UP568 Real Time Economics: When the Clip is the Product

25:40I mean, you know, the NFL did a deal with Bleacher Report. That was a separate deal around, you know, short form content. I think you'll see more of those kinds of media rights deals, if you want to call them, really focused on short form content. You also, of course, have the really traditional, you know, structure of, you know, revenue sharing when it comes to distribution of content on platforms like YouTube and stuff like that as well. And, you know, again, I think you'll continue to see that. But, you know, I also think, you know, talking to brands and sponsors, like one of the things that they've said to me, I was talking to somebody who leads sponsorship for one of the, you know, in Europe for one of the major, you know, Fortune 100 brands.

26:19And he was saying, nothing's more valuable than our brand being attached to a moment that's, you know, ricocheting around social media, around an event. And so if you can attach that brand to that moment, you know, that is something that brands will pay for and value, especially if you're tracking that, you're looking at the impact. I mean, when Messi was celebrating the semifinal win, he was holding a smart water bottle because, you know, that's what was on hand. And I'm sure it's one of the reasons that Coke, you know, puts those smart water bottles all over the venue. But, you know, that was a really authentic moment, you know, I don't, it's not like that was a deal or anything like that, but it was something in some sense that the brand did pay for because they were sponsoring it.

27:02They were the official, you know, water provider. That's what people were using and drinking. And then they had that association with that moment. And I'm sure the number of people who saw that moment on social media was much greater than the number of people who saw it live. And a lot of people who saw on social media saw it, you know, 20 or 30 times. So the brands are getting a lot of value. I think one thing that we're trying to do is help capture that value, identify it, track it, enable the rights holders to present that to their sponsors, and also enable the sponsors to really see it and appreciate it so that they can take it into account when they're making a decision.

27:40Sponsored brands say to me, the signage in the venue is most valuable when it's in the background of a moment that is going everywhere, right? And that's a lot of what you're paying for these days. So having a system in place that not only maximizes the quality and quantity of this kind of content and make sure that it kind of gets into the bloodstream where it's going to reach the biggest audience, but also enables you to track the earned media value it's producing.

28:06Richard:Where are we in that then? So let's land on moments. So there is a difference. Well, is there a difference between what I would call real-time advertising, for one of a better words, So the Harry Kane moment happens, the Messi moment happens. And there is a commercialization opportunity there. There's a marketing opportunity for someone, whether it's a sponsor or whatever. Yes, there is always going to be a sort of happenstance bit of luck that might happen. You know, if I'm a sponsor, my board is behind Messi when he does something fantastic. And that's happy days in the marketing department.

28:46Richard:But you can't guarantee that because it might be someone else's brand on the rotation on the backdrop and he might pick someone else other bottle up or whatever what is real-time advertising now and where do you see that going and i'm interested because you yeah you're it's a really good sort of link you you've got the plumbing that sits beneath this and i'm wondering we were talking about the the sort of links in the chain and there is quite a if you're ready, where sponsors and advertising fits and how complicated that is to make that work. So it's a good question. One of the things I was just going to say, as part of that question, you said, well, it could be a different brand.

29:28That's part of that. One of the things that our platform does is identify all the brands that are present. One of the restrictions that's often in place around these events is that there are restrictions on the use of content where, you know, a competitor, for example, to a major sponsor is featured. And our system can identify that immediately as well. I mean, that's something that's, you know, we're not creating that restriction, but that's often a restriction between the rights holder and the people that are entitled to use the content, particularly in a commercial context. So, for example, you could have, you know, a beverage brand that is able to use content from events, but you know they're not allowed to use it under their rules if it features a an apparel brand that's competing with an apparel brand with the apparel brand that's sponsoring the event or

30:17Richard:something like that there's a blacklist of potential people that you couldn't sell that to in in you know in the there'll often be like restrictions around it because part that's part of what the sponsor is paying for like they don't want to pay you know a lot of money for an event and then have that event featuring you know a competitor yeah or even an entity that didn't you know, didn't pay. So I think that that is something. They're sort of building their own ambush platform, aren't they? In other words, you know, they're creating moments for their competitors to jump all over. Yeah, exactly.

