UP392 Has NBC earned the right to host Premier League games in the US?

NBC has built an audience for the Premier League in North America, creating a broadcast home for English club football for more than a decade. The television giant's latest six year deal is worth $450million-per-season to the league, more than five times the size of their original US rights deal, in 2013.
Does that money buy them the right to host Premier League games in the USA?
Adam Crafton of The Athletic/New York Times has just moved over to the US to cover the run-in to the 2026 FIFA World Cup, and he recently wrote a deep dive in to NBC’s relationship with the Premier League, which is the starting point for our conversation today. 
NBC continues to push for Premier League games in the US. 
Now we ask, what happens next?
Crafton is one of the best journalists covering sport today. He recently won the top prize of Sportswriter of the Year at the 2023 SJA British Sports Journalism Awards.

Joining Adam is Mike Darcey, formerly CEO of News UK who spent 15 years at Sky, initially as Director of Strategy, then as Chief Operating Officer from 2006. He’s currently Chair of broadcast services company Arqiva, aswell as Chair of British Gymnastics and Director of Sky New Zealand.

Unofficial Partner is the leading podcast for the business of sport. A mix of entertaining and thought provoking conversations with a who's who of the global industry.
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Transcript

Unofficial Partner Podcast

UP392

Has NBC earned the right to host Premier League games in the US?

[00:00:00] Hello, and welcome to another episode of Unofficial Partner, the sports business podcast. I'm Richard Gillis. 

[00:00:05] NBC has built an audience for the premier league in north America, creating a broadcast home for English cup football for more than a decade, the television giants latest six year deal. Is worth $450 million per season to the league more than five times the size of their original us rights deal back in 2013. 

[00:00:23] So does that money buy them the right to host premier league games in the USA? Adam Crofton of the athletic and the New York times has just. moved over to the U S to cover. The run into the 2026 FIFA world cup. And he recently wrote a deep dive into NBC's relationship with the premier league, which is the starting point for our conversation today.

[00:00:43] . The most eye-catching element was a quote from NBC's John Miller, the head of acquisitions, raising the issue of hosting premier league games in the United States. 

[00:00:52] Adam Crafton: We know that, US Soccer and MLS are hugely opposed to this, right? They're opposed to this because they basically fear the real thing coming over, right? And that doesn't make them look great. And it could potentially cannibalize their ecosystem, because for them, it wouldn't just be a Premier League game, it would also be, La Liga could come, Serie A could come, Ligue 1 could come, the Mexican league could come.

[00:01:13] most watched team on television in the United States is not an American team, it's the Mexican team, it's Club America so, I think that's why MLS are nervous about it. 

[00:01:23] Adam Crafton is one of the best journalists covering sport. 

[00:01:26] Today. He recently won the top prize of sports writer of the year. At the 2023 SJA pretty sports journalism awards. He's Joining Adam is Mike Darcy. Someone I wanted to get on the podcast for some time. Mike was CEO of news, UK, formerly news international. Publishers of the times, the Sunday times and some newspapers. 

[00:01:44] And prior to that, he spent 15 years at sky initially as director of strategy. And then as chief operating officer from 2006, he's currently chair of broadcast services company. Archiver. As well as chair of British gymnastics and director of sky, New 

[00:01:59] Zealand. 

[00:02:00] UP: Unofficial Partner is the leading podcast for the business of sport, a mix of entertaining and thought provoking conversations. With the who's who of the global industry? To join our community of tens of thousands of people. Sign up to the weekly Unofficial Partner newsletter and follow us on Twitter and Tik TOK. At Unofficial Partner.

[00:02:19] 

[00:02:25] UP: Mike Darcy. Hello. 

[00:02:26] Whereabouts are you?

[00:02:27] Mike Darcey: I'm sitting looking out the window in Foy in Cornwall. 

[00:02:31] UP: Oh.

[00:02:32] I know it. Well, very nice bit of the world.

[00:02:34] Mike Darcey: very sunny and the boats are going by. It's all very idyllic.

[00:02:37] Unofficial Partner: And Adam, I'm asking Mike that because I'm going to switch, quite thrillingly. We're now in California. Are we?

[00:02:43] Adam Crafton: Yeah, so I'm in Santa Monica today, and I'm heading into this just now sounds like I'm showing off, but I'm in Santa Monica and I'm heading into Beverly Hills for a couple of meetings but also I'm going to view Red Bull, have a performance center out here, so There's a guy I know who used to work in English football who's kindly invited me in just to have a look around there and then a few meetings With some people from the business of business of football world over the next few days.

[00:03:10] There's a few conferences out here There's a conference tomorrow, which is Which might sound a little bit odd for a football reporter. There's a travel exhibition exhibition In Los Angeles and quite a few of the host cities of the World Cup are exhibiting there. So, with this being the kind of the first World Cup where there's no local organizing committee, it's all being done by FIFA in conjunction with these 14 cities you're having to get to know a hell of a lot of people from kind of tourist boards and all different aspects of kind of city govern governance that you maybe wouldn't usually be too concerned about.

[00:03:45] Unofficial Partner: It was quite an bun fight , for those places, wasn't it?, it was quite interesting seeing FIFA through their eyes actually, as they, came over and how they perceived what they were selling compared to what the NFL owners mainly or the stadia owners thought they were, it was quite a culture clash.

[00:04:00] Adam Crafton: Well, I think there's probably a whole series to be done on sort of FIFA meeting democracy, right? Having dealt with Qatar and Russia for the past decade or so. And I think there was that famous Jerome Valka quote, right? The former FIFA Secretary General basically said, It's easier to get stuff done with a dictatorship, was essentially what he was arguing at the time.

[00:04:21] And I think, FIFA are They're getting there now, they are they're happy. I mean if you just go on the FIFA jobs portal at the moment and Look at how many lawyers they're hiring out here in the States. So obviously opening they've got offices now in Miami Huge huge amount of recruitment going on.

[00:04:38] It's late. I think you know given we're only two years out I'm not sure there's been a huge amount of marketing around this 26 World Cup to be honest. I don't think the general consciousness of the, of people within America is probably what it should be yet for, for this tournament. But no, certainly what, what in terms of what you're saying around just the expectations of revenue shares, I think, some of these stadium owners are probably in conflict to an extent with the cities because the cities obviously want the revenue that comes from the, the tourism.

