Hi-
I started out in nightclubs and that led me to the world of tickets over time.
I’m now mostly involved in strategy and branding, but I still follow sports business and the business around entertainment because they allow me to illustrate issues that might be harder to illustrate in other places.
That’s why I’m sharing this piece on the decline of the RSN business in the United States right now.
I’ll point you toward my favorite strategic analysis framework, the Power Framework. Something I learned from Kamal Munir at Cambridge.
Dr. Munir says that to judge a strategy you look at whether the business gains power against three factors:
- Customers
- Competition
- Suppliers
As sports works through this change in business model, it is interesting to think through an environment where sports content isn’t viewed through such a premium lens.
Where does the power lie?
- There are less fans and less eyeballs watching sports in most cases than ever before. Last year, the average NBA broadcast drew in 1.6M viewers. That’s half of the average audience for ‘Big Brother’.
- Competition is interesting because the cable TV bundle has driven the ballooning of TV rights, but half of the households supporting the bundle have disappearedover the last 10 years and Comcast reported that it lost 12% of its subscribers last quarter. The MLS/Apple TV deal was on a lower per team number than previous MLS deals, even as MLS gave away a lot more content and control to get the total number higher.
- Do streamers jump in to spend big dollars when we haven’t seen much indication that sports drives subscriptions?
- 18,000 Padres’s subscribers in SD?
- Do streamers jump in to spend big dollars when we haven’t seen much indication that sports drives subscriptions?
- Suppliers, this is the only spot where sports has a continued advantage because of the nature of sports being seasonal and typically only having one team per market with a few exceptions.
But I’m curious about your take on this.
What do you think would be a viable path forward for sports businesses needing to make up some revenue? Reach their target market? And, grow their fan base?
Let me know by hitting reply, telling me on social media, or jumping in the Slack Channel.