- 7 hours ago
Variety's Entertainment & Technology: Shaping the Future of Entertainment
Join us for insightful keynotes, engaging panel discussions, and exclusive networking opportunities with the top executives, creators and disruptors shaping the future of Hollywood and beyond.
This one-day event will explore the trends, tools and strategies revolutionizing the way we experience entertainment from advancements in AI and gaming to creator marketing.
Join us for insightful keynotes, engaging panel discussions, and exclusive networking opportunities with the top executives, creators and disruptors shaping the future of Hollywood and beyond.
This one-day event will explore the trends, tools and strategies revolutionizing the way we experience entertainment from advancements in AI and gaming to creator marketing.
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00:00Introducing champions of sports culture across platforms, moderated by Jay Tucker,
00:06executive director of UCLA's Center for Management of Enterprise in Media, Entertainment, and Sports.
00:14All right, we are back.
00:17For those of you who hadn't noticed before, I'm just going to point out that I'm trying to represent the school with the sneakers, right?
00:22Ooh, really cool, right?
00:23Okay, so speaking of sports, we have been talking throughout the day about really the evolution of a lot of things,
00:33the role of technology and entertainment, shifting consumer patterns and preferences and so on,
00:38and we're going to try to collect some of those ideas with this panel to talk about what's happening with respect to sports.
00:45There's a lot of stuff that we could talk about because obviously shift to streaming, use of AI, production tech,
00:52technology inside the venues, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
00:56We're going to focus primarily on media, but I've got an incredible panel of folks here today,
01:01and we're going to talk about reaching fans, fan engagement, marketing, et cetera, all right?
01:06So I'm going to start, I'm going to jump right in and start with Olek.
01:12So Olek has had a very interesting past, very multicultural, very global, and he's with Televisa Univision right now,
01:21and I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about what you're seeing as the network goes increasingly global.
01:33How are you approaching engaging fans?
01:38So I would say first and foremost in the media business, as it relates to sports, the number one piece is having rights.
01:49So there is very little loyalty in terms of the audience going to your platform if you don't have the rights.
01:57But then it's the second step, which is the most complex, which is how do you engage with that audience once you have the rights.
02:04Buying the rights is just a matter of having a big check.
02:08The rest is the complicated part.
02:10And the complicated part these days is that you have multiple platforms and the audience consumes the sport in every platform in a completely different way.
02:19The behavior is different.
02:21Some people might consume it different if you're watching sports on TikTok than what you're watching sports on television.
02:27So for us, it's building the storytelling of the sport in a way that engages the person that's watching.
02:38Sports is still the only thing, I would say, that people consume life on a regular basis.
02:44And that creates a very, very unique energy on the audience side.
02:50You need to be able to capitalize on that energy and engage with the person from with the content that you create.
02:56And that's that's the way we try to do it.
02:58So talk a little bit more.
03:00You mentioned people watching their sports on TikTok.
03:02One of the things that I find fascinating right now is that we have a whole generation of people under, say, 30,
03:08where their experience consuming sports is so different from everybody else's.
03:13So how do you make those people aware?
03:16How do you get them engaged?
03:17How do you get them passionate about these teams and events?
03:20I think aware is the most complicated piece.
03:22I mean, even even if only linear platforms existed, for example, in the US, if you want to be a soccer fan,
03:30there's more than 27 platforms that show the sport.
03:34So finding it is complicated.
03:36So there is a lot of work on the marketing side that needs to go in in making people aware where that product is.
03:42Now, that being said, there used to be this idea that there needs to be exclusivity in the sport and you have to drive people to a single platform.
03:53I think on our end, we found that that's not true anymore.
03:57There is not that much cannibalization.
03:59You can have linear and probably the person that's watching linear that it's 10 years older than the person that's watching streaming.
04:05That person that's watching streaming, you're probably not going to bring her to linear anyway.
04:09So that's why we launched a streaming platform.
04:12And then on digital, it's even younger, shorter time span.
04:16This whole idea a few years back that we need to do 4K, 8K, 3D.
04:22When you start watching on a device like this, those things fall out, right?
04:25And what you want is no latency, very quick, good image, one click away from watching the content.