[00:05:06] But I think the stadium are very used to getting things their way and dealing with things their way, not having to sort of follow all the different FIFA protocols I think some of them are just thinking well we could just put a Taylor Swift concert on, we could put a Beyonce concert on, and it would be no real difference, to us as stadium owners and we'd probably make more money out of it.

[00:05:25] So, I think FIFA are having to come to terms with a World Cup not being the centre of America's universe.

[00:05:31] Unofficial Partner: But would that grow the game of football globally, Adam? That's the question.

[00:05:34] Adam Crafton: And is that the priority for, Bobcraft and uh, Stan Kroenker and, and, and all these guys? Maybe it is, to an extent, but is it to the extent that they want to lose money? Probably not.

[00:05:45] Unofficial Partner: What I wanted to jump off really was your, you did a piece obviously while you were over there with NBC and

[00:05:53] the headline that came out 

[00:05:55] of it or the bit that got people excited.

[00:05:58] Was the stuff about, games being

[00:06:00] played over there. And there's a quote 

[00:06:02] can you Just give us a bit of background before I get, we'll bring Mike in, in

[00:06:06] terms of looking at what the implications of this could be and where we might go with it. But just give us, just tell us what the thing was about. And there's a question in here about what you were surprised, if you go into the NBC and you're looking at the Premier League over there, was there anything that sort of surprised you that,

[00:06:25] that, that, Went against your expectations? 

[00:06:28] Adam Crafton: Yeah, so I suppose the context of this is NBC is is the biggest international media broadcast partner of, of the English Premier League. It's a $2.7 billion deal over six year period. NBC have had the Premier League for a pretty long time now, I think since 20, so 2013.

[00:06:45] And they don't, they don't really do any other football. They, they don't have the Champions League, they don't do any of the other European domestic leagues. Their Spanish language channel Telemundo, does Women's World Cup, and they've got, obviously they've got the Olympics. But in the season, they don't have anything soccer wise that is competing, and Saturday and Sunday mornings, there's no other US sports, really, that happen during that time.

[00:07:06] So, they've made themselves the network of the Premier League. And that gives them a pretty powerful voice, you would have to say, at the table with the Premier League. Now, the background of, of these comments that were made by John Miller, who's the the guy who does the negotiating of, of the acquisition of rights and partnerships for NBC, is that in the past few weeks previously FIFA had been among those, those bodies that were firmly opposed to leagues playing their games outside of their territory.

[00:07:38] So, there was this famous case a few years ago where Relevant Sport, which is a promoter, events promoter, owned by the Miami Dolphins billionaire Stephen Ross, big real estate guy. If you're into your gyms, he owns all the, the Equinox buildings around America as well. 

[00:07:55] Unofficial Partner: Hard rock cafes, 

[00:07:56] Adam Crafton: Hard Rock Cafe, yeah, a stadium in Miami, hugely involved in the Miami Grand Prix over the weekend.

[00:08:02] So, yeah. A, a pretty serious player in US sport and, and he wanted to bring over a Laga fixture. It was Barcelona against Gerona. And that was blocked. That was blocked at the time. And FIFA were among those that were blocking that, there was then this big legal battle because US Soccer then subsequently banned, I think it was an Ecuadorian game, that they were trying to bring over as well at that time.

[00:08:25] And then, really, this has been something that's rumbled in the background for four or five years. It's been a legal battle, everyone's known it's going on. And then, all of a sudden, a few weeks ago Relevant dropped FIFA from the lawsuit. And essentially what appears to have happened is there's been a settlement of some kind is coming.

[00:08:45] FIFA's lawyer said at one of the hearings last week that there'll probably be a change of policy by the end of the year. So it looks to most people as though FIFA are stepping back. And with FIFA stepping back, that then creates space for promoters such as Relevant, broadcasters such as NBC to say, Hey, Well, hey, if FIFA aren't going to block this, can we start to have this discussion again around Could we possibly take the old Premier League game or La Liga game outside of their territories to the United States I'm sure BN Sport would love to take a game I'm speaking theoretically here before I get told off by BN, but would love to take a game to Qatar or the Saudis would love to take a game to Saudi, maybe before the Chinese would have liked to take a game So, it enables this conversation and then it becomes a political struggle between all the different Stakeholders, whether that's supporters, clubs, federations, confederations, but it does look as though FIFA is saying, not our fight.

[00:09:43] Unofficial Partner: So they devolved it. Mike, what do you think? It's interesting when you look across at, there's the Premier League story and then you look at, if you sort of go out even very slightly, you've got a few very, very big sports properties around the NFL is the obvious one and NBA, they are sort of doing similar things the other way, or they're looking to expand.

[00:10:03] Everyone is growing and everyone, we know the sort of idea of the global fan and then, then sort of the local audience. Just give

[00:10:11] me a sense of 

[00:10:12] what you think of the big

[00:10:13] idea, first of all, before we get to the sort of minutiae of the, whether it's going to happen or not.

[00:10:18] Mike Darcey: Well, I think growing your international audience as a as a sports

[00:10:22] proposition is, is extremely important. I mean, I think we had

[00:10:26] several

[00:10:26] years in which, sports bodies were able to make progress by growing their domestic.

[00:10:33] And, and for many, that's pretty much topped out and, and, and in some places it's even going slightly backwards, but the world's a big place.

[00:10:40] And so if you can grow your fandom more broadly than that, then there's the opportunity to continue growing your revenue. and I guess I would say that the Premier League has, has perhaps been the most successful property on the planet at doing that in terms of international revenue compared to domestic.

[00:10:58] I mean, it is. It has already done very well.

[00:11:02] So I, I guess I might start by saying look, it's not clear that there's a big problem for the Premier League here. That they need to fix by considering shifting some games to a different territory. They're already doing better than most other sports in growing their fandom.

[00:11:16] So it doesn't seem to be a burning problem with, we've seen a lot of the American leagues, looking to bring full fixtures to the UK and, and to Germany and the rest. And they've been doing that for quite a long time, but they seem to have been doing it against a backdrop of

[00:11:31] sort of struggling a little bit to really grow serious fandom in the UK and Europe beyond the sort of expat US 

[00:11:39] community.

[00:11:40] so,

[00:11:41] I think growing your global fandom is extremely important, but taking, sort of regular season games on the road. It's a big, big thing is a big line to cross. And I guess you have to ask whether it's really worth all the hassle that you're going to get and what you're really going to achieve.

