The new Bundesliga broadcast strategy

0:04Nick Meacham:Hello, 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, Nick, I love it when my personal life outside of work collides with my work life. And for any longtime listeners, they'll know that I'm an American football coach over here in London. And one of the teams I coach is the Great Britain Women's National American Football Team. And this weekend we hosted Finland. I'm sad to say we did not come away victorious, but there was a live stream for the game on IFAF TV, International American Football Federation.

0:37Nick Meacham:And my mother informed me that partway through the third quarter that the stream went down for a fairly significant amount of time. So Nick, I'm going to have to have words with someone at IFAF to figure out who their platform developer is and perhaps give them a recommendation to one of our partners, maybe a StreamTime member. They certainly would be able to help them out on those issues. Well, there's no doubt that a Streamtime Sports member out there

1:00Chris Stone:would be able to help anyone with any sports media challenge in this space. Was it a pay-per-view model? Was it just free to access? I remember last time, I think it was the Olympic Channel, right, where they had games broadcast when you sent the link around.

1:15Nick Meacham:Correct. The World Championships we were at, that was hosted by the Olympic Channel, which was great from a reach perspective. iFaf TV, as far as I'm aware, is a free service. It just simply asks you to create an account. So you don't have to pay it. No pay-per-view, no subscription model, but just a free sign-in. So they're going for the first-party data collection option of the different models to do so. But you might struggle to get people tuned back in if your streamings keep going down now.

1:43Chris Stone:Well, do we name it in shame? I found out who it is. Maybe we'll talk about it off the air and let our listeners research it on their own time. but if you don't if you are someone who works with them we can help you out no but in all seriousness uh good to see that you guys are getting your airtime and good old mom's even tuning in from across across the pond uh i love the fact that that's uh she's still tuning in and seeing uh her son in action oh even when you're uh even you're roaming on the sidelines but are you you're not mic'd up or anything are you because i've heard you got quite a mouth on you

2:17Nick Meacham:so there was the very i think it was maybe our first punt of the game um the baff of british american football association had their media guy on the sideline um and i made a comment and i turned around i was like you're not recording audio too are you he's like yep i was like can

2:35Chris Stone:we cut that yep obviously not all live all live not live yeah yeah that so yeah i've been known to say a thing or two on the football field, but hey, it's a game of passion, right? Absolutely. I think I always found that when I did coaching, I took that way more personally than I did when I was playing myself. I don't know why, but if my team did something well, I was just, I've never felt greater emotion than that. Not when I was playing, I expected to be good or I expected to do what I tried to do. So when I did it, I was like, oh, well, that's what I wanted to do. So that's good. But when a team does it, when it's like maybe it's a tactic you've used or something, it's a really exciting, I think, part of being a coach.

3:20Nick Meacham:Yeah, absolutely. You know, I've always gotten more fulfillment from coaching than playing. Excellent group of players. Like I said, it wasn't the result we wanted. But you know, Nick, as I say, no loss is just lessons. You know, it's only a loss if you don't learn from it.

3:32Chris Stone:You're such a poet and you don't even know it. Yeah.

3:37Nick Meacham:So Nick, as always, there's never a dull moment in the sports space when it comes to media news. And last week, there was a news story. By the time this comes out, people start putting their thoughts out there. So we're going to put our thoughts out there. And an interesting one, we've been following some of the League One situation in France. We've talked about what La Liga is doing with Disney Plus in the UK and some of their partners. And we've just got a new announcement from the Bundesliga and what they're going to do in the UK market. And Nick, I've got some just general thoughts in terms of I'm actually quite excited about what they're doing.

4:11Nick Meacham:I don't know if it makes business sense, but as a fan, I love it. But I think just to go through just a little bit of context, previously games in the UK for the Bundesliga were aired on Sky Sports. I don't know what the numbers are. Basically, when you research it, it says it's not publicly been disclosed, so we don't quite know what it's there. But the New Deal looks as though they're going to still maintain some of their coverage on Sky Sports. But additionally, there's basically different tiers, different packages, where if I've got this correct, Nick, the Friday night game for the Bundesliga will be shown on both BBC iPlayer or the BBC Sports app for streaming.

4:45Nick Meacham:It will also be seen on YouTube on the overlap. And then Mark Goldbridge's show, That's Football, I believe, are the two YouTube sources. Then Amazon has some rights via pay-per-view. I can't remember if it's Sunday or Saturday that they have those games. Sunday. Amazon Sunday. So you can get games via pay-per-view there, which would allow you to select which game you want on the Sunday. And then Sky Sports will still have some of its coverage on the Saturday. So they're going all across the board, Nick. We've got free-to-air. We've got subscription via Sky Sports. You can go pay-per-view via Amazon.