04:33And the person that's watching on television wants to be more immersive and be closer and hear the sport better.
04:40I mean, you hear comments for those of you that are NFL fans or for those of you that are Formula One fans.
04:45Because if you've been to a race and you've watched the content, usually you go to the game and you say,
04:52hmm, this is great and the experience is fantastic, but watching it on TV is a completely different way of experiencing the sport.
04:59And it's true.
05:00So that's kind of how you need to look at it.
05:03You need to look at the content through every different lens of how it's being consumed and spend a lot of money marketing the content.
05:09I love that.
05:10You mentioned a couple of things.
05:11One, having to write a big check.
05:13But then I also noticed that you mentioned a bunch of the major sports and you left one out, basketball.
05:17So I'm going to go to Stacy because apparently Amazon spent a couple of bucks on the NBA.
05:23We did.
05:24We did.
05:24We're very excited and actually humbled to be working on such an iconic property and taking it global.
05:31So you're about a month away.
05:34Was it October 24th?
05:36Yes.
05:36It's going to be the launch of the NBA.
05:38And unlike some of the other rights holders, yours is global.
05:42That's right.
05:42Right?
05:42Yep.
05:43So can you talk about what this next few weeks is going to be like or maybe the past two months has been like?
05:50You know, what is it like leading up to the launch of this massive new sport that's part of the portfolio?
05:56Yeah, it's such an opportunity to launch the global home of the NBA.
06:01And we're thrilled to do it.
06:03We'll be in over 220 territories globally, launching all at the same time.
06:08So you can imagine you have to do the regular things that we all have to do when we're launching a season or we're launching a league, right?
06:15Drive awareness, engagement, get people to tune in.
06:18But then you add a lot of complexity of language.
06:21And we were just talking about, you know, subs and dubs and time zones and cultural nuance, right?
06:27Where, you know, we want to make sure we show up in the right way where Wemby is, you know, in our French advertising and Giannis and Greece, et cetera.
06:36Um, so that, that all adds a lot of complexity, uh, for the team, but it's, you know, been a great challenge and everyone's really risen and we're super excited, uh, to launch in less than 30 days.
06:49So, um, how much of the really targeted messaging can you automate and how much of that really has to be driven by people?
06:59We have a significant amount of automation.
07:01Like, you know, if you think about push and email and certain things like that, but, um, you know, there's definitely a human element.
07:08You know, we're not at a point where we're making full promos with AI or anything of that nature.
07:13Um, but, you know, fortunately, Amazon, we're a very tech forward company and have the, that really Amazon is tech forward.
07:20Yes.
07:20So, you know, it's, it's coming, you know, working there is, um, a privilege in the sense that we have a lot of those things at our fingertips.
07:29Okay.
07:29Okay.
07:30Robert.
07:32Um, hi.
07:33Hi.
07:34So, um, if we're going to talk sports, let's talk sports, Fox sports, lots of major sports, this incredible legacy of, um,
07:43really distinctive programming.
07:46Um, but I feel like not, but I, and I feel like over these last 15 years, we've gone from a market for major sporting events where they were like two or three a year to where there seems like there's one every other week.
08:05And Fox sports has, you know, shows many of them, right?
08:10Not just, uh, super bowls, but also MLB world series, all-star game, um, uh, Indy car, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
08:18Can you talk about a little bit about how you reach and manage some of those fandoms, right?
08:26I've, I'm sure that, you know, there's a lot of overlap between different sports fandoms, but can you talk a little bit about how you approach, um, the marketing and engagement when you have such a broad portfolio of sports that you offer?
08:39Uh, yeah, absolutely.
08:41I, I, if I can before, I think it's interesting.
08:44You mentioned it used to feel like there was one or two big sports events, uh, on the calendar.
08:49And now it feels like there's so many and it's, it's because there are, um, I think the leagues, um, have been really smart in this regard.
08:58And I think broadcast partners as well in realizing you have to create tent poles and you have to create events.
09:04So the NBA created the in-season tournament, um, or starting, starting in Saudi Arabia and MLB in conjunction with us did the field of dreams game.
09:16Let's do a game there or the Rickwood field game.
09:18Um, all the leagues, everyone in our ecosystem has gone all in on trying to figure out how do you create events that spike, grab people's attention.