[00:11:56] I mean, the, the background story with the NBC here is that they're paying, a great deal of money in the U S much more than in the past. So again, it's not like there's a problem here that the, the game is not picking up in the U S in the absence of such games.

[00:12:13] Unofficial Partner: It's interesting, isn't it? You could look

[00:12:15] at it like a sort of Overton window type argument where there might be small incremental things that start to happen that shift people's idea of what's possible over time. And there might be, if someone is in,

[00:12:28] Thinking

[00:12:28] in this way, you might say, actually, we could start with,

[00:12:32] mean, it's interesting, relevant sport.

[00:12:33] We always used to call them irrelevant because always the stuff that they had, no one cared about, it was always, summer tours

[00:12:39] and, preseason stuff that no one really cares about other than the managers moaning about, players and injuries, et cetera. But now we're talking about actually, could something concrete happen?

[00:12:52] And I wonder if it will be.

[00:12:54] In small moments, small incremental opener, gate, season opener, for example, might be,

[00:13:00] I mean, it'd be controversial, but people, you can start to see how you can start to then play with that, whether I still don't know whether it's a good idea or

[00:13:07] not, in terms of, I

[00:13:08] think sometimes, It's actually the exoticism of being not in around the corner is actually part of the appeal.

[00:13:16] I always think that the NFL, the NFL has been threatening to open a London franchise for sort of 30 years. It's actually when they started coming over and playing games, a lot of people said, well, actually,

[00:13:26] it's, it's not that great. It was much better as a television product. 

[00:13:30] Mike Darcey: Yeah, I mean, we have sort of been around this loop once before, about 15 years ago when there was the famous

[00:13:35] 39th 

[00:13:36] Unofficial Partner: Yeah, 

[00:13:38] Mike Darcey: controversy.

[00:13:39] And this is slightly different because last time we were engaging with this, the idea was,

[00:13:45] Over and above the 38 games that a team would normally play in a season, there would be a 39th.

[00:13:51] So we would ship everybody over to the U. S. in January, I think the idea was, and play an extra round.

[00:13:59] And it'd be some kind of

[00:14:02] convoluted draw as to who would, who would play who and it would be in five

[00:14:06] cities and it would sort of slot in between the rest of the games. But I think the idea was that the points from that would count towards the championship.

[00:14:17] And people didn't like that for a lot of reasons and it sort of got shouted down. As far as I understand what the NBC thing is, this is a different idea this time. This is not actually. A 39th game. It's one of the 38. And I think, I think uh, NBC was saying, Hey, look, you could come and bring some of the games from the opening round.

[00:14:34] over to the S,

[00:14:36] UBS, that would be nice. I guess I'd say look, as I think Adam, you've alluded to, other people, if that was being contemplated, would put their hands up as well.

[00:14:45] NBC's a big international player, Viaplay pay almost as much, or maybe the same, roughly as NBC do and have been doing so for longer.

[00:14:54] So I think they might

[00:14:55] uh, Reasonably put their hands up and say, well, hang on, if, if you guys are getting some games, can, can we have some too? And, and yeah, I'm sure

[00:15:04] BN

[00:15:04] would be pretty keen and, and, if this conversation kicks off, it could, it could go in all sorts of directions from here. But I can imagine fans being even more up in arms this time around than they were when it was a 39.

[00:15:17] Adam Crafton: And I think, Mike, that's the most powerful. argument that opponents of this will seek to use.

[00:15:23] So, I mean, we know that, US Soccer and MLS are hugely opposed to this, right? They're opposed to this because this, they, they basically fear the real thing coming over, right? And that doesn't make them look great. And it could potentially cannibalize their ecosystem if, because for them, it wouldn't just be a Premier League game, it would also be, La Liga could come, Serie A could come, Ligue 1 could come, the Mexican league could come.

[00:15:46] The most watched team on television in the United States is not an American team, it's the Mexican team, it's Club America the Brazilian league may come, Argentina may come, some of those kind of Ecuador, Panama that have big communities here in the States. So, I think that's why MLS are nervous about it.

[00:16:03] So, and I think that's the powerful argument that opponents will use, the slippery slope argument, right? It starts with, you know, NBC aren't making a formal proposal here, as far as I know. I mean, they answer the question that I, I basically said to them, look, that FIFA have looked like they're stepping back, how would you feel about the possibility of bringing a game over?

[00:16:23] And they were like, well, we'd, we'd sell the stadiums and Wouldn't it be great to have a couple of opening games here? I mean, that was really the extent of it. And then everything went a bit mad. So, And I understand it because people really care. Right? And that's a kind of a credit to the Premier League, right?

[00:16:37] That people feel so strongly about about their teams and this competition. I suppose the flip side, the powerful counter argument, which I don't hear that many people making, but if I was arguing if I was strategizing around persuading people on this. I'll be saying something along the lines of, there was a guy I met yesterday in Santa Monica who wakes up at 4am every single weekend to watch Leeds United play, right?

[00:17:05] What makes him less committed as a global supporter of his football team than a guy who by chance happened to grow up two miles away from Elland Road and travels to every home game and goes to a few away games each season? Why is that person more committed than the other? And that is a kind of an existential question for English football as it grows and grows.

[00:17:34] I think that's the counter argument. The problem, as you guys will know for sure, is there is nobody at the moment in English football, when we look at owners or Premier League HQ, that has the authority, combined authority, clout and charisma to actually be able to persuade the media and the fan base and unite them over ideas that are controversial.

[00:17:58] We saw that with the Super League, none of them really had the guts to actually come out and explain it and communicate a vision for it. And I think that would be the same here again and I think that would be the ultimate limiting factor, it would provide a vacuum that would be filled by opponents.

[00:18:13] Unofficial Partner: yeah. so at the front of my head, we just last week We were in Madrid for the ECA, the European Club Association's sort of first conference of all the clubs. And we did a turn on stage and they've gone very quickly to 600 and

[00:18:27] something, member clubs.

[00:18:29] And a lot of those are at

[00:18:30] the sort of lower end of the pyramid, 

[00:18:33] but obviously also

[00:18:34] include all the big ones as well, apart from Real. So a lot of the conversation was.

[00:18:40] the diaspora long tail argument, on a micro level. So it's this conversation at a lower price point. So then you inevitably bounce to, okay, season tickets.

