The Sports Media Middle Class Problem

0:28Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the next episode of Streamtime Sports. really know what it means enough to enough to put it to put to the public in this sort of setting so what is it well it's just it's as you age you mature you reach different stages of life and then you know you sort of you go from that young blood to kind of the the onk status so we're kind of talking prop there's no age range on this you know some of it's about the person some people are old souls um but i'd say probably like as you're getting into your mid-30s and moving on a little bit before you reach the OG stage, which is a little bit later on.

1:00I'm probably entering into my unk status now being a father. You know, when I started coaching football, I was still coaching people my age, younger. Now I'm pretty much older than all my players. Now I've got a kid. But I know I've entered unk status, Nick, because I woke up two days ago with back pain. But the thing is, I didn't do anything the day before to cause the back pain. And then the second day, it felt worse. now this morning it does feel better but i feel like i'm officially at unk status that i'm now getting back pains because i think i just slept weird oh there's more to come mate i can tell you that uh back pain hip pain uh shoulder pain no yeah pain from places that you don't understand how it can generate there's more plenty more like to come question for you though i've always wondered i never looked it up what is og original gangster so it's like a like proper og talking like in the streets and stuff like that so someone that's been through the wars been through the battles survived it all made it to the other side original gangster all right so when i hear the other was like i know like the only great or something not like original gangster shows how actually out of touch i am uh after all so i'm i'm in the unc range but can you just be an unc uh or do you have to have like some sort of skills because the og is a bit like you don't just be an og you've got to like have something you bring like some sort of x factor right you can't do not everyone's an og just because you're old so i think when you think like unks right like you think about like your family like your uncle's not a father but your uncle can still be someone you learn from so i think there's a little bit of that just you're still one generation away um from the young young ones that like you can sort of guide them a little bit the way like an uncle would like your uncle's not your father but he can still be sort of a leading figure in your life kind of thing is i think that's the way with unks so like i said there's no defined age limits to i think it's more just where you're at mentally as a lifestyle yeah okay all right well i'll keep an ear out from the young kids around around the block to see if they start using although in Swedish that doesn't really translate very well because in Swedish even if you're saying like uncle let's say if you were to say it in Swedish you actually a unique thing in a couple of different languages but definitely in Swedish you always say the side of the family they come from so you would actually say an uncle would be mother's brother or father's brother so you never say uncle you would say mother's brother or father's brother.

3:16So that doesn't really roll off the tongue quite as well as Unc because if you just shortened it to far, that means father. But actually, there is a lot of it. To be honest, though, there's a lot of American culture and English words that are used here by kids who don't really know what they're saying. So they probably would use Unc if that stuff's transcended internationally. So I'm sure I'll hit it at some stage probably. Fair enough. Fair enough. Learning something new every day. Yeah, you just simplify it. But on today's podcast, Nick, we're going to talk through middle tier sports and I've got a little bit of a thesis to go through on that but basically Nick I think the reason we want to talk about the middle tier sports a little bit is you know quite frequently we talk about the NFL has done a deal the Premier League's done a deal but in actuality the majority of sports organizations are kind of probably in that middle tier and there's definitely some organizations I don't want to call out because I don't want them to feel bad they probably think they're premium tier but actually are in that middle tier and then I I think the other side of this as well is unless you're the Premier League who makes more money internationally than domestically, everybody's a middle tier somewhere.

4:21The NFL, you know, might be the biggest cash cow in all of sports, but it is a middle tier sport when it goes to other countries. And although it's not going to struggle as a business because it makes so much money domestically, they at least need to have a middle tier strategy for where they go. And today we're going to go through some different things on that middle tier, talking about some of the different people that are trying to do it, the different strategies that take to basically succeed in that space. and some of the challenges that middle tier has. So I do think it's an interesting conversation, given how much we do talk about kind of the premium rights, but then occasionally we'll go into the niche rights, like the cowboys and the rodeo channels and things like that, that there is quite a bit of a, I guess, you know, using a bad comparison, you know, they talk about the middle class is being squeezed.

