Ep 23: NBA Finals, Fox + Roku & World Cup Ads: The Biggest Media Stories This Week

Sports, streaming, and advertising continue to reshape the media landscape—and this week delivered plenty to discuss.

In this episode of Media Monitor, Kelly and Sean introduce a new weekly headlines segment before diving into Guideline's early advertising data from the NBA Finals and FIFA World Cup.

They discuss what the Fox and Roku partnership means for connected TV, why Tubi has become one of streaming's biggest success stories, and how advertisers are following audiences across broadcast and streaming platforms.

The conversation also covers Meta's latest AI copyright lawsuit and why it could have broader implications for generative AI companies.

Later, they examine why this year's NBA Finals generated dramatically higher advertising revenue than previous seasons and what early World Cup pricing suggests about the future of premium live sports.

In this episode:

• Fox's acquisition of Roku and what it means for streaming
• Why Tubi continues to outperform expectations
• Meta's AI copyright lawsuit and its potential impact
• NBA Finals advertising revenue reaches new highs
• Why streaming is becoming central to sports broadcasting
• Early World Cup advertising trends and pricing
• The growing value of premium live sports for advertisers
• What marketers should watch over the coming months

Whether you work in advertising, media, marketing, or simply enjoy understanding how major media businesses operate, this episode provides practical insights into one of the busiest weeks in the industry.

What You'll Learn
✔ Why Fox's Roku deal matters beyond streaming
✔ How Tubi became one of FAST television's biggest success stories
✔ Why advertisers spent dramatically more during the NBA Finals
✔ How streaming is changing sports broadcasting
✔ What early World Cup advertising trends reveal
✔ Why Meta's AI lawsuit deserves attention
✔ Where premium advertising inventory is heading

Articles referenced in the episode:

https://www.404media.co/judge-rules-blacked-com-can-sue-meta-for-scraping-its-porn/

https://digiday.com/future-of-tv/future-of-tv-briefing-fox-finds-its-programmatic-identify-in-roku/

https://www.adweek.com/convergent-tv/the-3-biggest-questions-from-fox-and-rokus-22-billion-deal/

If you’d like access to the benchmark report or want to suggest a topic for the next part of the programmatic series, reach out to press@guideline.ai.

If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to follow or subscribe so you don’t miss future conversations on advertising, media strategy, and cultural marketing moments.

And if you’re listening on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, a quick rating or review helps more people discover the show.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:04

You're listening to Media Monitor, where we break down what's happening in the media and the advertising industry and tell you what it actually means. Welcome back to the show, Sean.

SPEAKER_01 0:19

Thanks. How's it going?

SPEAKER_00 0:22

It's good. I did everything in my power not to take a nick day today, as they're saying.

SPEAKER_01 0:29

It's true you are here. I appreciate your loyalty to this podcast.

SPEAKER_00 0:34

I am here. I I mean the parade is over now, but it was on in our house. And unfortunately, you know, TV coverage of the Nick celebration left you wanting more, though I don't think you could have paid me to be below Canal Street today. I I think I'm hearing there's like 10 million people.

SPEAKER_01 0:54

Oof. In all of Manhattan or just at the parade? Because that is rough.

SPEAKER_00 0:58

No, at like below canal.

SPEAKER_01 1:00

I'm surprised the island doesn't sink.

SPEAKER_00 1:02

I know. I know.

SPEAKER_01 1:03

That has a lot of people.

SPEAKER_00 1:05

And it's hot. It was so hot.

SPEAKER_01 1:07

There was this and it's like muggy.

unknown 1:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:10

There's this uh this one woman who was doing above and beyond level work, taking pictures, and uh she has bangs, and like they were just like these like sweaty strings of hair, just like she kept her her her blue and orange and white um houndstooth blazer on, which I thought was a commitment. It's a strong choice. It was not the right choice for today.

SPEAKER_01 1:33

No, no. It is a choice.

SPEAKER_00 1:36

It is a choice.

SPEAKER_01 1:38

It is a choice.

SPEAKER_00 1:39

But yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:41

Heard the next one. So that's about as as far as I I got into it.

SPEAKER_00 1:47

I just can't believe how much I have to pull this out of you, Sean.

SPEAKER_01 1:50

Yeah. I did look at our stats. I got numbers.