[00:18:52] You can't get a season ticket at Liverpool or you can't get a season ticket at any of the big clubs, because they're

[00:18:58] a sort of inherited 

[00:18:59] item now they're sort of passed on and so they're worried about both aging but also you've got this

[00:19:05] , basically a commercial problem that your revenues are set and as soon as you put the season

[00:19:09] ticket prices up obviously it's a, all hell breaks loose.

[00:19:12] So

[00:19:12] you've got that issue you've also got the bit which talks to you mentioned there about the, legitimacy of other fans from overseas

[00:19:22] or outside of England. The more difficult question is also, who's the more valuable?

[00:19:27] And you talk to the commercial people at football clubs in the Premier League and they say, well, you

[00:19:31] know, someone coming to Spurs from Korea is spending multiples

[00:19:35] of what a Spurs fan does who comes down the road. And it's obviously you can see, the controversy building of, okay, well, we can't have a stadium full of 

[00:19:44] people from overseas. We probably could, have more of them and we'll make much more money because They're on holiday and they're spending. So it's quite, it's a really nuanced 

[00:19:54] one. 

[00:19:55] There's

[00:19:55] a bit of me that

[00:19:55] wonders about whether it actually has ever worked. I'm trying to think of examples where a league going outside of

[00:20:02] its natural borders has ever worked. I know that the IPL in cricket is sort of forever 

[00:20:09] talking 

[00:20:09] Adam Crafton: of its national limits has ever gone into a sport.

[00:20:20] I think 

[00:20:23] Mike Darcey: I think

[00:20:23] it does, but I think it, it, it's to a modest degree against a backdrop of frustration that,

[00:20:32] They're not making headway by other means. I mean, the MBA rights in the UK, for example, have bounced around from network to network, not paid a lot of money for, not hugely loved.

[00:20:44] Partly because most of the games are played at 2 o'clock in the morning and against that backdrop, they are, they are struggling to grow that fandom, or at least monetize that fandom. So yeah, I can, I can see why they need to try these tricks, but as I say, when the Premier League's already making 450 million

[00:21:02] dollars a year from NBC at the moment and people are flying from all over the world to come and, have a trip of a lifetime to go and see Spurs play or go and see Manchester United play

[00:21:14] The current system sort of seems to be working pretty well.

[00:21:16] Adam Crafton: see Manchester United play.

[00:21:20] The current system sort of seems to be working pretty well. With, with I think Amazon and Fox were involved, you had CBS were at the table, it was, seriously competitive, who knows what Apple will do in the future. The problem is a lot of these clubs are still losing money. So they would say we still need new revenue streams, that's why they all dived in headfirst to crypto deals and NFTs and whatever over the past few years, because where a cash grab is available, the record, the evidence shows, they would always take it.

[00:21:59] Unofficial Partner: But 

[00:21:59] that's a, that's a cost based question though, isn't it? That's not

[00:22:01] a revenue based question. 

[00:22:03] Mike Darcey: Well,

[00:22:04] I think, I think the traditional problem is the inability to hang on to the revenue. I think what they've 

[00:22:09] shown over the last 20 or 30 years is it doesn't matter how much money you pour in the 

[00:22:13] top of the

[00:22:14] funnel, it all drops straight through and ends up as, as used to be commented, the only place the money stops falling is the, is the player's car park.

[00:22:23] That's about

[00:22:24] the only. I think you can actually see the money stopping. So yeah, you could pour another hundred million in the top. I'm not sure that would improve the club's finances because they would bid it into,

[00:22:34] the market for players. in the end, if they want to become more profitable, there are, there are other things they would need to contemplate.

[00:22:41] And, and, and, and these sorts of conversations are cropping up around the salary cap kind of idea, which was being discussed in the last week, 

[00:22:50] that

[00:22:51] seems to be the challenge that they would need to fix rather than tipping another 10, 50, 100

[00:22:56] million dollars in 

[00:22:57] Unofficial Partner: so from the U. S. 's perspective, Adam, when you're looking, obviously you're there until the World Cup in 26, and that's a big moment. And you've, you get a lot of people on this podcast who are using that as a sort of marker in the sand to say, right, we're going to build a business here.

[00:23:11] We're going 

[00:23:12] to, 

[00:23:13] football in America is going to grow, whether it's at a MLS level, great quote, Dan Garber 

[00:23:19] soccer is using as a, as an ATM

[00:23:22] and There's

[00:23:23] a bit of truth in that, isn't there? A lot of people saying, right, okay, here at last, you can see Infantino's

[00:23:28] the whole machine moving towards that end and you can see it at a, as we mentioned at the beginning

[00:23:34] just at the city level of host cities, they were quite surprised at how brazen FIFA were in terms of when they came in and what, what they weren't allowed to sell.

[00:23:43] And, no, you can't have a naming rights deal on this stadium. It's, for that period of time. And there's, there's all of that rights minutiae, which is people, listening to this podcast know all about. That's the. Day to day of it. But also there's the big picture of how's this going to play out?

[00:23:56] Because there's a lot of expectations rushing towards the States and soccer in the States.

[00:24:01] How do you think that's going to work?

[00:24:03] Adam Crafton: well, and it's that kind of thing of, people have just been talking forever and will continue to talk forever about soccer potentially exploding in the States and the potential that comes out of that, right? The reality Football is exploding in the States, but NFL is so dominant, right? So, so, so, so dominant.

[00:24:25] Soccer is never going to be the most popular sport in the United States. I'm really sorry, right? Never going to happen. It's also not going to be more popular than NBA, right? At big moments. I think it could potentially overtake Major League Baseball and Hockey. Which is, which would be a hugely successful thing to happen.

[00:24:43] But, I mean, at least anecdotally so far, and I'd, I'd love to see more polling on this. It seems to me the explosion of interest in soccer in the States is around Premier League and European soccer. It's, it's not at the moment around MLS. There is this kind of fascination with Messi and selling out, the stadiums for Messi.

[00:25:04] But you know what happens after messy? I, I retire. He's, he's, he's gonna retire soon and there isn't another messy. So it, it, it's stimulating an audience and the value, we're seeing the valuations of MLS franchises continue to grow. in a really incredible way. I think that the NWSL is really interesting in terms of the valuations that we're seeing for for some of those teams as well.

