UP540 The Bundle: Premier League plus points; Apple's Meh Bundle; FIFA's 10 minute YouTube hook

The latest dissection of the sports media and streaming marketplace from the ever popular, long running series featuring expert analysis from Yannick Ramcke and Murray Barnett. 

This episode goes deep in to:

• Why Premier League chose Singapore as the all important test market for its direct to consumer platform. 
• What is Apple's sport strategy, is there such a thing? 
• FIFA offers a 'ten minute hook' for YouTube viewers at the 2026 World Cup
• The NFL has chosen to begin negotiating with Paramount’s CBS before any of its other media partners because a change-of-control provision

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Transcript

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner 0:00

Hi there, Richard Gillis here. Welcome to Unofficial Partner of the Sports Business Podcast, and we have The Bundle, which is our regular long running and the best sports media and streaming show with regular co-hosts, Yannick Mka, who's general manager of OTT at the streaming service, one football, and Murray Barney, who's founder of 26 West formerly Formula One, World Rugby, and ESPN. Today they are dissecting Formula One's debut on Apple TV in America, the Premier League Plus launching in Singapore. What does that mean? FIFA's deal with YouTube and a new betting streaming rights deal and the NFL continue to carve up their rights in the US market. Cue the music. So we're gonna start on Premier League Plus Richard Masters at the FT. recently instructed people to stop using premix and start using Premier League Plus. So this is a story that we've nudged on a lot of, many times in the past, but it's actually now happening so the Premier League is launching its own direct to consumer streaming service season, branded Premier League plus debuting in Singapore, streaming all 380 matches directly to viewers alongside additional shoulder programming and a 24 7 channel. Richard Masters described it as a strategic step into direct customer relationships. the service is slated to launch from August, 2026 in line with the start of the new season. And StarHub has described it as a collaborative Right. Okay. Murray, kick us off. What's happening?

Murray Barnett. 26West Sport 1:43

So for, for a long time. The Premier League has been mulling over what the future media strategy should be, and a variety of different reasons, Singapore is a great market to test in, and now is actually quite a good time for them to do it, albeit that the, certainly the channel has been mooted for the best part of 10 years was done in collaboration with IMG way back when, and the advantage about Singapore is. Is multifold, if you like. Firstly, it's a big Premier league market, both in terms of interest and revenue. It's a highly cabled market, which means that it's already, you know, future proofed for sort of OTT. And then the third element is that they're already under contract with StarHub until the 27, the end of the 27, 28 season, which means that they've got this great opportunity to go out and test this without, with very little risk being already under under exclusive agreement with StarHub. So this new service will be available only to StarHub customers until the end of the, the current rights cycle. And part of the reason why StarHub are doing it is that StarHub has sort of already said that they're not going to be in the content renting business anymore, or they, they wanted to get outta that business and focus more on being sort of a traditional telco platform, if you like. So. This is something that suits every party in that particular market at this particular moment.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner 3:17

It is also very rich, aren't they? it's a small but very rich population in Singapore Yannick.

Yannick Ramcke, OneFootball 3:22

Yeah, I think absolutely that it hasn't been a random choice for many, many different reasons that they do this first trial in Singapore, in addition to the broadband connection also, like there are content sharing policies and regulations that make exclusivity less variable and so on. So I think this has been long in the making. I would challenge the narrative from StarHub. I think that's a bit of a pure spin as well, that they go from content owner to content distributor, pure play destination hub rather than having exclusive content. But we can touch on that in a second. I think taking a step back I mean the Premier League has been relatively and comparatively late a late mover in that context. I think most if not all of the other, big five European football leagues by now have launched any such direct to consumer offering in at least select international markets. But I think it's absolutely fair to say when the Premier League states that this is out of the position of strength, not of weakness, which it may have been for the other leaks in the past, I think that's an absolutely believable statement. If you are just looking at their international media rights footprint to date, there are, barely any white spots. And with Singapore, I mean, you mentioned Murray, this deal was closed, I think ahead of the 20, 22, 23 season. They still locked in a significant chunk of guaranteed monies. I think it's between 45 and 50 million US dollars per season. But it was also flat over flat flat cycle over cycle. So I think this has been in general best practice that I, as a rights owner don't get this uplift that I expected. I squeeze in some optionality when it comes to rights retention or non exclusivity to have the option. And they obviously, and seemingly waited many, many years to take this option, but to have the option to, yeah, future proof, ultimately their business model in the future. And as a result, having this contractual. Rights retention in place. Singapore was rumored as the first D two C market for the premier for a long, long time.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner 5:34

Okay. there's a, there's a few things that sort of bounce off it. I just wanna throw a few questions out really, which I mean, you say they're late. So I, my head goes to Apple and AI and, sometimes the most successful organizations don't need to be first. They don't need to take the highest risk. They can look at the market. Who have they been looking at? Are they looking at L Liga?'cause L Liga have been out and are making claims of, of, you know, numbers and, and subscribers, et cetera. So that, is that a case study that they're looking at or was it just always in their mind that, look, we are the biggest, we are gonna be able to do this on our own terms. We don't need to do it. It's not a burning platform in the way that other leagues might be worried about. They've got enormous rights fees flowing in the, always the argument against prem flx, as we used to call it, that why do this when TV is still, or broadcasters are still. falling over themselves to pay you a lot of money. So it is interesting. They've done it. It's interesting they've done it. Now. It's interesting they've done it in Singapore. If you're running a sort of SWOT analysis of this, you'd start to say, right, okay, but what are the limitations of Singapore as a case study? where does it fit and where does it not? And what are the things about Singapore that probably are singular rather than universal?

