UP501 What happens at Sportel, stays at Sportel

0:00Richard:Hello there, welcome to Unofficial Partners, Richard Gillis. Today we've got a special Sportel edition. If you work in sport, you'll know what Sportel is, but for those who don't, Sportel Monaco is the world's leading sports content media rights and technology convention. It's where people in sport and media have been convening for about 30 years or so with the main focus on the market side. So there's a marketplace, a lot of deals get done and a lot of networking happens as well as a very good conference event, which we will be appearing on. I think we kick off on the Monday morning with a live edition of Unofficial Partner, which is what we did last year, went down very well.

0:40Richard:so to join this global community of decision makers those are always good people to be in a room with marketing professionals broadcasters athletes and other key players of the sports business industry you should head down to monaco if you're quick and you're listening to this on publication day which obviously you should be doing on the 9th of september i think on the 11th september the price bumps up so the early birds the end of the early bird ticketing if not we'll see you down in monaco 20th to the 22nd of october in the usual place i will see you in the irish bar no doubt joining me we have imran youssef editor of sport business media ken kirsch bauma editorial director of the sports video group in the us and svg europe and nick valanti sportell representative a 15 year veteran of the events there's nothing nick doesn't know about the behind the scenes of sportel how the whole thing works and that's what we get into a little bit as well as we ask the question what people are going to be talking about on the way in as you fly into monaco i don't know quite know where monaco is in terms of its geography it's special is it a special place i can't remember france is it it's not france but it is france full of rich people in flash cars and podcasters it's full of podcasters so we will be talking about the event itself but also So looking at all the big stories that we'll be taking up, a lot of the conversation, corridor conversation.

2:07Richard:I always love that phrase. I'm always in the corridors. So, yeah, hope you enjoy it. And if you're going to go, I would get a ticket fairly sharpish.

2:24Richard:By the way, I'm liking, Ken, your Tottenham backdrop there. We've got everybody else to get Arsenal. it's a bit of a EPL celebration but yeah so is Tottenham it's their horizontal for a reason it was the first one so I kind of figured I'd kind of put it across the banner but I got a bunch maybe got some Indian cricket so yeah yeah I'm just saying I think Imran's backdrop is there's a sort of I can see where they're going I can see the creative the sort of aesthetic direction that they're going but there's a hint of wardrobe at JD Sports yeah the just the discarded ones that are going to be checked out that weren't weren't able to be sold oh yeah and you know you can let's not knock the wardrobe of jd sport you can have a lot of fun there that's that's for sure you could argue it's the center of the sports business there okay so let's first of all i'm going to get you to introduce yourself because we've got a lot of voices on this podcast we're going to obviously talk this about sportel and we're going to be talking about what is happening this year.

3:24Richard:And I'll set that up in a minute. But Imran, just kick us off and we'll just go around. So it'll be Imran, Ken, and then Nick. Hi, this is Imran Yusuf, editor of Sport Business Media. And I'm Ken Kirschbamer, editorial director for the Sports Video Group in the US and SVG Europe and Europe. And I'm Nick Vellante, representing SportsLtabet. Perfect, right. Nick, we should talk about what's happening this year. Just set it up because in my mind, And this podcast is being listened to. People will be tuning in as they arrive at the airport, wherever they're coming. And their destination is Monaco.

3:58Richard:They're going to end up at Sportel. And what this conversation is going to be about, well, what are they going to be thinking about, worrying about all of those things? And we'll get on to all that specific stuff. But just set it up for us in terms of this year's Sportel and, you know, points of difference. and absolutely i mean i think ultimately i've been around about 15 years for part of the sports team and sports monaco has been around about 35 years um and i can't speak for the 35 years but for for myself you know it seems like every people ask me so what should we expect this year for sports all each year and and ultimately i seem to keep saying the same thing i keep saying well it looks like there's going to be a lot more change and i know that's not that's kind of a bit of a boring answer because it's an easy one but but it's true and i think ultimately the industry is is constantly changing and so sportel and sportel community therefore is also changing you know i was actually thinking the other day before this call you know thinking you know what what was the industry like when i started 15 20 years ago when sportel started 35 years ago i'm talking about linear linear rights deals and now you know i was actually listening to a podcast this week We've been talking about media rights and talking about how, you know, Serie A and NHL are doing a partnership.

5:16Who would have thought Serie A and NHL would be doing a partnership? Also, again, listening to about, you know, how Bundesliga and how they're doing their media rights strategy in the UK recently, how they're structuring that now. So there's just so much change, which is great. Obviously, there's lots of challenges in the industry, and that's why we're all evolving and having to change. Yeah. I think in regards to Sportel specifically, you know, we know that people have been saying, hey, we need more meeting spaces. So things like, you know, new lounges, a new sports bar, which should be fun. Premium exhibitor suites, which we've had requests for and conference programs that are all relevant.