5:00Could be an argument the middle tier of sports is also being squeezed. Yeah, it's interesting to think about how you classify these types of things. I think there's an argument you can dial up or down some of the classifications depending on different things. I look at this kind of middle tier that you talked about as a tier that has a premium nature about the product or sport in some capacity. Like the NFL might not be necessarily popular in certain markets, but for those that do follow the NFL, it sits on the top, clearly at the top, at the number one. So it has this must-have aspect to it, even if it's not serving a huge audience set.

5:34And then there's also in that middle tier, there's sort of the non-premiums, but the ones that have mass general interest that sit there. And then underneath that, you do have the ones that are kind of maybe a super serving a smaller audience set that probably fall into the bottom tier underneath the middle. So everyone's got different ways to look at this. And we colloquially throw around tier two and tier three sports. And maybe we should aspire to come up with the ultimate framework, Chris. that's the challenge to to come up with the ultimate framework on what you classify as tier two and tier three and tier one globally but you make a good point about yes whilst you might be tier one locally doesn't mean you're tier one internationally and that's an important distinction that gets a little bit lost in this conversation it does and i think nick just to frame it a little bit when we we talk about sports media you know for decades it felt like there's a relatively, I guess, stable hierarchy.

6:29You know, at the top of it, you had your NFL's Premier Leagues, NBA, sort of the biggest events, the World Cup. And they got attention from broadcasters because they brought in mass audiences. On the other end of the spectrum, you have your niche sports. So we're talking your Cowboy Channels, Rodeos, Wrestling, Lacrosse, Pickleball. They're small, but they have really passionate, dedicated audiences who typically are willing to pay. And we'll talk about why that is. But then you've got these sports like rugby, volleyball, you know, tennis, particular elements of tennis, obviously Wimbledon being the big ones, but there's all those tennis tournaments underneath there that aren't quite global giants, but they were still able to get enough money through broadcast and sponsorship.

7:06And that was largely due to traditional TV being in a linear fashion. Broadcasters couldn't rely just on big events. They had to fill out all of their programming. So actually that middle tier sports was able to live off the fact that, you know, you needed to have TV across the day, across the week. whereas now with streaming you could argue that you need to focus more on what's driving subscriptions and it feels a little bit like some of that is now being squeezed and I guess the thesis Nick that I've come up today that we're going to talk about is premium sports win with scale niche sports win through passion can the middle tier win through strategy that's that's the way I want to frame this Nick profound I'm intrigued to hear what the answers will be as we work our way through some of this I think I was thinking on how we look at some of this stuff and I think you framed it really nicely.

7:53I do think there's, rather than looking at tiers, maybe in the subsequent look of this, I think we will go through this and go through that lens for now. But at some stage, you will be looking to define those, let's call it like persona types, but for sports, because there is a weird distinction of what some of the examples you gave were in the middle, you've got at some points, someone that drives mass interest through 10 pole moments through the year, like tennis, for example, where the majors are basically everything and have a general interest that everyone will want to dial into. But actually between those moments, there's not much interest.

8:32Whereas other sports may be like, I don't know, maybe a rugby has more constant of a heartbeat through at least the seasons that are played. So there is, but the net result at the end of all this is the audiences might be quite similar in scale. I don't know. So it's just, it's an intriguing dynamic to navigate, which I feel now I'm motivated to work it all out. Not only this conversation today, but also getting a better construct on that in the future. Well, we are going to talk about rugby a bit later on as a potential cautionary tale. But first, Nick, just for the purpose of the conversation, we can go in at least how I've defined these tiers as we go through it.

9:05So the first one would be your tier one, your premium sports. So what I've put as characteristics, broadcasters view them as a must have. They drive subscriptions. They're highly expensive. they're globally relevant and they also have large demand from sponsors so talking about your premier leagues nfls nbas um ipl in india like that's what i'm talking about we're talking about tier ones the kind of people that kind of can ask for a blank check sort of thing nick they're the ones that everybody is seemingly fighting over i think sometimes nick um we we are defining it but i think sometimes like you kind of know it when you see it kind of thing but that's sort of what I'm defining as our tier one, those types of organizations.

