Podcast Alert: Umar Hussain – Navigate

Transcript

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Umar Hussain: [00:00:00]  Navigating the troubled waters. It’s something that a lot of clients are fixated on at figuring out answers to. I’m seen as the person to help make sense of it all from a media perspective on where it’s going to go. I don’t claim to have all the answers, but I’ve been in it so much that I understand how all the players work.

Anne Ristau: Welcome to the Navigating Sports Business podcast. I’m your host for today, Anne Ristau, executive Vice President of Consulting at Navigate. We started this podcast to showcase some of the incredible people that we get to interact with every day and the impactful work that they’re doing in our industry. We hope you learn something about them and something from them in our conversation. [00:01:00] Today I am thrilled to be joined by Umar Hussain, head of Media at Navigate for the second ever internal podcast. Welcome, Umar.

Umar Hussain: Thank you so much, and thanks for having me. I host a podcast, but this is my first time being a guest on a podcast, so I’m excited.

Anne Ristau: I love it. I had to be the first internal guest. I also much prefer being the host. I also meant to tell you I was going to wear my Navigate quarter zip. I’m glad we’re not exactly twinning.

Umar Hussain: I mean, I was hoping we’d be twinning because I’m trying to be like you, Anne, as much as I can.

Anne Ristau: I love it. Let’s jump in. I wanted to start with some of your early career, but maybe even before that. How did you become interested in a career in media and in sports and entertainment?

Umar Hussain: I think like maybe most guys in sports media, once you quickly realize you can’t become a professional athlete because you [00:02:00] are a five, seven, a hundred thirty pound Pakistani man, you realize where other ways you can still be involved in sports. And one of those was media. I can give you my background a little bit from the beginning. I had started at UC Irvine in journalism, I was really drawn to stories that expanded beyond sports and helped bridge gaps in cultures and communities. The reason I got into sport was because I saw Hakeem e lajuan on the Houston Rockets in the 94 NBA finals, and I remember my dad saying, Hey, he’s a Muslim from Nigeria and he’s fasting during the playoffs. I fast during the Ramadan every year, and that to me was like the moment it all stuck and I was fascinated larger than life character and was very into sports after that. So that’s what kind of correlated to my journalism interests in covering stories.

Anne Ristau: That’s awesome, by the way.

Umar Hussain: Thank you. Yeah. So I, I really love stories like on ESPN [00:03:00] E:60. I loved any sort of long form journalism that went beyond the athlete and what got in the mind and the community of the athlete. Then I found my way to just doing regular sports writing in college over at uc, Irvine. The economy had collapsed while I was in school, and journalism really got hit from two ways from the economy collapsing, and then also disruption in blogs becoming a thing. You remember this is when blogs started, and so you’ve got consumers gonna this free content. So journalism was really getting a ton of pressure. I had as a good Pakistani son, told my parents I’ll go and get my grad degree while this market figures itself out. Long story short, I thought I would either be a sports agent or work for a team.

I thought that’d be the only career options other than sports writing. I had landed an internship over at ESPN during my second year at law school working on the pay TV, television distribution side. So I didn’t know anything about the business side. I thought [00:04:00] cable networks made money purely on advertising. I didn’t know there were these affiliate fees. I did that internship and next year really fell in love with it, and that sort of lodged my career in sports media.

Anne Ristau: That’s awesome. So you never wanted to be a lawyer in the courtroom or in…

Umar Hussain: No, I purely did it to be a good immigrant son, and I had always had the goal either go back to writing or do something else. I never wanted to practice, but I’m happy I did do it. I got a ton of skills that I otherwise wouldn’t have gotten, and I think it really improved my writing and critical thinking. I never wanted to be in the courtroom or be writing contracts. I was the guy for a lot of my career. I was telling the lawyers what to write, and I liked that role a lot more, and it was the envy of a lot of the lawyers I worked with. They were like you. You’ve made the right decision.

Anne Ristau: All right, so let’s talk media before joining us here at Navigate. You’ve worked at the NBA and at ESPN. Talk about some of your early career roles at [00:05:00] these organizations.