5:56But I think what's most important is always just providing the best environment for the Sportel community to come together, do business, share ideas and have a bit of fun. so ken when was your first sportel probably you want to say 2008 probably 2007 so roughly so

6:14Richard:nick's framing of that is right in terms of we talk about sportel but really it's a proxy for the marketplace isn't it because it was and there is that sort of the simplicity and we're sure people that were working in the rights market back then would say it wasn't as simple as you're making out the way in which you set up that the way in which the market has changed i mean i always think of sportel as being the sort of cliched view is this is where deals were done and you'd go onto boats and you'd go into restaurants in you know in the vicinity and there are sort of war stories around the industry of what deals were done down in monaco right now it's much more complicated it's trying to work out who's doing what to who is is a sort of phd isn't it yeah it's more complicated but i think it's a much better environment right so if you go back to my first 2006-2007.

7:04So everybody was focused on how do we get consumers to go to HGTV, buy an HGTV TV set. To your point, it was all very much if you struck one big deal in the UK, you could cover all, you know, you were set for the year. One big deal in the US, you were set for the year. Now, obviously, the fraction, the fractioning off of rights, I mean, look at the way the NFL approaches their rights. It gives a lot more people an opportunity, rights, sorry, distributors an opportunity to get into the game, right? The streamers, I mean, and the leagues and the federations want to reach all of them because they don't want to leave any consumers out.

7:35So I think it's a really what I love about the show is these deals are more complicated, but there's so much more freedom for both sides of the equation to kind of hit the deal that works best for them. Right. And I think the biggest challenge for everybody right now, I'm doing a panel at IBC in September about streaming. The biggest challenge right now for the streamers is concurrency. You know, 20 years ago, 30 years ago, you only had one. you had one channel, one game. Now you're doing an app that has 40, 50, 60 concurrent sporting events at the same time, and you're the organization trying to create all this content and stream it.

8:08So it's really a fascinating change. And what I love about Sportel, especially the last seven years, eight years, technology is becoming much more a part of the equation and helping people solve those problems. So it's a really nice opportunity to learn about the technology. and the great thing is they're not getting into the the weeds of bit rates and frame rates they're really kind of focused on how this technology will help you grow your business which is

8:32Richard:you know really unique in the industry it's a long time since i've heard hd tv because that was again i remember it makes me think about what the great missteps were or which ones were overplayed or you know people always land on vr you know we're still waiting for vr to to sort of make its mark and And that's been being, we've been talking about that for, it feels like ages. But, you know, HDTV was, and then there's 3D. I remember, do you remember we had the 3D and everyone was talking about 3D rights? Sure. Yeah. Which was amazing in the truck, the production truck was amazing. But by the time it got compressed and got to the home, it all fell apart.

9:06But, you know, here's an example. Last night, so I finally got a HDR TV set, a big 77-inch TV set. And I was watching the US Open last night on ESPN. And they also stream it on Disney+. while the Disney Plus stream is at HDR10, which is HDR format. The Disney, the ESPN app does not have HDR yet. So even within organizations themselves, I was like, you know, I switched my, I'm like, wait, the color's a lot better on this one. And I looked at my TV and it's like HDR10. Whereas the ESPN app, which they just relaunched last week, didn't have the HDR. So there's so much, even with internally within their own companies, they have so many opportunities to ways to get the content out.

9:41They aren't even all quite on the same page yet. So it's just fascinating to see how all this stuff is moving so quickly. and so rapidly. Imran, what's your sort of thoughts on Sportel then and now? Yeah, it definitely has changed. And I think that change sort of mirrors the way the industry itself has evolved. I mean, 20 years ago, I wasn't around. This will be my fifth Sportel Monaco. But the people I hear from, as you say, with lots of war stories in the locker, they say it was much more transactional. It was deal making. It was old school negotiation tactics. someone even I spoke to this week said oh it was like a boiler room back in the day and they said it was you know there was it was like the Wild West because not all of the rights were centralized as well you didn't have the centralization for example of UEFA rights the UEFA national team rights now that's all centralized so more wheeling dealing sense to Sportell from what I hear and you know I think if you didn't come home with a deal in the bag it had not been a good Sportell I don't think people have that pressure anymore discussions are more complex more long term the way tenders are it's all more orderly I think generally there's just a lot more compliance in place and for some that's a good thing for some maybe they miss the days of the Wild West having said that you know you speak to people and they'll still say they strike a deal or they or they are they you know organize a meeting where a deal comes out of it pretty quickly someone I spoke to this week said last year he signed a deal worth multiple millions out of an unexpected discussion be pleased to hear that don't ever gets a commission out of that so you know you might have 50 meetings in three days and maybe four or five are really significant in terms of a deal in terms of fine-tuning strategy but it's really about the relationship building I think you know data it's probably a word used all the time on your podcast Richard us as well but at the same time I think everyone will agree this is still a relationship business you know you can be presenting your deck to senior management the data needs to stack up in terms of the business case but you know getting to that point or indeed getting beyond theory or valuations to the actual buying and selling the market in other words it's still driven by relationships that question of did you