5:21Nick Meacham:Or you've got the YouTube stuff with the influencers and kind of that kind of alternative commentary, I believe, is the word. I've got my thoughts around it, Nick. I actually watched on BBC iPlayer on Friday because I just wanted to check it out. It was new, and I loved it. Now, the reason I love to Nick is because I love free to air as an American. Like that's just sort of like synonymous with like sports coverage. So for me, I love being able to watch sports via BBC. So that there's other thoughts that are out there. But just my initial take, I was a big fan of being able to just turn on my TV.

5:53Nick Meacham:Didn't have to log into any streaming service or anything. I know it's taking BBC iPlayer. It was just nice to go watch something on a free to air channel. I really liked it, Nick.

6:04Chris Stone:Yeah, I think it's great. it's a really smart strategic play by the bundesliga to take this approach where they're in lots of different places massively increasing their exposure and reach i do think the industry has got a little bit too i'm going to try and counterbalance things a little bit with how people are talking they're getting a little bit too excited about this deal i think it takes some ambition for them to commit to this because there's different types of optics that come with this type of deal. But we have to put it in perspective, right? Whilst it is the Bundesliga, it is just the UK market.

6:38Chris Stone:And we've talked about Serie A, we've talked about Ligue 1 and the Bundesliga, all and Serie A. Sorry, I said Serie A already. I'm getting caught up in all my top football leagues. They all struggle to get any meaningful rights deal in the UK for the last several years. So them doing things in this market is really, it's not nothing, it's something, it's a great test ground for them given the scale of the market, the proximity to Germany, the possibilities by tapping into a new audience and taking a longer play with relatively marginal impact on revenues because the media rights revenue coming out of this market would have been so low to begin with that yeah why not try a few different things and there's already been a few moves already we've seen with YouTube being a platform now where creators are going to be taking rights and I'll be definitely interested to follow how this plays out and what's going to be done with those rights by those creators because there's a few different examples already popping

7:42Nick Meacham:up now that we can look at well I think to your point yes it has to be put in the context of the market. I think outside of the Premier League, the Premier League, I think, is the only sports league in the world that makes more money internationally than it does domestically. We're not talking about big numbers. So it's not actually a very big bet that they're having to hedge to try out some of these new things. But what I do like about, though, Nick, is we can look at France. They tried to launch a direct-to-consumer platform for people out of market and did not seem to take off. So you're still having that same problem.

8:15Nick Meacham:But I like the fact that they're bringing it in a way that should have a lower barrier to entry. They're all going to have the same issue of, we're not going to be able to extract a large broadcast fee out of this, but you should then perhaps be shifting to, can we at least get eyeballs? And I at least appreciate the fact that they haven't gone the D to C route, like we've seen other people try to do in domestic markets. But yes, I do think the key point of this, as we talk through this conversation is, there's not a massive bet on Bundesliga's part, at least I don't think they're necessarily giving up a ton of money to take this approach.

8:47Chris Stone:So on that, about the D2C component, what would I say? I will tell you that I have not been told that there might be some enhancements coming to their platform soon, which may therefore lead to having access to a D2C offering. So I've suggested that. That could be the case in my last post. And I've kind of heard that that might be on the card soon. So not confirmed, but I wouldn't be surprised to see that also play out. And I would guess that if that was to play out as it sounds, that would mean that maybe they would add some new layers of maybe multi-view, maybe some other types of tools on their platform to be able to watch it through there.

9:34Chris Stone:If that plays out how I think it will. So we'll have to wait and see on that one. Now, there is a couple of other things to really think and consider about this. Now, firstly, why is the market so tough in the UK? Let's firstly start there. We touched upon this briefly, I think, last time around. We talked about La Liga. But I think the Bundesliga really fits the same, basically the same bill. There is a couple of stars in the Bundesliga that might be appealing to the English market, obviously. Harry Kane being the lead there. Joby Bellingham as well, perhaps. But the reality is there isn't a media rights demanded market.

10:08Chris Stone:Sky is up to their elbows. I don't know the right metaphor. They're up to their elbows in domestic football matches. They just don't need more Bundesliga matches. I've heard some people, seen some people saying like, oh, these creators beat out Sky for the rights to this content. I just think Sky just didn't need it, didn't want it. They've got too much on their plate already, particularly in the Saturday slot where it's just full up with all the EFL and Premier League, why would they throw in the Bundesliga if they would probably have some expectation of what would be done with it as well? So I think pretty low risk for, sorry, but basically there was not much demand in market for something that doesn't really move the needle at all and TNT has been playing a very conservative game for some time now.