9:46I think that's a pretty good summary. I think the globally relevant is a bit of an interesting nuance to it because there's a few examples I could point to where really domestically they are relevant. Let's say in Australia, the AFL and the NRL really doesn't move the needle elsewhere. But I think in general terms, that's a pretty good summary. I would also characterize it a little bit of it's got the week to week relevancy yeah when the seasons are happening versus the one-off tempo moments that we've talked about like yeah like your majors which i think also it's almost like you talked about like i can't remember the word you use but it's the stuff that drives it you're not going to just turn on the tv and stumble across it you are actively intend intending to find that to watch and you're building your day your schedule your calendar around watching those moments and And I think that, yeah, it's a subtle thing.

10:35It's more of a behavioral thing than like a sporting trait, but I think it's an important one. I definitely agree on that. And I think if we move forward to the middle tier, the one we're going to talk about kind of through today, they still have significant audiences, but they're not necessarily that tier one level audience, unless to your point, Nick, they have limitations on duration, which is where I think you come into things like Wimbledon, where it has a large audience, but on a limited timeframe, typically has strong participation, still has valuable communities, but it's often somewhere trapped between reach and monetization.

11:09And what I mean by that, Nick, is it can't fully rely on scale, but it also maybe doesn't have the passion that you have underneath with some of those niche sports that are always willing to pay a subscription for it. So what I've kind of put is examples of these, like, and we're going to talk about what two of these, actually three of these specifically later on, Formula E, EuroLeague, I'm going to put rugby in that category, Nick. Volleyball. These are all sort of sports that have audiences, but I feel like they're a little bit stuck in between the two. And again, this could also be the argument of things like the NFL in Europe, where it's a tier one sport in the U.S., but over in the U.K., it still has a good audience.

11:48But how many people outside of the dedicated fans like myself are necessarily paying for that subscription? Not everybody's willing to do that. So I think you have those genuinely tier twos, but then it's also where we start going into that space of either A, you're not on TV all the time across the year, or you're a tier one going into a foreign market that doesn't quite have enough global scale to still be at the same level that you are domestically. It's interesting. I mean, hearing you describe it, a lot of it aligns, but then I start instantly thinking of where the blurriness, not that not tier one to two.

12:25I feel that's pretty clear cut. Like I think your example of the NFL is probably the bit where it gets, you know, nuanced, let's say, but otherwise it's pretty clear cut as to what is a tier one sport in general terms and what is a tier two. The question is when did I become tier three? Because there's a couple of examples that you've even said there where I'm like i reckon i would frame that as a tier three in some ways but they but then then i flip flop back to the tier two again uh pretty quickly so yeah i'm intrigued to see what the the next tier is well fine so my tier three where i'm characterizing is my niche sports um the characteristics small audience but extremely passionate highly engaged and willing to pay subscriptions so here i put rodeo because of our good friend the cowboy david guyon and what he did the cowboy channel but then i'm thinking things like lacrosse or wrestling pickleball um sailing uh those types of sports where again they're people not massive audiences but the people that are into them they're very into them and i could see where you could say maybe something like a volleyball falls into this it's weird right because i feel like volleyball i mean didn't you say nick um it's the second most participated sport in the world but i don't know if it actually has those commercial values so it's like where does participation come in versus willingness to watch it's it's an interesting one yeah i don't know what the rolling number is at what that scale that volleyball will tell you they are in terms of positioning globally i think they normally say they being the industry say that the top two are clearly football and then basketball yeah if you don't put running in there basically as a sport.