09:28And this circles back to what you asked, how do you manage the different fandoms?
09:32You really have to reach outside the tent of core fans to be successful at scale for a broadcast network.
09:39So you have to get NFL fans to want to sample IndyCar and IndyCar fans to want to sample NASCAR, NASCAR fans to want to watch world cup games.
09:48You have to cycle those audiences outside of the core and, uh, the big events.
09:53I think those tent poles are like a really important way and really good way for a marketer to say, Hey, look at this.
09:59You need to pay attention.
10:00This is special.
10:01Um, so kind of virtuous circle.
10:05So tell me more, tell me how you get the IndyCar fan to check out the field of dreams game.
10:15That's a really good question.
10:17I only ask good questions.
10:18Um, you know, uh, it's different for each thing, right?
10:24You try to find the, the passion point or the, the compelling thing in everything that you're doing.
10:30So if we're trying to get you folks interested in IndyCar, you know, we, you have to start as all marketers do with, well, what's compelling and what's interesting about this?
10:41Um, and then you build off that truth, right?
10:43And you try to define that and make it known for us specifically for IndyCar, IndyCar is a big challenge because there's three, um, motorsports brands of note.
10:54There's F1, there's NASCAR, and then there's IndyCar and F1 and NASCAR had very, a very strong distinctive brands.
11:02I think probably all of you out here, if I said F1, you have an image in your head, you'd probably think high tech, uh, international, glossy.
11:11And if you say NASCAR, you probably think, you know, Southern, denim jeans, Bush beer, kind of good old boys.
11:19You know, understand those things.
11:20I don't think anyone understood what IndyCar was.
11:22So for us, it really starts with like, we need to define it.
11:26So you understand it along those other brands and, and built from a truth.
11:31We built from the idea of, um, the reality, which I did not know, but IndyCar is the fastest racing on earth.
11:37They're faster than F1 and faster than NASCAR.
11:40And that's a compelling, interesting truth to people who are interested in motorsports.
11:44So we've built off of that.
11:46Okay.
11:46Okay.
11:47And I'd like to come back actually to talk specifically about IndyCar.
11:49Cause I understand that you guys have done some amazing things with, uh, YouTube and, uh, advertising focused on the racers themselves and all that stuff.
11:58We can talk about that a little later, Bob.
12:00Um, so Stacy started to talk about the NBA, but you are Mr. NBA when it comes to the NBA's digital presence.
12:09That's the first time I've been called that, but yeah.
12:11Well, I'm going to roll with it.
12:13I'll take it.
12:13There you go.
12:14Um, you know, we were just talking about how the NBA and, you know, as far as media is concerned, it's becoming increasingly global, but it already, it already had a global fandom.
12:26Can you talk about how you use digital to engage fans globally and how that differs from, you know, some of the domestic stuff that you do?
12:36Um, yeah, I think we take a, um, we really take a global approach every day, um, with how we sort of strategize around where we're going to try to meet the fans.
12:50And so, you know, the strategy goes, it goes back, I mean, it goes way back, but as, as far as like digital and social, it goes back 20 years, which it's hard to believe that, um, everybody thinks of social media as being, uh, not everybody, but as new, more of a newer phenomenon.
13:09Um, but it's, you know, we've been, um, you know, we started publishing on YouTube 20 years ago.
13:14Um, and I, and the strategy was all about just meeting fans where they are.
13:20Um, and we've just kept replicating that, um, with every new platform that surfaced over that period of time.
13:29So we were early adopter of YouTube, early adopter of Twitter, early adopter of Facebook, Instagram, snap, musically tech, which we gave tech tie, just on and on and on and on.
13:40Um, cause we've always felt that if we, if we early adopt, you, you become the first to learn the platform, you become the first to shape the platform in a lot of ways.
13:50Um, and almost like invent the content experience on the platform for sports.
13:55And so we sort of, we sort of approached every platform with that same mentality.
14:01And then for the, when the platforms, um, when the platforms took off, you sort of ride that wave with them.
14:08And so we've, we've been able to build this incredible community, um, of over two and a half billion people.
14:15Um, and what fascinates us every day is we get to, like, I think about that as like the, the most amazing focus group, their real time focus group there could be.
