditions aren't right yeah i think i think it's super interesting to like um the carriage thing i think is just the carriage distribution component of this is the most interesting thing who would have thought that the telcos are really the ones and in the power play impacting the media rights market so much but obviously the significance of their their role there is is massive because they have let's say keys to the audience and if they're not willing to open up those doors for whatever reason because the deal is not appropriate or what have you then it is a rock and a hard place i remember something similar was it with 11 and ufc in the uk was one of the first times i remember you know going back a decade or so ago now when they were trying to launch something in the uk and they couldn't get a carriage deal with anyone so they basically had to give up on that playbook before it even got started.

29:04Yes, they won the rights from, well, then BT. And yeah, you're right, they couldn't get, I don't think they scored any distribution in the UK. So yeah, as you say, there are gatekeepers still to the market. We talk about the paid TV platforms having, or loosening their power, which is why Sky in the UK probably being one of the better examples of trying to become an aggregator and maintain those customer relationships itself. um i don't have a lot of in-depth knowledge of the belgian market but in france the the the pay to market now is very ip based which means these telcos have even greater power um it could be similar in in belgium you know one of the key one of the big uh telcos there is orange so um you know that that requires some of the more specialist knowledge than me but again if that if it is the case if it is ip tv is just as crucial a factor as it is as it is in france then they're going to have a lot of power.

29:57I mean, the challenge, I think, for, well, for Belgium, who knows where they go from here? Can someone come in and fill the void? Will they have to do a Ligue 1? Because that would just put the whole league back again. You'd say it'd be deja vu all over again in that instance if that was the case. Do you think there's anyone viable to step in and actually take on that responsibility and they put the money on the table for that relationship? I mean short of going back to the you know the previous incumbents I'm not sure what the their options are um you know we talked about the champions league taking money away from uh from domestic league sorry money we might have been previously allocated for domestic leagues is there someone with the money is there someone inclination is there someone who thinks Belgian pro league is going to shift that that needle and what is you know um with all respect to the league is a secondary league in in europe um you know is that going to push needle in the same way and if telcos are deciding that they don't need those rights to shift their wares anymore you know 15 years ago telcos were all buying rights because they saw it as a way to sell communication services we've moved away from that the market is now it's not a case of you know it's you don't have telcos buying rights at a loss to subsidize the rest of their business because they don't need to do it anymore it's now shifted towards the streamers so I don't really know.

31:18Again, knowledge of Belgium is limited in terms of media landscape, but it does feel like this is a huge problem. And just based on the footballing knowledge of the two countries, there's been a massive impact on French club finances. but France has industrial talent development conveyor belts. So player sales are one way they can make up the shortfall. Obviously, it's a larger country for a D2C service. It's not great. That might be an understatement, but there are things they can use to mitigate it. In Belgium, I'm not really sure. I mean, it could lead to club bankruptcies if no one comes in.

31:59Yeah, it could be that significant. And then you look up from the other side of this and look at DAZN, and we've kind of been talking about it a little bit here, but they've pulled out of Belgium. Let's see the Belgian Pro League can get some money out of them along the way as well. You've got the France situation. You've got the Australian situation. It does feel like they're either setting up for the IPO that they've been talking about for a long time ago. Their CEO has been adamant that they are going to be profitable next year. Well, yeah, if you pull out all the loss-making stuff that they've got, that's probably going to help, and that's what it seems to be doing right now.

32:35Other than that, the only thing I could think of is that they also want to set up for someone to buy them. And again, I really can't think of anyone else that would be viable to do that as a standalone other than, say, a Paramount, basically, given their moves they're making in trying to be more of a global streaming player. I can't see Netflix making an investment, although they keep getting rumored with Warner Brothers Discovery because maybe for the content arm of the Warner Brothers Discovery business, but I can't really see anyone else coming in for making that sort of defined all-in move.

33:05So do you think that's the play here? Is there anything else that I'm missing? And secondly, is there any other markets that you think could be worth following or watching that there could be some further ramifications or further changes made, particularly from DAZN's side? On the first side, DAZN being bought, I mean, yeah, there probably are a couple of streamers that might be interested, I think. and if DAZN thinks it can shift towards more global deals or global distribution deals, then it might become more attractive. So, you know, if you're, we have no information on this. Let's use Paramount as a hypothetical example.

