UP527 The Bundle 2026 Preview: NFL, WBD, DAZN, F1, UEFA...WTAF?

0:00Hello there, welcome to Unofficial Partner. My name is Richard Gillis. Today is an episode of The Bundle, which is our long-running series on the sports media and streaming marketplace with my regular co-hosts Yannick Ramcke, who is General Manager of OTT at the streaming service One Football, and Murray Barnett, who is founder of 26 West Sport and formerly of Formula One, World Rugby and ESPN. This episode of the Unofficial Partner Podcast is brought to you by Sid Lee Sport. Sid Lee Sport is the fame-making creative and sponsorship agency for brands in sport. Through exceptional creativity, deep sponsorship expertise and flawless on-site delivery, they help brands, sponsors and rights holders unlock their full potential in sport.

0:50most recently picking up a leaders sports award for their work with Lidl at UEFA Euro 2024. Everything they do is driven by a culture of effectiveness because in sport performance matters not just on the pitch but in the work too. So whether you want to build buzz, connect with audiences or do something that actually cuts through Sidley Sport knows how. Visit sidleysport.com where brands become champions.

1:27i wanted to start so this isn't a predictions episode per se it's more a sort of preview with some with some prediction-ish prediction adjacent content as well but we will we'll see how we get on first of all welcome murray barnett hi there happy new year and happy new year to you janik

1:45Yannick Ramcke:same to both of you and hello again same thing different year i guess same thing different year it's my life but i think we should tell everybody before we get into this is that i'd sent you both 10 predictions which you said were very boring and dull and so i've sharpened the pencil to try and come up with some things which are a bit more unpredictable shall we say well to be fair it wasn't me saying they were dull it was yannick saying that's like what was it what was the phrase you used i mean whatever i said i didn't say let's make them ludicrous right you said it was something like industry sports industry bingo which can be hudomas which that's true can be good fun bingo okay i think let's we'll go one by one and we'll we'll see how we get on but i think first both of you because of the 2026 what's going to happen 2026 murray the nfl and then i'll get yannick because we've both on one of you on your lists have mentioned the nfl so what's going to happen what do we expect to happen once we've talked about a number of times in various podcasts in the past the nfl have long-term deals but they all have options to open them up in largely in 28 but i think a couple are also in 2027 so off the back end of 26 i think they'll formally announce that they're looking to open those up but it's pretty much an open secret and there's a couple of nuances which i'm sure we'll talk about which include the creation of a new package which would potentially be a global package um which would be a sort of a a 9 a.m eastern slot which would effectively be the international games but it seems crazy not to do that let's talk about that so and i'm going to ask each of you just to put a percentage your your your assumption is it you know five percent 95 somewhere in the middle but okay is this a sort of replication of the uefa relevant idea that you're going to offer up one package of rights that is specifically targeting a global streamer?

3:46Is that what you're getting at? Well, I think it's just an extra package. You know, we've talked in the past about how much they slice and dice. I think, in theory, all of the packages are available on a global basis, albeit that they don't sell them that way. But this is one that would be a package of the international games, which is more appealing internationally than it is in the US because of the time difference. These are games which happen at 9 a.m. Eastern, more or less in the US, and so they're more appealing to an international audience, and they happen in their backyard as well. So I think that's one aspect of it, is a new package of rights, but it's more about, you know, will the likes of Amazon take a bigger chunk of games, say, for example, the current Thursday night package, and will that see a reordering of the landscape for NFL but with even increased revenues?

4:48And then more importantly, what's the knock-on impact of that in terms of how that might affect media rights for other leagues or their media strategies for other major US leagues, I think? Okay. Janik?

