Podcast Alert: The Rising Cost of Fandom
The average sports fan spends $3,600 per year watching and supporting their favorite teams. Twice what they spend putting gas in their car.
Ticket prices, subscription costs, and other expenses continue to rise. AJ and Charles look into the inflation-adjusted numbers to determine what’s driving the increases and if we’re on a sustainable trajectory.
They also discuss ways that properties and brand sponsors can mitigate the expenses for fans.
Timestamps:
- 0:35- The cost of being a fan
- 3:45 – Does expense change fan behavior?
- 14:55 – How sponsors and brands can reduce fan friction
- 18:35 – What’s driving cost increases?
- 23:55 – Predictions
Transcript
+^Charles Rolston: [00:00:00] Welcome to Navigating Sports Business. I’m Charles Rolston, joined by Navigate’s founder, AJ Maestas, and today we’re talking about something that every fan has felt but not everyone in the industry wants to say out loud. Sports fandom is getting expensive. Whether it’s tickets, parking, concessions, gear, and now a growing pile of streaming subscriptions to watch around your team, it all adds up to a pretty big line item on the household budget Picture if we take an average fan, and we’ll be conservative about it.
Someone who makes it out to about five games a year across four different leagues in their city, keeps a live TV and streaming bundle running at home to watch their favorite teams, and drops a couple hundred dollars a year on merch. Without even taking into account a dedicated sports trip, that person is spending close to $3,600 a year on just being a fan.
Wow. That’s about the same as what the average [00:01:00] American spends on dining out annually, and about twice what they spend on put- on ga- on putting gas in their car over the course of the year. So even with that conservative estimate of fandom, the numbers are truly stark, and it doesn’t seem like they’re slowing down anytime soon.
So AJ, let’s dive into this, and I’ll start broadly. What is actually going up out of those buckets that I mentioned?
AJ Maestas: It’s all going up, right? But I think the, the most interesting one is the, the cost to attend or to watch streaming, what have you, has roughly doubled in the last decade.
So that’s about a 7.2% a year compounding annual growth rate which is more than double general inflation. General inflation for the past decade’s been about 3%. It’s been a bit rollercoaster with COVID and what have you. That’s typically above historical norms, but you get the gist. 7.2% a year leads to a doubling in 10 years.
It’s a amazing coincidence that both the cost to watch on TV and the cost to attend in the way you described an average fan is about the same. So [00:02:00] take for anecdotal evidence, just take the Super Bowl 10 years ago, average seat 4,600. This last year, $8,100. On the media side, I think the story is really about segmentation and fragmentation in streaming.
Fans are paying around 125 a month across five services just for sports, so that’s on top of, what we used to call cable. Not in place of it, on top of it. I can actually remember people in the industry talking about how we’re reaching this resistance level on how much people will pay to see sports, and look where we are now.
That’s adding up to a couple hundred bucks a month for a sports fan. There are exceptions of course, though, right? In, in, in picking another, sort of anecdotal piece of evidence, baseball, a family of four m- 10 years ago, about 180 bucks, and today about $225. So that’s less than inflation.
Inflation would’ve predicted $250 for a family of four, and I’m talking tickets and the basic, you know, sort of experience. So you have MLB, which on average isn’t even keeping up with inflation. But big picture, on average the price to watch your team or to [00:03:00] attend the games has doubled in just 10 years
Charles Rolston: Yeah, and that’s wild.
Sports isn’t just getting pricier. I think everybody can feel it at the pump, at the grocery store. But yeah, sports is significantly outpacing general inflation, as you mentioned, but it’s also beating all those other entertainment categories that you think would match sports ascendance too.
So it’s ahead of movies, it’s ahead of concerts, and again, as I mentioned in my preamble at the start, it doesn’t seem like it’s slowing down anytime soon, especially those two core buckets that you mentioned, which is watching from the couch or watching from stadium. So the interesting thing is with the expense growing so rapidly, y- is this changing fan behavior at all, or are people just grumbling and purchasing it anyway?
AJ Maestas: Ooh, that’s a good question. I think it’s, I think it’s a bit of both, right? I think the demand was always there, and that we as an industry didn’t have a great grasp of price-demand elasticity or great controls on the market, secondary in particular, but even anticipating fair price, in the primary market.
But I do think behavior has [00:04:00] changed. There’s no doubt that the upper whatever percent of fans, pick a percent, top 10%, 20%, or let’s say even people in the US, top quartile of people in the US they’ve had rapid wealth growth even income and wage growth, so people are willing to pay these higher prices.