14:25Um, and when we look at the data, um, 75% of the 70, 70 to 75% of the consumption is, is coming from outside the U.S.
14:34So it's a truly, truly, um, you know, global fan base.
14:39And so even in our, um, I know you touched on it, but we, you know, we're, we're, we're starting our 11 year, um, media deals literally a week from now, October 1st.
14:50It really, like these deals kick in.
14:51Um, and, and in those deals, you'll see a lot of the same strategy, which is like fans are on network television.
15:00You're going to see a lot more NBA games on like national network television and fans are on streaming.
15:06And so you're going to see a lot more games or all of our games, you know, on streaming platforms.
15:11So the same philosophy of like, no matter what, like our North star has to be, meet our fans, you know, where they are.
15:18And so we've just adopted that every step of the way.
15:21So I know that probably the most important thing around your efforts has to do with discovery to make sure that fans are aware of, you know, what's happening, where they can find it, how they can engage, et cetera.
15:32But one of the things I just, you know, you said something interesting about how, um, you got onto the social platforms early, grew with them, and that you have this giant following.
15:42You said two and a half billion folks following you across all platforms, right?
15:46That's, that's the collection of followers across our league accounts, our team accounts, and our player accounts.
15:51Right.
15:51So I want to reframe that a little bit because I feel like the NBA uniquely amongst all of the major professional sports kind of shapes popular culture.
16:03That, that, that the players, the leagues, the competition, the style has become its own language in sports.
16:12And I'm wondering, you know, cause I'm thinking back to, I don't know how many of you remember, uh, there was a playoff game.
16:18Damian Lillard hit a big shot and he kind of waved goodbye.
16:20And that was all over Twitter when he hit that shot.
16:24Um, if you could talk a little bit about how, um, yeah, Dame time, if you could talk a little bit about how you think about the use of social and digital platforms as ways to engage those fans and get them excited.
16:38Like what's your strategy?
16:39What do you do?
16:42It's, uh, many things.
16:44Uh, first of all, you're, you're, you're spot on in that.
16:48I mean, my job is like, we talk about working with creators and influencers.
16:52Like we think about our 450 players as like the ultimate creators slash influencers.
17:00Um, and it's, we look at it as like they're, we have this unbelievable, these unbelievable benefits, um, where our players are not wearing helmets.
17:10The, they're not, they're wearing shorts and a tank top.
17:15They're, um, they're some of the, they've become some of the biggest celebrities in the world, not just in sports or just icons.
17:22Um, the fans get to sit two feet away from them on the playing surface.
17:29Um, and the game is filled with all of these incredible moments and those moments, to your point, they used to start when the game started and they now, you know,
17:40they now start well before the game starts because everybody is so fascinated by, you know, what they're wearing and the style, the shoes.
17:50And that all plays a role in developing, um, building the profiles, the personalities, um, of all of them.
17:56So we look at it as I look at it and my team looks at it as like, it's our job to capitalize on every single moment that happens every single day.
18:05And then adapt that content for every single platform.
18:10I mean, look, you mentioned all the different platforms.
18:12I mean, there are, there's platforms within platforms, which I, you know, it's, I saw yesterday, you know, Instagram announced they have 3 billion users.
18:22But like, if you open up Instagram, there's like five platforms within the platform and they all need to be programmed in a very different way.
18:28Um, and so we, when these moments happen, like our content machine kicks in and it's about optimizing for YouTube, optimizing for shorts, for tick tock, for Instagram stories, for Instagram feed, for Instagram reels, Instagram feed has a completely different audience than Instagram reels.
18:46It's like, you're reaching your followers in one place, you're reaching non followers in the other, and so it's, but it's that times every single platform.
18:54So it's, it's, it's quite a, it's quite a machine, but that's, that leads to like the massive amount of like global engagement that we're able to achieve every day.
19:03So I want to stay on that for the whole panel.
19:05So, um, to your point about all the platforms and platforms within platforms, have you, have you learned anything about how you engage folks on specific platforms?
19:17Do you have preferred platforms?
19:19Are there things that work on some platforms and not on others?
19:22Have you gotten in trouble using certain platforms?