11:00Chris Stone:So I think this move was inevitable. But what we need to kind of talk about, I think is like maybe how they got comfortable enough to get here. I think this is the bit that may be lost on some people in the market who aren't following it. Like you can't underestimate the role YouTube itself as an organization and the people working there are playing in getting these deals happening. They are like producing the business case basically or helping all parties come together because they're not putting up the fee. although I've heard some people suggest they are. For what I understand, the business approach that I've heard is they don't commit to any rights fees.

11:41Chris Stone:What they do is they do a whole bunch of other stuff to support and facilitate these types of deals. And they effectively are putting together the business case for these organizations to commit to, to basically get confidence, I think is the right word, in making the move to try this new approach, an innovative approach and that could be what sort of numbers can be generated what sort of revenues can be generated what sort of cpms can be delivered what other ways of monetizing through digital sponsorships and so forth they can potentially open doors for some of those perhaps or at least upskill people to maximize the value of those rights and looking at using all their advanced metrics to be able to go, all right, here, the overlap based on your audience, we can guarantee a certain level of CPM of any advertiser coming on platform and extrapolate all that out to go, all right, you're going to generate this sort of revenue.

12:39Chris Stone:So whether that, I'm being told it's not a guarantee, but it sounds like it's more likely an estimate, but an estimate with confidence. I've had some people say that it's more than that, but I'm going to stick with the company line and think it's more of just that they're giving very specific estimates on what can be achieved with a probably like a range with a high level of confidence that can be delivered. And then those deals are revenue shares. So I'm not sure if any rights deal is being exchanged from the creators in Overlap and Mark Goldridge to do that. But in the end, there's a revenue share approach where YouTube gets a cut, the creators are getting a cut, and Bundesliga are likely getting a cut.

13:21Chris Stone:So that's how I believe those things are play out. But my point is that YouTube itself, the executives there are absolutely doing a lot of work to bring this to life. And now it's gaining momentum. So that's why they're putting in so much hard work to get market adoption. So now that will kind of be self-sustaining and keep bringing in more and more opportunities would be my guess.

13:38Nick Meacham:Well, if nothing else, I know we'll probably never get all the full numbers of our thing, but it will be fun to see because it seems like all of them are taking slightly different approaches in terms of what La Liga are doing, in terms of what Ligue 1 are doing, in terms of what the Bundesliga are doing. You know, I'd love to be able to, you know, to future Sports Pro Madrid session, have a really candid, just, all right, tell us how all these different strategies perform, but then let's see sort of, you know, where the apple falls, you know, and figure out which one of these strategies is the best because they all have some similarities.

14:08Nick Meacham:They all have some differences. And like, I would be curious to know just, because there are always other conversations. What should you do? That's kind of what we do, Nick, where you try to figure out what the best option is And it feels like most of the bases are kind of covered in which way you want to watch sports between, you know, the different leagues trying to come to the UK. I would love to be able to get the data to see, you know, if one of them is significantly outperforming. I'm sure if one of them does, they'll be happy to tell the story, though.

14:35Chris Stone:Oh, that will be no question. You'll hear about it if it goes to plan. um i think a couple of other interesting anecdotes or things to share around this are i saw a post by martin ross who's one of the editors at a sport business who'd been covering the first friday night coverage because that's really i think the most interesting part out of all this right is the the friday night where you've got bbci player playing it you've got um therefore available on three different youtube channels uh alone uh 15 000 concurrents he said this is on his in post were watching on That's Football, 3 ,600 watching on The Overlap, and 3 ,600 watching on Bundesliga's YouTube channel.

15:15Chris Stone:That's concurrence. And then there was a further 4 ,000 tuned into Goldbridge's watch-along with no footage available in it. So still getting more on the watch-along than with the actual live feed. Now, he goes on to say later on that Overlap was simply using the world feed so there was no pre-match no half time just a very straightforward rip the feed plug it into the overlap channel and broadcast which is a bit underwhelming really you think that if they're going to take on those rights you would hope for something more but they're just using it as an out and out distribution channel which yeah feels a little bit undercooked but it is only early stages but i feel like from the beginning you want to probably what is it that's almost like what

16:00Nick Meacham:that Rinaldo did with his YouTube channel. Was it Paddle or something like that? Where it basically had no... At least those channels are about football, so they're playing football. Maybe it's not branded in their style, but at least it's the same sport.

16:15Chris Stone:Yeah, yeah. Basically, the same type of concept, I think, is they just took the feed, and that's no work for that channel. It's literally nothing for them to do that. They just plug it in, give them an RSS feed equivalent or a RTMP feed, I think it is, and then off you go. So, look, well, let's see if they can keep up those numbers. What I read somewhere, I need to give a shout out to who that was. From an article called Telenomics by Mike Darcy, I think is his name. Really good person to follow also on LinkedIn who's written a bit about this. He was suggesting that the deals are actually only very short term.