5:01Yannick Ramcke:I actually thought that we would have been on different sides of the fence here in terms of prediction because as far as I got our very sophisticated whatsapp conversation I thought that you would predict that there would be a new or revised or updated pre-empted deal for NFL media rights in 2026 and that is where I think also the industry got a bit ahead of itself because what the NFL in the form of or in the person of the commissioners pretty much only said that as soon as 2026 we may start to engage in conversation with this looming opt-out option after the 29-30 season for most of their media rights partner looming but these are long-winded conversations right so i'm pretty sure that there won't be anything where they put pen to paper and announce anything when it comes to the main domestic media rights agreements but they start pretty much i think next year not can i can you can i just ask a question for those of us that haven't negotiated these things what's the process how do you begin this and why is there a sort of halfway house moment where they can opt out and start to do new things what's the is that part of the initial contract just talk to me a little bit about how we can be talking about this when they've got a deal that goes to when is it 2032 is it it's even longer than it's it has been an 11 year 110 billion dollar contract it is like part of and we discussed this before like speaking of slicing and dicing and media rights wizardry that the nfl is engaging in more than anyone else they because they can right not everybody is the 800 pound gorilla in in the market because they can they have negotiated into the current rights agreements opt-outs for the majority of the media rights partners after the 29 30 season and i think for disney and espn the following year but so what's the what does that say about the sort of i don't know the integrity or the validity of the contract that you sign if you're signing an you know 11 year deal with the nfl you're effectively saying but it will be negotiated halfway along that's all part of the negotiation leverage right it's always a give and take and that is something that they took because maybe they have gotten and given somewhere else but it is what it is and i think the two main things that have driven all the discussion around okay do they actually preempt any of this even pre-empting a potential had opt-out a couple of years down the road i think it's driven by two things one was especially the nba signing a deal in the meantime that is punching far above its weight when you compare to audiences and ways of share and all of this and the second one is that it's quite timely i think they had like the best season for like 35 years in terms of average audience so average tuning into their domestic games in the u.s um yes it is a function of how they are measuring and all these kind of things out of home big data how news is doing things but with those two like headline arguments i think this is where combined with what they said we may open up pre-emptive conversations 2026 i think the industry got ahead of itself jet that like within the next 12 months there will be a revised deal because obviously also broadcaster would not be fully against having more certainty because their business pretty much makes or breaks with having the NFL or not.

8:46It's a unique model, right? It's that they have multiple different rights holders and because of that or largely because of that they don't have the regulatory issues or requirements that say the Premier League has. The Premier League, yes, it has no one buyer rule, but ultimately they're still regulated for competition reasons from selling for a long period of time. This way, all the shareholders of the various different broadcasters who have rights are able to report back to their boards and their shareholders that they have long-term revenue, new sorry cost certainty at least theoretically um but they're also able to still fit still have enough of a slice of of the pie to be meaningful and so i think it it's just a very unique set of circumstances of being the biggest sport in a market where which is which is pretty deregulated so you mentioned there's a couple of things one is sort of risk rewards here in terms of And they'll obviously they would do it if they think there's more money in the marketplace for the second time around or halfway through.

9:57I remember talking to Sam Sadie at LiveScore and it was about just around about the time of the NBA deal, massive new deal. I can't remember what it was, 80 billion or whatever the number was. And his thesis was that you shouldn't underestimate the impact of the opening up of the betting industry and the betting markets in the US and how that impacts on the ability of broadcasters to make back rights fees. and that was a key factor in why that number for the NBA got so high I've not heard anyone talk about this but what is it where do you think the the if you were a broadcaster or if you were the NFL and you're looking at a halfway point of this deal all of the noise is the end of the bundle and you know the end is nigh or whatever in the broadcast marketplace traditional marketplace but just talk me talk about this let's what's the risk reward question for both sides of this if

10:51Yannick Ramcke:they go halfway i think from an nfl perspective it's less about something to be concerned rather than from a broadcaster perspective because i think the hypothesis that you are referring to is that the broadcaster can like in a more diversified manner monetize the ip that they are buying and obviously when it comes to advertising sponsorships and so on it's probably one of the biggest spenders when it comes to yeah wanting to be present and be associated with live sports it doesn't get bigger bigger than NFL so I don't think that this is true material in this whole conversation because the NFL is just one of a kind yes I think for smaller properties that can make a bigger difference and the NFL obviously has direct relationship on the not on the media rights income column but on the sponsorship column to make sure to grab their piece of the budget that are spent from the betting industry but I would also be a bit hesitant if you look around the world in terms of how the industry goes through its life cycle you see that in markets where betting was legalized quite early on.