19:25Tell us a little bit more about like this kind of platform specific stuff when you think about digital marketing.
19:30I can jump in there.
19:32Um, we do a lot of that ourselves.
19:35Uh, I think some of you are probably familiar with Marshawn Lynch.
19:37We have a series with him called in your city.
19:40That was a part of our TNF pre game.
19:44Um, we since invested in that from a marketing perspective, we buy, we have him make longer episodes, 20 minutes that we put on YouTube.
19:53Um, and there's always something great that comes out of the, his episodes.
19:57Uh, the first one this season was, he was, didn't know leprechauns were real and he was in Ireland and he like figured it out.
20:05And he didn't know they were real.
20:06Yeah.
20:06Or sorry.
20:07He thought, yeah.
20:09Breaking, breaking news.
20:11Breaking news.
20:13They're real.
20:14Um, he found out, he thought they were real and found out that they weren't.
20:18Um, so thank you for correcting me on that.
20:20Uh, and you know, that for us, we have to think about, we have it in this 20 minute piece, but then we have to take it and we have to make a short for TikTok.
20:27And make it almost like a trailer.
20:29And then we actually use a lot of Instagram carousels.
20:32So we make the carousel and then we post the full episode.
20:35And we also post a full episode on prime video.
20:37And we hope that starts to go viral.
20:40That helps us engage more broadly, get our content out there.
20:44And sometimes if we're even lucky, Robert or others will pick it up and put it on their shows because it's such a moment.
20:50And that's what we really try to do is create a moment with, um, within our social ecosystems.
20:56I love that.
20:59Uh, uh, my favorite platform is broadcast television.
21:04Good answer.
21:05No, I'm being cute.
21:06But, uh, you know, listen, um, uh, social and digital is obviously super important to us.
21:13Um, but at the end of the day, just from a purely marketing standpoint, because my job is to get people to turn on the television and watch something.
21:22The most valuable customer I can find is somebody who's on a television watching something else.
21:28So if I could buy ads on ESPN, that's the hottest of the hot zones for me.
21:34So, um, social and digital has a huge impact on the conversation, uh, awareness, um, and keeping kind of your product kind of moving through the zeitgeist.
21:46Um, but there's also, it's an avalanche.
21:49So as a marketer, that's what's kind of a little tough.
21:52In other words, in the course of a day, how many messages, how much content do you see on your phone?
22:00Probably, if not hundreds, maybe thousands of things.
22:03So for any singular message or singular piece of content to really have an impact on you at that volume, that fire hose is really difficult.
22:11So it's an important part, but it needs to be augmented with other things to really move a, a, a behavior in a person.
22:18I, I think if you were to ask every senior executive in sports, they would give you a different answer in my team, because the sales guys will want the platform that can monetize the best.
22:32The marketers want the platform where they can reach the people that they don't watch us.
22:36The producers want linear because that's where they can do the 30 minute pregame storytelling and, and develop the story.
22:43I really think in today's world, if you have a sports property and you're not unfolding into every single platform, you're leaving money on the table because the leagues are charging you for that platform anyway.
22:55I mean, you're paying for the rights to use in all these platforms.
22:59If you're not exploiting it, that's, that's money you're leaving on the table.
23:03Well, I think the, I think the scary part is that there's, there are, the issue is, is that the consumer has their favorite platforms and if you don't show up on there, you, you don't exist.
23:17Like your sport may not exist because they're not, they're not necessarily going to leave TikTok to go find you somewhere else.
23:24They'll just keep scrolling and you just, you just don't show up.
23:27So it's, um, that's why we've always felt like we just, you just have to be everywhere and you have to adapt your content for, for every platform.
23:36And you have to study the data because what we have always found is that the, the insights are often counterintuitive.
23:43Um, you know, you hear all about Gen Z, Gen Alpha, no attention span, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
23:50But then like we look at the data and we're like, they're all watching YouTube and over 50% of the consumption is on the television screen and they're watching like our highest performing videos are over an hour long.
24:04You know what I mean?
24:05It's like, there's all these like counterintuitive insights that, that keep popping up.
24:09So it's, it's, I don't know, it's fascinating.
24:11I want, I want to come back to that, but first I want to come back to something that Stacy said earlier.