SPEAKER_00 1:54

Well, and I knew you would.

SPEAKER_01 1:55

That's my contribution. Yeah, you're you're the I'm the game by game, you're the color commentator.

SPEAKER_00 2:01

And so I figured we'd do two things today, or maybe maybe three. So so one thing that I want us to start to start doing every week because I think it's important to our listeners, is to touch on some of the advertising or media headlines that hit um the news this week and talk about you know what stuck with us. We're not gonna go deep into talking through them, but we want to make sure that our listeners, if it's important to us and we're talking about it, we want to make sure you all don't miss it. So we're gonna highlight a few of those, then um talk through initial MBA finals stats and look at what our projections might be. Yeah. And then if time allows, we'll touch on World Cup.

SPEAKER_01 2:42

Sounds great. And I also want to call out that we are gonna try going forward to include all of the articles we do reference in our show notes for the very studious folk studious folks out there that are like, I really need to read more about this, and you don't trust Google, we will also include them in our show notes so that way you have a source, figure out where we're talking about it, so that way it helps as well.

SPEAKER_00 3:02

Perfect. Well, so Sean, what did you what caught your eye in the headlines this week?

SPEAKER_01 3:06

Yeah, I mean, I think it would be silly for not to lead with the whole Roku announcement.

SPEAKER_00 3:12

Oh, that big one?

SPEAKER_01 3:13

That big one, right? I think I think it'd be a little silly to talk headlines and not be like, uh, Fox Roku. For the sake of time on this pod, I would just highlight there's a couple of articles where where a guideline was actually picked up to talk about the merger. Uh there's there's one out of Digiday, which will include, so hey, say, I've never actually said it aloud, just like typed the did digiday.

SPEAKER_00 3:33

I say did did digiday.

SPEAKER_01 3:35

Yeah, right? It feels feels decent. Uh anyway, so so we we kind of got some coverage there. We'll include that in the show notes, um, where you can kind of see how we talk about the programmatic kind of piece, which is top of mind for me when I think about this enablement. Roku's huge programmatic compared to Fox's decently sized programmatic, mostly coming through Tubi. Um so we'll we'll kind of highlight that. And then Adweek also kind of uh talked a little bit there. That one was more about category mix. So where are they complimentary? Where is there some places where maybe you know they'll be a little redundant? And then also kind of commentary on the mix of the Roku channel plus Tubi plus howdy, right? That's a lot of streaming services all under one roof, servicing very similar audiences. What happens kind of post-merger?

SPEAKER_00 4:17

I have to say, I was I hadn't spent much time looking at Tubi. I had no idea it was as big as it is.

SPEAKER_01 4:24

It's a monster. It's a monster. It's actually one of those that like yeah, and like bought for pennies on the dollar from Fox back in what, 17?

SPEAKER_00 4:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:32

And they have just done a great job kind of growing that into something as a sleeper. I feel like Pluto kind of is top of mind for most that most folks when you think fast, but like Tubi is actually, I think, bigger now than Pluto. But it didn't start that way. So yeah, it's been it's been a growth engine for them for sure.

SPEAKER_00 4:49

Yeah. Well, on that note, speaking of things, growth, a surprising growth, something that caught my eye was the movies, summer movies, and who is making a splash, a surprising splash. So New York Times had an article this week talking about two movies coming from very young directors, a 20-year-old, a 26-year-old, talking about obsession and backrooms. They are blowing up, we're bringing bringing Gen Z in droves to the theaters and made for relatively no money. It's it's like such a cool thing to see. I mean, I for one grew up waiting for those summer blockbusters. Like, I won't say which names because it will date me, but I love seeing this. I now maybe want to go see maybe obsession, although it's a scary movie, and I don't even know if I'm like if I can handle it.

SPEAKER_01 5:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:48

But come back.

SPEAKER_01 5:49

By the way, with all of the remakes out there, you could probably just hedge to talk about generically like Top Gun, and you could be in the 80s, you could be in like the mid-teens, and there's a new one coming out. So you are very safe without dating yourself to be like, I'm generically picking this one that's been remade six times and still be a very safe territory to not be able to exactly triangulate at age. So I do understand.

