Forwarded this email? for more SHRINKING STREAMING FIELD LIMITS UFC OPTIONS LONG-TERM ESPN+ WILL LIKELY DIE IF IT LOSES THE UFC, IT'S NOT THE ONLY STRUGGLING STREAMER Nate Wilcox Jun 25 READ IN APP Yes, yes, I know that Ari Emanuel is all-seeing and unstoppable and that TKO share prices and profits can only ever go up. With that out of the way, let’s paint some more nuanced pictures with reported facts, fact-based reporting and feels. I’ve been keeping an eye on the streaming business since it’s such a big piece of UFC and WWE revenues. And last week saw some interesting reports/speculation about the UFC’s current streaming home ESPN+ and its flagging fortunes. Most law-abiding UFC fans know that ESPN+ delivers one of the more underwhelming streaming experiences available online. Luke Thomas has rightfully gone off at video-length about the suckitude of ESPN+. And Awful Announcing speculated some dire days ahead for ESPN+ should the UFC head off to higher-bidding pastures. And the pieces goes into “growing questions how the service fits into the next evolution of ESPN’s strategy.” That’s because all the buzz is about something Disney is calling ESPN Flagship which John Ourand documents at Puck. He points out that the cable service has dropped from 100 million TV subscribers to 70 million and now must more seriously adapt to the coming post-television era. > Indeed, the two streaming services have divergent strategies. ESPN+ is an inexpensive supplement for sports fans who want to > watch Peyton Manning’s show or engage with niche content, like smaller college conferences’ sporting events, or order UFC > pay-per-views. Flagship, on the other hand, intends to disrupt itself—and be a true home for sports obsessives who want the full > panoply of SportsCenter and live games but would simply not be caught dead subscribing to cable.  > > But the fate of ESPN+ touches on just some of the complexities and nuances around the business case for the new streamer. For > starters, ESPN executives have always credited UFC with being instrumental in growing the ESPN+ service. Will those executives > and data scientists use UFC as justification for keeping ESPN+ around? Or will they simply view its success as a reason its > rights must be bundled into Flagship? (The latter, presumably…)  Couple of key facts about ESPN+: > After topping out at 26 million in 2023, the OTT service has seen consecutive quarters of decline. In May, the subscriber count > was down to 24.8 million and ESPN+ also posted a $65 million operating loss for Q2, which is higher than the losses ascribed to > the upcoming DTC venture ($47 million). > > As for those subscriber numbers, you also have to consider that a substantial portion of that is people who signed up for > Disney’s bundle that includes Disney Plus, Hulu, and ESPN+, where ESPN+ is more of an add-on than something those subscribers > are fully engaging with. Then there’s this from the SI Media with Jimmy Traina podcast where author Jim Miller speculated that the UFC might find greener pastures in its next round of bargaining rights. “There’s the question of UFC rights coming up again,” said Miller. “I have a tendency to think that that might end up at Netflix and ESPN may quote-unquote save some money.” Of course it’s in the UFC’s interest that Disney/ESPN be an enthusiastic bidder to keep the promotion, whether it be for the ESPN Flagship or not. Here’s what Shapiro has to say: > “I’m anxious to see where this all goes. ESPN flagship, what happens at ESPN+, obviously the cable bundle is completely > imploding, ABC’s kind of had a little resurgence right now. So we’re going to work with them behind the scenes to figure out > what the next chapter of our partnership looks like.” > > “It is our preference to stay at Disney, because of this history,” Shapiro said at the Morgan Stanley Tech, Media and Telecom > conference. “But we’ve had impromptu three different platforms inquire about that window that you’re talking about and when we > might be able to sit down with them to discuss moving to a different platform, which we will do if we can’t get the right deal. > “But the window opens in January. There’s no reason we can’t start talking about it earlier.” But of course Mr. Shapiro knows that there are bigger fish in the sea, namely Netflix. Here’s what Forbes has to say about the #1 streaming service: Note the bit about global reach. Very important to the UFC. Netflix recently cut a deal to air some live NFL games so they’re in the market for live sports. They’re also locked in something of an ad-price war with Amazon so they’re motivated to have unique offerings advertisers can’t get elsewhere. It’s good for TKO that Netflix is healthy because the rest of the streaming industry isn’t doing so well. Especially legacy media companies like Warner Brothers and Paramount. BUFFERING | JUNE 6, 2024 It’s the End of Paramount+ As We’ve Known It (and That’s Fine) By Josef Adalian, who has covered the television industry since 1992 ~/ —W— Warner Bros. Discovery made a big streaming profit even as it missed earnings estimates The entertainment giant's stock slipped after first-quarter revenue fell short of expectations The point being that there’s less dumb money being thrown around out there for streaming content. It’s funny how Apple never comes up when they talk about options for the UFC. That’s too bad because they’ve got literal mountains of cash and will likely be funding Apple TV for no good reason for a long time to come. One last thing, I just recently learned about a famous 2004 meeting between ESPN and the Big Ten in which a hard-charging young ESPN exec named Mark Shapiro over-played his hand and got rolled to a legendary extent. > Needless to say, the Big Ten Network’s launch was by a large margin, one of the most impactful events in all of sports (and not > just sports media). And not only for the conference itself, but for Fox, ESPN,  the many schools impacted by realignment, and > the many other dominoes that subsequently fell both in sports and in sports media. > > How did this happen? Before getting into that, it’s good to get a feel for just who was leading negotiations for ESPN at that > time. Mark Shapiro was ESPN’s up and coming executive vice president for programming and production at the time. Despite his > young age (at the time in his early 30’s), Shapiro had developed quite a reputation as being brash and confident as well as > eager to experiment with non-live event programming such as PTI, Tilt, and Playmakers. > > Shapiro seemed to favor the idea of creating shows sports fans would watch which would make the network less dependent on > acquiring live rights from leagues and conferences. Because of this he was known as a VERY aggressive negotiator when it came to > live rights acquisitions. I wonder how aggro Shapiro will be with an additional 20 years of experience under his belt and the Yoda of Yodas (Ari Emanuel) whispering in his ear. UNRELATED: MMA CONNECTIONS TO TERROR ATTACK IN DAGESTAN I didn’t want to let this story go by as shows the continuing connections between the MMA world and geopolitical conflict we’ve been following for a long-time. Karim Zidan has a fine piece explaining the details but I’d like to point out one thing. he doesn’t mention — the frequent historical connection between terrorists in the Caucasus region and religious extremism imported from and funded by the Gulf States. The fact that the UFC has so many fighters from the former region and so many funders from the latter region puts TKO once again in the middle of a geopolitical hot spot. Sports Politika MMA fighter linked to UFC star among militants killed in Dagestan attack Welcome to Sports Politika, a newsletter and media platform focused on the intersection of sports, power and politics. This newsletter was founded by investigative journalist and researcher Karim Zidan and relies on the support of readers. If you have not done so already, please consider becoming a… Read more a day ago · 21 likes · 2 comments · Karim Zidan I wonder if Netflix will be interested in optioning the rights to a true-life geopolitical potboiler based on the true-life story of a pro-MMA fighter turned anti-Russian terrorist? You're currently a free subscriber to The MMA Draw Newsletter. For the full experience, upgrade your subscription. Upgrade to paid Like Comment Restack © 2024 BE Presents Publishing Inc 254 Chapman Rd, Ste. 209, Newark, DE 19702 Get the appStart writing