12:04You see now movements where they try to put the genie back into the bottle somewhat.

12:10Yannick Ramcke:And I think other markets who liberalized later, like Brazil, like the US, they will go through the same cycle. So I also can imagine that, especially now with the prediction markets also coming up, that there will be some backlash. And I don't think that's at the base of any hypothesis, neither on the right buying nor right setting side. when we talk about the nfl auction okay ripple effects because this comes into your seat your one as well yannick so you've got a prediction or something about the mlb but what are the ripple effects you mentioned that at the beginning murray of this so once the nfl do something the big gorilla whatever the cliche is in the middle of the marketplace what do the others then do what does it do does it i mean i'm presumably it's it's hoovering up money that might go elsewhere and they'll be worried about that?

12:59Is that what I'm getting at? Yeah, I think so. And obviously we've talked about NBA, but you've got both MLB and NHL who may look to kind of rethink their strategies in the marketplace in terms of trying to get out in front of there or trying to work out what's going to be the optimal opportunity for them to get the best financial outcome and the best exposure outcome. Although we know that most of the time it is just about the money. I'm not sure that I sort of close enough to either of those three know exactly what they're going to do, other than that, as we were just talking about, whatever NFL does, it tends to then reshape a little bit what the other major leagues are doing in the marketplace.

13:39Yeah, yeah, yeah.

13:41Yannick Ramcke:And, I mean, you spoke or you asked for numbers and percentages. I think we both somewhat agree, Maruri and I, that in terms of 2026, there won't be any announcement of revised domestic media rights agreement. either pre-empting or after the potential opt-out that they have contractually secured before. But I think to 100 % but it's actually an easy one. There will be an agreement or a media-wise agreement announced by the NFL since the sophisticated people that they are, they have this annual auction running for the season opener which I think this season was on YouTube for the first time. I think it was out of Mexico City and this is an annual package that they bring to market whether it's about new markets new platform partners and so on to just nurture maybe the future big buyer of their main packages so this is coming to market and if it keeps the cadence that it had in the past we should expect something something around spring to announce pretty much the broadcast of the season opener which is not part of the thursday night package even though it's a thursday night game if i am not completely wrong this this international rights question for the NFL just before we move on from the NFL I'm I'm interested because again it's a stat that you use quite often which I think it's sort of less than three percent of the revenue comes from the international market I've there's a question about you know that's hanging there which is how popular the NFL is outside of America and it's not reflected in the current state of the media rights market as I understand it or as I look at those numbers obviously that's shaped a little bit by the massive domestic market but is there so this idea that they're gonna you get to a sort of global fan argument they're gonna have international games which they have already but then they're gonna use those as a bridge into an international media rights marketplace and monetize it in that way is there much evidence to support that it's that popular outside of the US apart from the expat audience I think it's growing in popularity to but it's still very much a sort of secondary or tertiary sport when it comes to sort of fandom ultimately the reason to open up these deals or to create the international package is for broadcasters that don't have borders and that is Netflix, Amazon, YouTube you know all and and hey presto all of those are US-based companies so we'll look at it through a US lens I think that they will also know that it curries favour with the NFL for other potential opportunities, or at least they'll be thinking about that aspect of it.

16:29So whilst they won't get US-style money for international rights, it will certainly be a useful increased amount of revenue for the NFL overall. And not only that, you know, the NFL does have sort of quite big ambitions about what NFL will look like internationally in terms of fandom. And with flag football being in the LA Olympics in 28, they're quite optimistic that that's going to help really grow the sport at a sort of grassroots level. So I guess they see some positive shoots there, but it's more just a way of extracting some additional money out of the global marketplace.