I think there’s a comparative element to it, exactly what you just said. Think about what it used to cost for your favorite hotel in your favorite city. I bet that’s doubled. So yeah, over the last decade, just to put some context around this, premium seats have gone from around 5% of stadium capacity to about 20%.
There’s a lot of variance in here, but just to keep it generic. And they’re selling out. They used to sell out, they sell out now. And the price point of those tickets has grown at an even faster rate than the general tickets. Okay, you’re seeing this, premium layer really capture most of that growth.
But this is true, like you said, movies, airlines, everywhere you look, right? You’re seeing sort of segments and fragments of, sort of premium experiences. So anyway, I suspect both, right? Price prices were under what could have been charged in the past, and we’re also in an unprecedented [00:05:00] era.
This is 17 years of economic growth, of the stock market going up. So we’ll really know more if we face tough times in the future. But yeah 20% of premium seats I mentioned, that already brings in more than half of ticket revenue, so think about that, the disproportionate amount of revenue’s coming from the premium experience.
And we’re working on some new buildings, as and I think it’s fair to say a decade from now you’ll see new venues opening that are 25, 30% premium seats. There’ll probably be some smaller ones that are even a higher percent, i’m just kinda talking about big four sports leagues.
So my fear from all this, of course ’cause, there’s consequences, is that what about fans that are not in those upper tiers of income a- and wealth? Will they go to live games as much? You would have to say no, right? And I really worry about kids. That– Think about that there’s this sort of indelible moment mark that takes place when you go to that first game with a family member and you remember it forever.
There’s a certain segment of population that’s gonna have that at a later age or maybe never. But the good news, to leave it on a positive note, is there’s plenty of cheap ways for fans to stay engaged, to think of everything that’s possible digital. [00:06:00] Who knows what AI will give us?
But I’ll give one example. We have an NBA client that has over 96% of their fans will never attend a game. A lot of these are global fans, but, you can still grow fandom. But yeah, it worries me a little bit about the people who can’t afford this. W- Charles, can I ask you something actually?
You know this better than me, honestly. With increasing prices, and I think about things like increased percent of inventory that’s premium, dynamic pricing, teams participating in the secondary market, is it possible that we’re pushing too far and locking out middle and low-income fans? Are they able to get in the building?
I’d love to know what’s going on.
Charles Rolston: If I think of, if I just put my fan hat on, I remove my connection to the business of sports whatsoever and the understanding that all of these owners and these teams are trying to make as much profit as possible. I hear those statistics that you mentioned.
I say, “Okay, let’s aggressively price our premium inventory.” We’ve raised premium inventory from a capacity standpoint from 5% to 20%. We’re selling out of those. There seems to be a strong willingness to pay, [00:07:00] virtually any number that we price these at, because people want access to these higher tiers and more prestigious status within the building.
So let’s price that section aggressively, and then let’s provide as much cheap access as possible from a general admission standpoint to grow our fan base and have as many different people, whether they’re middle class or low net worth low income, to be able to, have that experience where they’re at the ballpark and to be able to watch their favorite players with their family.
And then on the, on on the flip side of that, when it came to the Mercedes-Benz Stadium announcing that, their concessions were gonna be driven by a low-cost model, $5 for a hot dog, $5 for a beer, everybody was so excited about that. We thought that all these other stadiums would replicate the same model because of how much good publicity that we’ve seen from that particular initiative.
And what we’re seeing is just there hasn’t been that many stadiums that have actually adopted that. So I think a lot of people from a fan perspective would probably agree with my model of the ecosystem. But when it comes down [00:08:00] to how are we gonna squeeze as much margin as possible and make as much money we really have to raise prices on everything.
And that’s turning to, potentially are we pushing it too far? I think we’re risking it. We’ve seen some of the news about these massive ticket prices for the World Cup and how much they’ve fluctuated as well. Get-in prices for some of these games was $3,000 before the group stages, and then once the, the match-ups were actually decided, they absolutely plummeted once supply was actually flooded into the market.
So I think that we’re probably pretty close to pricing out the next generation of fans. We’re not gonna be able to see anybody in my age be able to be season ticket holders without having to sell 80 to 85% of the games on the secondary market. But you’re never really gonna see that, generational hand down of season tickets that has grown fandom through family generations and created a lot of demand for people to, purchase things that their team is selling, whether it be a streaming service, or whether it be tickets to the game, or [00:09:00] merchandise, 365 days out of the year.