SPEAKER_00 6:12

You mean like when I brought up flatliners this week, you had never seen it, and then I found out it was remade in 2017? Yes, just like that.

SPEAKER_01 6:20

Yeah, exactly. Or Jurassic Park. There's basically been one every year since like '94. So, like, very safe to be like, yeah, I grew up watching Jurassic Park during the summer. It's like, which one? Just leave it open-ended.

SPEAKER_00 6:31

Keep it at the OG.

SPEAKER_01 6:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:33

So what else caught your eye, Sean?

SPEAKER_01 6:35

Yeah. So there's one more that that kind of uh caught my eye, and it's slightly not safe for work material. So kind of prelude here, a bit different of a path. But 404 Media kind of covered a recent lawsuit against Meta, which we have talked about. But what's fascinating is the angle on the lawsuit. So Take Five Media is a uh pornography producing company that has sued Meta for actually downloading and illegally scraping their videos to help uh kind of fuel and produce Meta's AI kind of chatbot, et cetera. And there has been, if if you remember two, three years ago, right, there was a whole lawsuit by a publisher group to kind of say, look, uh, OpenAI at the time consumed all of our illegally downloaded copyrighted books to produce at the time, I think it was like Chat GPT 3.5, but there wasn't a lot of evidence. And so the the case never went anywhere. They settled out of court. This one, though, they explicitly have evidence where they can actually see that Meta, Meta's California campus illegally torrented torrented, torrented, I think. You got it. I think something like hundreds of megabytes of these videos from Take Five Media's various pornography sites. And so they have that. They have the detail, and Meta's like, no, no, no, no, it was like one rogue employee. So they're moving forward the lawsuit, uh, which I think is interesting, right? Because it does shed light into how these chatbots are being made. But should it actually kind of go to court and like a lawsuit kind of ultimately wins? This could also reopen the door back to the previous litigation for Claude, for open AI, and all of those things, which I think is like a fascinating angle given all of the conversations that are happening about AI.

SPEAKER_00 8:16

Yeah. Could you imagine? Like everyone just gets shut down.

SPEAKER_01 8:20

Yeah. Because you get limited, and you're like, sorry, you can only do it on this, and then you start talking to Claude or OpenAI, and it goes back to like Chat GPT 2, where it like speaks in broken sentences, and you're like, what is happening? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:35

Yeah, that's not gonna work.

SPEAKER_01 8:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:37

All right. It is. We'll have to keep tabs on that and uh see where that goes because it could be a topic for a future episode. Absolutely. All right, now we gotta get into it. I'm so eager to talk about NBA finals. I need to know you sound it.

SPEAKER_01 8:56

Yeah. I tried so hard to just even like read, be like, who won? Okay, cool. How many games? Okay, cool.

SPEAKER_00 9:06

The game four of this series is one of the best sporting events of all time. I'm just gonna say it.

SPEAKER_01 9:12

To be fair, I didn't watch it, but I saw the coverage on it and I started reading, and it was like why you're like, oh my god, like I think it was what the the the greatest comeback of all time in terms of like point deficit. Like that's that that is the type of game you want to tune in for.

SPEAKER_00 9:28

Exactly. And the type of game that you don't feel bad shelling out thousands of dollars to go see if if if you did that. But so I am so eager. You have to tell me what the stats are looking like because uh my gut is that just the fact that this is New York, there's so much celebrity appeal, the fact that they have, you know, a 53-year or they had a 53-year gap in holding a title, these have got to be impressive numbers. So please share with us what we're seeing.

SPEAKER_01 9:57

So it turns out the New York Knicks not only won on the court, but also on screen, just uh just so you hope. So I I want to kind of level set before we get into the spend, which we can see, is to also say, you know, uh the four games this year, from at least what we can see in rating so far. Five. Sorry, everyone. So you could tell how how much I read on this one. But the the five games this year essentially doubled viewership. I think at its peak was around 20 million viewers, whereas the NBA finals last year, I think with the peaked was like 10.3, 10.1, something in that ballpark. So already, right out of the gate, there was literally double the amount of people tuning in, watching it. Everybody wanted to see where this thing went. So naturally, then you've got to expect the money to be more. And initial results, right? We are literally like one week out from our data, it still needs to be reconciled, all these things. We could be looking at roughly 363 million bucks for the NBA finals for this year. Now, to give context, right? Because who knows how much that is, last year's finals was 246 million. The finals before that were 227, and the year before that was 226 out of our data. So just for context, right, it's pretty consistently in that mid-250-ish range for years and then skyrocket, almost double what it were, or I should say 1.5x what it was last year. So just this massive, massive increase in dollars. Again, preliminary views, technically 47.6% up versus the prior year, but like every single year prior to that was marginal or actually even in some ways declined. So just a massive, massive success for the Knicks, for the NBA, big wins there all around. So congrats.