Yannick Ramcke, OneFootball 6:46

Yeah, I think in general regarding late moving, as I said, it is from a position of strength. The Spanish La Liga in the form of La Liga tv, the German Bud Liga with Bud pe, the most prominent example, probably the French League with Li Plus. This was an out of a position of strength. This was like demanded by market forces that this was a fallback option because priority one, two and three remains the minimum guaranteed licensing model because it's higher margin, lower operation overhead, you can create budget certainty for the club vis paramount actually for running a competition. And ultimately it just superior monetization. Form. So that's the priority one, two, and three. If you are forced to, then you take the options and launch something D two C. And I think Singapore, I think we discussed the infrastructural and circumstantial benefits of the market. But I think ultimately it also comes down to where do I as a league have the strategic optionality to do this by having retained such, right? The. Premier League and its strength is a bit of a disadvantage here because most of the international broadcasters are willing to pay up for full exclusivity. And again, that's like the clear preference from the Premier League in that case where we have a flat cycle over cycle amount of revenues. I think that is where they did a deliberate push to squeeze in like a league operated channel, non exclusivity, whatever the legal base is. And ever since, this was the reason why Singapore was earmarked as the market, because it might be the only, or one of very few that has that right retention and ticks all the other boxes that Murray started to list regarding why this market in particular.

Murray Barnett. 26West Sport 8:39

It is worth me mentioning as well that behind the scenes. This service has already existed at Premier League for a number of years. was kind of built with the migration from IMG to Premier League Productions, and is currently available within the Premier League senior management and a few others as a kind of office tool if you like, to be able to review anything that's happened at a particular match. And so if you, like, all the infrastructure is already there behind the scenes. And so to flip that, to be a direct to consumer proposal in Singapore isn't that complicated. But I think one of the reasons why we're covering this is ultimately you've got a Premier League auction that's gonna come up domestically in the next 18 months or in 18 months time. And so does this give us any pointers as to what they might be thinking about for its domestic market?

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner 9:36

Let's talk about that then, because again, you mentioned at the beginning there Yannick StarHub. if I'm StarHub and I'm seeing this happening, and then I'm, I'm every other broadcaster that's got Premier League rights around the world. So as your point, Murray, how does this work? What is this a conservative play by the Premier League and say, right, okay, let, let's go in side by side with a. Existing rights holder rather than a replacement. That feels like a bolder move. But again, they don't need to be, they of earned the right to be conservative in these things. But what, just talk to me about if you're on the broadcaster side now, as you say, you've got these windows now where you're looking ahead and saying, right, hang on a minute. I, what am I bidding for next time?'cause if they're in the market with their own channel alongside my thing, how is this gonna work and what's the impact gonna be? Is it, are these additional people that they're looking for, or are they just looking to, over time subsume the audience over from their own

Yannick Ramcke, OneFootball 10:31

I think the leak, and we have seen this with other leaks in the past. They are, in terms of publicly framing all of this, they tick all the boxes, right? This is like an amicable collaboration. This is like complimenting, not substituting the broadcast that the broadcaster is still a super relevant and super important commercial partner. So, they're taking all the public all, all the boxes in terms of public statements and again, I think what's the commercial preference? It isn't a licensing agreement underpinned by a minimum guarantee. So especially also looking at domestic. The domestic market. I think the best and the most strategic value that you can get out of all of this is to establish a viable threat. That there's an alternative if market is not bidding up to expectations. And let's remember that B2B licensing and B2C consumer business are two fundamentally different things and different methods that also a premier League still has to train or get in the first place. So we should not overestimate all of this. It is like it's, or it was a strategic imperative to do this step to be. Like well set up for the future, but best case for the Premier League that this tool and we can discuss whether it's D two C or ACTU or your IO actually owning the customer relationship, which was a big part of Richard Ma master statement. This is not the preferred way to make money in the future because it's uncertain and it's probably lower and has a huge operation, overhead and skillset that the EPL is not up to par just yet.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner 12:14

Yeah,

Murray Barnett. 26West Sport 12:15

just to, just, just to sort of everybody that the premier, premier league in the UK currently makes 1.7 billion, so that was what they would need to get back from a. A prefix if it launched in the uk, plus the marketing plus the cost of production. So I mean, that is an enormous amount of money that they'd have to make. And so necessarily think that you'll see this in the next cycle, but it certainly gives them a next best alternative allows them to also look at this model in other international markets where you could argue, for the most part, competition is deteriorating. There's, there's less sort of people blowing their brains out for rights and individual markets, which are not the domestic market of a particular leak. So you put the US to one side, that's a slightly different sort of kettle of fish. But certainly if you take a product outside of its domestic market, why wouldn't you do this?

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner 13:17

Yeah, just before we move on I've got a couple of questions about what a broadcaster is now, because actually

Murray Barnett. 26West Sport 13:22

like,

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner 13:22

when you start to lay this scenario out a

Murray Barnett. 26West Sport 13:25

yeah.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner 13:25

you start to say, right, okay, if I'm a fan or if I'm a viewer here,

Murray Barnett. 26West Sport 13:30

Yeah.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner 13:31

what am I getting from a broadcaster that isn't, you know, beyond the live game. So we're focused on the live game, and then there's all of the, you know, what's we now call shoulder programming, but you've got the sort of punditry. All of that I think it feels like is migrating to YouTube anyway, the Mark Goldbridge of model. There's a bit of it there. There's news, there's a sort of in editorial independence question, which Sky can always say, look, okay, we are not the Premier League. We've, you know, but we can ask harder questions, which you get to a sort of MUTV type scenario where it's like Pravda. So there's a, there's a, there are issues there. Me as a punter paying my fee to the Premier League directly here and whether or not actually I'm getting a lesser service for that, or I just, it's a realization that I'm the sort of Gary never, I can get on his own thing rather than just sitting in the studio after the game. So I don't, I'm trying to work out where that bit fits.'cause it's actually quite a considerable thing. But also, Murray, you've talked in the past about the lengthening of a. a, you know, a sports show is, and we, you know, you sit down on a Sunday and it's, there's a lot of ads that are there for the punditry and the game is a sort of proportion of that. So I'm just trying to work out what the from a television point of view is. If that's the, if that's the scenario that I am sort of seeing,'cause they're being picked off by the rights holder, but they're also being picked off by their own talent. They're being used by their own talent to go and say, right, I'm gonna start my own thing over here, a goal hanger version, and off I go.