Umar Hussain: Yeah, I, right after law school, I was fortunate they hired me after I took the California bar and moved me out to New York to work at ESPN and Disney on their affiliate distribution and marketing team. So when I mentioned earlier was how do cable networks make money besides advertising? It’s the affiliate fees. So there’s a rate that’s charged per subscriber to every cable satellite, and now YouTube, tv, Hulu. Subscriber as well. So I was on the team that helped negotiate those multi-billion dollar agreements.

It’s the reason why athletes get paid as much as they do, and it’s why sports valuations continue to rise. I had no idea of it. I got there my first role, they called me the contract ninja. I was basically managing all the rules and restrictions that were built into these multi-billion dollar deals. There are these MFN clauses called Most Favored Nation clauses. They’ve only found underway really in international trade and in pay TV [00:06:00] distribution agreements. So like those are the only two spots, like where they’re predominantly present, which is so different. But basically in a nutshell, what I had to do is if we offered better terms to a competitor about someone we were negotiating with, we had to also offer those same terms.

You know, it’s kind of schmuck shirts or some people call it lazy negotiating. But these deals are complex. Hundreds of pages long. Aside from rate, there are so many things are negotiated, like even this is predated my time, but like the channel number on your TV guide was negotiated and put like value against as well. So where ESPN team out on your guide was a point of negotiation. I did that for about two years, which is an amazing way for me to learn all the shoots and ladders across all the deals. But I quickly got frustrated being the like, no guy. I was always like, no, you can’t do this. No, you can’t do this to all the sales team.

And I got recruited over the sales team to actually help negotiate these deals and become more [00:07:00] problem solving oriented. And I was on the team that negotiated the first pay TV deal for ESPN, the launch of SPN plus. So I was right at Disney when ESPN plus launched and Disney Plus launched. And I had then gotten recruited by the NBA to come there and help them launch NBA TV Direct to Consumer, which was the first for a cable network to go direct to consumer broadcast networks had done it like Univision, and the premium services like HBO, which is now Max had launched direct to consumer, but no cable network had done it.

So NBA TV was the first one, and you can imagine. That negotiation. Talking to Comcast Direct TV, you’re basically like, Hey, we are gonna keep charging you for this network and we’re also now gonna become your competitor, which is not an easy task, especially everyone thinks of the NBA. It is a big brand, which it is, but from a cable network perspective, it is definitely not in [00:08:00] the class of ESPN. So it’s a much harder negotiation than getting creatives there. But that was one of the big projects I worked on there. Then the other couple were figuring help solve the local RSM problem. The bubble happened when I was at the league office, so COVID, that was a crazy time. And then a few other, the unreal things were Darrel Lori’s comments on China that caused huge blow back.

David Stern, the former commissioner passing away, and then also Kobe Bryant passing. So the two and a half years I was at the league office, I felt like I was there a decade. So much changed some of the breadcrumbs that led to the recent NBA branch renewal. Those are just a slice of the things that had worked on while I was at Alban’s Companies.

Anne Ristau: Yeah, certainly some very pivotal moments, but also I love how your experience has truly been 360 where you’ve been, I hate to call lawyers, doctor. No. But in the revenue generation sales business development roles. [00:09:00] One fun fact that we recently learned is that you are also responsible for Fantasy Bachelor at ESPN. What is it and how did you make this happen?

Umar Hussain: I’m going to try and keep a long story short, but when I was in college and I got really into the Bachelor because I was with my roommates, we were too lazy to move from the couch after a football game, and we saw that Bachelor, it was like season 12 and right. The show’s still on. We turned it on. Of course, like any college age guys, it’s like attractive woman after attractive woman. And we decided to gify. We each picked like one contestant and whoever’s contestant went the furthest and the others would do their laundries for a month. And it just so happened to happen that I think three of the four roommates had picked the final three.