[00:25:31] So there's clearly a huge amount of investment and excitement and the World Cup will continue to breed that as well. I think the Premier League are fortunate, if you look at when that NBC deal ends in 28, that means if there is this huge uptake in interest, that gives a potential for another really significant uplift in their next deal potentially in the States and big competition for it.

[00:25:54] I think the MLS deal, which is 10 years with Apple, almost means they're probably going to miss that moment actually, to do another deal. Maybe there's something baked in that, means if X amount of people subscribe, we grow, but. I struggle to see from a domestic U. S. perspective. And this is, this was something that Infantino, he had a meeting with MLS owners a couple of weeks ago.

[00:26:17] And he was basically challenging them to say, look, over the next few years, we've got this Club World Cup here. I've not spoken about that. That's a whole other story. Club World Cup, the World Cup, there'll be a Women's World Cup here. Obviously now it won't be 27. We'll almost certainly be 31.

[00:26:32] And, I want to see, Infantino, who's, who's he least friendly with at the moment? UEFA, right? He wants there to be this global club game. He wants there to be 50, he always talks about 50 successful club teams globally that can compete with one another. And actually, for all, for all the crap that Infantino often rightly gets, on this, I think he's probably right.

[00:26:58] It shouldn't all be concentrated in Europe. It should be spread around the world. And There should be the potential for us to be talking about storylines in Mexico and Brazil and Scandinavia, et cetera. And he sees the Club World Cup as the path to this, but he wants MLS to be a really big part of this conversation.

[00:27:14] Now how you really get there is a whole other question, right? Does it mean opening up Champions League, right? Is the path to that actually to say the UEFA Champions League lets in two teams from MLS, Two team from Saudi, that's probably part of what, where this conversation starts to go. A lot of people will hate that, some people will like it.

[00:27:37] But I think, I think that's really the only realistic way that I see MLS becoming a really relevant part of the global football conversation. I don't know if you guys see other, other ways for that to happen?

[00:27:50] Unofficial Partner: I mean, I've heard the argument put several times that if you are going to create a genuinely global Super League, you would do it in the US. You wouldn't do it in Europe. In Europe, because of the culture of closed leagues, because to your point earlier, the control of salary, you can do things there that perhaps you can't over here.

[00:28:10] If the MLS is going to fulfil its obvious potential, it has to. Have the best players in the world. They can't, they can't just be messy at the end of his career. It has to change that dynamic for it to have any meaning.

[00:28:23] At all. So how do you do that?

[00:28:25] And, will the next generation of American money start to move into domestic franchises, in which case, the more money they have, then they start buying the same, the talent that the Premier League's bought since, the Abramovich boom. So I can, I can sort of see that, but

[00:28:44] it feels very 

[00:28:45] Mike Darcey: It seems quite a long way away. I mean, that's, that's a lot of money. I mean, I mean the way,

[00:28:51] Sort of the football market works in, in the end, it's a, it's a battle for global talent. It's one global market for talent. And at the moment, or in the last while, they're not completely dominant, but the Premier League is winning.

[00:29:05] And that's, and that's what, that's what matters to the Premier League more, more than anything else. It matters less to it. The absolute amount of revenue that it makes, and it matters more, the gap between it and the other European leagues.

[00:29:19] And at the moment, the Premier League, domestically and international revenue added up, they're making about twice what La Liga is making, and then the others are further behind.

[00:29:28] And that, and that in the end, is the, factor that sort of drives the flywheel for the Premier League and that, and the thing they pay most attention to. And while that continues, they will continue to attract the greatest share of global footballing talent, obviously not all of it, because there's still large sums of money elsewhere that can, that can buy players.

[00:29:47] And I, I struggle to see a scenario in which

[00:29:51] that changes, a huge amount of money would have to be invested in the US and I can't see there being a return on that. If you, if you wanted to speculate on how that could change, I just think you have to look at golf.

[00:30:04] and ask, who's got enough money to potentially take a 20 year view and say, I'm going to relocate the center of gravity of world football, put enough money on the table that attracts the big players.

[00:30:19] I think you'd have to talk about money from the Middle East. I think they're probably the only sorts of people who could have a sufficiently long term view and enough free cash to ever contemplate that. And even for them, it seemed a stretch to me.

[00:30:33] Adam Crafton: and also US sports teams aren't really owned by foreigners, right? It's an incredibly protectionist world, so that would be a real sort of shift of the sands.

[00:30:42] The point you make, Mike, around kind of the disparity between the Premier League and La Liga is why, I suppose, to come full circle with the conversation, La Liga will be the first movers on taking these games. Yes, if

[00:30:55] Mike Darcey: Yes. Yes. They've got a greater need to 

[00:30:58] Adam Crafton: a greater need to do that. So La Liga will go first, I imagine Serie A will follow, Ligue 1 will follow, we know that, PSG love this idea, they'd like it with the Champions League final.

[00:31:14] And I am curious around, I think that UEFA will move on this as well, actually in the next few years, because you do have some of these European clubs who need, or who think they need, to get closer to the Premier League, and they will push this in this direction. So I could see a Champions League final, or even a Champions League final.

[00:31:34] The thing they've been talking about a lot is this opening tournament, so at the moment you have the UEFA Super Cup, which is previous winners of Champions League and Europa League from the last season, start of the next season, play each other. No one really cares about it at the moment, to be honest, the Super Cup.

[00:31:50] I mean, I'm struggling to remember who was actually in it. and where it was at the start of this season. There's it's a, it's a bit meh. I don't think people feel a huge connection to it. So you're not, you're not taking something away from people. And I think what they would like to do with that is have the previous season's Champions League winners, Europa League winners, and then probably the two teams with the highest coefficients to go into an opening tournament that could be played somewhere abroad.

[00:32:17] And I think that's an idea that I would expect Uefa to move on pretty sharpish, to be honest, if it becomes possible. Also, who is the agent that sells the North American media rights for Uefa relevant? Right, so there is already these existing relationships that they have with La Liga, they do the same for them, and also for Uefa, and actually, interestingly, the EFL.