24:15Um, when I think about some of these, uh, efforts, initiatives, et cetera, reaching fans, it strikes me that, um, this is not always stuff you can do alone, right?
24:30That some of this involves partnership or collaboration, either with another entity.
24:34So in the case of Amazon MBA or with other like multiple teams within the org, you were just talking about the 15 different perspectives on appropriate platforms within the org.
24:44Can you all talk about that collaboration process when, when the North star is reaching and engaging the fans, who are you partnering with?
24:53What are some of the principles you use to make sure that those partnerships work?
24:59I mean, yeah, I can take, um, that one, uh, you know, for us, Amazon's a big place, right?
25:06So we have a lot of surfaces and we're, you know, partnering internally with Amazon.com and I'm making sure the game's going to show up on our homepage.
25:14We're partnering with the operations team to make sure we're on the vans, we're in whole foods on the bags, we're on the tape.
25:22Um, you know, that's, it's a big place and there's a lot of coordination that goes across the board within prime video.
25:27So we're partnering with, um, you know, our, our teams on the merchandising side, the product side production.
25:34I mean, it's, it really takes a village, um, to get the sports out there just within our own ecosystem.
25:40Then externally, you know, of course we're partnering with all kinds of different platforms, um, to get our message out there.
25:47So, you know, it's, it's, for us, it's a mix of internal, external deep league relationships, um, even, you know, cross industry relationships.
25:55Robert and I partner on things, um, on sports that we share.
25:58So it really, you know, it is a team effort, but, but what does that mean?
26:03Does that mean that you spend 36 hours a week in meetings?
26:05Does that mean that you have to build joint systems?
26:08How do you deal with, I mean, like, how does that work?
26:11Yeah, I, I wouldn't, we definitely don't spend 36 hours a week in meetings.
26:15Um, but yeah, we have, you know, mechanisms within Amazon of how we're, you know, get these things out there, get them into the systems.
26:22And, you know, I think a lot of it's relationship based, like, you know, being able to pick up the phone and call Bob or call Robert or whomever, um, when we've got to get something done.
26:30But we don't, we don't have time or luxury in live sports to spend 36 hours because things kind of happen real time.
26:36Um, so we're, you know, efficient with our time and use mechanisms and process to make it happen.
26:43Okay.
26:43Robert?
26:44Yeah, I think people might be surprised at how much partnership happens amongst the broadcasters and the people in the ecosystem.
26:52So we're competitors in, uh, in one minute at a table and then we're partnering the next.
26:58So Stacy's team and my team, we both have NASCAR, um, and the NASCAR season starts on Fox and then moves to Amazon.
27:07So we're both partners with NASCAR.
27:09We're all vested in that success.
27:11So, you know, we have partner in, okay, how do we make that handoff of that audience make sense and how does that all work for everybody?
27:18And that happens all the time between the networks, um, the leagues and everybody in this ecosystem.
27:25But it's, uh, transactional at the end of the day.
27:27We all have a business to take care of.
27:29So in one minute we can be at the table as adversaries, but we inevitably have to work as partners over and over and over again.
27:36I think most people don't realize how much that happens.
27:39If, if you look at, I would say 10 years ago, externally, when you would strike a deal for rights, it was a licensee-licensor relationship.
27:49I think all that has evolved, and it's a true partnership now.
27:53And it's a true partnership with whomever is the rights owner, be it the league or a team, plus every single platform that's associated with it.
28:01So, if we part, if we have the Gold Cup, the same as Fox, those, the production teams are talking, how do we achieve synergies?
28:08If we have the Super Bowl that we sub-license from CBS, then we promote their games, they promote us.
28:14I mean, we all need to understand that in this business, truly the rising tide rises all ships.
28:20Then we'll, we'll battle for rights and, and we'll compete for, for eyeballs.
28:25But, but, but when it comes to the business, it's, it, the saying of the rising tide rises all ships, it's, it's really accurate.
28:33Yeah, I, I couldn't agree more.
28:35And how that, how that manifests on social is that it's becoming, I mentioned that big following number, but it's, it's becoming harder and harder to reach the people that follow you.