So we were heavily invested in every rose ceremony and of course there were stakes in it and we gamified it so that when I got to Disney and ESPN, and by the way, I won that season, it was the Jason Mesnick season, the famous one where he had the final two [00:10:00] and he picked the one who he overlooked in the final after the show ended. So they did an after the final rose, and then he like asked for her back. He’s, I basically made the wrong choice. Will you still happy? And she said, yes. We amended the rule and I still want based on that, because he won. When I got to Disney and ESPN, this was something I was passionate about and I was still doing, and I’m like, why isn’t there a Fantasy Bachelor platform?

There were a few third party sites that had launched it given the ESPN Fantasy Engine ABC and at the time I was fortunately smart enough to put together that ESPN was looking to get more female players into the app, and ABC was looking to diversify the audience with like male and younger viewers.

[00:10:44] So that’s how I pitched it. I actually got to pitch it. At an all hands meeting for ABC and Disney employees with the president of ABC at the time. Ben Sherwood and I went up there and actually even gave him a rose at the end, [00:11:00] asked him if he would accept my rose at the end, and it was done on the Jimmy Kimmel line set, and it was broadcasted all to the company and his buy-in quickly got me connected with the CTO of the Disney and ESPN networks and the ESPN fantasy folks, and it got built. More into a pick style game. I would’ve learned more fantasy football style, but it was pick style, which is a way to get more people into playing the game as opposed to drafting only a handful of contestants. I got a nice little recognition from it, and it’s probably my greatest career achievement.

Anne Ristau: We’re so thrilled to have you here at Navigate, not only myself and AJ and Jeff, but on behalf of the whole team. Talk about your new role as Head of Media at Navigate.

Umar Hussain: Yeah, absolutely. No problem. And thank you for those comments. I, I had come into, I see you, how I’ve gotten to navigate based off like where I’ve gone in my whole career. A part of me wished I had joined the cable industry like a decade ago because there was this, it was like tech where money was just printing and there were just amazing parties. Cable was through the [00:12:00] reach. The times were good. I came right on the precipice of disruption and I’ve seen the market change so much from just cable to virtual cable to fast platforms, to even YouTube, Twitch, and the user generated side that where content providers are also playing.

I’ve done it throughout my whole career thus far, and linking up with Navigate Media is just a big part of sports strategy, whether it’s a brand or whether it’s teams, leagues, college, athletics, so much is influenced there by the media rights. I was told from Navigate the client base that they have. There’s just so much. That gets touched on the media side and my experience, how I’ve seen the disruption, and I hate to use the term in every meeting, but it always comes up. Navigating the troubled waters is something that a lot of clients are fixated on and figuring out answers to. I’m seeing as the person to help make sense of it all [00:13:00] from a media perspective on where it’s gonna go, where it is, and where it has been, and what are the immediate needs, what are long-term needs.

I don’t claim to have all the answers, but I’ve been in it so much that I understand how all the players work. As you mentioned, I’ve been at Disney and ESPN. I was at the NBA League office, and then I also was at Comcast NBC Universal. So I’ve seen it from various different lens, and now helping those who contract and work with those partners or rely on those distribution platforms, my role here is to help solve that. So whether it’s. Local rights in figuring out alternative distribution models for teams with RSNs getting disrupted, or whether it’s a new emerging league looking for distribution without any sort of viewership history to sell on, and how can you maximize your reach to conference realignment? To direct to consumer and all the opportunities that are presented there.

I’ve been here a couple months now, been working with the [00:14:00] team for quite a while in, in a consulting capacity, and there’s no shortage of work and there’s so many models and the spaces evolving so much. I’ve been enjoying every single day.

Anne Ristau: It’s absolutely so dynamic. I think it’s been amazing to have you as we’ve helped clients like the Professional Volleyball Federation secure their first distribution, the collegiate world as you mentioned. And it is, I think just the fast pace of it all, something that many clients are very much struggling. All right. Let’s turn into media a little bit deeper. Do you see any limit on the value of live sports media rights? They have just been going up and up and what’s driving that?

