Sports Are Only a Part of the Total Entertainment Picture

 “After six months, one of them's lucky: one out of a thousand. His find represents not only his own labor, but that of nine hundred and ninety-nine others to boot. That's six thousand months, five hundred years, scramblin' over a mountain, goin' hungry and thirsty. An ounce of gold, mister, is worth what it is because of the human labor that went into the findin' and the gettin' of it.” Howard, “The Treasure of Sierra Madre,” 1948, Warner Bros

Okay, it’s been a fantastic summer for real sports enthusiasts (nuts) around the world this year.

Our entertainment ecosystem may be in complete disarray with movie houses, networks, streamers and creative production people all anxious to get their share of this year’s $3T in global revenues.

While movies run hot and cold, there’s one segment that never goes out of style and there’s a new entertainment fervor – sports.

We started out with two major football (or soccer or futbol) tournaments (the UEFA’s (Union of European Football Associations) Euro 2024 and Copa America) that excited talents and audiences around the globe.

Real Football – Whether you call it football, Futbal or soccer; the contest represents to world’s leading sporting event attracting major followings of mens and womens teams.  

And for those of you who can’t figure out what’s exciting about men or women running up and down the field for an hour-and-a-half with only one break (plus 30 minutes extra if necessary) and one of the teams may win by only one point, we’ll end the suspense for you. Spain won this year’s Euro 2024 and Argentina took Copa’s top honors.

They were over just in time for the Paris 2024 Olympics with athletes from 184 countries competing over a two-week period to win a medal (gold, silver, bronze) for themselves, their team, their country.

More than 10,500 athletes competed in 40 individual and team events including boxing, field & track, swimming, beach volleyball, kayak/canoe, skateboarding, rugby, wrestling, surfing (held in Tahiti), fencing, triathlon, judo, rowing, table tennis, field hockey, lacrosse, heptathlon and more.

Spotlight – Men and women around the globe work daily for hours on end to perfect their performing skills with one goal that they may one day medal at the Olympics.  The American gymnastics team (l) amazed folks with their routines to medal.  Despite  an adjusted start for the triathalon, Olympians started their swim leg in “decent” water.

Yes, there were a lot of Olympic events we never considered to be sports like breaking.

Then there were more, way more, that we might have wanted to watch out of curiosity such as equestrian events (the animals, not the riders, deserve the medals) and air pistol (hate to say it but folks pack real guns here in the US) but gawd we did need to eat, sleep, work.

We did make it a point to watch the triathlon just in case Oscar Wilde’s quote that life imitates art and there really was a great white lurking in the Seine as in Netflix Under Paris. Spoiler, there wasn’t but there was a little pollution.

Sure, the facts that the opening and closing events were way loooonnnggg (they usually are) Paris and France did a pretty good job hosting the event in spite of the grumbles about the food and accommodations.

Despite some opening and closing event complaints (O.K., maybe the Last Supper was a little … ), the Olympics were overflowing with eye-popping entertainment including Celine Dion, Lady Gaga, armored horsewoman, opera singer Aya Nakamura, French Malian, Rim ‘Kim, dance groups, and a host of sports and entertainment personalities.

The 45,000 plus volunteers and police presence everywhere (a commentary of the times) did a good job of helping and protecting the millions of athletes and spectators who attended the games.

Comcast’s NBC and Peacock did an outstanding job of covering the events and athletes for viewers in the Americas and WBD did a very good job of keeping folks in Europe glued to their screens whether at home, at the pub or on their smartphone. 

The two aired more than 350,000 hours of appointment TV and streaming content to billions of viewers around the world. 

Both seemed to have cameras everywhere all at once to catch the routines that were executed flawlessly and those where you could feel the pain of the athlete and just know …

Split Second – Olympic contenders know instantly when things go right/wrong. Team Great Britian’s Annabelle Smith knew a medal was out of her reach during synchronized springboard competition but still completed an excellent dive.   Brazilian surfer Gabriel Medina may not have won a medal at this year’s surfing contest but he showed people everywhere he had a helluva’ ride.