28:46Um, and the way to sort of attack that, that we have found is to get more accounts publishing NBA content and whether that's partnering, you know, with, um, with Stacey and her team, or whether it's partnering with the entire, and this is what we, this is what we focus on is like trying to partner with the entire ecosystem.
29:09So all of the podcasters that are producing content every day and publishing it and the clips are everywhere, um, building out a, an incredible, like creator and influencer network that is hundreds, like deep.
29:24And so that there, so you create this volume of accounts that are publishing content about you so that it gives you a better chance of, of surfacing, uh, of your brand surfacing.
29:34Cause if you, if you're just relying on one count to do one account, to do all that heavy lifting, it just, you won't, you won't reach it just the way the algorithm works.
29:43All right.
29:44Speaking of algorithms, I want to come back to what you said earlier and just open this up to the panel as well.
29:48So one of the consequences of all of this digital activity, right?
29:54It used to be that, you know, the sporting event was just broadcast to you and either you watched it or you didn't.
30:02And some people had these little boxes in their house and some people had little journals in their house and we kind of estimated and guessed what they were doing.
30:09Did they actually watch it?
30:11Now we have mountains of data regarding what people are doing, not just watch, but rewatch, pause, rewind, et cetera, that we, and we have tools to potentially aggregate that information to get meaningful insights.
30:27Um, given the work that you all have been doing and giving, given the new opportunities around the, you know, on the horizon with, for example, new ownership of certain media rights and so on, increasingly global audiences.
30:40Are there any insights that you've, uh, uncovered, unearthed over the last, you know, nine months, 12 months that you think, uh, tell us a little bit more about what fans are doing and what they're interested in?
30:56I can, I can, I can start, but, but I'm going to take a different approach to the answer because, um, we were talking about this earlier.
31:03Actually, we, um, the very first tweet that we ever published in 2009, um, was a tune in tweet to tell people to go watch our game.
31:16Um, and ever since then, um, our number one priority on social media is to tell people where to watch our games.
31:25Um, the problem is, is there's just no, there's just never really been a way to measure that effective, effectively that, that link, um, starting this year as part of, you know, our new media rights deals, basically every game will be streamed, which means that link from social media.
31:46We'll take them straight, straight to the, to every game.
31:50Um, so then we will have meaningful data, meaningful insights, like we'll know where to fish.
31:59We'll know where the fans are that are like most likely to convert to actually watching the game.
32:04Um, I suspect we'll find all of these, um, you know, all of these insights probably counterintuitive again.
32:12Um, but I'm looking forward to that, but I, we're not, we're not there yet.
32:16We're about to be there.
32:17And what I would say is, is I think what the, the way you framed the question basically is you've uncovered a whole set of issues that exist today.
32:30Like I was talking to Bob before, I, I, other than the data that we get, first party data that probably everybody gets, I don't trust anything else.
32:38I mean, you look at the data that Nielsen publishes, I don't believe it.
32:42I mean, you look at the, at the, at the data that YouTube publishes for the fights, I don't believe it.
32:47I mean, they're multiplying that because there's no standard.
32:49Like everybody can do with the numbers what it is.
32:51They can say there were 5 million accounts watching and I'll assume that there were 4 people per account watching and therefore there's 20 million people watching.
32:59How long did they watch?
33:00Was it 10 seconds?
33:01Was it 30 minutes?
33:02Like, is it average viewing time?
33:04Because the other day, for example, Kimmel, Kimmel last Tuesday, 6.7 on network, 35 trillion on YouTube.
33:12Fine.
33:13But is that average viewing time?
33:15Is that somebody that just clicked because it was in the front page and it has autoplay?
33:19Like it's very difficult.
33:21So until we get a standard for the industry, we get measurement between the partner and the streamer, it's going to be very difficult to actually have measurements that are accurate.
33:33Accurate.
33:34Yeah, we were talking about it before.
33:38The, you know, there was a YouTube broadcast, the first NFL game of the season or the second on a Friday night.
33:46Second.
33:47Yeah.
33:48And Nielsen changed their measurement metrics for that game, which, you know, I think for everyone else in the game was, we all kind of raised our hand and said, that's not cool.
33:58We need a unified set of standards if we're going to kind of share these numbers.