Murray Barnett. 26West Sport 15:05

Well, I think the end game arguably could be a situation where you take, you have, say Premier League plus you are, are fairly loose and free with distribution of clips. With the idea being that you want whatever you, pundits, whatever you want to call them, to then be going off and doing their own thing. And probably, there's probably a little bit of a hybrid in the sense that you do some of your own punditry, but you, you are also act actively encouraging various influencers and ex-players and so on to, to take footage and to, to get it out there because it, it ends up being effectively sort of free marketing for you. But, you know, if you talk in the old world of sort of, let's call it linear tv, the, the, you know, the dirty secret is that the numbers drop off a cliff for pre and post. And actually it's really there to justify, ad sales spend because of the drawbacks that you have with, say, premier League, is that you only have advertising, you know, pre post and a half time. And that's one of the reasons why there's so many eyes on the hydration breaks and other things which people are bringing in because that allows you to better monetize, let's call it the actual live window, as opposed to

Yannick Ramcke, OneFootball 16:27

And I think the dirty little secret is that the post and free game coverage is cheap to produce. And it extend extend the the advertising inventory inventory significantly, as Murray said, which makes for an improved return on investment, I guess on the overall IP investment. But just want to answer the one question that you stated at the very top of your previous statement which are regarding who is a broadcast or what is a broadcaster, I think. Nowadays, everyone who has content trying to reach, engage and monetize an audience is ultimately a broadcaster. That also counts for the premier going forward because they're competing in the same consumer entertainment marketplace like everyone else.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner 17:12

I don't, I'm not sure that's true. I'm not sure that's true. I like, I know what you mean. And everyone's got a phone and we're all publishers. And we're all broadcasters. I think there is a significant difference in terms of, and, and it gets to the back to the Premier League question of what is marketing and what does market, what has Sky done for the Premier League over 30 years compared to the Premier League without a, a brilliant marketing organization at the front of it. And that's the bit that, I mean, masters, you know, talked about it at the FT you know, we are now, what's the phrase he used? Masters has said the league will for the first time have its own customers. So we all like the sound of that.'cause they're, they're the ones with the money and et cetera, but they are a pain in the ass as well. And actually dealing with them on a day-to-day basis is, we've always said is if you don't have to do it, don't do it. But that's embedded into the D two C bit is that you're going direct to the people that are paying the bill. And that's different than, you know, a B2B organization. I think it's a very fundamental. Step'cause I think it's a really difficult constituency of people that you're gonna then have to please.

Murray Barnett. 26West Sport 18:16

A couple of points, Richard. Firstly, this is called the Bundle for a reason, right? So even if we go direct to consumer, you know, I literally was on the phone for an hour with Sky UK on, on Saturday trying to save some money on my mine. And it's all about the bundle. It's all about, oh, you get your Netflix included. Oh, if you take, if you pay us an extra five pounds, we'll also throw in Paramount, what, you know, whatever it is. So it is all about the bundle at the end of the day. And what does direct to consumer mean? Well, direct to consumer is effectively two th two things. It is genuinely direct to consumer and it's wholesale bundling to a wholesale bundled, bundled discounted rate to a, to a third party operator. So it's not saying that the likes of Sky are gonna go outta the window completely, it's just they're gonna have a multifaceted relationship with both consumers and rights owners. The other point that I wanted to just make was, I think what you'll see in general with punditry or whatever, or content creation, whatever, whatever you want to call it, is it's gonna become a lot more shouty. So you're gonna see what happened with C take the CBS coverage in the US for Champions League, for example. Now it's not to my taste and it's probably not designed for me, it's very much of a certain type of content, which is number one clippable. And it's to punch outside of the fact that it comes into the US midweek in the afternoons. So what they're trying to do is create something which is deliberately, whatever the word is, funny, controversial, different because they know that if they created just a very sort of functional, you know, esque version of sports punditry, that not really gonna.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner 20:08

I mean, that's the, that's the gap. That's the gap that we're, you know, should

Murray Barnett. 26West Sport 20:11

Well, you know, I mean there's, there's probably is a great analogy there about, you know, Trump Farage and various other people and, and you know, who is the Nigel Farage of, of Sports Punditry. But won't go there right now. But the point being is that you have to create something which is gonna stand out in a very clat cluttered market. And that's why, you know, the likes of Mark Goldbridge again, is great clipped content, but if you actually sit down and watch it regularly, it's not

Yannick Ramcke, OneFootball 20:39

And,

Murray Barnett. 26West Sport 20:40

exciting

Yannick Ramcke, OneFootball 20:40

and I think when the matter of discussion is editorial ownership responsibility or neutrality the biggest structure shift has been the insourcing of the production mandate, right from IMG to the leak operations, which obviously also was a first step to create strategic optionality, just like this specific rights retention in Singapore was including that you have much more control over the presentation of the product, but effectively you also expand the buyers universe because especially new market players may not have the infrastructure to play a host broadcaster. And it gives you the optionality subject to rights availability to do things that they have now done in in Singapore.