33:41You get distribution for NFL Game Pass for NHL. You get rights in certain countries. You know, in Paramount and DAZN in Australia, there'll be obvious, you know, for certain percentages there in that market. so it's not out of the question that someone could buy them but i think someone like netflix it's just too messy yeah you know you don't want to get you'd have to get all you know this is a company that has very limited sports rights it has a small team negotiating them there will be very clean deals so far it's not you know not getting embedded in it so i think who buys them yeah i'm not really sure who but it's not out of out of the question in terms of other countries not really got any things of what could be next but I think the market is getting very difficult for these leagues underneath the you know that's again the big four in France and there's a couple that are probably all right you know I think the Netherlands and Portugal for example there I think they're probably okay but if you look underneath that and you look at you know the the leagues that have been reliant on those broadcast deals um they are going to have to have a period of adjustment if that demand suddenly suddenly dissipates i mean you know i could be i guess we got switzerland you know switzerland i think has never really had that so it's probably all right you know there's always been um pay tv elements but switzerland hasn't it's never had ambitions to be bigger than what you know what it is i say and there's lots of competition from the major leagues.

35:20So I think leagues like that might be all right. But yeah, I'm looking at the middle, I think, is probably the one that I'd be more concerned about. Seems to be a lot of change expected there. And for the zoners of business, whatever they're doing now, if it's just getting themselves into profitability, they also need to find some other additional revenue strings because taking a standalone subscription approach clearly in this day and age is not working. They have added some advertising layers to it, but I don't think it's, I can't see that as a needle mover enough for them to really get the returns that others are really leaning into through advertising as an alternative supplement to the subscription business.

35:57So I no idea where this, what the future holds for someone like a disowned. I mean, you spoke to their CTO at the media summit. Obviously the club or cup was a big thing, a big project, a big expense, a big investment in different way, shapes and forms. did you get any sense from that conversation as to how impactful positively or negatively the Club World Cup was? I'm sure he was all positive and all rainbows. I mean, I think the Club World Cup was an effective proof of concept for DAZN rather than, how do I put this? They say they're happy with how it performed in terms of viewership, in terms of subscription, or at least not even subscription drivers, but in terms of getting people signed up from administrations i think what they would be happy is that you know they claim they can now support 300 million users around the world concurrently so if you are a global property you're probably never going to get close to that you know three hang on 300 million in concurrence that's what he said been testing with the various cloud cloud providers which again in madrid they did provide a technical overview of how they they achieve that in testing but you know for reference I mean, that's a Super Bowl, you know.

37:12So in practice, you're probably not going to get anywhere near that. So I think the fact that they'd be able to show these stress tests means that if you are a property that wants to reach every country in the world, they now say they can do this for you, which I think is probably more of a distribution play than a rights play. I don't think anyone is going to distribute too well about that. And we also spoke about, you know, we talked about diversifying those revenue streams, moving away from subscriptions into into other areas this platform has got to support ticketing it's got to support betting it's got to support e-commerce i think that's what they're trying to do at the foundation for they're trying to what we discussed was basically them putting into practice what they've been saying for a few years now becoming this platform for sport becoming more than just a pure play subscription provider which that's the technological element we've touched upon perhaps the business side of things in terms of where they think they're going on that and how they are restructuring their business to I guess to adjust to that that future so it's explained you know it was it was quite technical which I think was like you know given the room that we have in in Madrid was absolutely fine and it was very insightful in terms of I think it was interesting to see how you used to organize yourself in terms of how you manage all those different feeds and different languages which again is another thing I think it's hundreds of feeds for each game in the club world cup which you know it shouldn't be sniffed at you know that I know we've been a bit sniffy about Club World Cup in terms of sporting perspective and also how it came to be I haven't been Steve I watched 10 minutes of it and ironically I watched it on DAZN in Belgium there you go yeah so I think I watched Flamengo I think it was I can't remember anymore but I wanted to see how it was playing out but couldn't get English commentary but you know it's hundreds of feeds you got power all these different immersive experiences which are also going to take bandwidth and production capabilities and there probably isn't anything more i guess high profile to do that than a major international competition and you know even though i'm scoffing i don't maybe not you nick um it still had quite you know it was still widely watched around the world it obviously is not close to an actual you know international team world cup but it's not insignificant um so i think that's probably what the zone see it as they see it as a proof of concept they see it as a relationship builder and yeah sonny was just able to share some technical insight which again based on the conversation i saw him having conversations outside the room i was trying to get him to do a an interview for for us on sports pro so it was clearly resonated with the audience and lots of people very interested to hear about it i mean i i think their technical side is probably just as interesting as anything else because the the scale of what they're trying to do you know the fact that they've integrated these direct-to-consumer platforms like yes the nfl game pass into the platform has been a super interesting journey you added betting etc to the platform no idea if that's performed but you know just taking all these little like keep adding more things to the mix it must have been a cto job would be a heck of a job uh in a business like that.