14:03Not a sport. Cool. Got that. You're playing with fire there. And then volleyball will tell you it's number three or three, I think is what they normally say. But I have no idea. I've never seen any true data to back that up because it is such a difficult thing to measure. In certain countries, I can clearly see it as a two and a three. In some countries, like when I was on the board of British volleyball, it wasn't in the top top 10 i can tell you uh it was not even probably in the top 20 so um it's an interesting predicament i think when you start almost when i'm hearing you talk about like how do you i'm trying to visualize how we build out a matrix almost or a table of how you score all of these factors because in something like a volleyball let's say or rugby or a cricket in certain countries it's it is one of the pinnacle sports right at the top top three and others it's barely a blip on the radar but in totality it's got significant impact so uh it's an interesting uh thing to be working out uh i'm getting some ideas now of how we can uh shape all this but i think well your framing sounds pretty on point in general terms for sure we definitely pick it apart i think that's what we're gonna do now is kind of go through it a little bit and i guess nick when we do talk about these three tiers though what do you think are kind of the main challenges that exist for each of these levels like you said the tier one's like we shouldn't have a great degree of sympathy for them, but they are going to have different challenges in the other one.

15:27So as you think about kind of those three tiers, if you had to isolate or pick one challenge that each of the three has, it's maybe unique. What would you say are those challenges? Oh, interesting. I would say that what comes to mind when we talk about that tier two group is that typically they are established sports still, like they are established like the tier ones, but they found their kind of space and place in the market. And actually what they suffer from then is the inability to change path, you know, whether it be like majors in tennis or it could be the formula if you want to put them in there and a few others where they're a bit limited on what they can do because there'll be such a reaction to going behind a paywall or launching their own OTT platform and keeping rights away from the other mediums that they've been using.

16:16that anything will create such an uproar that they kind of have to play with the cards that they've been dealt a little bit or where they're at today and just do little things that move the needle marginally rather than make a home run swing. Whereas in the tier three, I think they kind of got a carte blanche a little bit. They can do whatever they like and anything's going to be additive to the fan who historically have not had enough access to those sports in question because they don't have a made mainstream linear TV channels or haven't made pay tvs not investing into them to the level that they would want so anything they do will kind of be seen as a win for the top tier fan and then they've got to find a way of how they get that general visibility to try and bring in more fans into their ecosystem and now there is more opportunity for that than there ever has been thanks to social and big tech platforms so that's those two i think on tier one uh look i think it's it's it's it is largely staying staying your course a little bit i'm thinking of all the tier ones they aren't the main thing they are trying to do is they've tried to internationalize if you think about them and it's transferring that local um positioning uh into a global brand you know if you think about ipl obviously nfl the same premier league we're ahead of the game and are successful but the other football leagues like la liga and bundesliga have been doing that for some time trying to globalize their brand and and market share.

17:41And some have done it better than others. So I think that's probably the bit is that ability to try and you've hit that sort of core market scale. So how the next opportunity really is getting the league or the property out there into new markets and hoping you can scale interest in there in those markets enough to build fans and maybe even get, if it's not subscribers, definitely a broadcaster to buy into you somehow, some way. And sort of based on what you said there, does it almost actually feel like it's easier to succeed as a niche sport than it is being in that tier two? Because your point, like with the niche sports, as you said, like most fans are going to be pretty excited that there is something and hopefully you have the right level of expectations.

18:24You're not expecting to make billions and billions of dollars that you're not going to fall short of your expectations. With the middle tier, as you say, they tend to be more established sports properties that it almost feels like they might actually have it tougher, despite maybe being bigger, more established sports organizations in the tier three, the niche sports. Look, I think anyone at the top couple of tiers of sports working in established sports properties have an incredibly tough job to be able to navigate expectations of demand and demands of consumers in a fast changing media environment.

18:55And particularly when this is so much subscription fatigue and pay TVs hit a bit of a hit its challenges and all the things we are starting to see. There is headwinds against them. So tier three is starting a little bit much more in a sort of a new era for that sort of visibility and coverage that they never had before. Like I remember when Volleyball launched and Volleyball received their investment from CVC and launched Volleyball World as an official commercial entity. And then, you know, they would easily fit the top tier, sorry, the tier two in many, many markets. And in general terms, you would probably classify them as that.