Murray Barnett. 26West Sport 21:27

Yeah, two, two points about this. We always talk about how everything stems from the US or everybody's looking towards the US to see what they're doing. Well, for years now, most of the major leagues in the US have had their own production entities. And so it's a natural progression that leagues like the Premier League should look to have Premier League productions because, you say Annie, you have a lot more control over it. There is also another dynamic around how they can. How they can, portray their league, especially as we get into this much more com complex world of things like VR and so on, where it allows them to be able to have a lot more control of the narrative around the, the new tools, the people that are really gonna suffer, and you are already seeing this is sports production entities. There's massive disruption in sports, sports live production at the moment, and it's only gonna get more challenged for the, for those guys because people are taking productions in-house, margins are being cut and technology is really impacting heavily on the, on their ability to monetize production.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner 22:35

Yeah. Yeah, I remember um, there were, I was at was it Two Circles? Is Summit and they, of the things they were talking about in one of the keynotes was that um, what to do with the, TV compound now.'cause every, you know, square footage at a golf tournament, formula One or whatever it is, do we do with that?'cause we don't need that anymore.'cause it'll all be remote and it will all be in the cloud. So it's quite a, you know, that was quite a sort of chilling if I was sitting there

Yannick Ramcke, OneFootball 23:02

That, that's interesting because this is about then legacy assets and liabilities.

Murray Barnett. 26West Sport 23:06

One of the cool things for nerdy sports fans is to go around the broadcast production facilities

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner 23:15

Yeah,

Murray Barnett. 26West Sport 23:16

and at Formula One, we used to sell that as a sort of an asset to sponsors. Hey, look, we'll take groups of your, around the production center, and I'm pretty sure it's now getting to the stage where some of that is theater rather than actual need because so much of it is being remote or automated.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner 23:37

It's like the sort of production theme park.

Yannick Ramcke, OneFootball 23:39

and,

Murray Barnett. 26West Sport 23:40

Is very, that is a very nerdy subcategory.

Yannick Ramcke, OneFootball 23:43

and,

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner 23:45

Right. We

Yannick Ramcke, OneFootball 23:45

yeah. Yeah.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner 23:45

We gotta move on because we are bump, you know, we're bumping into all sorts of things that we, we will come back to, but, Next story.'cause I think these are linked. In fact, the first three stories there are sort of parallels to it. I wanna talk about FIFA because we've had two significant FIFA commercial moves This month, FIFA has struck what it calls a game changing agreement with YouTube opening the door for live match content from FIFA World Cup 2026 to appear on the platform for the first time with rights holding broadcasters, given the option to stream the opening 10 minutes of every match, live on YouTube during the tournament. Separately, FIFA selected stats perform as its first ever official worldwide betting data and betting streaming rights distributor with a landmark multi-year agreement. exclusive rights to distribute official betting data and, and live streams for selected FIFA properties, including all 104 matches at aforementioned FIFA 2026 World Cup. Right. Okay. So a few things in there. The 10 minute hook, I'm, I'm interested in talking about what this means for FIFA Plus is another question I've got, and betting and fifa, interesting topic, but Yannick, I think you should kick us

Yannick Ramcke, OneFootball 25:00

I mean, we repeat all the analysis and that we did the last episode when same or similar announcement as preferred, platform for fifa. I think to remember to said that YouTube and others will so this was the next domino

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner 25:15

you had

Yannick Ramcke, OneFootball 25:15

and it was just, think the bigger the bigger thing play here is rather this push by fifa. Um, I mean. Media rights and broadcasting is still and remains dominant as in terms of revenue line for fifa. But I think it's fair to say that the most dynamic growth areas are now commercial and others doesn't mean that there is an imperative for FIFA to keep growing. Also, the broadcasting slash media right side of things, think this preferred platform program, which we touched upon last time, it doesn't change anything and any incremental or new thing is the subject to YouTube and who else may come next signing an agreement with the broadcasting partners of FIFA in any given market. It's just now that YouTube and TikTok have retained eligibility. To such conversations. But this preferred program and for the first time ever, and monetizing betting rides is a symptom of this push for monetization we always touch upon. Like this, sports rights market has plateaued and would be weird if the completely disconnected to the structural development and shift that we see in the

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner 26:34

Yeah. Murray, what? Let's talk about the 10 minutes then. What's going on there? What do you think about that? Is that new? Is it because it caught my eye and I, I sort of thought, well, I don't quite know what is, what would happen, how that works.

Murray Barnett. 26West Sport 26:46

One of the things that we've kind of touched upon already is this is ultimately just going fishing where the fish are, right? Like, so it's going to where the audiences are, which has effectively been a, value leak, if you like, for existing rights owners where it's now giving them wider opportunities to commercialize the product. How the first 10 minutes aspect will work is, is remains to be seen, but I think it's a bit of a, know, you tend to have the highest peak, certainly at the start of a, a game. So if it is, I, I, I didn't really follow that, but exactly is if it was the, just the first 10 minutes. But it's basically to try and make sure that you can monetize the official audiences as much as possible because obviously FIFA are continuing to try and generate more and more money from its existing rights partners.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner 27:37

Yeah, it it's sort of like a microcosm of the YouTube question anyway, facing every sport, which is sort of discoverability engine que, you know, is it, is it about discoverability? Yes it is. Or does it, it a sort of precedent that undermines the value of exclusive rights? Again, both of these things can be true at the same time. And are you training audiences? You know, you might critique it and say you're training audiences to expect free content. What you gonna do after 10 minutes? Is that enough? All of these things are always gonna be in play because part of the interesting about talk about Premier League and FIFA Formula. a, probably, you know, in a different marketplace to then 90% of the rest of the sports industry. And they, but it's interesting they're making these types of decisions because they can afford to, I guess. know, I Janet, what do you think about that? the 10