So I think the warning signs are there. I think the interesting part is what is actually driven by the team versus driven by some of the team’s partners. And I know that we’re gonna get into this a little bit later, but a huge chunk- Of this inflation in sports expense is being driven by that fragmentation in sports streaming.
And, the rising rates of media rights that have been sold to these streamers and networks is part of the problem because the networks and the streamers, have to recoup that massive fee somehow. But there is some interesting ways that team- teams have decided to counteract that growing inflation on the watch side of things that have created more access and cheaper access for their fans to grow demand and make that long-term bet.
So I think it’s gonna be an interesting conversation. I know that I’m bringing up that topic a little bit later where we’re gonna talk about, specifically on the streaming and network sides what we can do. But I, I wanna talk more specifically about the sponsors and the brands and what they can do about this problem that is- Well-
[00:10:00] that is affecting us nationally Before we
AJ Maestas: jump into that do you mind if I comment on, on, on some of what you shared there? Sure. AMBSE and the Falcons are a client and, proud to say that ’cause they’re an exceptional organization, and I love what they did with concessions, but they had such success in opening the building.
They were able to book so much revenue against the opening of that building it gave them the ability to do that. It’s almost like- A good parallel is thinking about taxes. Are you really gonna try to make your money from concessions, in the masses when, like you think of progressive, tax codes essentially.
Y- it’s a it’s politically risky ’cause it affects a lot of people, and it doesn’t really generate that much in the grand scheme of things if you’ve, made your money on the, in this example with taxes, the, the high-earning folks are paying a disproportionate amount of that burden.
And if I could go just a, a smidge further, I do worry about this. I before we close the chapter on ticket pricing, there’s this sort of lifetime curve we’ve always seen. It’s much younger than most people believe. You become a fan at age five, six, seven, much younger than most people anticipate, and that fandom grows somewhere into your, mid-20s, even early 30s, and then [00:11:00] there’s this slow decline that doesn’t go, to zero as other life priorities, get in the way for you, spending time in stadiums and what have you.
Anyway, that curve has been really consistent. In the past we’ve been able to predict, someone becomes a fan at this age, this is r- roughly what their lifetime customer value is gonna look like, and lately people have been dropping off of that. There’s this blockbuster concept that I’m hoping a lot of people listening have heard of, but if you’ve not as opposed to digital access and middlemen being cut out, in the internet era, there’s actually been this sort of spike, in demand for the most premium brands and leagues and properties, and this is true in music.
It’s true all over the world in many facets. But what that means is okay, everyone’s always gonna wanna go to those premier events and experiences, but boy, what about the people who are in less attractive markets or less powerful brands? They’re, they’re– It’s pretty realistic to project this sort of separation of the haves and have-nots.
And for those premium experiences, will people ever get to attend? So maybe it spreads fandom off to the others, ’cause they’re more affordable, [00:12:00] but it’s worrisome i- in my mind, that lifetime fan curve in some sports are losing at disproportionate rates and losing people to more attractive sports.
So because that consumer doesn’t become profitable to you as a league or a team until they’re buying season tickets or subscribing, to pay TV, you don’t feel it, but that problem occurs a decade or two before then. So I think there’s a real problem coming for those that are not really addressing the next generation of fans.
So anyway I think I took you a little off course there with that, but I just had to mention it. Yeah, I’m pretty worried because it doesn’t hit the pocketbook until it’s too late.
Charles Rolston: Yeah and the warning signs are seen in the data, too. We look at the, the chasm between Millennials and Gen Z in terms of fandom of sports and their traditional path towards, actually paying money for the services that these teams provide.
And there’s just such a huge gap that everybody’s trying to solve, and everybody’s trying to, put the blame on something else. The advent of social media, how, Gen Z aren’t going out as [00:13:00] much. But, realistically, they are finding experiences to s- sp- spend time together with their friends in person, but it’s just they’re choosing more cost-effective ways to do it in order to spend that time.
So it’s really interesting to see. I think that we’re gonna find that there has to be a number of different strategies that have to be put in play. Because if we keep going down this direction, yes, there will be a huge cliff and a huge drop-off that affects teams significantly, from one year to the next, rather than something that you can actually predict and smooth out over five to 10 years.
So I think it’s really- That’s right … interesting what we’re seeing on the ticket side. But let me talk about sponsors and brands for a second. Do you think that this rising cost of being a fan, it creates an opening for them?