30:45But you see these funny, you know, you see these funny kind of reports sometimes around earned media value where you'll have, you know, an apparel will sponsor a club, but then, you know, you might have the star athlete for that club. It has to deal with a competitor. And in fact, you know, when you look at the club activity, even by that athlete it's boosting the competitor of the company they have a that they have a

31:08Richard:relationship with there's a question again where greenfly starts and stops i think is quite an interesting question because i think it's sort of that is it purely a technical platform that you you're selling and it feels like there are consulting opportunities or moments through the chain in terms of the various people that you bump into along the way as this clip makes its journey from a premier league round to me on my phone and there's a sort of cottage industry at each moment you know there's a look there's there are organizations who are which are gathering okay it used to be i you know a sponsorship agency or a marketing agency or an ad you know whatever and now those are much more granular and they're much more focused on this conversation about clips because they know there's real marketing value there and the client there's a need there and no one's quite sure what they're doing a lot of the time on the client side so there's opportunity talk me through this because i could see from your point of view there's there might be a sort of consulting creep problem in terms of saying right okay where do we jump out here and start to build out a service that helps you know at various points and it whether it's the i don't know whether you sell advertising or you've got a programmatic bit about this just Just talk me about this because again, a lot of people listening will be in and around this chain of events.

32:29Yeah, and that circles back to the rest of that kind of real-time advertising question that you asked as well. On the consulting, I mean, we define ourselves as a technology company and we used to like to say we're the pipes, you know, like we're the plumbing. But increasingly, I would say that a few things. First of all, we've developed a tremendous amount of expertise and understanding of the space. That said, we still don't define ourselves as a consulting agency, and we work very closely with consulting agencies and with other kinds of agencies who are also helping to operationalize this. But I do think that at the end of the day, the technology should express and reinforce the insights and analysis.

33:18You know what I mean? If we build it in a way to support what we've come to appreciate is important.

33:25Richard:Quite often, whether it's a cliche or a truism, is that the American marketplace is an easier one to engage with because you go through the leagues and it's much more centralized, Whereas in Europe and the UK, you have to knock on a lot more doors. You have to go by the team. And then you, so the sort of experience distorts depending on the nature of the marketing team or whoever, you know, the tech levels of competence at an individual team. And that, the disparity even within the Premier League is very stark. You've got, you know, the big six clubs which are developing much more like an American model and big professional people running, you know, various departments.

34:08Whereas still, you know, even at the bottom of the Premier League and certainly into the championship, they are much smaller and fewer and they've got less money to do these things.

34:18Richard:And I just wondered what it looks like from your point of view, because it seems like there's always a challenge when people say, right, OK, yeah, you just got to go to the Premier League, knock on one door, do a deal with them and happy days. But it never feels like that that's completely true. Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of truth to what you're saying. I mean, not only are the teams more independent, but a league isn't, like the teams in a league is not a stable thing, right? Your promotion and relegation, it's changing. So, you know, it's not just that, you know, they have more independence and the organization is less centralized, but they're actually, you know, changing.

35:00And maybe one of the reasons that you see, you know, kind of the big six is there's more stability there as well, right? Which probably impacts how these things operate. I mean, I think from our perspective, what I would say is, you know, there are big differences. But, you know, when we think about our platform and our work and all this stuff, like the more complex things are, the more there's a need for technology to bring it together. So, you know, in an environment like what you're describing, where there is more independence, there's more complexity around the use of content, there's more approval that needs to happen before something gets used.

35:36like those that's all friction and the more friction the more opportunity to make things better to make things more collaborative and that's the other thing i was going to say too is like not only you know do we not like to describe ourselves as the plumbing anymore but really you know content high performance content operations which is really what we're doing but we also think about ourselves increasingly as a network and that the users on the platform and their ability to work with each other is you know has a huge impact and we have over 25 ,000 of the world's top athletes on our platform.

36:07And those athletes are not just on the platform for one entity. They are connected. The average one is connected with more than two entities. So usually that's a team and a league. It could be also a sponsor that they're working with. It could be a national federation that they play in on occasion. And they can be connected in that one environment with all those different entities. And those entities can also connect with each other through our platform. They connect with brands and sponsors and broadcasters through our platform. And so that network enables us to kind of solve the interplay between different organizations and address that kind of friction.

36:44So that kind of league club structure, you're right, it's much more centralized in the United States. It's much more straightforward. It's much more like, okay, we're going to adopt this. I think where we've seen one of the biggest analogies, like we work a lot now in college sports in the United States with conferences and things like that. And that looks much more like the European model where, you know, you can get the conference on board and you can serve their needs independently. But then you've got to go school by school, program by program and really bring them on. But once you do that, it creates incredible opportunity because you're solving sometimes a century of dysfunction.

37:21And we're the only connective tissue technologically between these different entities.