34:04As Oleg says, it's a bit of the Wild West outside, you know, especially with all the new tech.
34:10So until there's a unified set of standards, it's very difficult to trust certainly self-reporting and even third-party reporting that is not vetted and structural across the industry.
34:22Yeah, I guess I would just add, you know, for us, you know, we're customer obsessed.
34:28We have a lot of first-party data, obviously.
34:30And so we use that to just understand who our customer is.
34:34What are they watching?
34:35Why are they watching?
34:36We know where they're moving around the ecosystem where we can find new audiences, put up new marketing.
34:43And that's, you know, the Nielsen issue aside.
34:46Like for us, you know, who is our viewer?
34:48What are they doing within Amazon, outside of Amazon?
34:51And using that data to really mine and refine our strategies.
34:55Staying on that topic, are you using, I know we're kind of running out of time, but are you using any of those insights to help personalize the experience for these fans?
35:05Absolutely.
35:06Absolutely.
35:07You know, we're, I would say, you know, we're not changing broadcast feeds or anything of that nature, but we certainly know like what to serve.
35:14I was just speaking to Cynthia.
35:16She's a WNBA fan and she's like, wow, I've been getting so many more notifications and marketing on WNBA.
35:22And I was like, well, that's not a mistake.
35:24Like we've, you know, we spend a lot of time to try to really hone and curate the experience within Amazon so that, you know, you're finding what you want to see and what you love and not what somebody else does.
35:35Okay.
35:36Okay.
35:37Speed round.
35:38Um, last question for each of you.
35:41What do you think will be the most impactful technology or experience for fans over these next days?
35:50Let's say 18 months.
35:52I'll give one possible answer.
35:53I mean, it's just because it's something that we're focused on.
35:55I mean, there's obviously been quite a bit of chatter about the impact that AI, Gen AI is going to have on our business.
36:13Um, when we think about this global audience that we're trying to serve every day, it's, it takes a lot of resources to sort of fuel that ecosystem.
36:23Um, we've been using AI tools for a very long time.
36:26But it's, we're now getting to the point where we can start to sort of automatically generate content that can get to, that can serve like what I would consider like underserved NBA fans.
36:40Um, there's, um, there's international, there's fans outside the US.
36:45So localization is, is really big.
36:47But the thing that's like exciting for me is like youth content and cartoon animation and things like that, things that were like really cost prohibitive are, are now becoming like a reality.
37:00So being able to produce, um, content for a demographic that's been hard to reach because it's been expensive to produce the content is gonna, is an area that we think is gonna make a huge impact.
37:13I think that, uh, for the tech that's gonna like, that I'm excited about, that's gonna have the biggest impact is at the league level.
37:21Uh, and it's the way tech changes the actual games.
37:25So you have the NFL has, you know, gone to the chip in the ball for first downs.
37:30That's huge.
37:31That, that's gonna have huge impact.
37:33Baseball announced this week, starting next season, they're gonna have robot umps calling balls and strikes.
37:38So if, uh, a player, Aaron Judge, unjustly gets called a strike that's down here because he's nine feet tall.
37:44He can challenge it on the spot and the computers will tell it to fall a strike.
37:48Those things that move the game along, I think will have ultimately the biggest impact.
37:53Yeah, I guess, for me, it's, um, AI within broadcast, broadcast innovations.
37:58Like, how are we, as a broadcaster, changing the game, adding more features, um, that bring,
38:03you know, casual fans in, that get deeper for those who are, you know, obsessed.
38:08I think that's, that's gonna be the, the thing to watch in the next year, I would say.
38:12Yeah, I, I, it's very difficult to follow all those three, but I do think in venue changes.
38:18I mean, what the NBA does with the, with the LED floor, what tennis is doing with some of their chords.
38:25I mean, I think that's gonna, that is gonna introduce a whole new level of, of technology that's gonna be able to, to enjoy on the other side of the screen.
38:35And so now you have just gotten the preview for our next panel, which we'll do, I don't know, three months, 12 months from now, we'll do, we'll do another one on, on all of these technologies.
38:44But thank you so much to the panel for this conversation.
38:47Thank you so much.
38:49Thank you so much.
38:52Thank you so much for this conversation.
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