Sports Business Journal’s Post

Streaming vs. Broadcast: The Future of Local Sports Telecasts The future of local sports telecasts is up in the air as streaming services and local broadcasters battle it out. While local broadcasts offer free viewing, streaming could provide more options like alternate feeds and sports betting integration. Some analysts believe streaming services like Amazon, which has deep pockets, are the future. However, local broadcasters are stepping up to air games as regional sports networks (RSNs) struggle. The question remains: will teams find a way to combine broadcast and streaming, or will fans have to choose? It will be interesting to see how this plays out in the coming years with some interesting insights in the Broadcasting & Cable article below:

FuboTV, a sports streaming service, is suing Disney, Fox, Warner Bros. and Discovery over shared plans to stream sports content. Historically, antitrust lawsuits in the media and entertainment sectors have seen mixed outcomes, but FuboTV argues that the media companies are unfairly using their size to push out smaller competitors. #FuboTV #StreamingWars #SportsBiz #DigitalMarketing Full Article:

✅🖥️ Hollywood Reporter (12/15): “At Warner Bros. Discovery, the Max streaming platform rolled out live streaming sports — including the MLB playoffs and NBA and NHL games — in October. And at Paramount+ and NBCUniversal’s Peacock, streaming sports are among the biggest drivers of new subscribers. Paramount Global, which has 63MM global streaming subscribers, has cited its NFL games as key drivers of Paramount+ subscriptions, and Amazon says that TNF has been a catalyst for both prime subscriptions and advertising growth. Beyond subscriptions and advertising, the streaming push is also about relevance. When every household paid for cable or satellite TV, sports were ubiquitous, but for consumers under 40, cable is just not a popular option. Balancing the new and the old means walking a tightrope. Disney’s September carriage deal with Charter Communications will make any eventual ESPN streaming service available with cable packages, and WBD is looking to work with cable providers on its Max B/R Sports tier, too. That dynamic is likely to be a focal point of the forthcoming sports streaming wars. Are sports a critical piece of the value proposition, as they are for Peacock or Paramount+? Or are they a premium option worthy of an extra fee?” ⬇️🏀🏈⚽️⚾️🏒 #streamingtv #ctvadvertising #cordcutting

From Blind Broadcasting to Big Data Nudges: Can streaming make sports fan engagement more valuable than games? An interesting challenge on the dominant media narrative on sports, streaming and traditional TV from John WallStreet. As more sports will gravitate towards streaming, more business- and #technical challenges and opportunities will become transparent. You can read some of the more fundamental and interesting business challenges and opportunities in the John WallStreet post below. Further to my reading some questions popped up in my head…. ► Will monetization strategies develop quickly enough to offset the loss of revenue from traditional sports rights deals❓ ► While I don't foresee a big issue with incentivizing fans to share data, will there be privacy issues and potential (monetary/ownership/strategic) conflicts around data sharing among sports leagues and big streamers like Amazon, Apple, and DAZN❓ ► Can streamers build a more valuable ecosystem for fans and leagues compared to traditional TV❓ ► Are streamers gain traditional TV’s pain❓ ► Will the increasing fragmentation of sports rights across platforms lead to viewer fatigue or a new era of hyper-engaged fandom❓ What do you think❓ 🔗 #Ad #AdTech #Advertising #ATSC #ATSC3 #Broadcast #Broadcasting #cabletv #CTV #DVB #Innovation #ISP #IPTV #FAST #FutureofAdvertising #media #mediadistribution #mediatech #MVPD #vMVPD #NAB #NabAmplify #NextGenBroadcast #NextGenTV #OTT #PayTV #SMPTE #Streaming #StreamingMedia #StreamingTechnology #Television #TV #TVAdvertising #video

The erosion of the pay TV ecosystem has put local broadcast rights revenues in peril. So, logic would assume sports properties and their owners would view the ongoing media transition as detrimental to the business. And it will be for some, at least in the short-term. “But cord cutting could actually be the best thing that has ever happened to these leagues,” one prominent sports investor said. The data & insights gained will help teams/leagues to tap into different parts of the fans’ ‘entertainment wallet’, which should lead to increased revenues and continued valuation growth. #sports #media #investment #broadcast #streaming #local #sportsbiz https://lnkd.in/e6pkaAa6

The erosion of the pay TV ecosystem has put local broadcast rights revenues in peril. So, logic would assume sports properties and their owners would view the ongoing media transition as detrimental to the business. And it will be for some, at least in the short-term. “But cord cutting could actually be the best thing that has ever happened to these leagues,” one prominent sports investor said. The data & insights gained will help teams/leagues to tap into different parts of the fans’ ‘entertainment wallet’, which should lead to increased revenues and continued valuation growth. #sports #media #investment #broadcast #streaming #local #sportsbiz https://lnkd.in/efW4c4FU

🏀 The upcoming sports streaming partnership among Disney's ESPN, Warner Bros. Discovery, and Fox Corporation officially has a name: Venu Sports. 💻 The streaming service, announced in February, is set to debut sometime this fall and comes as media companies face increased pressure from investors to scale their platforms and achieve profitability. 🤝 Venu Sports will bring together the three companies' respective slates of sports networks. Collectively, the new service encompasses about 55% of US sports rights, according to Citi Research. Who plans to subscribe to this service? I lay out the details on Yahoo Finance #streamingwars #bundle #jv #sports #business #finance #venusports

Here's what I told Campaign about the sports streaming joint venture: Pooling together allows the TV companies to split the burden of expensive sports rights....The TV networks would also like to abandon cable providers so they could control distribution themselves. There’s less worry about the impact of a carriage dispute when you control more of your own distribution....Managing growing the bundle while not cannibalizing their own subscriptions and ad revenues will be the toughest challenge and it isn’t clear they will be able to accomplish it...In the case of ESPN, it’s very unclear why anyone would pay for a standalone ESPN app if they get ESPN’s best games as part of a bundle that saves them money compared to subscribing to each service individually.

Good state of play for NBA's upcoming media rights negotiations in John WallStreet's newsletter today ... starting soon with a 45-day exclusive window for the incumbent, and probably future, rights holders ESPN and WBD. Reminds me of an early-pandemic conversation I had with the very own Daniel Cohen for SportsPro as part of their SportsPro influencer series: 💬 “Don’t leave behind the most profitable customers in pursuit of incremental digital dollars. Traditional pay-TV subscription is still best fit for many. It’s just not one-size-fits-all anymore.” 🔗 https://lnkd.in/eDR9mHhN There’s more to the shrinking multi-channel video bundle universe (“cord-cutting”) than the headline number, though, which is down from its peak of 110M+ to 55M linear pay-TV subscribers according to Leichtman Research: • 📲 Over-the-top (of traditional video distribution) alternatives such as YouTube TV have been picking up about 30% of the slack. • 💰 Advertising and carriage rates have grown far above inflation, compensating for quantity with quality (higher ARPU, most loyal customer base). 📦 Slicing and dicing: There’s splintered consumer market and preferences, which makes some slicing and dicing between old and new guards required to actually maximize reach and revenue — being sharply aware of diminishing returns though. 🐘 One elephant in the room: Can the most sophisticated rights packaging strategy overcome a potential lack of competition, which remains the single-most important determinant for market prices for sports rights. 🫣 Worst case for NBA (or any other sports rights owner): Media executives identify the cost, and not the revenue, side of the equation as to what is broken in the current (sports) video programming market — at least in the short term.

Analyzing broadcast and streaming opportunities for local sports as the traditional RSN model struggles