11:46Richard:do a deal when you get back i always think that when you go back to the office and nick this is this is sort of one for you but when people go and sportel you go along it's like the same as any conference but you get people who can go and then there are people back at hq don't go and they say oh yeah you've had three you know three days or five days in monaco and they're they want they what have you done? I want to see some tangible return. Did you do any deals is the first question. As you walk back in with a suntan and carrying a sort of duty-free bag into the office, you sort of think, you know, so what happened?

12:21Richard:You know, is that, is that, that, that sort of deal-making bit is central to Sportac. It's still, it's still there, isn't it? It's just, I suppose the deal to Ken's point, they're not like one deal when your year's done, they're working much harder to try and try and get stuff over the line yeah i totally agree with that and i think you know again looking across the last 15 years and so things things are more challenging and you have to spend more time and it's more competitive and then it's more diverse and complex and so i think obviously in a world where everything is so digital that we're all spending so much time digitally actually getting to spend some time one-on-one with people is really important i'm obviously biased because i work with an event but i think i think the things that you you can't do digitally are when you're going going to sport talent meeting people let's say we go let's say we're all we're all heading to the irish bar and you know somebody somebody you know pours a pint on you by accident and then you say oh you meet him and then 10 years later you're like oh yeah aren't you the guy that poured a pint on me oh now i work with him oh so let's do this you Because it's a really quite tight-knit group.

13:35And I think if you look, again, coming back to, I mean, I'm a sales guy. So coming back to, okay, I had 15 meetings each day. So in the end, I had 50 meetings and 10 were interesting and I closed two. Well, I think that's a really nice way of still looking at it. I mean, I personally go to a lot of conferences and you go and you watch, you learn and listen to a lot of content. And that's really great. And I really enjoy that. It has great value. but I think that one thing that is really still very special about Sportel as it's really a marketplace right you go you set up your shops 10-15 meetings a day five or 10 are interesting close to tell your boss this is how much money is coming in see you next year I mean that's kind of and that's maybe that's maybe that's why people keep coming back to Sportel they're going back

14:21Richard:it's like they it's not that we've signed the American rights for the Premier League it's like we've we've got the mobile rights for albania and people are sort of you know they're dancing around the office but richard to your point about you know one shouldn't complain about spending a couple of working days in late october on the coat de zore however it's important to say this that you know sometimes if you're in one of the more plain corners of the grimaldi forum they do exist you may as well be in a business park in croydon you know you're there it's that sometimes Sometimes it rains. I was there and it rained and I was, you know, I was very cross.

14:55Yeah. This is not what I signed up for. Yeah. Look, the med sunshine are not ubiquitous parts of the sport tell experience. And it's important. Our families and colleagues know that. That's true.

15:05Richard:What do we think are the big talking points? I've got a few down that I think I was sort of running through stuff that's happened. There's there's the recent things, things like you mentioned the Bundesliga thing, which is getting a lot of pickup. and just the role of YouTube more generally in the scheme of things. And part of that is, and I'm going to get his name wrong, because TV, the Brazilian streamer and the FIFA relationship. You've got the DAZN World Club cut thing. That was a story that, again, we all looked at very closely. This is obviously quite a European sort of lens, and I will get Ken's line on this.

15:42Richard:Then earlier, I was looking at, there's the Warner Brothers TNT story, Discovery divorce thing. So IMG, Premier League Productions, again, very sort of inside baseball. But that, again, what was what's caught your eye, Ken? Just give us a sort of sense of what do you think? Just things that are bubbling around, because those are things that I'm always interested in what people will be talking about when they get there. Right, right, right. Well, you know, I'll put a little bit of a U.S. lens. Obviously, ESPN a couple of weeks ago launched their DTC, Direct to Consumer Service. So obviously, historically in the U.S., ESPN has been through cable.