Yannick Ramcke, OneFootball 28:26

I think we don't need to argue over the fact that the discovery layer layer is paramount nowadays and collapse the between discovery and paid consumption is yeah, essential is not vital for, for the industry. we don't have to argue over this. I think where I would object or disagree is that I all of the announced in the press release and what TikTok and YouTube are now effectively eligible or allowed to do, they could have done it in the past in case there would've been such an agreement with the broadcaster. So I don't think anything changes here. And let's see, actually how broadcasters will put. 10 minutes of their life feed off any given match during the World Cup on their YouTube channel. I think we may have a couple of them just in order to not be embarrassed that no one has taken up on that opportunity because we are going back to exclusivity undermining pay value. And the matter of fact is that full exclusivity has been sold to the broadcasters. So FIFA didn't have say here to the platforms except for the stamp of approval.

Murray Barnett. 26West Sport 29:31

We, we talk a lot about. What the impact of YouTube is and how it's changing the market. And the thing that has struck me recently is fair enough for my, you know, 18-year-old son, I kind of get that. But recently I've had a few conversations of people my age who say that YouTube is their first point of call of for watching content. So when they go home and they switch the TV on, I would traditionally go on and switch on the sports channels. But they are out there and YouTube is their default home. And I think that that's the ubiquity that's starting to come with YouTube. So you've kind of got to have them in play one way or another if you're an official rights owner and not tell you that you've gotta, you know, you've gotta experiment with this stuff and see what works. And no doubt after the World Cup, you know, there'll be a tweaking to it. And it may not be the first 10 minutes, it may be whole games, it may be, you know, snippets that are free from, from, from each individual game.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner 30:30

Yeah.

Murray Barnett. 26West Sport 30:31

I think you've gotta experiment with it because it's become ubiquitous.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner 30:33

Yeah. Yeah. I find it interesting YouTube,'cause I, I'm in that gang of people. When I sit down quite often, I just go to YouTube on the telly it's easy. But then I find that I'm trapped. the algorithm. I mean, my own algorithm get served the same stuff you sort of get a bit bored of your own, you know, it's, it's your own fault'cause you are feeding it in and it's just repeating it back to you. But it's quite a sort of interesting dynamic. You think I'm now craving something? I actually want say proper. I'm gonna go somewhere else so I can sort of the limitations of YouTube are quite there. I mean, and to Yannick point, they can do this anyway. They don't, you know, people will be doing World Cup stuff on YouTube regardless of whether FIFA endorses it or not.

Yannick Ramcke, OneFootball 31:15

I, I think I fully agree with the YouTube is an dominant force in the marketplace. I have always said one of the biggest structure shifts compared to when the bundle was real has been that there's no one who has a monopoly over the audience anymore. I think back then, linear, satellite and cable. TV distribution was the go-to system for pretty much every this fragmented and splintered, over the past decade, I would've said. But now we see winners and losers, and then increasing consolidation across a couple of winners which, I think it's fair to say is one, if not the biggest one. If it even gets now into demographic profiles considered the most, native or core target audience for YouTube in the first place.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner 32:01

Yeah. Just before we move on to something else, I just wanna talk about betting and FIFA because again, it was, I was naively surprised, but I'm obviously just unpick this for me. Why is the, there's obviously money, but there's reputational risk as well. So, fifa its commercial ties with the betting industry, four year deals, gambling operators live streaming World Cup games to account holders. FIFA Pro prohibits players and officials from gambling related activities. So it's sort of squaring those things, you know, that, you know, it's not, it's an old story, but it, it's, it's less about the sort of ethics of it, but it's more about the money and how, and where the money flows and why they've done this.

Yannick Ramcke, OneFootball 32:45

Yeah, I think you've got the. Yeah, ultimately you got where I think this is about terms of this is less about reputational risk. I think it's more about the convergence and the cannibalization between rights and swimming rights in the sense of, um, how does it cannibalize, dilute the traditional media rights. Expensively by both free and pay tv broadcasters. Yes, you have those distinctions. How to downgrade the betting screen rights from the traditional broadcast, lower resolution, I think you can't even watch in full screen. It's only accessible for active betting accounts. The betting operator needs to have a betting license. So there are a lot of constraints ultimately in terms of what it does mean practically the end consumer. But I think the hesitation comes rather from how do the guys who pay the big bucks are reacting to this rather than any reputational risk that may come attached with it has been quite established, business practice, to date, I think. Just UOF and Premier League. When we look at football, I like the holdouts they will also out for so long, I guess in, in the future. I think the one benefit, and this in the PR spin around it, is that, FIFA or any commentary argues that given the vast free air coverage of the compared to the domestic league is minimizing the impact of on traditional media rights. But again, less about the reputational risk, more about stakeholders, including stakeholders who pay a ton of money. And back to my original point is push incremental net new monetization as part of the broadcasting slash media segment.

Murray Barnett. 26West Sport 34:28

It is just about the money. That is, it's an opportunity to generate incremental revenue. Traditionally, when you negotiate media rights deals, it generally excludes betting. So if all of a sudden you've decided that you are fine with betting, it's quite easy to have those as an extra right, that you sell.

