The Bundle in Bullet Points
The notes from the podcast, compiled by Murray Barnett and Yannick Ramcke
NFL Christmas Day - Live on Netflix
NFL sees an opportunity to carve out a new broadcast package independent of its existing US$125 billion contracts with Amazon, CBS, ESPN, Fox, NBC, and Google’s YouTube TV.
Last Christmas, CBS’s presentation of the Las Vegas Raiders against the Kansas City Chiefs secured 29.2 million viewers, Fox’s coverage of the Philadelphia Eagles against the New York Giants drew 29 million, and ESPN’s Monday Night Football broadcast of the San Francisco 49ers versus the Baltimore Ravens recorded 27.1 million.
Netflix has a US$5bn deal with WWE
Why it matters
Very deliberate courting of streamers - Over the past two years, the league has placed Black Friday and wild-card games on outlets such as Amazon and Peacock, and now operates the residential portion of NFL Sunday Ticket through YouTube.
WWE deal doesn’t kick in until Jan 2025. This might be a chance for Netflix to test the streamer’s live infrastructure and act as a ‘lead-in to WWE.
Could be another precursor to NBA? Probably not although regardless of current NBA negotiations with NBC, they will be looking at it very closely
What can I steal to sound clever?
Amazon is reportedly paying US$100 million a season for a one-off game on Black Friday and a reported US$120 million for an exclusive Wild Card playoff game next season.
Fits perfectly for Netflix -Customer retention (and possibly acquisition), Good slot for them with many people at home. Links in with Quarterback series, another toe dipping into sports, good for their growing adsales business
Good for NFL - it’s smart business for the NFL to see where consumer patterns are heading while still keeping its core status on linear television. Would not need to be a marquee matchup (appeasing existing partners). Whets appetite for future NFL negotiations (increased competition)
Annoying for fans - adds to the number of different streaming subscriptions one must have to see every game.
The future of sports on Netflix – sportainment and/or ‘stunty’ events which give substantial marketing awareness at key times of the year.
2. UK - SKY Sports+ Launching
What happened
“Sky Sports customers will be able to watch 50 per cent more live sport.” – Jonathan Licht
Sky Sports’ new streaming offering will be capable of delivering up to 100 concurrent live events when it launches in time for the new English Football League (EFL) season in August.
Sky Sports+ debuts on opening weekend of EFL season
Tech infrastructure can handle up to 100 live events at same time
Super League, F1, WTA and ATP tennis all included
‘Sky Sports+’ will be offered at no extra cost to customers who have a complete subscription, and will be available via Now Tv and mobile app.
Why it matters
Expanded portfolio of rights necessitated a more comprehensive streaming approach to complement its existing linear channels - Sky has 1,000 matches from all three EFL divisions and the EFL Cup broadcast each year. Sky Sports have committed to improving production values, with more cameras and enhanced commentary.
Sky also has every single match from rugby league’s Super League, ATP and WTA Tennis + (streaming-only) enhanced coverage of other major events, including F1.
Where’s it going
Shows the influence streaming and streaming services are having on traditional linear broadcasters. In order to compete, they need to offer unlimited choice.
Could be the end of some single sport/league DTC services where the ability to offer the choice was a USP. Put Sky in a better position for future negotiations.
Could also be yet another signal that rights fee are plateauing as the likes of sky will require more inventory to keep prices consistent with previous deals (SE per match drop in EPL fees).
While Sky offers the ability to subscribe to individual channels, such as Sky Sports Premier League, Sky Sports+ requires a full subscription to access. If some Premier League matches are exclusive to Sky Sports+ from 2025, then it could encourage upgrades.
3. US – Golf Ratings down
What happened
Despite a thrilling and historic win for Scottie Scheffler at the Players Championship last month rating were down substantially
According to Sports Media Watch, the 2024 Players Championship was the least-watched final round for the event billed as “golf’s fifth major” in the past 10 years, with the exception of 2022 (2.91m) when the tournament concluded on Monday due to weather delays.
The tour still leaves much to be desired when it comes to attracting fans, two years into its battle with the Saudi-backed LIV Golf.
“If you look at the leaderboards, you look at the ratings, I felt like they really, really worked in 2023,” McIlroy said ahead of the Players Championship. “And for whatever reason, they’re not quite capturing the imagination this year compared to last year.
Why it matters
Last month's Mexico Open, which saw American rookie Jake Knapp claim his maiden tour title, also marked a fourth consecutive Sunday where viewership dropped compared to last year.
The decline in viewership has been a worrying trend for the PGA Tour this year, with only 2.3m viewers reportedly tuning in to NBC’s final-round broadcast of the Arnold Palmer Invitational – also won by Scottie Scheffler – the previous week, a 30 per cent drop from last year’s 3.3m when Kurt Kitayama claimed the title.
The PGA Tour’s other signature events followed a similar decline, with ratings for the final round of the Genesis Invitational down five per cent from 3.4m in 2023 – which was won by new LIV Golf recruit Jon Rahm – to 3.2m this year. Even the opening round of the event at Riviera, which included Tiger Woods, performed poorly compared to last year, seeing a drop of 51 per cent.
Meanwhile, the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am was a disaster for the PGA Tour, with weather conditions forcing the final round to be delayed and eventually canceled, allowing LIV’s Mayakoba event on the Sunday – which drew 432,000 viewers – to hog the spotlight.