19:27But at the same time, they were so, what's the word, like had a lack of visibility in so many markets, lack of access, that they basically just by launching a product like their ott proposition which they did at the time and not putting their content in elsewhere they have the opportunity just focus on the top tier of fan who have been screaming out for this opportunity to finally have access to something they would want to watch and focusing on that first before they try to focus on other aspects of the um sort of the fan uh the fan dynamic and more passive uh fans that they might be able to trying to target so look i think if you're looking at who's got the best if you're an exec in the sports industry who's got the best runway to try new things and grow yeah it's absolutely at the bottom tier and tier one and two is as much about maintaining their market position even if it means refining the strategy as it is doing anything major look how slow premier league's been to even launch an otp platform they haven't needed to but they also haven't wanted to upset the apple cart the market dynamics so yeah kind of their status does impact how innovative they need to be or want to be well i was thinking when you were talking about the challenges the tier ones have i was thinking fragmentation because it feels like despite the very good relationship the Premier League has had with Sky and how it's been beneficial for both sides I'm sure people the Premier League would love to be in an NFL situation where you had a Fox Sports was getting some rights ESPN was getting some rights Amazon was getting some rights Netflix was getting some rights I'd probably like I don't think anyone the Premier League would ever come out and publicly say it but I think they would love to be able to have basically more than one two people bidding on rights because I think we've talked about this before.

21:03There's no point in TNT and Sky competing against each other because they're just driving the price up against each other. I'm sure like and even from the NFL side, they're having some legal cases at the moment, whether or not I believe those legal cases have any legs talking about is it too fragmented that it's, you know, breaking constitutional laws. I think the fragmentation side is actually probably one of the challenges for the tier ones that I don't think anybody in the lower tiers necessarily has to deal with because they're just looking for any broadcast deal yes true but the only reason they've got that problem is because they've decided that they want to maximize the amount of revenue that they want to create so it is a bit that's a bit of a choice like if they said next year you know what we really are sorry fans we're sorry for cashing in yeah we're gonna we're gonna reduce the amount of different places you get access we'll do a better deal with a couple of these streamers and make sure you need less subscribe um subscriptions to access this i don't think you see many pushback from fans unfortunately you will see a lot of pushback from the people who own the teams and are putting investment into those spaces so it is a challenge in that the sports themselves do have this opportunity to do it if they want to some extent but the reality is they can't because of the circumstances of how much that money is like holding up the ecosystem as it stands so it's a it's a fun it's a fun balance trust me nick it is the smallest of violins that i played there but i do think it is a violin nonetheless yeah look i um And when I heard the NFL was announcing that they wanted to get more money out of the cable and the pay TV providers and look at early extensions, I was like, come on, this is the greediest move I've ever seen.

22:39And to see that actually the NFL looks like they fail, it looks like that basically there's been enough pushback from all those guys that they have not been able to open up that Pandora's box or that opportunity. Shows it isn't all roses for them at the moment. they can't just print the checks exclusively they do need to sort of count their chickens but it is an interesting dynamic and challenge for for them because again the pressure you can't almost can't win in that scenario at some extent you can win with your owners an ownership group because you're generating more income but for the fans itself you're never going to be on the right side of them now before we talk about what some of the that tier two group are doing and what we think about some of those strategies let's just talk a little bit quickly about how streaming has changed the dynamic of this space.

23:21As I mentioned before, if we think about the old school linear world, broadcasters needed content and they needed programming hours. And actually there was a healthy role for the tier twos to play because they could fill in those gaps between the Premier League games or between the different seasons or the golf majors and things like that. There was actually a place for them. And you could say maybe the broadcast world because of that was actually maybe creating a bit of a false sense of value for those media rights. It was less about the sports and more about being able to fill the space. But now, Nick, we're in a bit more of a different world with streaming, where we talked about this with our Zone episode that we did recently, but we're talking about profitability is the big word.