Yannick Ramcke, OneFootball 34:50

And I consider it even more in interesting, there was even more differentiation because as said, it became many leaks due to the commercial attractiveness sell betting But then you saw that, the biggest broadcasting agreements we are effectively warehousing those rights. So for example, I remember the example of the bunga. The Bunga internationally sell betting swimming rights except for in the US because they have a$30 million agreement per season in place with ESPN and E-S-P-S-P-N just warehouse those rights to minimize any substitute products that could undermine, their proposition To any extent I think this is back to stakeholder management and keeping all, all parties involved. Happy.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner 35:38

Okay. Right. Let's move on. Formula One, debuts on Apple tv. apple and Formula One announced a five year partnership that brings all F1 races exclusively. To Apple TV in the United States beginning in 2026. Simultaneously, fans of Major League Soccer will no longer need an Apple TV season pass to watch matches in the 2026 season. So all MLS matches are now available to app Apple TV subscribers at no additional cost with standalone season pass, officially concluding at the end of 2025, early signs are promising. Apple TV app downloads during the Australian Grand Prix weekend tripled compared to the usual daily average on Android devices, while daily active users were up 176% on race day. So we've got a whole load in here about streaming and its relationship of apps and the app market and what that means for rights holders. Murray, you about to start us off on this.

Murray Barnett. 26West Sport 36:35

We've covered Apple tv and its acquisition of Formula One In the past. I think that there's some positive spin going on here because it's moving from the ubiquitous ESPN a fairly niche player. the biggest signal is that. It that Apple has realized that this, maybe this is a tenuous link, that, that the MLS app doesn't stand, wasn't working as a, as a buy through. And so maybe their support strategy is to look at, bit more packaging within the wider customer base, knowing that they've already got the sort of relatively easy to acquire Apple tv customers. And each incremental one becomes that more, much more difficult to acquire. And therefore having things like Formula One and maybe to a certain degree MLS is another sports is helpful for them. is also a nice spin going into some other major right cycles because does it signal that Apple may be up for looking at other sports as well?

Yannick Ramcke, OneFootball 37:43

Absolutely. I think it says more about Epi than it about Formula One. I think from Formula One's perspective, it was about. The money and absolutely fair enough. But I think more interestingly on, and you mentioned like what's the strategy and I think Apple has always been a candidate where at least outside looking in industry, commentators has one dot, what are they doing? What's the point? it make a difference? Does it move commercially? the mo the needle for a like multi trillion dollar company like like Apple. And I think what we see here is that they are willing to adapt and it feels like that. Now with the acquisition of the Formula One in the it has incorporated, three years worth of learnings the MLS and where they. iteratively and incrementally adopted. Um, Their, their strategy now with eliminating the buy through, collapsing the entire video business into Apple tv, getting a bit of the plus, which personally I fan of, but we don't need to discuss that topic and opening up like the funnel into the ecosystem to the extent that they have stuck to a couple of principles, like okay, being the exclusive home of whatever they, they are buying, they're not getting into the production of things. So just like MLS is outsource to, IMG and MLS responsible for the production here. and Liberty Media continue to do all the production, so they're not getting into. Those operations, but been willing to adjust. here the one of the obvious things has been all the, multiple sub licenses that they have, sold and distributed to many different local market players in, in the US maximize consumer touch points cost of weekend.

Murray Barnett. 26West Sport 39:29

Well, I mean, they're, they're, they're gonna be the ones that suffer. I, I feel, I do feel sorry for Apple that this is their first year and you're seeing the Jada Grand Prix and Bahrain Grand Prix, you know, canceled because just as they get going, they've effectively now got a month where they're not going to have races after the Japan Grand Prix. So it's kind of super tough timing for them.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner 39:49

I bet there's a, my overwhelming sort of feeling is about apple and sport is a sort of meh, you know, it is like it feels, I was having this conversation about the CVC sort of global sports group, but in, in terms of the together, it's like a, the meh bundle, you know, it's like a sort of getting together mid, mid ranging type things or stuff that is a bit niche, a bit. There isn't anything in there that I think, okay, yes, I must have it. Okay. If you're an F1 fan, you might say differently, but you know what I mean? It's like, so I don't get a sense of, they might have just looked at this and said, it's not worth it. I'm sure they have and said, right, okay. It's not worth us going in for headline spinning stuff. But there's a, there's a sort of, I get the sort of ecosystem argument that, you know, they've got Apple news and maps and music and sport and fitness pl, all of these things, and then you'll get to the films

Murray Barnett. 26West Sport 40:42

But Richard, Richard, are we not, are we not littered with new media players who are, who said that they, that they've had a hard fiscal responsibility around sports and it didn't fit their profile and won by one.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner 40:57

Fiduciary duty. I like

Murray Barnett. 26West Sport 40:58

And, and one by one they have all capitulated to the sports medium.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner 41:04

think it's interesting that it's not one big thing and it's, you know, and Yannick mentioned one of my favorite phrases, which is the home of, it's a sort of, what is it? And it's, it's sort of, okay. It's bits and bobs. But I am, you know, I go and watch Apple, I watch a few things on Apple tv. very rarely dip into the sports side of it. And, you know, it's like

Murray Barnett. 26West Sport 41:26

But you're sitting in the uk I think it is. That's, that's one thing. I I also think that they're, they're just an a, a domino that's waiting to fall. I think a will come a set of rights in the future, which will entice them and you will see them dragged more into the sports ecosystem. And I'm sure there are lots of people who listen to this who'll be shouting that I'm wrong. But I, I think in five years time, we'll we'll see Apple with a lot more engagement.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner 41:52

might be arguing against myself'cause I said it at the beginning, you know, there's sort of, it's interesting following the, the AI conversations and Apple's relationship to that. And they're, they're accused by people not, you know, when you've got chat and Anthropic and Google storming ahead, they're a bit slow and, but they're Apple and they are brilliant decision makers and their record suggests that, you know, they'll, they'll make the right decision at the right time. But it's quite, I find it quite interesting that we are quite a way into this now and we can make, there's a lot of sort of comms around the film and its relationship to the One. And we had Oscars last week and it was sort of there, so there are presence in, I get it, but it, doesn't feel like it's, it, it all