Where it’s going
Colin Cowherd ‘Whether it’s Mickelson, Bryson DeChambeau, or Patrick Reed, most of the golfers with outsized personalities have decamped to the flashier LIV. Love them or hate them, they make you feel something a vanilla personality like Scheffler doesn’t”
Tiger Woods playing just once, a run of outsider winners, missing LIV superstars and increasing fatigue over the ongoing negotiations between the PGA Tour and Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund are certainly factors that may have contributed to the year-on-year declines.
Player tired of rift:
PGA Tour pro Billy Horschel “I, for one, as a golf fan, am tired of it. I think this whole bickering and taking shots at each other just needs to go away. If coming together gets that to go away and we get a deal done with PIF, that’s great.
Rory McIlroy, who remains one of Monahan’s biggest supporters, said more focus on the game itself is needed to “re-engage” fans. “..I think, if I were to put my own perspective on it, it’s because fans are fatigued of what’s going on in the game. And I think we need to try to re-engage the fan and re-engage them in a way that the focus is on the play and not on talking about equity and all the rest of it.”
4. USA - Serie A Us sales in stasis
What happened
Italy’s Serie A season wraps up on May 26, and it’ll also mark the end of the three-year US media rights deal with CBS Sports and Paramount+. No new agreement with any US broadcaster has been announced.
League features American stars such as Christian Pulisic, Weston McKennie, Yunus Musah, and Timothy Weah
Why it matters
It is thought a renewal was being discussed until October when Serie A’s domestic rights deal with DAZN and Sky failed to get the increase in rights fees that the clubs wanted. The deal agreed was a five-year deal worth 4.5 billion euros (approximately $4.91 billion). Half the value of EPL’s next 4-year domestic deal.
Sources told World Soccer Talk that Italian league executives wanted Paramount+ to pay $150 million/year (CBS Sports is currently paying $75.8 million/year for both Serie A and Coppa Italia).
Apparently 32 offers have been received from ESPN and CBS however they are not the 150m Serie A wanted.
Retaining the rights to Serie A is key for CBS Sports. It only has Scottish Premiership (running through the 2024-25 season) and Barclays Women’s Super League (which ends after the current campaign).
Where it goes
Would this have been different if private equity had won the bidding process last year, or been allowed to play?
Moving away from agency selling international rights shows the disadvantage of trying to do it in-house.
SHORT TAKES
1. US - Caitlin Clark’s WNBA debut to stream live on Disney+ - Coverage of two opening night games marks streaming service's first move into US live sports.
Off the back of announcing Bundle includes Disney+, Max and Hulu. ESPN+ will remain separate but have some content on Disney+ (ESPN2 and ESPN+ will also show).
Disney+ will stream the league’s 2024 season tip-off on 14th May as Clark’s Indiana Fever take on the Connecticut Sun + Las Vegas Aces’ matchup with the Phoenix Mercury later that day.
1st first time Disney has shown traditional live game broadcasts on its streaming service. In recent years, Disney+ has aired animated simulcasts of both National Hockey League (NHL) and National Football League (NFL) games, which were aimed towards younger audiences.
Outside of the US, Disney+ recently acquired the exclusive broadcast rights to the Uefa Europa League and Uefa Conference League in Denmark and Sweden, with the three-year deal to commence next season. Disney+ Hotstar has also previously streamed Indian Premier League (IPL) games, before it lost the league’s digital rights to Viacom18.
The league’s chief marketing officer Phil Cook described her arrival as a “Tiger Woods entering the PGA Tour moment”.
2. Amazon to have big 4 US leagues?
A two-year pact with the NHL to stream games on Mondays in Canada, starting with the 2024–25 season, c
+ Kraken for regional rights to show the NHL team’s games on Prime Video to fans in Washington state, Oregon, and Alaska.
Separately closing in on a landmark deal to acquire a portion of the NBA’s national rights, according to The Athletic.
Adding to:
Long-term rights with the NFL for Thursday Night Football
Regional streaming pact with MLB’s Yankees for 21 games this season.
Amazon also has a deal with Diamond Sports Group regional broadcast rights (subject to regulatory approval)
NBA Brazil
Amazon would have a set of U.S. rights relationships among the most popular American sports properties only rivaled by ESPN. The Disney-owned network currently has national-level domestic rights to the NFL, MLB, NBA, and NHL.
Every other broadcast network and streamer is missing out entirely on one or more of those major leagues in their respective rights portfolios.
Amazon is scheduled to have its 2024 upfront presentation to advertisers May 14, and its fast-growing sports programming slate is expected to be a central component of that event.
3. F1 Miami US Ratings - All is not (quite) what it seems – behind the headline
This year’s Miami Grand Prix pulled in an average audience of 3.1 million viewers on ABC, making it the largest live US television audience on record for a Formula One race.
Race-only viewership on 5th May smashed the previous record of 2.6 million set for the inaugural Miami Grand Prix in 2022
Ricardo Fort Twitter – “The most incredible part of the news isn't being "the most-watched Formula 1 race in U.S. history", but beating @NASCAR by 800,000 viewers. Incredible achievement for @F1”
Context:
The series’ average viewership through the first three races of the 2024 campaign was also down 24 per cent year-over-year.
Miami ratings were up because:
Better timezone
Rain delay for Nascar
Game 7 of NDA Playoffs round one – Cavs v Magic
Was on ABC
Adjusted for these factors, race was probably on a par with 2023