40:26One of the most interesting things about DAZN is that they're creating this service layer for these third parties. DAZN say it's plug and play. So you can put it, if you're the NFL, you're the NHL, you put your content on there, it can be overlaid onto this and you benefit from those technological I guess the development capabilities they have there. So that is very impressive. DAZN is very impressive from a technical standpoint. I think that's why it resonated with so many so many people we could talk about the business for for days it seems but you know it is the one company out there really trying to become that global streamer for sports yeah i'll wrap on this point is that what i've heard from a couple of people is i mean the zone's still the case that we're all following particularly sports media like to see if this journey has been worth the effort the time the money etc that's been put into it their platform um has been a bit of a frankenstein of building from the origin days of out of a perform business and they keep letting layer and layer upon layer and adding all these new features to it um and it's been impressive that they've been able to do what they want to do i feel like the game pass experience i've had is good but there's a little few little things there that like are a bit make it a bit rough around the edges for example whenever i'm watching their content on my phone if the screen goes blank it goes back to the start of every video every time like little there's little types of things like that that are just nuanced they're minor but you you don't see that from some of the real bigger players the general access to what you get features you have it's there but it feels like the refinement is it's a little bit needs a little bit more polish but when you're moving in a million miles an hour like they have um you know 95 versus 100 in terms of standards probably probably sufficient which they may or may not like me saying the the other bit is they have to work out how to drive more value and return out of the other mediums and revenue streams and i have heard and speculated that this whole free to air model where they did with the club world cup is how difficult has it been to shift people from a free user to a paid one um and speculation i've heard is that it's been harder than they expected to do so, which I think it's always harder than anyone ever expects to turn a free user into a paid one.

42:55But those are lots of obstacles along the way that they've got to address. But ultimately, if they can turn the business into a profitable one and someone's willing to pay the check that they need to, then it was all worth it. So we'll have to wait and see what happens with the zone from here. I'm conscious of time, so I want to wrap up shortly. um quick one i want to touch on is that you spoke to bbc sports uh the director of bbc sport uh alex k jelsky on stage at the media summit just wondering if you had anything that really stood out from that conversation or indeed if there's anything else that jumped out to you any surprises perhaps you heard on the ground at the madrid event yeah so i spoke to alex who's now been in the job i think 18 months i think we just we got the exact date on stage and as a you know like as i said during during our conversation you know like most british people have a pretty special relationship with with the bbc it's given me if you know literally my my entire life um it's something that you know it's been my browser home page for 20 plus years you know so i think that means you know although you value it as a you also feel like you own it because you you pay for it's a public institution so i think lots of people have got opinions on it um and i certainly did although you know um generally quite you know i guess i have a positive view of the organization in the grand scheme of things and alex was just discussing some of his changes since he joined the uh joined the organization so things like the digital outputs in terms of rights in in terms of how it positions football coverage, how it positions women's sports.