Umar Hussain: Yeah. I have been in this space now over 10 years, and from the beginning of it, everyone was talking about the DIMS day and how did these keep going out? How does the value skyrocket? To me at the time when I was singularly focused on pay tv, I was like, yeah, you’re gonna continue to increase cable prices. Customers are [00:15:00] gonna churn out cable. It’s no secret is dropping in number of subs year over year and hemorrhaging a lot. You’re seeing a lot more carriage disputes happening out in the space.

I think cable at its heyday was 110 million pay TV households around 2014, like almost a decade ago. And now is around 70 million. And so that’s a big drop. Yep. And it might continue to drop. And the thing that everyone always complains about cable is that you have like your grandmother in the Dakotas who doesn’t care about sports paying and subsidizing your sports rights. So. paid TV has definitely got pressure on there, but you still see values skyrocketing. And And why is that? Because you’re seeing big media companies trying to figure out what’s the next big content play that people will subscribe to. And that’s been direct to consumer and streaming. So there was a large book is everyone saw on Netflix. And Netflix is increasing and how their stock price sh up because of now they’re almost in every home. And they’ve got those eyeballs and [00:16:00] Disney trying to do that. Comcast trying to do that with Peacock Max. All these services that are a race to the top, but also a race to the bottom, because now where we are in the lifecycle for streaming is profitability.

Before it was subscriber growth, now profitability is under an immense microscope on the street. So I think you’re going to see we’re still in this phase where these companies are willing to take losses to help grow and keep audiences. Live sports is a huge linchpin of that because it’s the last place you’re getting these massive audiences other than news for an election year. The presidential election debates just have like more than even NFL numbers, like they’re between NFL and Super Bowl numbers. But other than that, it’s live sports. Again. I think 97 of the last hundred telecons the last year was NFL. So NFL’s in its own stratosphere. But you saw the NBA recently triple its rights fees, even though they’re.

Ratings are declining. The name of the game now is premium volume, like who could [00:17:00] bring in the most subscribers the most amount of times or viewers, if you will. Do I see that cliff coming anytime soon? I haven’t been great at predicting it, but I know direct to consumer is a partner. Business cable is easier, is hard to cancel your cable subscription, and you had someone in your family watching at least something on a table and it was easy navigating it on the channel guide. It was a good experience, but perhaps too much fat, not enough innovation. You see a company like YouTube TV really solve a lot of that, and they’ve seen their, they’re like the last service that’s still growing, so there is value in there. And as a sports fan, you’ll pay, people will pay. The sports fan is so valuable for advertisers and brands.

I don’t think that’s changing. The interest in sports is going down. It’s just people are consuming it in different ways, and I think that’s what makes and keeps sports rising.

Anne Ristau: It’s certainly been incredible to see the rise of the various [00:18:00] streaming platforms. It almost feels like a new one comes out every few years. How do you see traditional broadcasters ending up in the next five to 10 as they’ve largely tried to do both?

Umar Hussain: The latest trend and, and I’ll use clarify the term broadcaster, you think of your broadcasters here. It’s the broadcast, it’s the ABC’s NBC, CBS box, which you could get for free if you wanted. You just have to buy a cable antenna like you remember back in the day putting it on top of the tv. Now they have these like fancy digital ones that are, you don’t have to be like moving around, but. Every consumer could buy a digital antenna. I think it’s like 150 to 200 bucks one time fee and watch, which I think has increased the value of broadcast.

And I think the number of cable antenna homes, people who don’t have cable, but just this antenna is like 15 to 20 million. That’s not small. I just think a lot of people don’t know that they could get those broadcast channels that way. But to answer your question. What’s the latest trend? It’s broadcast and streaming is [00:19:00] becoming, the cables getting squeezed out because those subscribers are declining. Broadcast still has tremendous reach, like 90 plus million homes because you either get it through your cable or you can get it through that antenna. Or even now through Fast Channels, the reach for broadcast is still immense, cable is declining, and then streaming is growing. Almost every household in America’s Got Prime video.