24:00And these days, when it comes to some of those broadcast deals or these streaming deals, it's about driving subscriptions. And what drives subscriptions isn't necessarily that middle-tier sport. And it's kind of interesting, Nick, that streaming is increased distribution, which used to be the problem. How do we get distributed? It feels like with technology now, whether that's through a streaming platform or your own OTT, you can distribute your content much easier than it used to be. But that doesn't necessarily mean it's increased the value of your rights just because it can now be distributed.

24:32And you could actually perhaps argue, Nick, I think some people would say this, that's actually amplified the gap between the bigger sports and the smaller sports. Because where people want to invest their money is where they think they'll get ROI. And because it's a more subscription-driven world, these businesses want to go towards the sports properties that drive those subscriptions. So the world has changed, I would say, quite a bit, Nick, in the last decade in terms of what that value proposition is for those middle-tier sports. Yeah, in some ways it stays the same, really. There's a lot of disruption to come back to the same point where we've been.

25:04It's an interesting challenge. And I do think a little bit of that is due to the lack of access in previous generations to that mid-tier. because that mid-tier hasn't had the same visibility and access and investment into it. To ask both consumers and those platforms to now flip the switch on that mindset and accept that they've got to pay more to have access to those things is a tough pill for people to swallow. And so they kind of do have to play the hand that they dealt a little bit from that point of view. The point around streaming is an interesting one. Like I remember looking at some studies around this and to see the amount of content just in general terms, not sports, but just general, how much is going up year on year now, particularly with AI.

25:43We all know that that's going up and growing at an incredible rate. So that means there is more competition for retention than ever. So whilst the yesteryears of maybe tier two sports having a place on those OTA platforms because they needed the breadth of content, there's now actually sort of a different challenge, which is these platforms, there is so much out there. They need to give you a reason why you want to come to check them out versus all the other opportunities and platforms they have to access. And I think those are social media platforms. They are YouTube. They are the other streamers that exist out there, whether they're excessive.

26:22Excessive is not the right word. But robust amounts of on-demand content they have available to you at a click of a button. The whole world has changed. The reason that we're now seeing almost like a return to the interest in live sports, what I mean by return is a return in the prioritization versus on demand. It's because there's so much noise in the market. You need to have a way to create appointment viewing or reason to who am I going to click on today right now. and a live event is always going to be more likely to drive you to action for that very moment, then, oh, there's a catalog of stuff I can watch at any time in my life, morning, afternoon, or dinner.

27:02Does that make sense? So I think that is still what's driving sports value. And it's not subscriptions anymore. It's scale of audience and advertising dollars, really. And the emotional connection with sports seems to be able to talk and rage from brands and advertisers to be connected with. So it's definitely more than just subs these days. Well, and almost the other word we hear quite a ton, Nick, probably everyone's sick of hearing is democratization. I think that we talk about things like streaming and YouTube. It's the democratization of sports. Could the argument be on the flip side that that's actually not happened, that actually by increasing the amount of distribution and it could fit into what you talked about, Nick, that it's not just about increasing sports distribution.

27:42It's the increased of all content everywhere. wear but this idea that hey streaming is going to democratize sports could we actually argue that it's maybe not done that because now it's almost we've reached the saturation point that democratizations actually maybe hurt the value of some rights you know just just trying to play devil's advocate nick you know hmm uh well it's democratized access for everyone so i think that's the problem is like every man and his dog can now be someone who's competing for someone's attention uh you know we're talking about the other day when we were traveling that was the outdoor boys or whatever you know the camera gets millions of people watching him and he's just a guy with a camera so like you are democratizing access to all forms of content and the ability to create content so from that the democratization is rampant but the um the sort of the fight for like sort of positioning above the parapet in like making sure you're front and center is super complex and tricky uh to to outline like you know there's big tech platforms there's broadcasters, they're streamers who also, whether it's marketing, whether it's dialing up algorithms, find ways to heighten and promote the content that moves the needle most.