16:16Now they're making a big push to make it available purely to someone who doesn't have cable, and it's a much richer experience. But what's interesting about that that I think hints to the future is they did a deal with Fox Sports also. So you can subscribe to ESPN, and then there's a package. You pay 10 extra dollars, and you also get Fox Sports' app, which is really interesting when you think about next year, right, when Fox has the World Cup. ESPN does not have the World Cup. In 2027, ESPN has a Super Bowl. Fox does not have the Super Bowl. But yet they will both be able to leverage each other's deals.

16:50So I think there's a whole other level of deal-making that's possibly going to be a discussion point, which is, hey, you have a good streaming app. We have a good streaming app. We should try to come together. And obviously they tried a couple years ago with this venue thing. I think got a little bit over the skis as far as just trying to figure it out. The way ESPN has done it, maybe they've folded somebody else and folded somebody else. And in five years we have a streaming. We pay one bill like the old days of cable. You pay one pay TV bill and you get all your services. So I think that's going to be an interesting thing for me to see.

17:18Richard:Just on that, Ken, it's a really good point. What do we think ESPN want to be now? Because it feels like there's the app question. There's also the NFL relationship, which, again, feels like a sort of a moment. But do they want to be the front door for everything? I think, yeah, Jimmy Putaro, the president, has very much said that, you know, they're open to, for example, in the US, we have all these regional sports networks also. on the baseball side. He's interested in becoming a sort of like a showroom for people to kind of come into ESPN. Oh, I'm going to subscribe to this RSN app and this RSN app.

17:53So they definitely want that. I think there's still that tension of, you know, it's still priced. They're not, if they wanted to say, we're streaming and screw cable TV, they would price it at, you know,$12,$15 a month and really go head to head with cable and try to tempt people to cut the cord. Because when you still subscribe to cable, You're paying about$11,$12 for ESPN and some Disney apps too or Disney channels. So I think they're still pricing. The tension right now is that all the streamers, like the RSNs, like the Yes Network here in New York, they've worked with Gotham now in New York.

18:25They charge$40 a month, right? I subscribe to the cable here in the city. I get it for$12 a month, what have you. So they're still not totally on board to say we're going to screw cable and pay TV environment. They still kind of playing both sides, which is fine, because I think that's what, you know, anybody under the age of 30 doesn't want to have cable. So maybe they're willing to pay 40 bucks for ESPN, you know, but it's the fascinating time right now. So I think that, you know, that's the sort of tension is still there. But I think they just want to offer they want to give fans all the options that they want.

18:56Richard:That price question, that price question is fascinating in where the market wants to land or where they land in terms of the price point, which, again, is critical. You've got this, it always used to be the DAZN question about you can't get what you need to buy at the Netflix price point. So you're trying to, you know, you're trying to fit two things together that don't work. And then there's a really sort of adjunct to that is there's a whole question, which is totally separate to this conversation, but parallels, is to do with how they're pricing AI large language models and that sort of chat GPT price points.

19:34Richard:They're having the same questions. Is it 10 quid? Is it 40 quid? Is it 100 quid? and it's trying to then work out what what that means and is that substitutional for sports rights that's a question that is lurking in terms of what the the price comparators are in the market and it's not just you know so sportel is a very narrow lens on the price question and we're all talking about you know every when everything's a subscription we're all balancing these this stuff so the price point you made there is really interesting i think that's something that will get into it Imran what was your sort of uh list of stories well I think a lot of stories you hear there and I think a gossip you guys have mentioned the Irish bar a few times and a lot of gossip you hear there I think that's an important part of why people go I can never remember I think even yeah that is the tough part you've got to remember it the next morning I stopped drinking actually the same year I first went to Sportel so I'm good that's my that's the role I play I think also So there's often a big announcement sort of on the first day, some big news.

20:37I think last year it was confirmation two circles were acquiring Spring Media and that branding was everywhere emblazoned. Although my brilliant colleagues at Sport Business, I should say, broke that about a month before Martin Ross, John Reston and the like. I think the year before that Serie A announced their domestic deal. So that sort of filtered through late morning and the buzz went everywhere. So there'll probably be something like that. Beyond that, I think you're right to say the Club World Cup for sure. People will be looking at how it worked for DAZN, also how it worked for those who sub-license the rights.

21:06That'll be a big talking point. Relevant sports group will be there in a much bigger way than before, maybe under their relevant football partners specialist vehicle, which is, of course, selling UEFA club competition rights now, well, from 2027, 28 onwards. I think they'll get one of the big rooms, maybe Nick knows it already, sort of downstairs. You mean just one? You know, that's where the likes of FIFA are, so we'll probably see them there. might get complicated because they might be recruiting people already working for others who have non-competes. I don't know. Let's not get into that. But look, you know, I think people will be talking about their packaging, kind of as you and Ken were into earlier, sort of the fragmenting and the way things are done.