37:27Richard:Let's talk about the athlete. because again you mentioned college there i was i was going to ask an nil question but well it's just a way in it could be out of date it could be out of date in a couple weeks but exactly we'll part we'll move on but there's a athlete question in terms of a lot of people say their attention goes towards the athlete increasingly on social media and so you get the athlete as publisher and then you that comes with all sorts of sort of second level questions about how they achieve that whilst performing and all those things. And from your point of view, what's the economics of that?

38:03So if you get individual players on, who pays who?

38:10Richard:How does it work? Just talk me through that bit of it because I can understand a league deal, but where does the money come from for you at an individual athlete level? So, and I think the answer to that question, you know it just it is very illuminating i mean so in typically and there's a little bit of this of this league team structure in the u.s it's typically the leagues that are supporting the entire ecosystem making that decision and in europe often it does require direct team connection because the leagues are less connected with the athletes like the athletes viewed it as a favor to them and for the club their their response is oh my gosh we can publish club content through athlete channels.

38:54And not only are we not paying the athletes, but they view it as a favor to them because they get this great content and they want that great content. So when we look at the numbers, it's really remarkable. We have upwards of 95 % participation by the athletes in the leagues where we do this, and that's all voluntary. There's no contractual requirement. There's no payment taking place. All they're doing is saying, here, come on this app and you'll get great content that you can share. And the League is deciding what that content is. The athlete's making the decision authentically whether or not to share that content but you know often they they really do want to share that content and that and then that content carries value for the team and the league and value for the athletes and the again these there are sort of big famous footballers

39:37Richard:and lots of others that aren't famous and so there is a dis a distortion so they get the platform free but obviously they can monetize it via their own personal sponsors and they can do the work for the club so there's a whole there's upside for the player and then the player agency and the management company will get involved and you start to then get to the question of authenticity is this them really at the end of this line all those bits that we you know you we talk about a lot talk to me about that bit of it so yeah i mean i think if it's a sponsor element so so usually the content that the athletes receive in the platform is for editorial purposes only.

40:18That's often a distinction that's communicated to them. And sometimes that has significant, it could have significant implications, whether a piece of content is used for commercial purpose or editorial purpose, it can actually have an impact on who needs to be paid what for that content. So generally in this environment, the athletes are getting content from the team and the league. And, you know, but they're using that content because they like that content, because they're sharing these incredible moments, you know, of their performance, the matches they just played in, like all that kind of stuff.

40:54And they're sharing it for editorial purposes. It's still creating a lot of value for them because it's really compelling, really high-performing content that's building, you know, their channels, their audience. and, you know, there's nothing that diminishes the value of an athlete's channel more than like having 95%, you know, sponsored content. You know, there's got to be a good mix there. Now, we do see increasingly, first of all, with a lot of startup leagues where there's much more direct commercial relationship and sponsorship relationship between the athletes and the league or the organization, you do see more collaborative, you know, sponsored stuff happening as well.

41:35We do increasingly see situations you might have opt in for commercial purposes, for payment and things like that, that are possibilities. But the vast majority of content that is being published by the athletes on our platform, and it's an enormous quantity of content in the millions of assets, is really just great content from the rights holders that they want to share with their fans. Okay.

41:59Richard:So at that end, the sort of creator end for leagues and things, you get to the question of the numbers and as in what an impression is, what actually is happening there. and you'll know that I mean I'm quite often skeptical about the enormous numbers of impressions that people are making claims for and it's a sort of interesting game at the marketing end of this because you start to say right okay I'm starting to not believe anyone's numbers and that's a problem you know it's sort of you start to say right okay if what is how does YouTube I know they changed it very recently about what a definition of what they think an impression is or whatever what do you make of that and what do you think is going to happen because there is a trust question when you start to talk about me mentioned unilever and we start to talk about coca-cola and so they're starting to but you know they're buying impressions but they are then becoming more skeptical about this and saying well actually these numbers just don't add up and this is not specific to sport but across the board you're seeing content farms just generating stuff pumping it out and just creating sort of ai slop that is out there in the world and i'd again be really interested in your view on what that does to how this world looks from the user's perspective because we've all got there's loads of like the harry kane thing i'm there but then my phone is full of crap quite often my feed and i think that's i think that's an issue so So, I mean, these are really good questions.

43:36On the kind of measurement, the numbers question, I mean, there's a lot of debate. There's a lot of algorithms. There's a lot of different approaches. Like, you know, we have our own way of measuring these things that we're very transparent about, but if people want to apply a different algorithm to it, that's fine. Like, there's a certain amount of baseline information that you have and you're making certain extrapolations from it and people can draw whatever conclusions they want. And sometimes, you know, often, you know, if an organization has somebody that they work with right now that's putting a value on it, like we'll want to incorporate their approach so it's consistent apples to apples across other stuff that they're doing.

