Original Article: Sports Business Journal, by John Kosner and Ed Desser, September 16th, 2024

What keeps you up at night?

If you’re a sports media, league or club decision-maker, No. 1 is probably the alarming, unprecedented decline/change of the traditional pay-TV ecosystem, the industry’s financial growth driver and exposure linchpin for the past four decades.

No. 1-A is how to reach and engage young fans.

This summer, Comcast/NBC’s coverage of the Paris Olympics and Fox Sports’ “Summer of Soccer” provided breakthrough ideas and execution. As we consider this challenge, thoughts turn to:

1. The Experience and Interface

2. Community Building

3. Character and Integrity 

First, winning in today’s era of media content abundance requires developing a plan for new audiences. In contrast to prior generations introduced to and captivated by sports through communal couch TV viewing and actually playing sports outside, today’s youth grew up with smartphones, social media, video games, fantasy and betting. Now, experiences and interfaces must take advantage of technology’s capabilities to get fans more actively involved. That doesn’t mean totally novel approaches — with TV Everywhere, we put the same content on every device. Then, mimicking the games business, we program differentiated content of an event designed for particular platforms on different services.

Since 2009, “ NFL RedZone” has revolutionized coverage of the nation’s favorite sport. Not surprisingly, Peacock medaled with its own “GoldZone” whip-around, which teed up climactic events and reminded viewers how many (and how varied) there were. Same for “Multiview” — (up to) quad boxes of different sports airing simultaneously that more than 25% of Peacock’s Olympic viewers used to create their own customized GoldZone. Both reached average audiences 10-15 years younger than linear NBC. Comcast’s embrace of tech enabled a never-before-available range of consumer choice and discovery. Fans could watch the Games live (“Paris prime time”); as a curated movie (“U.S. prime time” — an elegantly crafted presentation interwoven with backstories and contextual replays — like the Olympics of our youth!); sport by sport; and via widely distributed highlights on multiple platforms. On Peacock, fans had access to up to 60 simultaneous “world feed” livestreams, plus replays with no spoilers, and could search and locate content by sport, athlete, medal round or date. It was always on … and it all worked! Considering the popularity of TikTok and YouTube, it’s not a coincidence that short duration viewing of swimming and track and field events proved popular, or that the men’s Dream Team seemed even better playing four 10-minute quarters. And everything started on time, as scheduled.

Second, the only way to battle today’s extensive fragmentation is to aggregate your audience. That means putting communities of followers together. Inspired by social media, fantasy and now betting, fans increasingly root for players more than teams. NBA players such as Steph Curry are like Marvel superheroes for kids. So, the International Olympic Committee and NBC liberalized their historically restrictive social media policies and used the athletes’ own channels to help drive discovery and tune-in, leveraging direct deals to create digital hubs — such as TikTok’s use of the French mascot Phryge as top-of-screen content navigation. For upcoming Games, look for customized athlete highlights distributed immediately after a performance to tease follow-up event tune-in, which the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee and NBC experimented with during some of this year’s U.S. Olympic trials. Additionally, taking a page from entertainment, celebs such as Snoop Dogg, Sabrina Carpenter, Megan Thee Stallion and Lily Collins made it cool for their fans to co-watch the Games with their idols. According to Wired, nearly a third of new Olympic viewers say that clips on social media drove them to tune in. 

Earlier this summer, for its coverage of the Euro and Copa soccer tournaments, Fox simulcast the first five minutes of every match live on YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook and X. Ratings exceeded expectations — not only because these social media networks are where young fans are, but also because these platforms up-rank live content versus video-on-demand. No surprise: Fox has now extended its “free preview” to college football. The first drive of every major CFB game on Fox/FS1 is being offered live/free across social, followed by promos and deep links to watch authenticated in the Fox Sports app. Similarly, NBC is bringing Multiview to Premier League. That’s a way to bring back “cord cutters” and attract “cord-nevers” to linear TV and streaming.

Third, in a polarized world, the beauty of sports is that it brings people together, at scale, at the same time. It also has winners and losers; and, in general, those are not in dispute. We love sports because the games and individual performances thrill us, and we trust the outcomes. We see character and root for it.

That extends to those who broadcast the games. Audiences had to appreciate the hard work of Mike Tirico in Paris, who served as a smooth host/traffic cop for 17 consecutive days of afternoon live action, while also anchoring the nightly prime-time shows. For NBC, which in its previous Olympic presentations had famously embargoed all live action for U.S. prime time (Hey, it’s “plausibly live!”), executive producer Molly Solomon led a bold, gigantic move out of the network’s historic comfort zone.

Conventional wisdom when the Games opened was not for daily average audiences of 30 million-plus. By using today’s technologies and platforms, and abandoning some of the caution of their past practices, Comcast/NBC revealed a new playbook for reaching young audiences. We have taken note, and expect others to do so, too. This is just the beginning.

Ed Desser is an expert witness and president of consultancy Desser Sports Media Inc. (www.desser.tv). John Kosner is an investor in digital startups and president of consultancy Kosner Media (www.kosnermedia.com). Together they developed league TV strategy and ran the NBA’s media operations in the ’80s and ’90s.