AJ Maestas: Y- th- there– I think a bit. And just to frame it the way we opened this, sponsorships have also grown at 7-plus percent a year for over 30 years, and they’re projected to do so at 7-plus percent a year on a going-forward basis.
No one can predict the future, of course. But yeah, I think that creates a lot of friction for [00:14:00] fans. Think about that, parking, transportation, concessions. There’s all these chances to solve problems the way that this next generation expects things to be frictionless, and we are, as an industry, losing ground to social, digital, mobile, right?
They’re capturing a larger share of time and attention. But yeah you solve a problem for a fan and that halo effect, that loyalty transfers to you. Our last podcast, if you wanna go back in our library was an interview with Ali Corbin on our team who led our research on that subject for the Brand Innovation Summit with the SBJ back in Chicago in June, and I think there’s some really good insights in there to how brands can take advantage and solve some of these problems.
One example she gave is T-Mobile giving access to skip the line, even getting into some venues MLB.tv subscription r- related to their MLB deal. Really– Now, of course, they’re in that business, so it’s endemic to what they do, but there’s a bunch of good examples beyond just that T-Mobile one in that podcast if you wanna dig deep.
But yeah, it creates opportunity because people are probably gonna be fans on some level, and most of it looks like it’s gonna be more digital than in [00:15:00] person, and what an opportunity, at scale and to compete with these other digital formats that are really capturing the lion’s, an increasing share, I should say, of consumer time and attention and advertising dollars.
But yeah, I think so. I was inspired by some of what she shared in that podcast, especially at the end, where I had to be reminded, sadly, even though I’m in this world, that the e-excitement, attention, in-person time that exists in sports is something that’s increasingly rare, which means it’ll continue to be valuable.
Charles Rolston: I think, but, my favorite recent example was the massed outrage related to the cost of transportation for World Cup attendees in New York and Boston. Yeah. Yeah. New York, it was close to $150 per trip. Boston you’re taking a box- a bus out to Foxborough, that’s 85 to 80, $89 a trip. And then, out of nowhere, Philadelphia announces that transportation is gonna be fee, free, and it’s gonna be subsidized by Airbnb.
If I’m a CEO at one of these companies, and we have a little bit of discretionary spend, I’m looking for these types of [00:16:00] opportunities because that gained outsized positive PR compared to if they were just going to announce it without any outrage that, fans were already talking about this problem in other cities.
It probably would’ve fell pretty flat. But considering the timing of it, I th- I thought that it was a perfect opportunity that brands should be honestly looking for year over year to solve those problems and help subsidize some of these these exorbitant costs that, that fans are being forced to pay now.
AJ Maestas: I love that. What a lightning in the bottle moment, and what a positive contribution. Do you know now, were they an official partner of in Philly or were they just a partnership with the city? I would, I’d love it if it’s guerrilla marketing, but yeah. What rights did Airbnb have to do that?
Charles Rolston: I think honestly, I think that they had official city rights and maybe it was something that was going to be announced all along and they just felt okay, this is the absolute best timing for this because of the PR stirrup that we’re seeing on social media right now.
AJ Maestas: Okay. Okay, cool. Very cool. If you don’t mind me asking you, Charles what is the root of all this? Why do you think it’s even happening? Do you blame the teams? [00:17:00] Where, yeah, what is the source of the pressure that leads to these price increases?
Charles Rolston: Yeah I touched on this a little bit in one of my earlier answers, but I think that media rights is the real engine here.
The US rights market has gone from close to 15 billion in 2015, and it’s projected to hit around $37 billion by 2030. The NFL went from 3 to $10 billion, and they have another bite at the apple here coming up in a few years. The NBA deal grew by 165% to 7 billion. That money flows from the networks and the streamers to the teams and the leagues.
And then honestly, a lot of that cost ends up falling on the plate of the fan as your ESPNs, your Apple TVs, your Amazons, they have to increase subscription costs and increase carriage fee in order to be able to recoup some of these insane costs that, that these, these businesses are paying to be able to broadcast these sports.
And as I mentioned before, I think the most important thing is that it’s not [00:18:00] necessarily in the team’s control. Once you sell those rights, it’s very hard for the team or the league to be able to say, “Hey, you’re pricing your subscriptions a little bit too high.” I’m sure that there are some conversations, but if the economics aren’t making sense, I’m sure that the streamer or the network is gonna win that battle when they say, “Hey, we have to keep increasing prices.”