SPEAKER_00 11:43

Wow. That's I mean, I I guess I'm not shocked, and I'll I'll want to probably dig into this even more as our data you know gets finalized. But that's incredible.

SPEAKER_01 11:57

Yeah. I mean they're they're they're they're crazy numbers.

SPEAKER_00 12:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:02

So what about how people consumed this? Like where are they watching it? How does that look and how does that stack up to other sporting events?

SPEAKER_01 12:13

Yeah. So again, preliminary at this point, but uh when we look kind of across the whole season, about a third of all of the NBA's ad revenue this year came from streaming. Now, again, for context, it went from essentially zero dollars in 2025 to now being a full third of revenue overall. So kind of, and again, to context, right? Big shift, but it was also intentionally very clear that the NBA wanted to go that direction, right? When they re-signed all the deals, they moved away from Warner, they specifically picked partners that had that dual streaming plus broadcast piece or a very strong streaming component, right? Amazon, uh Disney, NBC Universal, all places where they could do a heavy lift to make sure that games were either telecast and streamed, uh streaming exclusives. And as a result, it kind of paid off for them. Now, also the NBA is a bit younger in terms of viewers, so they just naturally would have more people stream. But the NBA now, just from a streaming dollars perspective, is larger than what we what we have in our data at least from the NFL, despite the NFL being a monster and just much, much bigger in terms of uh overall ad revenue. Like there, there's there's basically the NFL and then everyone else combined, and even then still a fraction of the NFL's ad revenue. But in this particular case, the NBA bit big on streaming and it seems to be paying off for them, literally.

SPEAKER_00 13:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:39

Wow. Yeah. And I I mean, I'm a guessing that's only gonna continue to accelerate, right?

SPEAKER_01 13:44

Yeah. I mean, we'll see what the, you know, when they come out in a couple months with their new schedule, what does it look like for the upcoming year? Um, you know, we'll dig into that and try to figure out what that means. But I would be shocked if there wasn't a an even further push into streaming for them.

SPEAKER_00 13:59

Yeah. I know we're still early on stats, but is there anything else that jumped out at you?

SPEAKER_01 14:05

Uh I would kind of highlight those those two. Uh, you know, we'll we'll kind of be wrapping on our NBA report and probably you know early July once we get the final stats, see what the NBA finals look like. But you know, overall very healthy growth with overall in terms of what we can see.

SPEAKER_00 14:22

Love it. Well, and you know, I mean, NBA wasn't the only thing going on last weekend. We had World Cup opening ceremonies. Um, just a massive, massive sports weekend. I mean, like, and week. I mean, this is now we're kind of in the thick of it. We've got a family pool going on my side of the house. Are you guys doing any anything like that?

SPEAKER_01 14:47

I mean, we we fill up it's a it's like a watermelon pool when it's hot, but um it's a different pool. Nailed it. No, no, we don't no no money is exchanging hands in terms of betting the brackets, what's happening, nothing.

SPEAKER_00 15:01

Uh well, we were all in, we got like 12 of I forget how many of us divided by three, yeah, 16 people in this pool. Wow. And yeah, it's great. We get three teams each, and it's it's been fun so far. So what are we seeing from a preliminary perspective, World Cup wise?