16:52Chris Stone:I've not seen the actual length discussed, but it could be that these creators only have it for a season. and then it's over. Or they have the option to renew and obviously after that. But this is only a test case for everyone involved. So really, there's not much to lose here for the Bundesliga. It takes some certain confidence or risk to, almost from a brand perspective, to make this move. But I don't think it's that really as big a deal as potentially people are making out. Like you think about where some of those other leagues were, where I mentioned, they weren't available on any basically free-to-wear access.

17:24Chris Stone:It was only through a pay-per-view model or like. So one other thing I think to consider here, and this is the balancing side of things, like I'm not sure how happy players in Germany might be about this deal because the thing with YouTube, from my experience, and I've been shared some examples of this, is it doesn't take much with a VPN to get watching a live fee from a different market. and I just wonder if people are going to be able to access these games happening on a Friday night quite easily happening in the UK could that impact the premiums being paid in the German market if it's easily accessible as I expect it to be because YouTube isn't the most heavily protected piracy avenue out there so I'm I think there's there's that little thing hanging in the mix about what can they do to make sure that these rights are secure if they get to a premium situation.

18:25Chris Stone:I think at this scale, I'm not sure it matters that much at the moment. But I think it's just something they've got to be conscious of, given if it starts scaling up audience, that the ones that are paying the big checks might get a little bit concerned if they are starting to lose some audience because of this.

18:43Nick Meacham:And that is an interesting point. And I think there's always a question of who who's responsible for piracy right that's that's always the question it comes back to and i remember um how i can't believe warner brothers discovery was their head of tech peter peter scott peter scott yes thank you brilliant smart man and his argument around piracy is it started with the rights holders and that every time they picked up a new broadcast partner was only one more place for it to potentially be pirated and his argument way back in the day and i think he's even referring back to the relationship they have with the the NBA, I guess part of that too, was if they didn't stop piracy at their end, then it was just going to make it more difficult.

19:23Nick Meacham:And I think to your point, you talk about there, you know, you can rip it from YouTube, you can go through BBC all these different things. Is it actually cannibalizing itself? And so, yeah, you know, the numbers will be when you keep it on. Obviously, you know, YouTube in America, at least YouTube TV's got NFL Sunday tickets. So curious to know what YouTube is, you know, putting in place because surely they'll have something for some of that live sports stuff but to your point i had absolutely when i was on a my caribbean holiday last year um using the vpn to make sure that i can access video highlights you know i've talked about the difficulty in even finding some uefa highlights sometimes for certain events where they won't let you do it in the market and it's really simple to turn on your paid for vpn and select your market so you can watch the highlights you want so that is an interesting part of the conversation that probably isn't going to be talked about as much.

20:15Nick Meacham:No, there probably won't be talked about as much, and it still isn't today.

20:20Chris Stone:So we know that this is an ongoing conversation or lack of conversation around it. But look, I think to put a bit of a bow on this, I would say that there are a couple of other points that I think are interesting. They're minor. Again, I'm trying to balance up the conversation now. I've seen a lot of stuff on LinkedIn and social media just basically celebrating the move largely. I haven't seen too many negative takes, and I think that's good because I don't think there should be much negativity about this. I think there's a lot of positives by the Bundesliga, by YouTube and even these creators, and BBC as well to take on these rides.

20:55Chris Stone:I think it's great to see BBC making this move as well. So overall, I think it's real positive. But other couple of small points that the Friday deal itself, because of the timings with the Champions League, the main teams like Bayern and Borussia Dortmund and maybe Leipzig, I think they were one of the top teams last year. They will very rarely be on a Friday night match because they're always going to be Champions League, Hamstrung or Cup matches. So they'll almost always be on that Saturday slot or the Sunday slot, which is great for Sky to have that Saturday window, but also for Amazon. And the other thing that's interesting, we're not talking much about at all, but it is the fact that Amazon had this pay-per-view offering.

21:42Chris Stone:It's only£2.49. It's quite a cheap price point, but it's exclusive. It is exclusive. Maybe at the moment, maybe there's some context and asterisks there that maybe those rights for that game will be made available on an app soon. And I think there was some clause somewhere about nothing to do with mobile, but effectively, for the fact this is exclusive, I don't think they've done any exclusive pay-per-view deals. They've done a bunch of pay-per-view style arrangements, which is non-exclusive, but I'm not seeing one of this nature. So there's just so many little quirks to this strategy and approach, which is quite exciting to see.