Facebook has announced it is looking to hire a “top level executive” to oversee sports rights acquisitions. The “head of sports programming”, will have a budget of “a few billion dollars” to buy broadcast rights on a global basis. The social network does not intend to produce sports broadcasts; it would like to stream events, partnering with leagues or broadcasters that have linear television distribution in place.
Howie Long-Short: Back in May, Zuckerberg said “the long-term goal is actually not to be paying for specific content like that” and that he would prefer to pursue a “revenue share model”; but those comments were made under the presumption FB would be producing the broadcasts. If the plan is simply to stream events and FB isn’t pursuing exclusivity, the up-front cash outlay becomes significantly more palpable (AMZN paid $5 million per NFL game, CBS/NBC (CMCSA) paid $45 million/game for TNF). EPL rights expire in ’18, with MLB and the NFL coming up shortly thereafter (’21 and ’22, respectively). Look for linear distribution rights to increase (again) with total broadcast rights skyrocketing, as the tech giants bid on streaming rights. I do not expect FAANG to receive any exclusivity in the next round of negotiations.
Fan Marino: Whistle Sports recently announced that it was creating its first exclusive show for FB Watch, the “Next Trickshot Superstar”; a 10-episode series, hosted by Chad Johnson that features trickshot artists competing for $25,000. As a video content creator, with a following of 375 million followers/subscribers (and growing 2.5 million/week), Whistle Sports has raised $80.5 million to date; TGNA, NBC Sports and CBS Sports all participated in the company’s $29 million Series C round, announced in January 2017.
Facebook reportedly seeking an executive whose job will be negotiating sports rights
For the balance of today’s newsletter, sign-up here!
