Premier League games in US; Miller Time; Thin End of the Wedge; Jim Ratcliffe's Friday Fun; Angry people look busy; Minority interest in The Hundred; Runners as horses; McIlroy v Cantlay
Overthinking the sports business, for money
Thin end of the wedge
We’ve done a podcast with Adam Crafton of The Athletic and Mike Darcey, which builds on Crafton’s deep dive in to NBC’s Premier League coverage.
The headline quote of that piece was from Jon Miller, NBC Sports’ president of acquisitions and partnerships.
Asked by Crafton whether hosting games in the US was on the agenda:
“Very much so. And this is a point that we’ve had conversations with the Premier League and they’ve been very open and receptive to listening to me.
Question: if NBC’s head of acquisitions wants to be listened to, how do you respond?
A hard no?
Or do you humour him? Nod along, while thinking of something else entirely.
The response on Reddit was predictable.
My sense is that the Premier League won’t thank Jon Miller for raising the issue.
But if the Premier League wants to placate NBC, and/or BeIN or any other major international client, how would it do so without creating another 39th game meltdown?
This has a universal application across sport, where innovations of any sort are routinely opposed by fans, and sports journalists who want to be liked by fans.
This creates a very conservative environment in to which new ideas are proposed.
The legacy of the failed Super League launch is another disincentive to tinker with the product. See also VAR.
In sport, NewThings are deemed The Thin End Of The Wedge.
There’s so little trust in sports team owners and rights holders that even the tiniest, seemingly inconsequential moves are shouted down for fear they will lead somewhere.
Would it be terrible if the Community Shield was played in New York? Or a round of the Caribou Cup?
Would it lead to contagion, and ultimately, the yanks cherry picking the best games every week?
What about, if every game of the opening weekend was screened simultaneously?
Which, incidentally, is what the EFL is doing, as a result of the new broadcast deal starting 2024-25.
Note, the Thin End Of The Wedge makes an appearance in Accrington Stanley owner Andy Holt’s tweet here.
Fun Fridays with Jim Ratcliffe
Sir Jim wants to end working from home among Old Trafford staffers.
It’s a bad time to raise it, given how shite the team is playing.
When in doubt, blame an underling; Maybe focus on Saturday first. Etc.
Coincidentally, I was avoiding work by reading Cal Newport’s book, Slow Productivity.
It lays out the real challenge facing Sir Jim’s Friday purge.
Since we stopped working in factories, work has become safer but harder to measure.
What was lost was a ‘crisp, quantitive, formal notion of productivity’.
How could managers judge whether they were getting the best out of their strapping young accountants and analysts? Well, maybe the answer is to look busy.
In the absence of better ideas, ‘visible activity became a crude proxy for actual productivity’.
As ever, George Costanza had the answer.
Look angry.
Angry people look busy.
This is also good, by Bruce Daisley: Do we need to be honest about what Fridays?
This week, the new co-owner of Manchester United has ordered all non-football staff back into the office in an attempt to reboot the culture of the organisation. Employees reportedly felt the mandate was ‘insulting and over-the-top’. But critically Jim Ratcliffe brought data to the showdown, citing the fact that his other company saw much lower email traffic on Fridays. It was almost as if, Fridays wasn’t a fully powered day of work.
(None of this answers the logistical complications of implementing this. It seems lots of the desk space at Old Trafford has been repurposed for corporate hospitality and there aren’t enough work stations anymore.)
Minority Interest
Talking of Jim Ratcliffe...
Ratcliffe, famously, has a minority stake in Man Utd.
The question is, how much can you get done without buying all of it, or at least the casting vote?
The ECB has been lobbied by private equity groups and IPL owners on this topic.
I remember talking to Tom Harrison in May 2021, when he was ECB CEO (he now runs Six Nations rugby).
The first season of The Hundred was just about to happen.
I asked him how he thought the about the game’s relationship with the financial markets.
“Subscription television has really been the key industry that's underpinned global sport. Now that's now a question mark against that because of the fragmentation of media, because of the different ways in which people consume media, because of the habits of young people and their connection with sport. So we're going to have to think of different ways to drive sports investment if that growth is to continue on the path that sport is used to it continuing.
And that's where potentially this model that you're seeing in other sports play out, whether that's Formula One, whether it's football now, whether it's rugby and other sports have tried dipping their toe in it. But it's been typically a rental model where pay TV rents effectively ownership of a sport for a certain period of time. You're moving now towards a more kind of ownership model or a stake or equity model, whereby a percentage of revenue is invested into into an equity stake.
Now, that's a very controversial place to go for sport, but it's one that can work if it's done responsibly with the right ownership structure. And it's done as a minority stake, not a controlling stake.”
From Unofficial Partner Podcast: E161: Tom Harrison, 4 May 2021
Off the record
Who is the unnamed PGA TOUR tournament director giving all the good quotes to Golf Week?
“Rory wants the Irish Open and other international events to be promoted and smaller fields and larger purses. There’s a lot we don’t like about Rory and his deal. But the main thing is Cantlay and we’ve got to get a deal done with the PIF. LIV’s got to go away. If we don’t get a deal done, we’re all screwed in the end. We all know it. (Cantlay) is against it. Rory is for it. So let’s get a deal done and get these (guys) put to bed. Do any of us want to work with the Saudis, no? But, on the other hand, none of us want to fight against them and their money for the rest of our careers, either. Cantlay is blocking any type of deal they try to put together. Rory wants (independent director) Jimmy Dunne to be the negotiator, not the players. The players should only be voting on what happens inside the ropes and rules and stuff. They are not businessmen. If you have a high school education how the hell can you vote on multi-billion-dollar finance situations and investment properties? They don’t have a clue. They don’t know the business. Hire the top business guys in the world to do your deal. Put them in place and be done with it.”
See previous quote from Rory McIlroy about Patrick Cantlay, to Paul Kimmage of The Independent, “My relationship with Cantlay is average at best. We don’t have a ton in common and see the world quite differently.”
That’s the long version.
In the same piece, Rory calls Cantlay ‘a dick’.
Thin end of the wedge: Runners as horses
I’m doing some prep for an upcoming podcast with Jack Buckner, CEO of UK Athletics.
Came across this piece by Eilish McColgan.
One of GB's top track athletes sent me a voice note in which he said:
"We are essentially horses. Fans should be able to bet on us."
He is spot on. Maybe we need to give people a reason to be invested in the competition. Sure, it runs the risk of corruption, but just cap the bets so no-one can make or lose a crazy amount. Just enough to make it a bit of fun.
10 Buying Trends Shaping the Sports Business
Former Greenfly CMO Tom Kuhr on what he learnt selling tech in to sports rights holders.
Includes, longer sales cycles, local support and reliance on the cloud.
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