17:08Yannick Ramcke:Yeah, I fully agree that, or in the sense that I think that international markets are a complete afterthought. And I think you put it quite correctly, Richard, in the sense of international commercialization is shaped by domestic media rights agreements in the sense of if Amazon, YouTube or Netflix or whoever else wants to have this as a free throw in, okay, please throw in these, that and the other markets because we also have an operating business up and running. the NFL is happy to accommodate because it just doesn't compare in terms of size and relevance and maybe that's even healthy if you compare this to many many other sports leagues and organizations who are betting heavily on international market in the form of media rights income I think it's fair to question whether this is like a hopeful bet or is this holding out hope in the sense of that this is the next big growth catalyst that is like putting the revenue trajectory on a completely different scale so i think nfl goes grassroots goes developing fans locally internationally but that's not what they're betting on in terms of this will now materialize and convert into big time revenue streams anytime soon okay right i'm intrigued by your uefa relevant prediction murray because i think we're still in the international global game global fan sort of area give me a sense of this one it's a little bit of a punt but I think there's been lots of discussions about it there was the La Liga game that was supposed to happen in Florida which has subsequently been they've rode back on on a commitment to do that I think in some ways it's easier to do it with a cross-border competition like a Champions League I think it there'll be a lot of noise about how this puts Champions League on in a global context as opposed to a European context by putting it in a different city I picked Miami but it could as easily be New York I think it has to be east coast because of the time differences 27 I think is already Madrid so the first one which they could do is 28 so so just your specific prediction is that UEFA and relevant will announce the UEFA Champions League final 2028 in Miami at some point yes they'll announce at some point during 2026 and I'll go with 65 chance chance it's a six that would be an absolute shit storm but it's a 65 shit storm janik what's your put a put a number on this i mean this is far too much accountability for me that that kind of discussion and number but i think i'm on mori's side of the fence on that one for all the reasons that that you mentioned i think also last time we spoke we gave relevant it's kudos for how it steered and managed the media rights rfp especially in the big time european markets by things like using the global package or the threat of a big technology company coming in as the trojan horse to steer up competition or whether it was their data driven approach to pretty much build the business case and build the strategic rationale on behalf of the broadcasters why it would be great addition to their respective portfolio so i think they obligate them their kudos but their mandate is across domains right we focus on media rights but also all things commercial and so on and they will aggressively pursue other and more growth growth drivers and that is an obvious one right and i think it's also like a lower barrier to get this executed than in the local league setups.

21:02Yannick Ramcke:And finally, I did not, outside looking in, I did not have the impression that this is the most precious decision. Where to put Champions League finals, if you look at the past two decades or so, where we have played European Cup finals. It's not like that we only move between, I don't know, Madrid, London and Berlin or Paris. I think we have been off the roads and off the beaten path here or there. They've always been in Europe. They have, but they have been in different places and interesting places, I think. Okay, so a couple of things that spring to mind. There's one question about what were the lessons of the global streaming package that UEFA put out?

21:45Because when we talked at Sportel, it was going to be, it was, you know, it was a Netflix versus Amazon versus whatever, you know, battle for Champions League rights. that never materialized and in paramount where that's where it is at the moment are we any closer in terms of interpreting this as a as a a good idea or not in terms of off you mentioned the nfl are going to do it but talk to me about what it is that you're basing this on so is it a global streaming idea or is it as adam crafton on this podcast from the athletic put it that nbc feel like they've spent enough money to justify having an american cup final where do you think it's coming from where's the where's the incentive to do this because it is going to be a right comms

22:28Yannick Ramcke:nightmare for them yeah i think i can keep it short on my end and you can go along for them i think it has nothing to do with media rights revenue or income it's a pure commercial sponsorship rather these kind of revenue stream hosting fees these kind of things that would drive any such conversation i think it's quite unrelated given also the much more diversified set of media rights partners it's not like that one market like nbc in case of the olympics is shouldering like a vast majority of the of the income i think you can see a bump in in potential latin american fees if they know that that they're that it's coming in in a in a prime time time zone for them possibly but i think as jannik said it's largely for other reasons i think it's also just a sort of the overall halo effect of putting it somewhere outside of Europe it puts it on a different level of stage as it were but it becomes more of a global competition maybe that that also sort of brings some conflict in with FIFA and the Club World Cup which may be something that they want to do or you know want to avoid doing but that's why I'm sitting on the fence at 65 percent it's Quite a wide fence, 65%.