[00:32:43] They sell the North American media rights for and I have been wondering, you know Direct some fancy at a league one game right on the west coast, you know Is that so crazy right with with what with everything they're doing, you know I mean, I'll let I'll let them tell the Walsall fans or the Grimsby fans, right that that that their game is being taken over there but You could definitely see them being keen, imagine them being keen on that, or an early round of the Carabao Cup or something like that, so, and Tom, with Tom Brady, I mean, I wouldn't be telling Birmingham fans this week after they've just been relegated, but, you could imagine a kind of a Tom Brady, JJ Watt, the Will Ferrell stuff at Leeds now, you can imagine this being part of the conversation, and them not really realising the sensitivities, and then it's about who is brave enough at the table with them to say, Hey, what's this, what's this steam train coming down the tracks that's about to, to run you over?

[00:33:42] And, and that's something we just see this naivety time and time again, don't we? From the, from US sport and media execs on, on these kind of issues because they're not used to having to deal with fan sensitivities in quite the same way. generalisation, but it is a thing.

[00:33:57] Mike Darcey: And the fan sensitivities are particularly elevated in football.

[00:34:02] But, but I mean, I'm curious what you think being based over there now, I just, just, this seems to be a broader trend than football or soccer in the US at the moment. It feels to me like over the last five years there

[00:34:15] as a country, they're sort of discovering the merit of other sports that they previously not being particularly interested in.

[00:34:21] So we've been talking about the rise of the football or soccer story here, but I, 

[00:34:26] Obviously the same thing is going on in F1 and

[00:34:30] we've just had the Miami Grand Prix this weekend and, we're having more and more races

[00:34:34] there and they are

[00:34:37] shaping, the sport there. We've got rugby clearly trying to make a significant sort of move into North America and the Rugby World Cup is going there, I think, in 2031.

[00:34:48] so,

[00:34:49] having previously, for a long time being focused on their own sports, which very few others play, there's just sort of this general sense of, of opening up to the world and, and seeing what else is out there and actually deciding that there might be some other interesting things. I absolutely agree with you.

[00:35:04] Nothing's going to, nothing's going to topple the NFL,

[00:35:08] But, but for the other sports, they don't need to topple the NFL. You can have quite a modest share of the US market and that's still worth

[00:35:14] having. But this is broader than football, isn't it? modest share in the US market and that's still worth it. It's broader than football, isn't it? Either either NFL or college football. Yeah. Yes, yes, sorry. And then, the only things that are getting close are kind of emergency presidential addresses, State of the Union kind of stuff.

[00:35:36] Adam Crafton: So, no, you're not going to topple that. But as you say, it doesn't matter. NBC on a Saturday morning, as they're starting to do quite often with big games, hits numbers like 2 million across their platforms. Fantastic, right? Like, and I think you're right around rugby and cricket. I think that growth is way more nascent.

[00:35:54] Or 

[00:35:55] Mike Darcey: Or even I didn't take it to 

[00:35:56] Adam Crafton: cricket. I 

[00:35:57] Mike Darcey: I was thinking that 

[00:35:58] Adam Crafton: might be Well, you've got the, what is it, T20, right? The summer is is over here. So everyone's trying. Everyone thinks there's something in it for them. Certainly, anecdotally, there is, I mean, I, like I live in New York City, in Manhattan.

[00:36:14] I see a lot of, of soccer jerseys, right? And part of that is a lot of teams now have realized that kind of leisure wear, if you make it cool, is a really good way actually to, to increase access. I think the other thing that's helping the growth of some of these sports, this was something that NBC mentioned last week actually, is the liberalization of sports betting, is increasing viewership on some of the sports that may previously people wouldn't have necessarily had a connection.

[00:36:42] An emotional investment with but if all of a sudden you've got if you're waking up on a Saturday morning And you've got five dollars on Burnley against Everton You're gonna you're gonna check in right and it's hard to measure that growth and the other growth That was mentioned to me was around I think the growth of fantasy Premier League managers in the States is 40 percent up in the last two years.

[00:37:05] So that's another way, so through gaming and betting, there is this increased investment and engagement that the American public is having with some sports that they may previously not have been as familiar with. Now there's all sorts of questions 

[00:37:17] Mike Darcey: Well, you even follow teams that you previously wouldn't have bothered with,

[00:37:20] because you've got a Liverpool striker and you're not a Liverpool fan, but suddenly you're interested in their game, because you want to see if your

[00:37:27] player scored and 

[00:37:28] Adam Crafton: Exactly. Now, the other bit, which I, I'm not sure the Premier League necessarily do as well as they can, and far be it from me to tell them how to grow their brand, but when I walk around Manhattan, I see NFL stores, not, not NFL team stores, NFL stores, NBA stores, Major League Baseball stores. I think the Premier League still sees its growth almost team specific.

[00:37:56] We're always talking about which teams are the most popular in the US. And actually, when I look at, NBC do these huge fan festivals now, in big, in, they sell tens of thousands of tickets to Nashville and Austin and New Jersey and Boston, Philadelphia. And you see almost these, they are, a lot of these people are Premier League fans.

[00:38:17] As much as they are Liverpool fans. You'll see, you'll see. Manchester United and Liverpool fans almost stood next to each other cheering goals from the same game. Now clearly people still have their affiliations, but it is not the kind of, the, the rivalry and tension and hatred. It's a very different fan experience, and I know British football fans who may be listening to this will hate what I'm saying right now, right?

[00:38:39] Because it is so, it's incredibly alien to us, but I do wonder why the Premier League aren't doing sort of more, actually Premier League, Branding, rather than specific team branding, because I think there could be major growth in that, but maybe there's very good reasons why they don't. I

[00:38:58] Unofficial Partner: a, that's always been a bit of a conversation. So whether or not they devolve that to 

[00:39:03] the clubs and, and, 

[00:39:04] it's the club's job to 

[00:39:05] build their brands in, it 

[00:39:06] used to be a conversation about China, and it's a heck of an ass for, a hundred million pound, 200 million pound revenue business to start growing an audience in China or in America, these are, these are big marketing challenges and you're right in the.

[00:39:21] It's much more centralized. The NFL does a lot of the heavy lifting. in that sense. And then the teams ride on the back of it. And I think it's always been that way. I don't know quite whether it's a cultural thing, whether it's a, the Premier League sees itself as a sort of support function for its teams rather than, the American model, which is a lot of it is 

[00:39:42] centralized. And, they, they're sort 

[00:39:43] of take a great deal more 

[00:39:46] and they spend a lot of the central 

[00:39:47] money 

[00:39:48] on 

[00:39:48] marketing. I

[00:39:49] think you're right. There is some, there. is a difference there. Just a question of quite often

[00:39:54] there is this antagonist. They're all after the same brands. They're after the same sponsors.