Yannick Ramcke, OneFootball 42:34

Yeah. Uh, Me Kmi is still a believer in the hypothesis of this platforming onboarding sports properties into the ecosystem. And I think those strategic tweaks and adjustments that Apple now has done by effectively behaving much more like a traditional broadcaster than still believing ecosystem, but not considering the ecosystem like as a void garden where everybody will just come and this distribution engine of two point something billion in the consumer marketplace, just automatically create audience. So I think for a sports property. The recent changes as at have made Apple a more interesting, maybe desirable broadcasting partner than it was before. And I they will continue to be selective and about a crime rights. I think I said they will stick to a couple of principles, but I think from a consumer experience like being embedded into this ecosystem, there's a lot of potential and I think long term within the next two, three years, I mean, then also the meteorites agreement for the Formula One in the US is already over and expired. Formula One can be a big winner here because I see some momentum with with Murray. I expect that one or two properties, high profile properties will follow being platformed and plugged into this ecosystem with a lot of potential in my opinion.

Murray Barnett. 26West Sport 43:58

One of the key tenets for Apple is gonna be length of deal. I think that they've sat down and said renting business is not a great business to be in, unless we can get significant length. And so six years for Formula one, 10 years for MLS. Those are the kind of things which are really,

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner 44:19

but they try to get, either they're not trying to get out of the MLS deal halfway through, or

Murray Barnett. 26West Sport 44:22

I mean, the thinking at the time was, we, we've got a long runway here. If we were only offered a three, three or four year deal, it wouldn't have been attractive for us. And not only that, I, I'm not sure that they're trying to get out of it completely. They're just trying to reshape what that, that deal looks like, I think from an economic standpoint and a distribution standpoint. But the point being is that they're only gonna be interested in things which they can own for a, a significant period of time if they're renting the content.

Yannick Ramcke, OneFootball 44:49

mean, you can argue, but like, I think it's five years or let, it'll be five or six years for the Formula One in the us whether it's a Win for Apple or Formula One, I think who compromised here, but I think sign of Apple to business reality. Um, That this 10 year one, first of its kind agreement that they did with the MLS, which as we just said, have been reworked. In the meantime, not common practice in the world that we are living in. And I also agree just because they have not treated prematurely terminated, but they will prematurely address the future mean that the MLS Apple, that no shortened agreement has expired.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner 45:31

Okay. Right. We're going to finish on the NFL, and so there's a story here. The NFL has chosen to begin negotiating with Paramount's CBS before any of its other media partners because a change of control provision. Stemming from Skydance Media's acquisition of Paramount Global allows the NFL to break its deal by 2027. That's C-C-N-B-C reporting. The NFL is seeking a rights fee increase north of 50 to 60%, which would raise the current CBS fee of what,$2.1 billion per year past the$3 billion mark Sports media watches point. The League is expected to, to negotiate and announce its deals one by one, starting with Paramount and then Fox with all of them taking effect immediately. So this more NFL media writes wizardry or is there something else going on?

Murray Barnett. 26West Sport 46:29

I love Yannick phrase on the, on our WhatsApp of media rights wizardry.'cause it's, it, there's a certain amount of truth in that they're taking advantage of some, some market conditions. You know, NFL was, I think, I think I'm right in saying it was something like 83 of the top programs on in the us. Um, I can find my notes here somewhere and. 83 of the a hundred most watched programs last year. So it's absolute ratings giant. had the option of, we talked about in, in episodes past to open these deals up. So it's kind of in, in, certainly in NFL's best interest, but also weirdly also in the best interest of the rights holders because it allows them to extend their relationships now in this time of disruption. But I think the most interesting aspects of this is, what indications does this give us about where CBS Paramount or rather paramount is going with its new acquisition. And, you know, how much is it gonna back NFLI guess they're gonna back it to the hilt because they don't want to be their first big thing to be any kind of erosion of the rights package that they've got. It also allows NFL to effectively carve out yet another package of rights which they can sell to yet another new player because they just wanna make it as ubiquitous as possible everywhere. So I think it's think it's inevitable that you're gonna see minimum 50% increase, plus a few people moving around to try and secure maybe better or different rights packages. So I think this is another example of, of. Where NFL is gonna drive what happens with all other sports in the market because there is only a finite amount of money to go around. I think we're pretty much at the zenith, even at in the us and if they take a a much bigger slice, what does that mean for FIFA World Cup MLB, A bunch of other rights and certainly it's another killer for mid and lower tier sports when they're trying to increase their fees.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner 48:38

Yeah, I mean that, that last point is really interesting about the crowding out and the, just the sheer scale. And it's the same in the UK market. The premier people, you know, we talk about the sports media rights market, but actually so dominant and the bigger, getting bigger and it's, you know, that scenario is a, is a sort of chilling one for the vast majority of people listening to this podcast, frankly, who aren't working for the the very top 5% of of rights holders. Sorry,