23:44It's two-thirds. I think it's more likely to happen. I mean, put it this way, it's what I would do if I was them.

23:50Yannick Ramcke:I think the legal term is more likely than not. Right, fascinating. Well, you know, at least we've got a headline for the podcast. So, Yannick, let's come to you with your DAZN acquisition. You've both got, interestingly, DAZN acquisition points in your predictions. Yannick, what is yours? Yes, I mean, we can discuss why both of our things, there might be an urgency to further grow utilization of their tech stake, but also pretty much conquer the one or the other bigger media rights markets, which they haven't conquered just yet, including the US. But my prediction would be related to recent news reports regarding the reported interest in Main Street Sports, formerly Diamond Sports Group, Ni Sinclair Broadcasting Group, so has gone to many, many different iterations.

24:43Yannick Ramcke:But in other words, like one of the leading, if not the local or the original sports network in the US with the biggest portfolio, with the biggest or with the most NHL, MLB, NBA teams under contract, that they are following through with that acquisition. So this is a regional sports network, and it's one of those things that I never understand I've been talking about this for a very long time and RSNs and regional sports networks are always something that I have to think quite hard about what they actually are but they are the local sort of area for what are they explain they cover the local the local sports teams broadly speaking so they buy up state state by state so this is a it's it's media market by media market so you'll have you know new england sports network covers bruins celtics patriots like it but it depends each one has a different makeup of rights because then you also have rights which are only out of out of local region rights you have national game rights and and so on so it's it's it's quite a complex area but effectively it's a local sports network that only cover covers local sports rights so those are things that fall out of so an nfl national deal or an nba national deal they pick up there is a local area sort of package that they offer them or give them or yeah so it's pretty much what is if you are in national television nationally it's not broadcast locally but if the local team is not put on the nationwide airways then the local audience they're probably like fandom is most tied to should still be available and i think has primarily and historically grown out of the fact that obviously it's a much bigger market just in terms of size and different time zones and so just so for and okay thank you for the explanation and why are they perennially under pressure the rsn's because that feels like there's a it's just a an old linear dinosaur idea is it that's just fallen by the wayside that streaming is replacing?

26:55Is it as simple as that?

26:57Yannick Ramcke:I mean, they're most tied to the legacy linear multi-channel pay TV bundle. But I think that's also somewhat underselling this entire discussion because it's still an enormously, maybe not lucrative business anymore, but a business that does a ton of revenue. and does revenues that are actually much higher than what streaming has done for a long time because there's different economics. And what is the business model? The business model is advertising. Is it a free-to-air or is it a subscription? No, it's a pay-to-air bundle. So if you are a local customer, you sign up to pay-to-air in the base tier.

27:42Yannick Ramcke:So it doesn't get smaller than the base tier. Your channel, the original sports network, has been historically always included. So for each pay TV subscriber having the most basic tier ever you are getting like a carriage fee. If you are tiered in a more premium tier where okay I need to buy the extra sports package to get access. Then obviously you have far less subscribers but for each subscriber you are getting a carriage fee. The main reason why sports and regional sports networks as a result were that interesting because these were considered must-have commodities. so they were always in the base package and if you have a pay tv penetration around 2010 of like 90 of the households you can pretty much calculate it pretty fast like these are like nine figure businesses each month that are paid out to the channels okay so your prediction is that DAZN will acquire Main Street which is an RSN and Murray in parallel parallel predictions Murray is saying that DAZN will announce more acquisitions a la their Fox Sport buyout followed by plans to float see Murray's just offering a little bit more sizzle there on his prediction well I think it's been a fairly open secret that we've talked about that DAZN is keen to explore the market for at least a partial flotation at some point in 26 So, I mean, I think that's an 80 % chance that that's going to be announced at some point this year.

