Unpacking YouTube’s $14 billion NFL investment

0:00The Colin and Samir Show is supported by Microsoft Copilot. This is something I thought I would never say, but can I share with you my favorite prompt? I mean, like when you say something like that, I have to say yes. Were you going to say no? No, but okay. Just let me hear it. So when I'm researching for a guest or I need to know a lot about a subject matter, I say, make me a podcast about. And when you do that, you're going to get a short blurb about that subject. And then in like two minutes, you're going to get a podcast. So check this out. Welcome to Co-Pilot Podcasts. Picture this, a guy working the front desk at a hotel, making lacrosse videos in his spare time, completely unaware that he's about to become one of the most influential voices in the creator economy.

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1:10Try it for your research. Try it for getting variations of your titles, your ideas. It's one of my favorite tools on the internet right now for our creativity. And now back to the show. What's up, everyone? Welcome to this episode of Creator Support, the show where we answer your questions about the business of being a creator. On today's episode, we dive into YouTube's$14 billion investment into the NFL's Sunday ticket. We talk about what that type of investment means for the future of YouTube. We also talk about the Sidemen's sold-out charity match. And later on in the episode, we create a safe space for editors to share their grievances.

1:46Editors, we're here for you. Before we get into this episode, as you guys have heard us talk about before, we are working on a course all about creator business. and we'd love your input to make sure that we're not only building this course for you, but we're building the course with you. So we have a survey linked in the description of this podcast. If you're interested in our course, it takes about 60 seconds to fill out. If you could just fill that out, it also puts you on the waiting list to get information about our course as it comes out. So if you're interested in our course about creator business, click that link in our description, fill out the survey, it'd be greatly appreciated.

2:20All right, now for our episode. Sports. you really want to talk sports with me? Yeah. Yeah, I do. I actually thought about sports all weekend, Colin. Just sports in general? Just general sports. Sports, sports and shit, cleats. Well, okay, here we are, first of all, on an audio-only episode of Creator Support. This is a throwback to when there was no video on Creator Support, and that's because we're just traveling a lot. We mentioned this a couple episodes ago, but this fall there will be some audio-exclusive episodes of Creator Support. This is the first one. this fall. I assure you I am still wearing the jumpsuit.

2:56I would not break from that tradition. I can confirm. Okay. So now the thing is this weekend was the first weekend that the NFL Sunday ticket kind of actually came to life in their YouTube partnership. So if you're unfamiliar, YouTube paid$14 billion for the rights to NFL Sunday ticket. So this is the opportunity to watch every NFL game. And Sunday Ticket used to be just for DirecTV. Like it was, it had a deal with DirecTV. That's how you bought it. That deal came up, YouTube stepped in, purchased that deal. So now if you just zoom out for a second, Amazon has Thursday Night Football. They also paid$2 billion a year for that.

3:39YouTube pays$2 billion a year for Sunday Ticket. Now, the way I found out that all of this was happening was I was perusing Instagram and a ton of top creators were at NFL games. Were we there? We were not there. We were not there. Nor were we invited. I don't think, again, I just want to make it clear to everyone listening. We do like sports. We do like sports. Look, look, I watched the Eagles game and the Jets game this weekend and the University of Colorado game against Nebraska. I had a big sports weekend. You had a big sports weekend. I mainly looked at the Instagram stories of people there and then thought about sports.

4:15But I do think this chapter of sports coming to platforms like YouTube and Amazon is actually a marker of a pretty big moment in the media landscape. Really significant specifically for YouTube because the mission statement of YouTube, you know, as far as I know, is like has always been let's empower sort of the independent filmmaker, the independent creator, broadcast yourself, right? Like that's the tagline of YouTube,$14 billion to air every single NFL game is not broadcast yourself. It's broadcast the NFL. Right. Exactly. Something that's very, like so up on a hill, so untouchable, traditional media, like old school, traditional media.

5:02And yeah, one of the, one of the last kind of bastions of old media from a programming perspective of, of live entertainment, live sports now being viewable, not only on YouTube TV, which is YouTube's TV offering that feels like linear, but being available on YouTube. So I just clicked into this. You can buy the NFL Sunday ticket on YouTube for$3.99 a year. And that gives you access to watch games directly on YouTube. And you can do that on your TV and supported devices. So the thing that's so interesting to me is that there's two things happening right now with YouTube. One is this premium programming that's meant to be watched on your TV, right?