And we’ve seen, some of these teams actually buck this trend before. I think probably the best one is the Suns that said, “Hey, we’re going off our streamer and we’re going over-the-air, and then we’re actually going to distribute free antennas to, people within the Phoenix area to be able to watch as many games as possible for free with that long-term bet that growing the demand and the overall pie of people who, could be introduced to the Phoenix Suns could be fans in the future.
Once their economics change, they could be going to more games and buying season tickets and buying more merchandise. That we’ll have such a large pool that if we ever had to go to more of a pay-to-watch model again or increase our prices dynamically, we would have [00:19:00] a larger pool of people who would be- You know, be willing to pay for for the prices that we’re putting them at.
So I think that media rights is, part of a problem here. I think that, it’s been talked about ad nauseam for years that potentially we’re in sort of a media rights bubble here, and we can’t see these crazy CAGRs go up year over year at least for, some of the secondary leagues beyond the NFL.
But I’m not sure that even if we see these streamers and these networks paying less overall for the rights, that they’re actually gonna reduce the the subscription prices of these products significantly. I think once you’ve established that precedent with a consumer, even if they’ve paid for it begrudgingly, I think that you’re gonna try to keep them close to, if not a little bit higher, than what they’ve paid in the past for the same product.
So I think without the teams doing some type of conscious effort that forces price control or going over the air, like the example of the Phoenix Suns, I don’t think that we’re gonna see that, that core bucket of this sports fan [00:20:00] inflation really slow down that much. What do you think about that?
AJ Maestas: Yeah. Yeah, I agree with that. I like to pretend that I’m an economist, and I would say they’re gonna charge what they can charge independent of what their cost structure is, right? They’re gonna optimize revenue. But I understand your argument, this sort of second, third order effect of when a cost structure does rise and there’s pressure on the system, then the players get paid more, and then, right?
So then the team wants to compete, and so they, they– let’s be honest, a little carrot and stick, you know, work, right? And you feel that competitive pressure, and you’re going to see teams elevate their game and work to draw more money out of the marketplace. But oof. Yeah, it’s it’s a little bit removed from it, but but yeah, I could buy that argument.
And regarding the Suns, that was a beautiful thing, but, just only because we worked on that. That is Matt Ishbia, their owner, being very generous. He wanted more fans to have access, and it did. It over, it three and a half x-ed, the sort of addressable market, those who could see their games.
And their sponsorship team does such a good job that they were able to sell a ton of that inventory at sponsorship-type rates, and so they bridged that gap really well. But, no, no one was really thinking [00:21:00] that was moving forward financially, right? That was a long-term bet, and that was trying to be a good steward of, access to the team and fandom.
But yeah, that’s interesting. Not a lot of owners are willing to do that, right? He was willing to lose a lot of money if he was wrong on that. But anyway let’s get into solutions. How does a team fix this?
Charles Rolston: I don’t think that fandom is something that peaks and then goes down. I think it is something that can be fluid, and a lot of it, it is dependent on, obviously, the performance on the field.
But I think that there’s a lot that you can do within the team’s control to keep that person engaged, to feel like they’re still getting commensurate value for being a fan, even when the playoffs aren’t in sight.
AJ Maestas: Okay. All right. Makes sense. Makes sense Well,
Charles Rolston: You wanna do some predictions, AJ?
AJ Maestas: Yeah, I would love that.
Let’s do it.
Charles Rolston: Okay. I think that we probably already alluded to this, but does the cost of fandom keep climbing faster than wages and inflation, or does fan pushback finally force a correction?
AJ Maestas: Okay. Typical caveat, right? [00:22:00] Nobody predicts the future very accurately, but you would hope experts would be better than average
I’m gonna sound like such a, a skeptic, but I have a bad feeling about the stock market. I think it’s clearly and objectively overvalued. And consumer sentiment can switch quickly with things like a marketplace like that. We’ve been on, again, 17-plus year run of growth in the stock market and wages and, profits and income and what have you.
So I’m strangely predicting some slowing, and for that reason, there’s obviously downward pressure on what we can pull out of the marketplace as disposable income, as an entertainment product or service. I remember a panel, an SPJ panel I went to in the winter of ’08 spring ’09, somewhere in that range, and everybody on the panel said, “Oh, sports is so core.
