00:00Today on Forbes, stream and beam,
00:04how you'll watch sports in the future.
00:07The Utah Jazz aired games locally on
00:09the same regional cable channel for more than 30 years,
00:13until AT&T Sportsnet Rocky Mountain,
00:16as it was known in its final iteration,
00:18announced last October it was laying off its employees and shutting down.
00:23In search of a new broadcast partner,
00:25the NBA's 23rd most valuable team became one of
00:28the earliest adopters of a trend that's sweeping the sports media world,
00:33so-called, quote, stream and beam.
00:36Any over-the-air broadcast television station,
00:39like Sinclair's Channel 14 KJZZ,
00:42could produce and beam the team's games to
00:46anyone in the Salt Lake City market with a pair of rabbit ears antenna.
00:49But streaming was a trickier proposition.
00:53Like many NBA teams whose cable deals crumbled,
00:56the Jazz suddenly controlled its own digital rights and had to figure out how to
01:00launch a direct-to-consumer streaming service in a matter of weeks.
01:04Jazz president Jim Olsen says, quote,
01:07''We needed experts in the business,
01:09and as fast as we needed to move,
01:11we weren't prepared to try to do the whole thing all on our own.''
01:15Enter the company Kissway,
01:17one of several streaming tech providers positioning itself as
01:20a key player in the evolution of the multi-billion dollar local sports media landscape.
01:26The New Jersey-based company helped design and launch Jazz Plus before the start of
01:30last season, fully customized with alternative language broadcasts,
01:34data tracking, and compatibility across two dozen connected devices.
01:39Similar opportunities exist with dozens of teams across the NBA, NHL, and MLB.
01:46By NBA Commissioner Adam Silver's own admission in September,
01:5018 of his league's regional sports networks are either defunct or in bankruptcy.
01:54And while tech giants like Apple and Amazon could fill that void,
01:58they've so far chosen to remain on the sidelines.
02:01That leaves several smaller tech companies including ViewLift,
02:05DeltaTrey, Endeavor Streaming, and APMC,
02:09all racing to sign up as many teams as possible in a red-hot competitive marketplace.
02:15Kissway co-founder Wim Sweldon's,
02:18the Sway in Kissway, says, quote,
02:20''What we're really sort of obsessed by is growing.
02:23We see so much opportunity in different teams,
02:26different leagues, different countries, different verticals.''
02:30The Ki in Kissway is named for his partner,
02:33former Bell Labs president, Jeon Kim.
02:37In case you're thinking it,
02:38that's not to say these streaming products are an instant goldmine.
02:42In its first year, Jazz Plus has had 21,159 subscribers, according to the team.
02:49Accounting for some who subscribe annually for $125.50,
02:54monthly for $15.50, although the price has since increased to $19.99,
03:00or per game for $5,
03:02Forbes estimates the team generated a little over $3 million in subscriptions,
03:07slightly more if you include a separate product packaged with the city's new NHL team,
03:12which has 2,600 subscribers.
03:15For now, that's nothing compared with the old cable model.
03:19AT&T Sportsnet Rocky Mountain was paying the Jazz an estimated $25 million a year
03:24for its linear and digital rights.
03:27The, quote, ''Beam'' deals with over-the-air operations such as Sinclair,
03:31Tegna, and Gray reportedly pay about half that amount on average to NBA teams.
03:37And for now, streaming is nowhere near making up the deficit.
03:41But teams believe added exposure,
03:43in its final season Utah's RSN had only 37% penetration in the local market,
03:48could lead to more advertisers, merchandise, and ticket sales.
03:53Teams see other benefits in building up their streaming presence.
03:56Each new sign-up provides first-party fan data they have never had access to before,
04:02including who each subscriber is and what they like to consume.
04:06This so-called, quote, ''digital intimacy'' as Sweldon's calls it,
04:10can help teams boost those ancillary businesses
04:13and will only improve as subscriber counts grow.
04:17For full coverage, check out Matt Craig's piece on Forbes.com.
04:23This is Kieran Meadows from Forbes.
04:26Thanks for tuning in.
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