Yannick Ramcke, OneFootball 49:06

no, I, I fully agree in the sense of that, uh, what the NFL effectively is doing is or what the broadcasters are doing is like, um. Paying for eliminating the opt-out uh, an option, an optionality NFL back to being ahead of the curve incorporated into the initial agreement. They didn't know whether that would have value or not. That's a function of an option. But now it has as more said, probably like a uplift kind of, uh, value. And you might consider this, onerous in the sense of okay, like the NFL is a big winner here. But as counterintuitive as it might be, the fact that broadcasters, and its investors, which is very important value, actually cost certainty because they can navigate around this back to zero sum game. They all have budgets. This is the bifurcation of the marketplace, of the overall market size. And I think we are standing at around 30 billion US dollars, uh, in the us per annum. The market size won. Materially changed because you can only spend so much, in rights IP acquisition as you make downstream in the consumer marketplace. And the NFL board makes twice the money all of a sudden in terms of consumer spend because same inventory and so on. But, and there are always strategic prices paid by new entrant broadcasters, but the overall size of the sports rights market will materially change if you now have to allocate a bigger chunk to the NFL because they, at the 800, pound gorilla just can demand the those uplifts. It would impact, especially the middle of the sports rights pyramid in the sense of the long tail never made any money. Right. They can't earn less than they own today. But where and. Speaking of screening the middle, where the zero sum game, which it ultimately is, will impact, is in those properties that made money. And this can the international, football leagues with the us media rates, agreements. This can be tennis, this can be golf. even be like one big four sports leagues in the us. But I think this is the biggest story here, that the NFL is sucking out more money out of a fixed, highest market that has around 30 billion.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner 51:29

I was interested at CNBC with reporting NHL. Gary Beman was trying to negotiate before the NFL sets the market trying to get out. Ahead of that,

Murray Barnett. 26West Sport 51:37

well, I, I, I think the biggest paradox or the most interesting aspects of this whole story is that the people who really need it are the people that don't have the money, which are the legacy media players. And the people who don't really need it are but have the money, are all the tech companies. So you're caught in this weird of conundrum of, you know, how big are the egos of some of the tech companies to want to go all out to acquire any new packages that are available.

Yannick Ramcke, OneFootball 52:04

And I think the NFL is aware of that fact and will need to strike the balance, spread the need of whatever you want in terms of keeping them quote unquote alive. Those who has been paying the big bucks for a long, long time while not nurturing. And I think the NFL is beyond the stage of nurturing the future media rights buyer, monetizing those, broadcasting partners that they onboarded, slowly surely over the past couple of years. And I think this is one of the reasons why they are starting with paramount and reports say Fox is next to get actually like a critical size and mass of a net new media rights package. four international games, which were, host under the NFA network umbrella a little bit has changed now with the ESPN acquisition. But let's say there are four, five games that they have that they can bring to market. It's not good enough in the sense of materially contributing to the revenue mix. When you really want to have another main broadcaster on board. And I think this is where they are carving out out of existing inventory because Paramount and Fox are owning this. I think it's a 4:00 PM Sunday window where a lot of simultaneously plate. Games are owned by those two broadcasting stations where you can car out some matches then bundle it and package up can create a I think it's a fifth, no, a fifth main rights package, where then a YouTube, an Amazon behave more like traditional be honest. In that context might be the future media rights buyer that the NFL has invested in over the past few years, but now it's to monetize and then committing similar billions of dollars like the other main broadcasters.

Murray Barnett. 26West Sport 53:51

One fascinating detail in all of this, which you can't, you shouldn't look on in isolation, but it's certainly something which will puff up the chests of the NFL, is that an independent financial advising company. Worked out that the new NBA agreement, which is one of the reasons why NFL is coming back into the market, has a cost per viewer hour of$3 55 compared to the NFL, which has a cost per viewer hour of just$1 20. So again, you've gotta be careful not to look at these things in isolation. But I think it's fascinating that people are finding all these different metrics to be able to work out like how undervalued they are. Because when I'm looking at that, if I'm legacy media, I'm saying, well that doesn't, that's completely irrelevant, completely different sport, but I'm arguing it because I don't have the money to be able to get to anything like that. If I'm a tech or streaming company. Those kind of, that kind of raw data is probably something where I'm looking at it and saying, I've got different monetization model. So actually that is more of a relevant stat for me.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner 55:00

The idea that needs to have its chest puffed up is every time I've, every time I've met an NNFL executive, I'm always very conscious of their chest and how puffed it up, puffed up. It is, they are the enormous, enormous amounts of puffing the chest area,

Yannick Ramcke, OneFootball 55:18

I, I think what, what I mean, we, we like this is like a fixed size market. It's had room to for further growth, and if growth comes, it comes to the detriment of other in the market. I think one positive sign and this is like very macro now, is that we have discussed this linear to streaming transition and the monetization gap. You can't monetize the same way digitally like you did linearly because all of the unit economics shown and so on and so forth. I think the positive sign for the industry overall is that. As an industry, this linear to streaming transition has been managed quite successfully. And I think success in this revenue neutral. Um, I think the monetization gap has not by revenue lines, betting e-commerce and so on, but rather through hiking subscription prices and more advertising revenues. But I think that is a positive for the industry overall, that this is still a transition and still work in progress, but it seems net out revenue neutral, which after all the doomsday scenarios, it's actually like a positive news for the, for the industry.

Murray Barnett. 26West Sport 56:28

That, that is a conversation hand grenade to end this podcast on. I think that there is uh, I completely disagree with you but we'll save that for another time.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner 56:40

Perfect. I love it. I love it. We're gonna finish on a, on a complete disagreement. A hundred percent disagree. You don't often get a hundred percent disagreement on the bundle, but we've, we've managed to conjure one and we will push that into the next episode. Until next time, Murray Barnett, Yannick Mka, thank you very much for your time.

Murray Barnett. 26West Sport 56:56

you. I'm off to get the when the bundle was real T-shirts printed.

Yannick Ramcke, OneFootball 57:00

Let's do some mer.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner 57:01

I like the idea of bundle merch, by the way, be better than our Unofficial Partner mug that we we tried

Murray Barnett. 26West Sport 57:07

Bundle merch is super niche.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner 57:09

and therefore,

Yannick Ramcke, OneFootball 57:09

It's about monetizing niches or niches, however you want to say.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner 57:13

It is riches in the niches.