44:10You know, I think what you're saying, I mean, I think we're going to see a lot of evolution around, you know, social media and consumption. We're still in the very early days of AI slop, but it's already, there's already a lot of it and there's going to be more. And I think, you know, and people don't like it very much. And I think that, but it's cheap and easy to generate scale. I think and I think one of the reasons there's a lot of discussion with the recent you know Lakers purchase that Joshua Kushner saw it as a hedge against AI you know obviously which he's very invested in but like live sport being something that in an AI world has even more value because of its authenticity it's a you know connection to a live experience like there's a lot of long list of reasons there I think of the content that's been created around sports like who cares if you can create an ai video making an athlete look like they're doing anything what matters is whether or not they actually did it you know we don't want to watch you know a bunch of avatars do you know magical things you know that who cares like the question is what you know what can the human body do and and all the different you know factors that go into that and so i think the value of this content in in a world of ai slop will only increase the need to differentiate this content from AI Slop will become, you know, very important.

45:29I think modes of consuming it may really shift. When we look at it from our perspective is like, we've always been agnostic as to where the content goes will support the emerging trends. But, you know, when we started out, everybody was focused on Facebook. And then it was like Snapchat stories, then it was Instagram Reels, and then it was TikTok. And, you know, those things are always evolving you know we get questions about threads has become meaningful in sports we said some people talking about blue sky you know i mean this things things are always shifting but the bottom line is if you have the infrastructure in place you can respond to those shifts without uprooting everything you know and if you have the infrastructure in place to to kind of source manage and organize this valuable content then as it changes where it goes you you can do that as well i think there might be a need um i've had a lot of interesting conversations with technology companies lately about you know watermarking and authenticating content and how you can authenticate you know original content versus ai slop and i would imagine that that stuff will be incorporated more and more because people care whether what they're watching is real or not um so there's a lot of efforts to solve that as well and i think we'll continue to see that when you when you talk

46:40Richard:to the platforms again you mentioned the names there what do they think about when they think about sport because i can see the job that it that it does and you say it's it's a proportion of what they do sometimes people say yeah but you can't trust them there's no there's no it's not a relationship as in like a sports broadcaster which needs sport and is embedded in the infrastructure of the industry whereas these are promiscuous in terms of their interest they don't really care what drives the number of viewers as long as the number just keeps going up so just talk to me about how you think they look at sport and whether i'm interested in how that relationship is going to evolve because we talked about who's going to pay the bills but i'm interested in what they see when they see sport when they put it up against other forms of or other categories of content it's a really good question and it's hard to also generalize because there's different attitudes and they're always shifting i think historically there's been some attitude that you know it doesn't matter if people watching a sporting event or a cat video if they're watching an eyeball is an eyeball.

47:44But I think there's been a very deep understanding for a long time that that's not true. That the quality of the content, the connection to the viewer, the emotional engagement around the content, like all those things have a huge factor on how valuable the content is, how memorable it is. I think all of us have had the experience of scrolling a social media feed for 20 minutes and then not being able to remember what we just watched, which is very different than looking at your watch repeatedly and getting excited about a game that's going to start in three hours and then sitting down to watch it with your friends and family and on your text chain with all your buddies about the experience.

48:26Those are very different things and the value is really different. So I think some of those companies appreciate it more than others. Some of these things are, most of their viewers are watching content that's been uploaded for free and then you have a lot of other organizations, streaming services, things like that, they're spending tens of billions of dollars creating content, buying the rights to content, and taking a very different approach. And the willingness of the consumer to pay for that content, to buy a subscription to that service and things like that, you know, it is really connected to the quality of it.

48:57So I don't want to generalize. I mean, I think historically, my view has been often sports content's been underappreciated in its value. not that it hasn't been appreciated not that there is an awareness that you know some of the most viewed you know pieces of content of all time on social media are sports content but i but i don't think um there's always been an appreciation of the emotional value resonance and even kind of positivity around that content like it's another thing we don't talk about that much people usually want to consume sports content that makes them feel joyful you know people don't want to watch a bunch of videos after they just lost a match.

49:37And players don't want to share that content either. But, you know, Knicks fans wanted to watch the end of that and the people celebrating in the parade, you know, a billion times because they just wanted to relive that joy. And I think that so much of social media and social media engagement is not engaging your kind of joy centers or whatever it is emotionally. It's engaging you in a different way, in ways that make you kind of agitated and worked up and things like that. and I think that that's really valuable as well. I'd like to think that there's increasing appreciation. Not only does engagement matter, but how people feel when they're engaging matters.