5:48Long form NFL games watched on your TV. And at the same time, an investment into short form content that's meant to be watched on your phone. These two investments, I think the question is like, as YouTube progresses in the future, what does YouTube become? What is YouTube? Is YouTube the everything entertainment app? Is it X? The Everything app? Do you need to rebrand to Y? Is Elon rebrand to Y? Wow. But I think it is a very interesting thing to take a look at, take a hard look at and say, what is YouTube doing right now? I think specifically with moves like this, with NFL Sunday ticket, there are pros and cons.

6:30and the pro I think is that like you mentioned you are seeing creators show up at NFL games like there is a meshing that's happening and even with Destroying who we had on the show he partnered with the NFL for a series that started out on his YouTube channel with his one-on-ones so there's an interesting opportunity for creators to get access to something that you know previously they really couldn't get access to. Like the NFL historically has been really tight with their rights, with their footage. It was really difficult like to use NFL footage in a YouTube video. And now it's this cool opportunity where creators are getting to not only get access to games, to athletes, but the ability to make content that they couldn't have really made before.

7:17That is a positive. I think the negative is more of an assumption that by making moves like this, YouTube is maybe straying from what it has historically stood for. And the, you know, putting the creator first might not be, uh, you could assume, uh, the same importance that it was when they're making moves like this and putting things like NFL games on the same platform. The counter argument there is that fans of the NFL who maybe don't watch a ton of YouTube now get YouTube, get used to opening the app and find other content, right? That is the benefit of what they're doing. That is the reason why networks carry something like the Super Bowl.

8:02They carry it so that they can show you the commercials for their other shows. They typically take a loss on the Super Bowl itself because it's so expensive. And with these types of rights purchases, I think what a lot of the times the move is is to attract new audience to watch your other programming. What's your other programming? It's our programming. It's creator programming. Yeah. So it could be a benefit to us if more people come over. So just for some further context and something that the NFL actually said, the NFL said that the Sunday ticket package already has more subscribers this year on YouTube than it had on DirecTV last year.

8:39So that's substantial, right? It's obviously a great move for both parties. And that was on DirecTV for 30 years. So, you know, I think, like, the pros are, like, hopefully there's some push towards creators, you know, getting involved with big companies like the NFL. They're doing a series, YouTube's doing a series called Creator of the Week, which is a YouTube creator at every NFL game capturing content this year. That's really cool. Look, as a newly avid NFL fan and a longtime sportsman, the experience is actually great. You know, to be able to watch a game on YouTube TV, which I have, and then go on YouTube and watch all of the content, whether it's from creators or from media networks.

9:29Like, I'm still watching a lot of, like, ESPN analysts talk even about games on YouTube in clip form. You know, there's always been a long history of traditional media companies on YouTube. The Jack Welch Management Institute at Strayer University helps you go from I know the way to I've arrived with our top 10 ranked online MBA. Gain skills you can learn today and apply tomorrow. Get ready to go from make it happen to made it happen and keep striving. Visit Strayer.edu slash Jack Welch MBA to learn more. Strayer University is certified to operate in Virginia by Shev and as many campuses, including at 2121 15th Street North in Arlington, Virginia.

10:09Yeah. There's a massive threat to live sports, specifically on YouTube, which is short-form clips. Short-form clips are a massive threat to live sports? Yes. Oh. Because in real time, like a boxing match, for example, I did not pay for Jake Paul and Nate Diaz, right? Which was the most recent Jake Paul fight. In a weird turn of events, I did. Yeah, you did. But I watched it nearly live on Twitter because people were clipping the moments. Even DAZN, the carrier of the event, was clipping the moments. So I can watch it with a delay of like three to four minutes, let's say, as they get the clips up.

10:53Same with an NFL game. Like if you're following along on Twitter or somewhere else, if all you care about is like what happened, you know, the experience of sitting down and watching a live event is, I think, in question for the younger generation. I don't think that's as much part of our culture. And for the younger generation, I don't think it's a part of their culture of getting together and sitting and watching a two-and-a-half-hour game. I mean, without a doubt. I think every professional sports league, for the most part, is having a problem attracting younger audiences. I mean, there's no doubt that that's why the NFL is working with Destroying, is working with creators.