Years of endless/brutal practice, studying, analyzing film of the individual’s/team’s all come down to a few seconds in front of the eyes of the world when a slight misstep or flawless execution makes all the difference in the world.

The Olympics are perhaps the best example of sports to really transcend traditional borders and bring global, regional and local audiences together.

Euro Team – WBD’s team of commentators, reporters, experts and athletes provided excellent coverage of the Paris Olympics to viewers/subscribers in Europe as they also launched Max streaming across the area.

According to friends reports in various countries across Europe, WBD surprised them (and us) with their coverage.

They carried out “wall to wall” coverage of the Olympics events/activities for audiences in 47 countries and in 19 languages on Eurosport, Max and Discovery + with a team of several hundred seasoned sports announcers/commentators as well as individual and group sport experts and past Olympians.

The coverage was important to WBD, having launched Max and Discovery in the European marketplace earlier this summer. They needed to show people across the region they were not only equal to the task but committed to capture and serve a majority of the nearly 682M TV households and a significant number of streamers with one or more streaming services.

Company officials estimated nearly 100M folks followed the Paris events. 

Golden – NBC and Peacock surprised viewers in the Americas with outstanding coverage of the many venues and the events/activities surrounding the Paris Olympics.

To say that Comcast’s NBC and Peacock surprised us with the depth and breadth of coverage for the Americas would be putting it mildly.

Peacock and NBC have been bleeding red ink in recent years and made significant cuts in their scripted content to compete in the rapidly changing home entertainment market. However, we were “concerned” as to how they would pump up their performance with sports … especially a world stage event.

The network and streamer saw an estimated increase of 25 percent in viewership and subscriptions according to Bango data services.

Now if they can apply the same commitment to their other operations, they might keep a big portion of the pay TV and subscription audience rather than being an afterthought for viewers … and advertisers.

But the company made good on their commitment to make “bold changes” to the coverage of the Paris games to ensure they secured a medal this year.

The organization’s ‘Gold Zone’ studio, control room and remote operations throughout the event probably even kept Comcast’s boss Brian Roberts spending hours in front of his TV set or following the action on his iPhone.

Backed by a team of seasoned researchers, analysts and commentators; reporters and crew members delivered a strong selection of traditional broadcast coverage as well as a flurry of streaming options, often live.

The Gold Zone can perhaps best be described as a planned/unplanned news and event coverage organization and a team of researchers, directors, host event commentators and a crew that included Snoop Dogg who showed everyone he’s not just a celebrity, rapper, record producer and entertainer but a real citizen of the world.

Brilliant – The addition of Snoop Dogg to their team covering the Paris Olympics (he also carried the torch) may have surprised a lot of people (us included) but the rapper showed he is a man of many talents as he very professionally covered many of the events. 

We don’t know who came up with the wild idea of adding him to the NBC/Peacock and Olympics teams, but she/he was right on!

In fact, the most in-demand Olympic souvenir is a Snoop Dogg pin - https://tinyurl.com/mr25arec - even more sought after than a gold medal…well maybe.

Okay, that was a lot of good news, but the bad news was that work productivity dropped like a rock around the globe, and it happens every time there’s a major sporting event that takes place.

Work Stoppage – People everywhere cut back on their work productivity (measurably) to watch the realtime and programmed coverage whether at home, in the pub/bar or on their smartphone. 

Individual, company, country productivity drops like a rock!

Major and minor global events like cricket, futbol/soccer, basketball, rugby, tennis, cycling and you name it, distract folks from their daily work to watch the contests.

They feign sickness to stay home and watch on their big screens, they sneak out to watch the events at the local pub/bar, they sit in meetings with their smartphones in their laps and ear buds in place, so they don’t miss out on any of the “action.”

Thank gawd most of these events/activities are scheduled on the weekend or in the evening or company, country growth/profits would be in the proverbial toilet!