21:45Simon Denier spoke about this on your pod last week or week before. There's rumours of a global player sort of package for those rights, sort of, you know, the first pick one game night, how they'll do that to try and draw in one of the global streamers. So I think that'll be a big factor. Then there's more niche things, for example, for agencies going for the CAF rights, that's African football rights. AFC rights are also going to market towards the end of the year. That's the Asian Football Confederation. So the agencies and others will be interested in things like that. You mentioned Premier League, the US.

22:17I mean, that probably will go to market next year. I think that's a big deal on the horizon, which will kind of, in a way, show us where we're at as an industry. and generally of course the FIFA World Cup that we talk around that there's some deals yet to be done actually for next year's World Cup in quite big markets Japan China India largely Asia so let's see if those are done by then I mean there's so much going on even even the NBA Europe question I wonder if that's going to be going to be part of it I mean the list goes on

22:47Richard:there's always stuff to talk about Nick tell me the downstairs bit I'm fascinated by because I there is that sense of there are stages in the building and then downstairs is where what happens people just rent they rent out the bigger rooms do they the the they just run those as sort of networking or sales houses man i had to sign an nda for that so i'm not allowed to tell you what happens down there but uh no basically as you know for for many years we have we have the diegilev which is the exhibition hall where is the entrance and exits and we have many good exhibitors there then you kind of have the traditional hall which is the ravel which you We have exhibitors that have been there for 5, 10, 15, 20 plus years.

23:27And then we have downstairs, we have more of a private rooms, basically, meeting rooms where a lot of, I don't want to name the people who are down there, but the companies, they want to spend a lot of time where they're going to have private conversations, have conversations that last anywhere 30 minutes, one hour, two hours. They want to have private viewings and showing content. And actually this year we're going to have some new, since you mentioned it, some new private exhibitor suites, premium exhibitor suites actually on the Agilev Law, which will be very interesting to see. They're brand new and something that people have been asking for for a while.

24:03So, yeah, as the industry changes, so does Sportel. And yeah, hopefully we can continue to provide the best environment for our community as we can.

24:12Richard:What do we think about YouTube? Do YouTube turn up? Are they there this year? You asking me that question? Yeah, I suppose so. Yeah, sure. YouTube at the moment we're discussing with, but we don't have anyone who's confirmed to speak or anything from YouTube at this point in time. But we do often have one or two people come from YouTube to attend the event. Ken, over here, we've got this, and this talks to the sort of, we mentioned about Bundesliga, we mentioned about Kaze TV, but you've got the street, you know, the YouTube question, which is emerging in the middle of the marketplace. And people have, you know, lots of views and it's running, you know, all day, every day about the pros and cons of YouTube.

24:52Richard:We all, you know, it's become television in many senses, but it's not. And it's sort of an odd shape thing. It's a fascinating product, but it's also what they want and how sport responds to it, I think, is a really interesting question. And I can sort of see streaming bits, which is very marginal, I think, you know, in terms of the deals. if you're looking across the landscape, the argument being, okay, yeah, okay, you get a younger, you skew a younger audience, you get YouTube in, in various, you know, parts of either geographies, or you do deals with, you know, the stream, the creators. But what do you think about where that's going?

25:31Richard:I just wonder, and there might be, I don't know if there's a Europe, US difference there, but they seem they have paid rights over in the US, haven't they? Yeah, I mean, I think, yeah, for example, they're doing an NFL game this week, actually. I think one of the challenges with YouTube, obviously, I think, and for everybody, obviously, you only have so many minutes in the day to consume content, right? So the biggest challenge is not getting them, is just understanding that, especially people in the age of like 20, 30, they get into the YouTube, well, get there ourselves, the YouTube rabbit hole, and you kind of spiral down, and three hours later, you haven't watched any quote-unquote regular content.

26:08So I think there's that tension. I think the beauty of YouTube obviously is for smaller leagues, let's leave aside the big ones. For big ones, it's a great promotional tool, but for the smaller startup leagues, it's an opportunity to get their content out there and into the masses. And then, by the way, that's how they can get exposure to strike a real deal. So I think it's part of the ecosystem of helping the sort of upstart leagues and federations kind of get a foothold. You know, that's the way I look at it is because if the four of us were starting a league tomorrow, it would probably be the first place we'd go.