11:29It's probably even open to that YouTube conversation. Yeah, I guess it's like it's a 360 view at, okay, well, you know, for YouTube, it's like, okay, great. Now if the people who are watching the long form, the full game are watching on YouTube and the people who are watching the clips are watching on YouTube, the everything app. Why? It is an amazing opportunity though for storytelling in sports across the board right now. If you look at Drive to Survive, Breakpoint, Make or Break, which is the surf version. Like there are all of these shows right now, documentary-style shows. And what I found that's really interesting is I will not watch a Formula One race live for the most part.

12:11Like, I'm not there yet. I will wait for the season to be over so I can watch the series on Netflix. Right, the storytelling of the series. The storytelling of the series. Yeah. The one live sporting event that I am glued to every year is the Sidemen charity match. I think it's this oddball world where I'm watching my friends and peers compete with, for some reason, I don't know if it's the production quality or what, but at the highest level of soccer. Yeah, I mean, it's - Let's explain what it is if you don't know what it is because it happened this weekend. So the Sidemen charity match started back in 2016.

12:49And they have a history of doing it almost every year. I think they had a year that they took off during the pandemic, but it's increased in size every year up to the point where this year they sold, what was it 62 ,000 tickets in London Stadium in about an hour yeah and from what Jordan Schwarzenberger said the the manager of the Sidemen on in our interview with him he said it would have been faster if it wasn't for Ticketmaster they like bogged down the server because there were so many people who came to the site yeah and you watch the live stream you look at the clips a lot of our friends were there posting Instagram stories it was completely sold out.

13:29Like, of course, I know they say it was sold out, but it was like, no, every single seat. And the gameplay is always really high, which honestly makes no sense to me. I don't understand how like Carl Jacobs and Mr. Beast and all the guys from the Sidemen are just able to occasionally make like really nice plays. Shout out to Max Fosch. Not only did Max Fosch score a goal, but Max Fosch created an eternal meme. You probably saw it. The Uno reverse card to the ref giving him a yellow card. I mean, just unbelievable. I texted Max and asked him about it, and he said they brainstormed it, but to execute it at that stage was just phenomenal.

14:08I think he said electric. It's this strange mesh of planned content, entertainment, and an actual high quality. I'm going to call it high quality, maybe because I'm not. Yeah, yeah. You're not a soccer. I'm not a real sportsman. But as far as I'm concerned, it's like a high level of play mixed with an incredible content experience. And I just don't understand. I can't even imagine what it's like to play in that game, to grow up as a kid and think, I'd love to be a professional athlete. Yeah, okay, not going to happen because it happens for almost no one. Then you go down this route of being a creator, and all of a sudden you get the actual experience of being a professional athlete in front of 62 ,000 screaming fans.

14:52I will do whatever it takes to play in this game. Me too. We should hire a coach. Me too. I want to play. I don't know what we need to do, but like put us in the game. Yeah, put us in the game. XQC just did not make it as a goalie. He was just terrible. Whoa. I can't believe he just was like. Oh, no. I mean, listen, that's commonly, that's like everyone agrees on that. Yeah, everyone agrees on that. It just wasn't. You think you could be better in goal? No, I don't want to be in goal. No interest in being in goal. Okay, one stat you didn't mention that I think is really important to mention is over 2.5 million concurrent viewers on the stream of the charity match and the actual VOD of the charity match, the long-form charity match, 20 million views after the first day.

15:38The highlights are in the millions of views. Like the amount of entertainment that comes out of that. Additionally, it's a charity match. They're there to raise money. They raised over$3 million. So like the whole event is, I actually think, probably the most important event in the creator economy. Like when you really zoom out, 62 ,000 people sitting in seats, you're bridging the gap with like celebrities are there too. You have all these creators competing in something that is to raise money. Like it is the peak of our world. Like that is the creator economy to me. It's the best manifestation of the power of being an independent content creator, of like truly what can come of it and the types of things you can pull off without that like background or necessarily like history, right?

