John Gleasure, "Sports Media Distribution - from Betting to OTT"

John Gleasure has been on the forefront of sports media distribution from his early days in BskyB to the dotcom boom days of Sportal to launching 3G applications for Hutchison Whampoa. And then starting Inform with a group of fellow sports executives 15 years ago which turned into PERFORM and now DAZN (the leading Sports OTT platform globally). Incredible journey and learning along the way.    Key Highlights Playing some decent football can get you a good job, ask John.  His early days at EMI Music  BskyB, learning the ropes in the cable industry, Marketing Manager for Sky Sports, Sky Digital, his true University in business and sports  Dotcom days, Sportal – interviewed by Andrew Croker, incredible team of people, launching various websites (portals) for sports properties, wild ride – dotcom crash Leading to role at Hutchison Whampoa, Head of Sports – 3G rollout, video clips, etc – learning, it takes a lot longer than you expect for technology and consumers to pick it up (as example, the company didn’t use the Premier League rights for 1.5 years because they were not ready to deploy it) Inform Group – ventured into Entrepreneurship together with Simon Denyer, Stefano D’Anna and Mike Ingram    First business model didn’t work and then stumbled into the Live streaming for Betting websites space, started to work with Premium TV (Oli Slipper) Business started to take off and grow, merger with Premium TV to create Perform Group – mutually beneficial for both sides, bringing in Access Industries (Ukraine born, UK/US Billionaire, Sir Len Blavatnik) Lots of opportunities to grow internationally for a mostly UK based business at the time  Took role as MD APAC and moved to Asia – acquisition of content, driving new digital revenues which were not there before for rights holders, building partnerships  Key to Performs success was ingesting huge volume of content at the right cost and driving new revenue streams from it – betting revenue, PPV, other subscription services (first look at OTT) IPO in 2011, raised GBP 168 million in process, looking for growth – buying Goal.com, Opta, Livesport services, etc  Going from B2B to B2C business model and the challenges along the way  De-listing in 2013 (GBP 700 mil valuation), market didn’t appreciate all the new business areas the management was exploring, including OTT – safer to be private  The start of the DAZN idea, in 2014 – OTT is much more than streaming on the web – radical change of business model  Two distinct businesses, Perform B2B and DAZN B2C – clear focus on growing DAZN and Perform needed its own home to continue its growth  Divested out of Perform, Goal.com, etc – kept equity stakes – New partnership now known as "Perform Stats" How the DAZN launch markets were picked, DACH (German-speaking region) and Japan – similarities in PayTV markets and opportunities to buy strong content for a reasonable price Launching across multiple platforms from native Apps (Android & IOS), web, smart TV, consoles, Pay TV boxes, etc – find DAZN everywhere, anytime  OTT and beyond – 60-75% watch DAZN on TV in Germany – certain events over 1 million streams – watching through traditional TV still the largest viewership (surprising for me)  OTT goes way beyond traditional linear TV coverage in terms of fan engagement and user interactivity But the “old” arbitrage model is still there and pure subscription model is tough to make work, advertising still plays an important role and other revenue streams   DAZN’s global boxing offerings – US$ 1.99 per month (test price) – purchased big rights globally  Multi-sport focused, different offerings across the world. Scale is a big differentiator, better rates, etc F1 in Spain, Bundesliga and Champions League in Germany – lots of new rights coming on stream and new management firepower  Partnership model vs straight forward rights sales model – current tough times might help in a positive way if we all learn from it   About John Gleasure is DAZN Group