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In a transformative upgrade of its content subscription offering, Google is buying the rights to live Sunday NFL games for $2 billion per year for 2023-2031.
YouTube can leverage its massive reach to challenge existing video aggregators, including pay-TV platforms and Amazon, as a gatekeeper to consumers.
Google will likely deploy a similar strategy in Europe, eventually competing with Sky, Canal+ and other incumbents—a hopeful development for football leagues.
Amazon, NBCUniversal, Disney and Discovery have all announced their own ventures in so-called t-commerce, but experts aren’t convinced any of this tech is going to pay for streamers' own programme shopping. “These are all pretty niche opportunities – normal product placement is a nice addition to have, but it hardly drives the businesses of studios or broadcasters,” says Tom Harrington, analyst at Enders Analysis. “This technology feasibly extends that segment a bit but doesn't really combat the real limitations – which are regulation and the audience's tolerance for product placement.”
“That’s not happening,” said media analyst Claire Enders, of Britain’s Enders Analysis. “The WSJ is the core asset of News Corp.”
Francois said it’s a “compelling proposition” for the likes of Netflix and Disney.
He added that this leaves uncertainty over the group’s future direction, “That’s the most important issue now – how can they grow? They have proved that they are resilient and they are profitable, but where could growth come from?”
American private equity companies are eyeing both clubs and François Godard, co-author of a ‘Private equity and football’ report for Enders Analysis this week, told The Times: “Very few clubs have the capacity to go and buy other clubs but these ones do and a private equity investor could have the impetus to do that and build a multi-club network.”
Magazine publishers are at different stages of a transformation cycle, but a variety of external and industry factors are massively accelerating change.
Often described as the transition from page to screen, in reality transformation is a deeper redefinition of each brand’s community and purpose, and the use-case benefits it delivers.
Online advertising is evolving into a space where trusted consumer media can exploit their advantages of community engagement and premium context, rather than indiscriminate traffic.
When it comes to rating the show’s success, Barb figures are pointless. “There are all sorts of metrics – reaching underserved demos, retaining uncertain subs a bit longer, getting some users to log on to their service instead of another – that feed into whether Netflix sees the show as a success,” explains Tom Harrington, analyst at Enders Analysis.
Netflix, he stresses, thinks globally. The Netflix audience is still dominated by the USA, where it has 67 million subscribers, followed by Brazil (15m), UK (14m), Germany (13m), France (10m) and Mexico (10m). “The Royal family is IP that travels well, along with the advantage from the thematic tie-in that they’ve done with the recent series of The Crown,” Harrington explains.
But when all is said and done — provided Qatar maintains a safe environment through to Sunday — “they have absolutely pulled it off,” says Claire Enders, founder of leading London-based media consultancy Enders Analysis.
“They have put Qatar on the map of the world and everyone in the world knows where they are and everybody has a more positive view of Qatar than they had before, for sure."
“They established beIN all over the Middle East and in France, and really built an incredible amount of Qatar brand recognition,” said Enders, pointing out that Qatar “certainly went at it ready to spend enormous sums,” given that over the years “the amount they’ve lost [on beIN] is in the many billions.”
CVC Capital Partners has acquired stakes in the top Spanish and French football leagues, and has been in talks with Germany’s and Italy’s alongside other private equity (PE) firms.
Clubs are after an immediate post-Covid capital injection, and the steady cashflows from media rights are attractive to PE firms. CVC has gained management influence, and tighter cost control should help channel the money into clubs’ stadiums and academies.
Even if the stakes were sold from a position of weakness, PE could help to align the traditionally fractious clubs with the leagues, bringing about a more robust approach across rights deals and investment in commercial potential.