16:31Like to be able – obviously they do this game every year, but it's unheard of to get 62 ,000 people to come watch non-professional athletes. Yeah, again, to me, even more so, 2.5 million concurrence is crazy. You know, this is also, though, like a thing that's happening with creators right now. It's not just the sidemen. Right. It was either the same day. Yeah, it was the same day, right? Yeah, it was this weekend. Okay, so this weekend, French creators hosted a Formula 4 race in front of 60 ,000 fans in France and 1.3 million concurrent viewers. Yeah, they did it on Twitch. On the Twitch live stream.

17:08Yeah, they did it on Twitch. which like these numbers are crazy. Are crazy. Also, did you know there was more than one formula? Well, I knew there was formula one. I knew there was formula E, which are electric cars. There's no two and three. I did not realize that it went all the way to four. Yeah. I mean, that, that is insane. We covered this in the published press, but that is completely insane that that's like another thing that goes a little bit under the radar that, okay. Sidemen charity match, massive. if this guy, Lucas Squeezy Hachard, hosted his second annual race to 60 ,000 people and 1.3 million concurrence.

17:47We hear a lot about boxing. You know, we heard about Ludwig's chess boxing, which had a lot of people watch. We heard about Creator Clash. Like, we know about boxing. But, like, these, the live sports coming to YouTube, I think, is a really impactful thing. But creators taking live sports into their own hands is really impactful. And creators investing in sports. Prime, obviously, sponsoring all types of professional teams, from baseball to soccer. And then Dude Perfect, right, becoming co-owners of a football club. Yeah. It's just interesting. And then Welcome to Wrexham, obviously, with the Wrexham Football Club with Ryan Reynolds and their series on Hulu.

18:34Like there's just such an interesting thing happening right now with creators and media investing and getting even closer to live professional sports. Now, at the other level, in the college ranks, the most interesting thing to me has been that this year is the first year we're really starting to see the NIL stuff come about. And that's basically college athletes can make money now, which famously from our Destroying interview, a lot of people know about. College athletes used to have to make decisions specifically when it came to social media and having a social media presence that connected them to being an athlete at the school.

19:12Destroying had to choose between continuing to make YouTube videos or remaining a kicker on his college football team. Yeah, same thing with Ryan Trahan. Same thing with Ryan Trahan. Running track at Texas A &M, I believe. Yeah. So now that is absolutely not the case. We're seeing an influx of sports content from college athletes, most notably the Colorado Buffs where you went to school. Which is crazy. It is like the story. It's the story in college football. Yeah, because of obviously the fact that Deion Sanders, like a legendary player and now coach who's very media first and very much looking out for his players with the NIL changes in terms of let's give them as much exposure as possible.

19:56Their practice uniforms have their Instagram handles on the back. That's crazy. And, you know, they have multiple players that have YouTube vlogs that come out after every single game. So Travis Hunter, who is one of their most prominent players put out a vlog after the first game that's pretty loose uh very like classic sort of youtubey like has a filmer there and uh nothing super crazy stylistically but eight days ago 1.3 million views yeah i mean it's substantial shadour sanders who's the quarterback for the team and one of dion's sons um is rumored to to be making over 3.5 million dollars in endorsements this year as I think a sophomore in college, like that's completely insane.

20:43And there's something that I watched on ESPN where they talked about how the conversation in college football is now gonna be, we need Dion, like we need our own Dion. And not necessarily we need to grab an ex-NFL player to coach, we need a media first coach now. Because if I'm making a decision as a young athlete who's highly touted, highly recruited, and I can go to Colorado or go somewhere else where it's a more traditional program, I'm probably going to go to Colorado because if I can build my Instagram to over, you know, 4 million followers, if I can start a YouTube vlog and learn how to get endorsements, then I actually hedge my bets against my playing career.

21:21No matter what, no matter what happens. And that's really, really substantial. You're getting a head start on something that, you know, a lot of NFL players are trying to do themselves. Like they're also trying to build their personal brands and put out media while they're playing because they also are hedging their bets. But like to get a jumpstart in college is an incredible opportunity. And it's really fun to see what these student athletes are doing. I think it's all to say, you know, like the reason why all this is happening, I think is because in a world of endless content, in a world of endless amounts of just videos being uploaded to this platform.