44:36So it's a combination, I guess, of practical or strategic changes made with more philosophical ones, which is, you know, there's nothing else like the BBC in the world. There are similar public service organisations. It really doesn't feel like there's anything that carries that national significance, even international significance, in terms of you look at the levels of trust that people have in the BBC, even outside the uk it's extremely extremely high and of course it's battling with changing um i guess the changing media well you know it's got a you know i don't mind saying and if you want to do this they can do fun i pay double the license fee you know for what what what they give me i think it's it's a really great offer in terms of what they do but it is quite an archaic mechanism of collecting that that fee and you know i don't and it's it's you know it's meant to be free of political you know political input in it and it is um but the in terms of how it's funded is never becomes a political discussion and what it means is now it's it's having contend with you know either static or less funding in in real terms and so there's always the point i'm trying to make is it's always gonna have to make these decisions these trade-offs in terms of what it does and who it serves because it's got to serve multiple audiences it's got to serve it's got to bring big events to large audiences and it's got to serve small events to you know relatively underserved audiences it's also got the total decisions to make you know um i don't you know when we are what's happening in in the uk now in terms of bbc you know has been front page news so it was really good to just discuss and we didn't discuss the latter bit just for record we discussed purely sport um it was interesting to hear his standpoint where he thinks bbc and public service um sports broadcasting is going in the future um and just you know i guess the other final thing i'd say is he's a relative outside to the organization he's gone from print with the times and the mail he then launched the athletic in the uk and he's now operates you know running the bbc uh bbc sports so yeah i think it was a it was a fascinating discussion um be i'll be doing something for the sign on it soon as well uh yeah one of the most interesting conversations i think i've ever had um from one of our events yeah i definitely i had a great conversation with him off stage and i just felt that yeah a um jumping from the athletic and environment like the athletic which is we followed that journey pretty closely to to the bbc is about a bigger jump as you could possibly imagine in terms of culture um you know this fast-paced startup startup subscription-led environment to the model that is the bbc is just quite a quite a culture shock i think for many So fair play to him to be able to lead and evolve to that environment, because that must be a bit of a shift.

47:25Just a final question, really, for the event. And let's definitely keep an eye out for those listening on that piece around Alex and the BBC that Steve's going to be producing. But any other major just quick things that jump to mind that you heard on the ground there, either from Alex or just from other conversations that was interesting to you from the Media Summit? in addition to the stuff in the corridors about the champions league rights deal uh i mean i think the one thing for me is even if we don't mention ai all the time it's at the back of everyone's mind it's now finding its way into other conversations in terms of practical applications i think most people at the event are quite pragmatic about it they sense the opportunity but they don't see the need to be doing it for the sake of it and they're eager to learn i think i said something similar last year i think it's less of a mystery this time yeah i think people are in the year to get to grips with what they can and can't do or what where it's going to be in a couple of years um one thing i've learned is you know that everyone's trying to find to make ways to make things more efficient that seems to be just real i was a bit surprised that we're still trying to find those those efficiencies um so that was that was something i think it's just the diversity of monetization i think is the other thing i think that's now increasing people's minds as we've gone to this next level of streaming um we're now no longer making that distinction between linear and streaming in terms of distribution it's now a case of how do you capture all that audience how do you monetize them effectively how do you get that right media mix um that those were themes that stood out for me i don't know if you had any any uh any final thoughts nick uh yeah i actually posted something online with 13 things i picked up across the event and i missed loads of content so i i'm actually really really aware that i I didn't get close to all the action because I was bouncing around all over the place doing content and backstage stuff.

49:16But so have a look at that for those listening in, if you want to get a bit of insight. On the AI point, I think it's a great one. I think the dynamic, the mindset, the culture, the progression around AI is incredible in 12 months. It is absolutely focused on efficiencies, not revenue generation, really. It's about how to make your organizations more effective. You know, doubling your amount of content was the message coming out of like TikTok and two circles and others on the ground. But it's using the technology to make that happen, not saying you have to throw loads more people into that to bring it to life.

49:48And AI is rampant across every aspect of the sports media ecosystem. And everyone seems to be pretty like aware of its opportunity, its value, and are all leaning into it very closely. And I think with that, this created a mindset shift across the whole entire industry of like, we need to keep innovating. Otherwise, we're going to fall behind. And AI, we have confidence and AI can get us there, which I thought was just a nice sort of feeling, whether it is all AI or bust. But I think it just feels like that's led to a culture shift. Just one final thought on that. Again, I think people are much more comfortable talking about it.