50:13And there are a lot of studies that show that from the respect of advertising. It seems pretty obvious. But if you're an advertiser, you'd much rather be connected to a joyful moment than an agitating one. And so when you think about social media and things like that or short-form content consumption, it's much more valuable. Yeah, that's a really interesting point. be connected to those moments.

50:33Richard:It's a really good point. And it's a, it's a, um, it's probably a good place to end actually, because it's sort of, there is a, uh, a nice sense of optimism and hope. And you're right. We don't share losses. It's quite interesting that, and there's a, there is a sort of a link to happiness, which I'm sure has been studied somewhere. It'd be great to get someone who knows, you know, to sort of dig into that question. So I think that's a really interesting one yeah i mean there's a lot of misery involved to be a sports fan as well especially you know for a lot of a lot of teams but that's part of the experience that makes the joy more powerful and that's and those are the parents those are the moments that really resonate you're um you're doing a thing with sports pro which i'm going to go to yeah what to tell me about that there is a there's an evening but one of the things that we were talking about is is the sort of short form in and of itself because we quite often the conversation we've had this conversation today which is about the scale of it the amount of content that gets pushed out but actually we don't focus on the individual an individual clip as a as a piece of work very often we're working with them on this on the short form showcase and you know these awards they did around that where they honored people that have been involved in short form content and i really think that's long overdue i mean it's interesting for us having been around for more than a decade when we started out the value that people put on this content was very very low and you had a lot of you know beleaguered people you know at the beginning of their careers you know working 18 hour days you know creating this incredible stuff that you know billions of people were consuming and it was viewed as kind of ephemeral and i think that that mindset's really shifted first of all those people that we're working with you know 10 12 years ago are still in the industry and and they've you know kind of ascended, you know, based on the incredible work they did in the past.

52:25And it's driven a real appreciation. But I still think that there's a lot of art and effort and thought and creativity and care that goes into these moments that we're all enjoying and consuming. And so, you know, I think the goal of this Short Form Showcase was to really identify some of the people who've who've really um just done incredible work i think it's about 40 people who've just done incredible work in this area and just recognize that and and call out their names because you know they're not names that a lot of people have necessarily heard but they've certainly felt the impact that they've had on the industry and also their work has been seen by millions and billions of people oh yeah yeah we've all seen it and remember it you know so uh so i I think it's a really wonderful thing they're doing and that they're honoring them.

53:19And I hope that that becomes something that, you know, becomes an annual thing because there's a lot. You know, we were able to recognize together a lot of folks, but there are a lot of people. And there's people just starting out that haven't done the work yet that are going to deserve the work.

53:32Richard:It's a great idea. It's a really good idea because, again, you get, you know, I'm a bit of a sucker for a sort of someone telling me a growth hack for a, you know, a short clip. And it never works, you know. But I copy them and it sort of, you know. but there is a it's interesting he see sort of tropes and receive wisdoms evolve and then go away and someone comes in with something completely new and it takes it in a different direction it's a really interesting again I do I agree with you it's an underappreciated part of the whole thing in a way that we sort of throw awards at tv producers and and that end of the spectrum whereas this bit of it I think is is again it's becoming it well it is its own thing Whereas it used to be a sort of, as you say, a throwaway bit of the industry.

54:20Richard:And now it's actually people are saying, actually, we need, you know, and they're earning a lot of money, these people. These people, you know, if you're a really good short form producer, you're really valuable because people are just putting their whole marketing budget into it. I mean, we talked to Unilever and they're talking about a shift of 80 % in some cases from traditional media advertising budget TV into short form creators. That's a lot of cash. Yeah, there's a lot of value and there's a lot of investment in it. And it's such a kind of demanding and fast-moving space that there's just a lot of creativity in terms of how people approach it.

55:06And I think that's another thing that when you feature these folks, it also gives them an opportunity to talk more about their craft and create community around it as well, which I think is really helpful.

55:18Richard:Brilliant. Okay. Well, I'm going to point people in the direction of that. and I hopefully will see you there. But in the meantime, Dan, always great to chat to you. The backdrop is sensational. I thought it was AI, but it's not. It's your actual background. I hope the birds weren't too loud. That was the only thing. No, it's all atmosphere. There was a moment where the sun came through the tree and it looked quite biblical at one point, you know. Yeah. But thanks a lot for your time. Really enjoyed it. Oh, wonderful to talk to you.

55:52Thank you.