22:06We are looking for stories that can captivate us. And the story of competition is still one of the cleanest stories that we can latch onto and that we can get captivated by. Look at what's happening with Dylan Dennis and Logan Paul. That is, I mean, it's just probably the most like egregious version of it that's happening. But it's a boxing match. KSI, Tommy Fury, like these competitive narratives are easier to latch onto than anything else. And so bringing sports into the ecosystem in a more substantial way, as more content gets uploaded to the platform, I think sports will likely rise higher than other things because it's an easier storyline to fit into.

22:51It's also just an area where the impact of storytelling is exponential on the amount of money and attention that can come to it. The better the stories are, the more people that tune in, the more money the sport makes, the more money the athletes make. The stronger the entire ecosystem becomes. It's interesting to see storytelling come to places that it previously was not. For college athletes to be able to tell their own story on their own YouTube channel and monetize is new. That's a new place for storytelling. Even Drive to Survive on Netflix, Like that's a sport that didn't have that type of storytelling.

23:29And it's reviving sports. It's creating new types of professional athletes. Have you seen the Savannah Bananas? I saw a clip and I did not understand it. And then you explained it to me. But yeah, the clip was crazy. I saw a clip of a minor league baseball team. And one of the teams looks completely traditional. Like normal jerseys, normal name. The other one is this team called the Savannah Bananas. Yeah. None of them are wearing sleeves. One guy's wearing an oversized like cowboy hat. It just makes no sense. I would say it's, it's okay. If you go to their website, it's, you know, it just, their mission statement is to make baseball fun.

24:10Fans first, entertain always. And it's essentially like, it's a show. Like they are playing baseball. It's Harlem Globetrotters, but it's a real team that competes against other teams. But it's Harlem Globetrotters not because they're like exceptional at doing tricks. It's more like because they are just immersed in the culture. Like they do whatever the latest TikTok trend is, like they will do that coming out to the field. And they will all do the dance. And then they'll be filming a TikTok. And people will go crazy in the crowds. And their attendance is really good, right? And their attendance is dynamite because they are the biggest show in baseball.

24:47It's like, okay, there's competition. you get to cheer for them because if they win it's exciting if they lose you get to feel an emotion and you get to go and as a family enjoy a show that everyone can latch onto why are we talking so much about sports right now what happened to us I told you because of this weekend because it was the first weekend of the NFL because it was just an epic sports weekend yeah because it was Sunday ticket but I've never felt this into sports ever it was literally the kickoff of YouTube's biggest investment I'm getting up every morning and watching like clips highlights Sports center of the NFL.

25:21Just sports, just general sports. I just type in, I log on to computer and I say sports. Did you say I log on to computer? There's a whole bit. Yeah. I just think that we're in a moment in time where there's an influx of content and you have to start to look around and see the trends of what is potentially going to sift to the top. And then, you know, really, really, really interesting to me is where is YouTube's focus? And luckily, we're actually going to have an opportunity to ask the man himself, Mr. YouTube, Neil Mohan. Next week, you and I are interviewing Neil in New York. Who, if you don't know, is the new CEO of YouTube.

26:00I didn't clarify. Just called him Mr. YouTube. He took over after Susan Wojcicki. And his background is more sort of product first. Yeah, he was the chief product officer of YouTube. And prior to that, came from the ad tech world. came from a company called DoubleClick, which if you don't know, is kind of basically what created internet advertising. So really, really interesting person to talk to at this moment, because he was heavily, you know, as chief product officer, brought forward YouTube music, YouTube premium, YouTube TV, YouTube shorts. Like all the expansions of YouTube have largely been under his, you know, purview.

26:40So our opportunity next week is to talk to him and ask him these questions about like, where do we fit in as creators to the next chapter of YouTube? Say, hey, what about YouTube longs, man? First question. Something along those lines, perhaps more eloquently put. But yeah, if you do have questions for the CEO of YouTube, make sure to tweet them at us, send them our way. Actually put them in Discord. We'll organize questions for YouTube CEO thread in Discord. It'd be helpful to get some. We've been sourcing some from different people just to get other perspectives. We kind of want to go in there and make sure that we're representing all of you and creators and feel like a conduit to the problems or the issues that you're facing.