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The rise of streaming and audience fragmentation increase the risk of falling ratings for sports franchises, the executive behind the Formula One Netflix series has warned.
Sean Bratches, a former F1 and ESPN executive, is known for raising the profile of motorsport. Drive to survive The Netflix documentary series said broadcasters will struggle to maintain the level of spending on media rights as sports viewing shifts away from traditional television, including cable and satellite.
„A lot of franchise deals are being done today where the market is uncertain about the future and different models are being tried,” Bratches said.
„In the last 30, 40 years, you’ve seen the biggest economic engine that’s driven the sports world in terms of the cable bundle,” he said, adding that sports rights owners have had to find new outlets for content. Viewers are moving away from linear television, especially cable television in the United States.
Television companies until recently paid sports leagues for expensive media rights for decades, charging viewers more money for „packaged” packages of sports and other channels. But new competitors such as Netflix and Amazon’s Prime Video have challenged the model, forcing traditional broadcasters to invest in their own streaming platforms, which are struggling to turn a profit.
Bratches’ comments, leaving his full-time role at John Malone’s Liberty Media’s F1 to join rights company Relevent Sports in 2020, come shortly after two of America’s biggest television companies wrote off the value of their cable channels. $15bn, underlining the design’s decline.
He emphasized that the changing landscape for media rights means sports leagues need to be creative in how they allocate their content across platforms. The F1 documentary series inspired many sports to follow, including tennis, golf and rugby.
Drive to survive He is credited with expanding the audience for F1 in America after years of struggling to gain attention in a crowded market. This has helped the sport increase the value of its media rights in the US from a paltry sum to $85mn a year.
Bratches said he enjoyed his version of the Tour de France. UnchainedBut he cautioned that not every sport can achieve F1-like results.
„The important thing about sports docuseries is that they have to be authentic . . . there are some docuseries out now that have a fast following. Drive to survive „Those who participate in sports are not very dynamic people,” he said.
Sports were the „last bastion of content” that could „consolidate huge audiences,” Bratches said, adding that major broadcasters continue to agree multi-year deals with leagues worth billions of dollars, underscoring continued demand for live sports.
As the new chair of Relevent, Bratches looks to sell European soccer to a growing American audience.
The sports media company, owned by Stephen Ross, the property developer behind the promoter of the F1 Miami Grand Prix, has brokered billions of dollars in media deals on behalf of Champions League organizer UEFA and Spain over the past few years. La Liga.
Relevent also represents the English Football League, which runs the three professional divisions below the Premier League, and helped secure a rights deal with CBS Sports, including subscription streaming service Paramount+.
„I see a significant opportunity in the development of European football outside the core territories,” Bratches said. „I think there are opportunities to support leagues and teams and federations . . . especially in the U.S., which is the number one sports media market in the world.”
Bratches, a supporter of Premier League side Arsenal and Germany’s Hertha Berlin, counts himself among American fans who „get up at dawn in the States” to watch F1 or European soccer matches.
„New time windows are opening up and expanding the audience, and for the most part, European football is driving that,” he said.