29:17So I don't think that's really a big, big bet. I think the issue is, you know, what can they do to sort of fatten it up and make it more interesting? And I think when you look at what happened last year with Belgian League and to a certain extent French League, although that was a while ago now, this is all just trimming in the right places and adding in the right places. to make DAZN more and more attractive. Can I just ask again, this might be a silly question, but what happens to the Saudi stake if they float? So Saudi owns part of it, is it about 10 % of it? It's a bit less, yeah. A bit less.

29:56And so it all floats, or can they carve out bits that they can float, or just DAZN will float, and then there will be part of just the general share?

30:04Yannick Ramcke:I mean, this can take many, many different forms and shapes. You can always say how much free float you want to have. you can decide whether you want to have a primary transaction where you actually also raise capital or is it just a secondary market where existing shareholders can liquidate so i think that would be unfair to say or to say what will happen with the soti stake assuming it's a more strategic nature rather than just a financial investment chances are that they probably keep the stake that they have as of today. But Mori pretty much then preempted or took away the prerequisite of all of the DAZN acquisition of Main Street Sports, which is making Main Street Sports an attractive enough acquisition target for DAZN, which is why they will go through a bankruptcy.

30:56Yannick Ramcke:Bankruptcy allows them, and they went through it before because of the... Who were Main Street? Main Street Sports. Each time they went through a bankruptcy, they got a different name and they had multiple names. in the past just to shed further erroneous media rights contracts just to further shed that of their balance sheet so i think that they go through that process they will reduce the commitments made to the different teams they will maybe even put we discussed the more cooperative quote-unquote model of the zone some variable compensation to those media rights agreements and i think once they have re-emerged from bankruptcy the zone will follow through with the acquisition i think it just improving like the terms and condition on which and what they would acquire but whether it's the u.s institutional investor group or the fact that they want to float on the u.s market pretty much the fact that they haven't cracked the u.s consumer marketplace just yet i think and they're not like tens of options out there which bring me to the conclusion that one of the acquisitions and it might not be the only one but the main acquisition in the u.s with an ipo in the u.s market in the back of their mind that main street sports is their acquisition target and that the reports actually will be followed through this okay right so let's move to the big obviously we mentioned well let's talk about warner brothers and because it's just such an impossible story to get your head around in terms of any certainty but Murray what do you think is going to happen in 26 to that story well we talked about this in in odds gone by and I think we mentioned that even if it progresses quickly it's unlikely to be concluded before the end of 2026 but in the interest of trying to stick my neck out a little bit I actually think that there's a chance that it may collapse with both Paramount and with Netflix for different reasons.

33:02I think, you know, the way it stands at the moment is that Warner Brothers want to do the deal with Netflix for a variety of different reasons that is problematic from a regulatory approvals perspective. Also, Larry Ellison, Oracle, Paramount is a major contributor to Donald Trump, who I think has announced literally today that he's inclined not to approve it, whatever that means. So that means that there's a potential delay to the deal that Warner Brothers would like to do and that is despite the fact that the number coming from paramount is a higher number than than netflix is offering and it's not it's a bit apples and oranges because the netflix offer is for one aspect of the two divisions or one of the two divisions of warner brothers whereas paramount is offering to buy the whole lot but i think where this is important from a sports perspective is any kind of paralysis that happens over the course of the next year or 18 months is probably negative in terms of reducing a potential bidder for for rights in various different places whether that's in the US or internationally and especially looking at it through a UK perspective where does that leave TNT sports in upcoming negotiations you know will things become clearer in time for Premier League auction where does that position them in terms of you know not having Champions League which obviously has gone to Paramount for the new deal which still has one and a half seasons to go on with with them so it's not imminent but it kind of creates a lot of question marks around what the future of TNT Sport could be in the UK so my big prediction is that both of these deals will end up collapsing for for different reasons it's really interesting that bit about the when are the premier league rights coming to market 20 so they they'll go to market tail end of this year i think or early 27 for if i remember rightly it's the 27 28 season