28:53So sports is in kind of a nice little bubble there where everyone really wants a piece of sport in some way, if it's going to be something they can use to pull the emotional levers to grab people's attention and positivity for the platform or for the content or for the advertisers they have on platform. So I'd still to say it's democratization, but it is a very different form, a different sort of vibe than calling it just democratization of access in the same vein. Yeah, it's an interesting one. I just, you know, for the sake of arguing, you got to throw those things out there because everyone loves the word.

29:25But Nick, we'll now kind of flip it into some of the people. I want to jump in. I'm just thinking of another example there that I think is interesting. A sort of challenge coming with that democratization is that what has happened, and this is probably hopefully a better answer than what I just rambled on before. But basically, democratization is that there is more platforms that you can access content for. But you've got platforms that we might talk about in a minute that will almost never be found. It's the platform that they exist on because there's so much competition and they therefore have to spend so much money to get visible in that sort of sea of content and other platforms that are out there.

30:02And that's why these big tech companies that own the streaming economy, all these subscribers and attention, they do really start to dictate who gets to see what. And so I think you are on something there a little bit with regards to the democratization challenge that they are the gatekeepers, these big tech companies. And for those that aren't, have to spend a lot of money and different tactics to cut through in a congested market. But comparing to a generation ago, it was even harder than back then. So hard to know what's a better set of circumstances. Well, the first two examples we're going to talk about probably fall in that category of what you're discussing there, Nick, even about discoverability on their own channels.

30:38And the first one we'll talk about is Dine. We spoke about Dine last week, Andreas Hayden being at the Streamtime Live event that we hosted alongside IBC in Amsterdam. You can go back. We've interviewed Andreas before when they originally launched Dine, but probably one of the really good examples. And if you're in the industry, you've probably heard of the business. They were founded by Christian Seifer, who used to be the CEO of Bundesliga. And as I mentioned, he brought over Andreas, who was the CEO of Bundesliga Digital. in Germany they will very happily tell you Dine football is the number one sport however according to their data half of sports fans in Germany are interested in other sports other than football so what they've come out and said I think Nick I think I feel like they've thrown the number around there's like 50 million sports fans so that leaves you like 25 million something like that I think it's about the numbers they use but like basically there's still 25 million sports fans that aren't being served so they came out very specifically and said we are going to be a platform for everything in Germany but football.

31:34So they focused on those tier two sports in the market, you know, basketball, handball, volleyball, hockey, and they've explicitly branded themselves as such. Now, none of these sports necessarily, Nick, have the individual power to do so, but they're hoping collectively there's a reason for people to join this. And it's worth noting that Dine is run almost exclusively on a subscription model. They do do some stuff that sits in front of a paywall. They do some stuff on YouTube, but largely, Nick, there's this idea that there is quite a large group of fans, around 25 million that aren't being served.

32:06And so they've gone and they've built a streaming platform specifically designed to serve that audience. So that is one strategy, Nick, is this idea of bundling together sort of these tier two sports and, you know, Dine being the, I guess you could say the aggregator of this. So I guess, Nick, you know, thinking about this, is that potentially a future for the middle tier sports is this idea of bundling together. We're better as a collective than trying to compete on our own. If you're ready to spend on advertising and really put like really commit to it, I think I do think otherwise the risk you can have in general terms is you risk the message being lost as to what you are.

32:47Like what I, we've talked about before, but like what I love about a subscription product is I'm subscribing, I'm getting 100 % of value and the value is in the eyes of the beholder. So it might cost me an arm and a leg, but I know everything I'm getting is what I want. In the example I've used with like F1 or the NFL when I can't get access to that content elsewhere, I know there are all these extra products and tools, not just the live feed that I'm willing to pay a premium for. And it doesn't really matter whether it's$10 more or less, I'm going to pay it. Whereas when you get to bundling and when there's a lot of stuff that is, the kitchen sink, proverbial kitchen sinks throwing at you, a few dollars here or there does make a difference in your perception of what the value of this is if you're buying stuff that's actively not relevant for you.