It’s such an important part of people’s lives, like we’re gonna be fine in this downturn.” And I think they were wrong. A- and, you’re gonna put food in your mouth and a roof over your head before you buy those premium tickets to your favorite team. So it might be a a, a product mixed [00:23:00] shift down to lower quality, less frequent visits.
I’m not saying it’s gonna go down. I do predict sports, outpacing inflation, whatever inflation might e- end up being. But at the rates and growth we’ve seen over the last decade, I’m pretty skeptical. I think we’re due for some slowdowns, and that would put pressure on us. We also have slowing population growth or…
And with, immigration and what have you, the Americas and the United States are expected to be pretty flat here in the future, and that’s something we really haven’t experienced in our lifetimes. Obviously, less total customers right? You have to assume less demand. So I’m a little bit skeptical we can stay at those growth rates we’ve experienced in the past.
But yeah, I would say we’ll still outstrip inflation. I’m optimistic about what sports offers. That’s more of just a macroeconomic sort of fear or prediction that I’m making. And I think a lot of the easy low-hanging fruit gains have been captured. I would say the same thing for the media landscape.
These companies are cannibalizing their own business with their streaming services ’cause they need one foot in the future. They need to have a [00:24:00] direct-to-consumer relationship. They need to be in that business. But, every day, the pay TV model, you’re seeing this sort of decline.
Again, I’m not saying they’ll take a step backwards, but I would expect consolidation and M&A activity. I would expect someone to go bankrupt. There’s a lot of debt being put on one of these transactions that I won’t name. Yeah, I’m skeptical it’ll grow at the rate we’ve seen in the past, but correct me.
What, do you think I’m wrong? Or tell me where you think I’m wrong.
Charles Rolston: No, I’ve been honed in on the media side of things, and I think that’s what needs to break a little bit for this to see a correction that’s a little bit more in line with general inflation growth rates. I, I– and what you just said about, streaming competition, I think that is what caps what fans actually pay.
There’s just so much fragmentation, even if the individual services are priced, appropriately, the fan just doesn’t wanna pay four different streamers and networks for a full season of games for their favorite team. I, does the fan really need to watch 162 baseball games, or do they need to watch a full [00:25:00] season- Right
of their NFL team or c- some, some one, one milestone game within week seven can they just pass up and go do something else on that Sunday? I think those are the types of decisions that fans are ultimately gonna have to make. And I think it’s really gonna be driven by this fragmentation.
So if we don’t see consolidation, if we don’t see a lot of M&A where we’re starting to rebundle and see, these packages grouped into one line item on a customer’s bill, I think that’s where we’re gonna see a little bit of a drop-off. But I still think the fan experience, in person is something that is gonna be desired and is one of one and people are still gonna be going to the games any chance that they can.
But I think what’s really gonna be affected is time and attention while fans are at home on the couch. There’s just so many different entertainment alternatives, and if they make it too difficult for the fans to find games from a cost perspective or from an actual acc-access perspective, I think that’s the first thing to go So I’ll round this out with some of our key takeaways.
I think-
AJ Maestas: For sure …
Charles Rolston: [00:26:00] knowing your real fan price ceilings, not just guessing based off of historical information, but actually conducting some research and some measurement to get as close as possible to that confident number, I think is priority 1A. I think protecting access for the next generations of fans.
M- maybe I sound a little bit too sentimental here, but I think a model that focuses on aggressively pricing premium inventory while creating, cost-effective access to to fans, and maybe even, a smaller price for younger fans as well, and Gen Z to get them in the door and have those same experiences that all the other generations do.
Even if it does cost some revenue in the short term, I think if you’re looking at this as a 20 or 30-year play, it’s gonna provide significant dividends compared to just squeezing a- as many dollars out of a consumer’s wallet from a year-to-year basis. And then I think the third one is the key one that I’ve been talking about ad nauseam is that streaming fragmentation being a real fan experience problem.
I think it’s just too many subscriptions for too many leagues, and we’re [00:27:00] gonna have to see some consolidation, or we’re gonna have to see, some of these businesses going bankrupt or, very significantly in the red compared to what they paid for the fees. Thank you all for listening to another episode of Navigating Sports Business.
If you were at all excited about some of the trends and pieces of data that we were talking about today, we would love to dive in a little bit further. Happy to answer any of the questions that you might have on the rising cost of being a fan. So if you wanna reach out, you can reach me at Charles@NVGT.com or find both AJ and I on LinkedIn, and we will catch you on the next episode.