[00:39:58] If Coke sponsors the Central Premier League deal, it's, it doesn't support, it doesn't sponsor Man United. There's 

[00:40:04] that sort of 

[00:40:05] micro tension, 

[00:40:06] Adam Crafton: they're the sponsors. And actually Richard, last summer the Premier League launched, it was actually with NBC, this summer series tournament in the States where you had six teams. I think Chelsea were probably the biggest team, but you had like Newcastle, Brighton, Brentford, I think Fulham were there someone else was there, Aston Villa were there.

[00:40:23] Now they want to do that again. The Premier League want to do it again, NBC want to do it again. It'll be probably next NBC have the Olympics this summer. But Actually a lot of the big clubs don't like it. They don't like it because when they go to, as Man United and Liverpool did, they're doing this summer, when they go to North Carolina and sell out a college football stadium, sell it out in 15 minutes, quicker than Beyonce and Jay Z concerts, they get the money themselves.

[00:40:50] They don't want to have to share, they're already sharing domestic rights, international rights to a lesser extent these days. They don't want to share a pre season tournament as well. So actually centralizing some of this stuff. is a turn off for some of these kind of big club owners that, that recognize that the brands that drive the Premier League in their opinion are Manchester United, Liverpool, Arsenal, Chelsea, etc.

[00:41:13] And that's why increasingly every summer now you just sort of see the clubs we're most familiar with playing each other. You know last, last summer United and Arsenal played each other, this summer United, Arsenal, Liverpool will play each other, Chelsea and Man City will play each other. It's not particularly Interesting to us back home, but, but here it's what people will pay for and wanna see

[00:41:33] Unofficial Partner: It's quite interesting talking about America and the opening up and , we've mentioned there that NBC's leveraging of its own media rights spend. So it's saying that we've spent a lot of money. We want something back, whether it's a game here or where, whatever it is, it's a bun fight between, something will happen. In other markets though, Premier League is out there experimenting with a sort of. PremFlix model in, there's a, a tender out there at the moment in terms of, the direct to fan model, which again is a bit of the other bit of the picture. Now you 

[00:42:04] and again, 

[00:42:04] you don't

[00:42:05] go direct 

[00:42:06] to fan when you're making, 

[00:42:09] X billions from a particular marketplace.

[00:42:11] But it's quite interesting, Mike, isn't it? That

[00:42:14] you've got these two things going on at the same

[00:42:16] time. And the Premier League is always going to be at the front of these conversations, because if they're, lots of sports are looking at OTT stuff and direct to fan stuff and their own channels. But

[00:42:26] actually, if the Premier League does it in a particular market, it's going to be quite a big moment, I think.

[00:42:31] Mike Darcey: Yeah, I have my doubts. I mean, I think it's right for

[00:42:35] big sporting organizations to be looking at this, but I think most of the work that's being done on this quickly reaches the conclusion that,

[00:42:42] look as nice as it sounds. You're probably going to make less money via a direct premflix type model in a territory than you are selling to a broadcast market, at least at current prices.

[00:42:56] I think there comes a point where broadcast fees

[00:43:00] drop sufficiently far that a premflix model may well be the right path to go, but I think we're quite some way away 

[00:43:07] from 

[00:43:07] that. I guess the Premier League is always vulnerable to. A territory in which there's now only one player

[00:43:15] and, in the complete absence of realistic competition, Premier League thinks it's getting done over in which case I think it wants a credible backstop. And it doesn't want to, the first time that happens to say, well, if you don't pay up, we're going to go direct to consumer

[00:43:31] and broadcaster says, yeah, good luck with that. You're not even ready. So I think, I think they need to be ready to have that as a credible threat. I really doubt it's going to 

[00:43:40] be there.

[00:43:40] Yeah. Sort of frontline approach for, for quite a long time, but I, I think it's probably going to be a smart idea for them to deploy it in a couple of markets just to show that they can and would if the broadcasters get a bit too cute and try and take the number down too far.

[00:43:56] Unofficial Partner: There's a

[00:43:56] sort of NFL game pass the other way, isn't it? So that's,

[00:43:59] I

[00:43:59] mean, I don't, I'm not a subscriber myself, but people, that's, that's changed hands. There's a, there's, they've spent a lot of

[00:44:04] money. 

[00:44:05] The NFL looking at trying to develop that as a, as a route to, to this market.

[00:44:11] Mike Darcey: Yeah. And again, and I think that's because they've 

[00:44:14] slightly struggled in many other territories to monetize any other way. They haven't quite persuaded. A very competitive broadcast market in territories to, to bid the value of the rights up.

[00:44:25] Unofficial Partner: Yeah. Hmm.

[00:44:27] Mike Darcey: selling in the US for 450 million,

[00:44:32] I don't, I don't think you asked the question for very long.

[00:44:34] We think, yeah, yeah, we'll just take the check. Thanks. 

[00:44:36] Bye. See you in six years. 

[00:44:38] Adam Crafton: And it's also interesting that the Premier League has resisted doing what kind of NFL and Major League Baseball and NBA do here, which is, package out across different broadcasters and streaming platforms and actually have kept everything on NBC.

[00:44:52] I mean, that's been an incredibly loyal relationship from both sides. I mean, NBC now, as a consumer experience is very good, but you are now spread across, there's a cable platform, there's USA Network and NBC and then also Peacock. Which is their over the top streaming platform, but they, but basically, if there's a Premier League game, it's on it It's on one of the NBC platforms.

[00:45:14] It's easy to find you don't have to go hunting for it 

[00:45:17] Mike Darcey: know it's on Peacock and that Peacock is a, is an NBC 

[00:45:21] play? And do they like cross promote between them to say, 

[00:45:24] Oh, the next 

[00:45:25] game 

[00:45:25] is on 

[00:45:25] Peacock? 

[00:45:26] Adam Crafton: Yeah, there's a lot of cross 

[00:45:27] Mike Darcey: There is a benefit of 

[00:45:28] the three sort of being in one family. 

[00:45:31] Adam Crafton: involved?