35:20Yannick Ramcke:is the first of the new deal right okay yeah i i would have thought it would be later but anyway I agree that or I would agree to forecast and predict that Netflix is not the auctions winner after all but I also think there will be a deal and I think it will be Paramount slash Skydance and I think just the news came over the ticker that Paramount actually mounts Hoxie fight against Warner Brothers Discovery over the takeover battle and so on so it will be a saga that continues which is also one reason why for example i don't see an nfl deal coming for many many difference but just this uncertainty among the buyers universe i think it's not conducive to get a deal done in or on short notice especially if there's no deadline that could spur any any actions um however i would actually i mean i think the most fascinating or fascinating we said that this is not about sports right we often think we are bigger than we are we are not and i think that is one example that we should not overestimate how big oh yeah it's not about sport but it is about the ripples are quite interesting on sport no and that's what i was getting to as said last time the international sports rights portfolio including a tnt sports in the uk would actually be part of the netflix universe because only the domestic sports rights portfolio so tnt sports us and i think they rebranded this as usa sports no would not be part of it but actually primordial rights would be with netflix de facto as parent company if the netflix bit go through which i think would actually quite interesting forget about future right cycles but the upcoming or current right cycle so 28 29 we think is the the next best Season of the new deal, yeah.

37:16Yeah, I think it's that TNT question. Again, it's quite interesting how fragile the marketplace is because sometimes you sort of think, oh, well, these things are set in stone. But then when you start to say, you know, who owns TNT? Where's the money going to come from? You start to then say, right, okay, that's one question mark. And then you've got others in terms of, well, you know, where it might reside. I think it's really interesting about just the competitive strategy, how you deal with that. i can't think of a precedent in the same way i know that companies have been bought and sold you know in the past but i find them a quite an odd company to sort of get my head around tnt in terms of they're in the uk because they've got bits of various things but nothing is compelling enough to to make it worth my while well it's a whole different pod discussion but you know they this will be the third iteration of ultimately a deal which isn't really the right thing for the company to do so you had the AOL Time Warner merger then you had Warner Brothers Discovery and then now you're going to have Paramount Warner or Netflix Warner and there's a case to be said that those two previous mergers were not successful in delivering shareholder value or ultimately a good experience for customers.

38:44And there's a lot of skepticism in the market that either Paramount or Netflix shouldn't be doing this deal anyway. So I think that there's an argument to say that maybe the motivations for doing these kind of deals sit in the wrong with the wrong people making making those decisions

39:07Yannick Ramcke:but that's a whole different podcast yeah i i also think that i think everybody can laugh about the history of warner warner brother warner brother discovery unless you are like someone working for the company as it changes hands like it feels like every five years and it's interesting because it was considered like not the most interesting asset as Murray just alluded to but all of a sudden we have like a huge fight over it both financially because I think bids will further go up also legally Paramount now also goes to court over this etc etc but I think it's more defensive on both ends rather than offensive in the sense of I think as Paramount acquired the UFC rights we said okay they went big or go home because either you remain subscale or you put yourself on the map you also will gain legitimacy from a skydance perspective that you are like a big time player on the market for buying media rights and so on but not getting on following through now with this add-on acquisition of one-and-brother discovery which in fact is like it's multiple times bigger than paramount skydance as of today i think they would be still stuck in the middle and then i think they will go home because they won't be competitive so paramount absolutely need this and i think netflix they have made up their mind that this is the best money spent to just protect their position with the backlog library and all of the ip that comes attached to it uh rather than having a legitimate competitor all of a sudden as a combination of paramount and one of other discovery just before we move on to the to another area i mean i think this does touch on your other prediction janik which is the sort of 2026 being year of content aggregation and this feels like a poster child at a top at the top end of something that is going to probably happen over the course of the year is happening already but you know that feels like and your framing is that can end fanned consumer this is a good thing can you just explain your rationale there yeah so i was thinking a little bit in winners and losers and i actually think that at the end of the day the end consumer will be one of the winners in 2026 because we have always said that especially once the ott streamers came into the marketplace followed on by the big technology companies who were always always wonder whether they will get into or not at least partially i think all of them now have um that okay increasingly fragmented market increasingly cost prohibitive to really access and get all the content that I as an end consumer want to get.

