5 things that went through my mind while talking to Elliot Richardson about the clip economy

The new podcast is out today - with Elliot Richardson, co-founder and chairman of Dugout, the football media company co-owned by some of the biggest clubs in the world. Download it via the usual places.

Here's the five things:

1 I thought I knew what Dugout is, but was probably wrong

The usual response to Dugout is to put them in a comparison set with Otro and Copa90. But having worked a little bit on Otro in its early stages, via Havas, I’m pretty sure they aren’t the same thing. This is a short term question - the viable commercial market for paid-for short form, contextual, non-live clips - and long term - player brands v team brands as the point of investment. A point to note here relates to risk mitigation. Elliot Richardson made his money hedging risk for Aon and that bit of biography is particularly relevant here I think.

2 Once all fans consume football via clips, does it alter the depth of the relationship?

This tallies with Dugout’s key insight, that fans support 4.3 clubs. But are they fans? Or just people who’ve been caught by clicking on a club site or following a twitter handle?

3 How valuable is the clip economy and how will it evolve?

EPL clubs have negotiated having highlights returned far faster to them for this season. The window was 72 hours vs 6 in La Liga (HT @drewbsport via the Unofficial Partner WhatsApp group). The EFL’s deal with broadcasters was for highlights to return to them by 12 noon next day vs 7pm that night under new Sky deal. The Sky exclusivity window on clips is now 5.15 to 7 then club use at 7pm.

4 Will clips kill the highlights show (aka is MOTD an outlier)?

The old windows existed to protect the terrestrial highlights rights. Club channels are becoming more of a priority. Which begs the question - is the terrestrial highlights deal dead? I remember Barney Frances saying something similar a while ago, on a panel with YouTube.

Cut to…Pedro Avery’s notebook (via WhatsApp):

"Current MOTD rights £211m across 3 years - which works out £3.5m per club per year. To achieve same, EPL club needs to generate 1.8m (assumes 1 x 30 sec ad) mobile video impressions per game @ £50 eCPM (Across all social / pub platforms) which feels low? As an example, Man U has 28m Instagram followers alone (Norwich only 100k mind you!) BBC I believe would still pay £150m+ for extended highlights for a wrap show despite loss of window - as 45+ yr olds will continue to watch linear."

5 Desktop’s death is overrated

As referenced by Elliot on the podcast, we have a tendency to assume ‘old’ tech will die in the face of the exciting new incumbent. TV didn’t kill cinema etc. Some of it is just working patterns. “Desktop is still huge. Mobile is much bigger at weekends".

Next week's guest is Heather Rabbatts.

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