[00:45:31] Yeah, I mean, and Peacock, so, I mean, for some people listening to this may not know, I mean, Peacock only launched in, I think, 2020, 2021, and it was in zero homes, it's now, I think, 34 million. So it's grown pretty fast. It has a lot of kind of, um, uh, release movies, Oppenheimer was on there last year and, and stuff like that.

[00:45:53] I mean, how central sports is to its growth, I think is an interesting 

[00:45:58] Mike Darcey: We're about to do another chapter on that story when we hear the outcome of the

[00:46:04] NBA because I think, you know, they're rumored to be in the market for a big slug of that. And if, if that happens, that's going to really transform their prospects. 

[00:46:12] 

[00:46:12] Adam Crafton: to be in the market for a big slug of land. If that happens, that's going to really transform the business. And you just sort of flick between one to the other, to the other, to the other, to the other.

[00:46:38] I know it's not PremFlix in the idea of like the club selling directly and, and things like that, but as a user experience, it's probably as close as you get to that. And it's, it's an amazing user experience. Going from somewhere where, you might get two or three games a weekend, maybe four, back home, and they're chosen for you, and, the games, obviously the 3pm blackout, et cetera.

[00:47:03] You come here and you're like, I can't believe we've put up with this for so long, right? Given what, given what we pay, initially, before I got people may or may not know that when you take an apartment in Manhattan, it's almost always unfurnished. So it took a while for a TV to actually come.

[00:47:16] So all I had the first few weeks was just pe was Peacock. And there you tend to get, sort of, six or seven of the games on there and the others might be on USA Network or NBC. I was paying 6 a month for that. And it's like, you feel like you're stealing, because it's, it's, it's so cheap. And obviously that depends on supply, demand, and NFL's more expensive here, and all that sort of stuff.

[00:47:39] But, it is an incredible user experience, particularly, when you have those Saturday mornings. You can just spend the Saturday morning in bed, watching one game to the next game to the next game. And it's, and that's part of the reason it's taken off, and be safe, really. Sort of dug into this idea of like families spending their mornings together.

[00:48:01] It being a family 

[00:48:01] activity and Yeah, 

[00:48:03] Mike Darcey: Yeah, it's 

[00:48:03] really working 

[00:48:04] as a time, as a

[00:48:05] time slot for them, I was 

[00:48:07] Unofficial Partner: That irritation level 

[00:48:09] of, multiple outlets,

[00:48:12] multiple 

[00:48:12] subscriptions. It's quite interesting when you then get into the data around piracy, because a lot of the assumption is that it's about money and it is 

[00:48:21] about money, it's costing too much, but it's

[00:48:23] also about irritation and,

[00:48:26] I'm working too hard to follow.

[00:48:27] Spurs, it's just, it shouldn't be 

[00:48:29] this 

[00:48:29] difficult and , there's a stat that, that jumps out, which is that most people who pirate

[00:48:35] also subscribe

[00:48:36] to football. So , it's quite counterintuitive, 

[00:48:39] but it's quite a nice way into actually. That is a really significant bit. If it's always on this one channel you end up, Mike, going back to the sort of European decision in the, whatever it was that broke, breaking up Sky's monopoly and what the, the ramifications

[00:48:55] have 

[00:48:55] been not just for football, but for sport more generally, in terms of that sort of splintering and the incentive to create smaller broadcast packages,

[00:49:05] Mike Darcey: Yeah, which works, which works for some people, but, but the fan who wants it all ends up, ends up paying more. So, 

[00:49:12] there are 

[00:49:12] there are trade offs 

[00:49:13] there. Look, I guess your experience in the US, 

[00:49:17] Adam, would be that

[00:49:19] The 699 package, although I think Peacock pricing 

[00:49:22] is going up, a little bit. I don't think it's going to be 699 for long.

[00:49:25] But no, that's a great deal for you. But if you wanted to watch the game on NBC or USA Network, that might cost you a hundred dollars. a month for cable or I might find way to watch that if my key team happens to be not one of the ones on the Peacock, so. 

[00:49:43] Adam Crafton: my key team, Manchester United, have been trying to avoid their games for the past few weeks.

[00:49:49] So, when they are on USA Network, I just don't watch it. 

[00:49:54] But no, in general, I think, I think you're right. I mean, it would be a cable subscription or broadband or whatever. And yes, that would take it higher, but obviously then you get a huge amount of other things 

[00:50:06] Mike Darcey: That's the argument why I'd say it's not really Premflex, because,

[00:50:10] The model that's been most successful around the world is sport as part of a broader

[00:50:15] bundle of content. And that's been the most efficient way to monetize it. And anybody who's tried to just

[00:50:22] buy sport in order to sell sport has basically failed.

[00:50:26] It's only really worked. Or, or, or it's always outbid by somebody who can inject it into a broader bundle and, and, and make money off a broader set of

[00:50:36] stuff. 

[00:50:36] Adam Crafton: inject it into a good market and make money off a good set of stuff. Men, male owners of Premier League clubs who think they can do it better, right? Who will be sitting there, looking at Richard Masters, despite all the deals that have been negotiated for the past 25 years, saying, No, why don't we just do it this way?

[00:51:02] We can make more money, right? And you will always get that bit of, whether it's confidence or arrogance or whatever, saying, No, we can do it better. Why don't we try this?

[00:51:12] Mike Darcey: Absolutely right.

[00:51:13] Unofficial Partner: capitalism, eh? Okay. Okay.

[00:51:14] Adam Crafton: Yeah, right?

[00:51:16] Mike Darcey: Well, well, and we, and we've continued to see single sports channels launch and think that they can do a better job by buying very expensive sport and trying to sell it. And, and most of them have, have found that pretty tough and have either gone bust or at least.

[00:51:34] underwater. So yeah, there's a long line of people who think, who think they can do that.

[00:51:37] It's just that history suggests it's quite hard.

[00:51:40] Unofficial Partner: It's the story of the football business right there. 

[00:51:41] Adam Crafton: see if we can

[00:51:43] Unofficial Partner: Well listen,

[00:51:43] Thank you very much for your time, really appreciate it. And uh, we will follow up. Thanks Adam for tuning coming over. 

[00:51:49] Adam Crafton: couple of times.

[00:51:50] Unofficial Partner: And thanks Mike.

[00:51:51] Mike Darcey: Thank you. 

[00:51:51] Unofficial Partner: Give my regards to Foye, I'm a big fan of Foye. I go there a couple of times a year.