41:50Yannick Ramcke:So the end consumer was always deemed as a loser of all of these things going on. I said especially around between 2020 and 2023 end consumers are not that big of a loser because yes as soon as and as long as and that's a condition you are able to navigate that digital jungle given the aggressive pricing of the new media rights buyers because they're there in a full custom acquisition mode back then once you were able to navigate this digital jungle marketplace that it wasn't too bad it was more choice than ever it was aggressively priced and so on and so forth but i think the last couple of years especially 24 25 we have then seen like streaming inflation right all of them hike the price points they move from full priority on subscriber growth to actually making money so I think it has been quite a bad position to be in for consumers the last couple of years but now I think because also not many rides are up for grabs and many many ride cycles hit the midpoint or the second half of their cycle so all of a sudden the licensee starts to care about making the P &L work making money and so on also being super precious about having the content exclusively to their own platforms will decrease so I think there will be a lot of partnerships consolidation I don't think there will be much consolidation in terms of M &A activity but I think there will be a lot of cooperation just to make products more accessible in fight for the incremental consumers just to make ultimately also the P &L and the return on invest work as many of the right cycles or rights agreements that were signed the last three, four, five years hit either the midpoint or the second half of that duration.

43:51Yannick Ramcke:So we are the winner of 2026. Okay. I won't ask you to put a percentage on that because it's not very specific. But yes, okay. I am a winner. I put a 40 percent 35 percent chance of me being a winner in 2026 um right just two more just to finish off and they're quite juicy so Murray Liberty Media will make an offer for NASCAR I love this well let me let me take a step back so last year Michael Jordan's team 23x1 racing and another team front row sports took NASCAR to court accusing them of monopolistic practices and and unfair sort of charter agreements that they had, commercial agreements. And this case was settled in December, but it sort of peeled back a layer of what's happening with NASCAR and a sort of discontent between the teams and the owners.

44:48It's privately owned by the France family. And the sort of collateral damage from this was the very well-respected Steve Phelps, who had been commissioner for a number of years, who sort of left the sports because of some sort of salacious details that came out of various things that he had said about some of the people involved in the lawsuit. But what that did is triggered a whole load of speculation about might this be the right time for the France family to sell the sport, which was valued in 2023 at about$5 billion, I think. So it's worth probably – well, it will be worth considerably more than that now, bearing in mind, as we've talked about previously, they've got a$7.7 billion media deal coming up.

45:41And the settlement of this suit means that, at least in theory, that the teams are largely happy with the way that things are going. And, you know, I'd specifically – That feels very low. Sorry? That feels a very low price. That's what I'm saying is that that was the five billion was the price in 23 prior to these new media deals being announced. So, you know, it could be a lot more than that. Although I think if you're an investment company looking at NASCAR, you'll say that the chances of global development are not particularly strong. And so where are you going to see that growth coming from?

46:22From audience spectators, it's challenging to have more people coming to grounds. In fact, I think I read somewhere that they're actually seeing slightly fewer spectators actually coming to races. But that being said, there aren't that many assets out there which are available to buy. So I think it will make it attractive for anybody in the investment community. And then in order to keep it nice and juicy for you, I've suggested Liberty Media, because they obviously have Formula One and MotoGP. And in some ways, this would avoid anti-competition because it's largely a US-focused league. But I could see that there are some synergies and benefits from them of having a US-based motorsport series to sit alongside the three races that Formula One currently has there, albeit that it's a very different type of racing, but I think it could be very attractive for them at what is quite a keen price, potentially.