But we get it that networks and streamers are willing to bid ridiculous amounts of money to lock in exclusive rights for specific sports/events.

About the same time as the Olympics, the NBA announced a record 11-year deal worth $77B with Disney ESPN/ABC, Amazon Prime and NBC/Prime for airing rights.

Interests Vary – Depending on the country/region sports interests vary as to which is the best sporting activity to follow. 

And that’s only a fraction of the estimated $63B value of global sports media rights and everyone seems to be willing to spend what it takes to get a piece of the action (and ad selling opportunities)--especially linear TV operations because it seems to be one of the few bright spots they have in retaining and winning viewers.

Realtime – Sports may be the saving grace for broadcast TV subscriptions since people prefer to watch events unfold in real-time and most often on a large screen.  When it comes to shows/movies and streaming, when/where you want seems to be preferred. 

Regardless of the sport, folks seem to want to count on being able to turn on their screen at a specific time and watch the contest in real-time.

Then the networks/service providers sweeten the deal for subscribers by adding highlight shows, sports documentaries and scripted/unscripted projects to keep and add subscribers.

No wonder Zaslav was “irritated” when WBD lost out to Amazon Prime for the NBA contract (yeah, they’re suing).

Amazon was the first to meet the NBA’s buy-in payment while WBD thought they were in the driver’s seat and could wait to agree. 

It didn’t work!

Of course, that sorta means WBD’s TNT and TBS don’t have much to add to the recently announced Venu Sports $43/mo. App.

Maybe Disney/ESPN and Fox should consider a trade for a better player?

That’s for the owners/coaches to decide.

Equity – Half the world’s population is “the other” sex and draws audiences of every sex, race and orientation; but women lag far behind their male counterparts when it comes to pay and benefits.

What the Olympics and professional sports glaringly pointed out to us was the gender inequality … everywhere.

The global population of men/women is roughly equal, but the NBA/WNBA contract glaringly showed women athletics isn’t “worth” as much as the men’s activities (WNBA received a measly $2.2B of the $77B contract).

Somehow, that just doesn’t seem fair, especially since we – and probably people everywhere – watched more of the women’s track and field, gymnastics and other events compared to the guys’ competition.

Disney/ESPN has recognized that females like Caitlin Clark and Angela Reese in the WNBA, plus track & field’s Anna Hall and gymnastics’ Simone Biles and others can have a major impact on viewership.

Maybe it’s time for broadcasters and streamers to realize “she” is their road to gold.

But we also see a major downside to all of the money these people are throwing at sports.

Comcast has said they’ll put “the weight of their entire company” behind deals like the NBA.  Fox is “rearranging” their programming commitments.  WBD continues to cut scripted show/movie budget to “revitalize” their TV and streaming assets.  Disney is “adjusting” their ABC and Disney+/Hulu/ESPN show/movie budgets accordingly.

Only Netflix, Amazon and Apple have kept their eyes on the total viewing market potential by maintaining a decent balance of live/documentary sports and scripted programs/movies to attract and tempt subscribers.

Doubling down on sports only means studios/networks/streamers will invest less in real entertainment whether it’s targeted at movie theaters, TV schedules or streaming libraries…the basics of entertainment.

As Howard said in The Treasure of Sierra Madre, “Water's precious. Sometimes may be more precious than gold.”

We have nothing against sports, especially like the Olympics every four years, but jeez fellas (and gals) not when it means sacrificing shows, movies and working professionals to win in the moment and lose the total contest.

If you’re going to be an entertainment boss, you have to remember it’s a marathon, not a sprint; and sometimes, just sometimes, you have to lose to win.

Andy Marken – andy@markencom.com - is an author of more than 800 articles on management, marketing, communications, industry trends in media & entertainment, consumer electronics, software and applications. Internationally recognized marketing/communications consultant with a broad range of technical and industry expertise, especially in storage, storage management and film/video production fields. Extended range of relationships with business, industry trade press, online media and industry analysts/consultants