SPEAKER_01 15:21

Yeah, right. I think uh viewership has been all over the place so far. Yeah, the men's game, men's US game specifically, kind of set records in the United States, but other games are kind of pacing a little bit behind. Cutter's also real hard comp. It was in the fall. A lot of the games were at kind of tough times to view. So there's not really like a great, like, hey, this is how much it's grown in the last four years compared to say like the Olympics or other or like the Super Bowl, right? Other temples that have more consistent, similar type type things. So that being said, um, the average kind of 30-second spot right now is going for two to three hundred thousand dollars uh for the World Cup in terms of what we can see from our data today. About a third of units currently are kind of being sold in in that window. And for context, so cutter for the 22 World Cup pricing there was about 170k to 200. So it is definitely a marked increase. And what's interesting is on the upside, we're seeing like for like the very expensive units, which include sponsorship and all of that, like in the millions of dollars. Uh so not quite at Super Bowl pricing yet, but like the as we're pushing closer to the finals or final, uh, sorry, kind of blending the two sports here. It is it is getting very close to some of those unit rates that you would expect out of the Super Bowl.

SPEAKER_00 16:37

Yeah, I mean, I think I'm not surprised considering like I'm assuming game times were super difficult in Qatar. They're they've been difficult here, quite frankly. Like I it's it's it's tough to keep track because there's no like set schedule of what it's gonna be. It's kind of fluctuating in all the locations and difficult to manage. But the one thing I've been enjoying, and I I didn't ask you to look into this before, but I'm probably gonna ask you later, is uh all the like commentary shows, like just you know, sitting at a hotel pool in Kansas City, drinking Blood Lights, like all these like British commentators. Yeah, it's just so fun to watch. And I'm guessing, I'm wondering if, similar to the Olympics and conversations that we had previously, if we're seeing growth in that market as well, you know, just like these kind of like companion shows.

SPEAKER_01 17:33

Yeah, the shoulder programming. Yeah, I think that that's that's something that we can kind of uh talk a little bit, I think, in in kind of next week episode and start getting into that. I think, you know, we'll have we'll have a little bit of visibility there. Uh but on the topic of the British Isles drinking Bud Light, I don't know if you saw, but there was a multitude of Boston bars that ran out of beer this week because the the Scots came in and essentially drank, drank dry. I think it was like two or three bars, two, there literally nothing left. No, no extra kegs, nothing on tap, just completely gone. And I saw that made it to the top of my news feed. So not ad related in terms of top of mind, but certainly living red-free, rent-free in my head.

SPEAKER_00 18:15

Well, I mean, I don't know if you're following any of the like the folks that are I mean, I think we've talked about this a little bit, but like folks that are coming in and just diving deep into American culture and just like listening to Ella Langley, loving her music, going to every bad for you restaurant that we have and ordering the chili cheese fries. I mean, it is hysterical to watch because it's really two camps, right? It's like the the Europeans that come over and are disgusted by us, sure, or just love everything that we're doing because it's not what they can get back home. And just like I think my husband was telling me about, or were you telling me about? I'm trying to remember the uh the guy that was living or renting an Airbnb across from this group of I think like Scottish tourists. Were you telling me this?

SPEAKER_01 19:13

Uh no, I think it was your husband.

SPEAKER_00 19:15

Okay. And it basically like they formed this bond and were like making pancake breakfast for the game, and then they had an extra ticket to the game and they invited like this this random dude. Oh, it's like you gotta love it.

SPEAKER_01 19:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:29

Gotta love it.

SPEAKER_01 19:30

Yeah. I mean, that's the that's it, you know, if you're looking for the the good in the world, sometimes these types of sporting events bring out the very best, whether it's the Olympics, the World Cup, where it is this like weird mix of like people that just go all in on the culture, that it's about who wins. There's some ugliness too, right? Uh competitiveness, etc. But yeah, there is all of these really nice stories that are coming out about the World Cup. My favorite was uh there was a couple of Japanese tourists that tried out Texas Roadhouse and they like live tweeted it. That one was that one was fantastic. Verdict was Verdict was like mind blown, but like just couldn't handle it. It was like this is just all too much. This is just too much. Everything's just too much. Everything is just too much, yeah. It was kind of the the vibe.

SPEAKER_00 20:11

Well, I I mean, on your point of finding the good in the world, I think that's where we leave it this week, Sean. Let's just positive note positive positive. Let's go find some good in the world and start by liking, subscribing, and telling your friends about Media Monitor.

SPEAKER_01 20:27

Absolutely. Until next week.

SPEAKER_00 20:29

See you later, Sean.

SPEAKER_01 20:33

That's Media Monitor. Follow us and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts every Wednesday for a new episode. And as always, thanks for listening.