It’s got Netflix. So I think as like you saw with the NBA and the latest right Steal, they just did, they have basically an NBA game every day of the week. You, a majority of those games are on broadcast or streaming. So NBC has a package for a broadcast, NBC, the Peacock has a package or two nights a week. Amazon’s got a package and then ESPN has got packages for cable nets, but they’re also committing to ABC games and then ESPN plus, the trend now is streaming ’cause that’s where the growth is and then broadcast because they’re still the most reach if that cable package, we see the, the sort of reflected in the price and Warner Brother [00:20:00] Discovery and some of the cable nets that don’t have broadcast packages becoming less attractive sports destinations.

So in the next five to 10 years, I think streaming will all be a thing, but. It’s hard to pin when, but I wanna say maybe on the closer, on the 10 year side than on the five year side, there’ll be fewer streaming subscription services. I think there’ll be consolidation, but they’ll have big sports rights and I think broadcast will continue to be a destination either in the next decade, cable, I’m not so sure.

Anne Ristau: We’ll be certainly interesting to watch.

Umar Hussain: Yeah, absolutely.

Anne Ristau: I’d love to get your take on some of the biggest sort of sports media deals and stories that are out there right now and maybe. Gimme the quick winner loser, tbd NFL on Netflix.

Umar Hussain: That’s, I think, a winner for the NFL. It’s a, they pet towards $60 million per game and they’re getting on a platform that hasn’t traditionally invested in live sports. And getting on a platform that is in [00:21:00] every home and has subscription business. So when you have subscription dollars, you can pay more for rights. And the reason Netflix got into that was to help boost their advertising tier. Cause the NFL could bring in up to 20 million to 120 million viewers. Right? And on Christmas Day when you know people are gonna be home and looking at what to watch on Netflix, I’m gonna be competing against the NBA, which tries to own Christmas. But the NFL has just continually shown that it just, it trumps everything anding. So I think it’s a win, but I think it’s a bigger win for Netflix.

Anne Ristau: How about speaking of the NBA, how about their re recent renewal and probably have to mention the lawsuit that is between the NBA and Warner Brothers.

Umar Hussain: There’s multiple players there, right? I think the big winners are the NBA. They tripled their right speed. They have lower ratings, and they have partners now, and they’re gonna be fully invested in them because they need to be to drive their subscription services. And then also, [00:22:00] these are global brands. And the NBA is the site soccer probably one of the biggest global sports out there. The NFL is trying to do a lot of things to grow the game there, but there’s a lot of infrastructure and grassroots that needs to be done. But biggest winner, NBA. NBC getting back in the mix is also a big win for us as consumers. We get to hear around ball rock, the amazing jungle for the NBA content that we watched as kids, or for most of us when we were kids and ESPN. Interesting. I would say a win too. They get to keep a big property. They paid a lot more for a lot less, and it’s hard to call it like a slam dunk, no pun intended, but they’re gonna be paying a lot that they needed to stay in the mix and it’s, it just powers so much of the Disney engine.

As it does for Comcast, companies that have movie studios, theme parks, so much customer touch points, and to get that brand value for your sponsorship or your other businesses is a man step at premium volume, as we spoke about earlier. And then [00:23:00] Amazon, they have the NFL and they’ve got other smaller sports rights, but now they’ve got another big linchpin in the US here with the NBA. I’ll be curious to how they can monetize it even more. They’ve got merchandising immense e-commerce capabilities, so everyone in the industry watching how it is these tech companies who everyone knows have big dollars, but they still have to return ROI on their investments. So I’m curious how they’re gonna go about executing that and then losers have to say.

Warner Brothers Discovery, really losing out on that, and it’s gonna affect downstream on their affiliate rates. They just cut a deal early with charter communications, which is unheard of in the cable world, to do a deal early, and I think that was a chess move in response to Cloud NBCU. Perhaps try to take that piece of the pie out of their affiliate dollars and put it in their own rates for either NBC or USA. But losing a big brand like the NBA. We’re all consumers. We’re gonna lose [00:24:00] the NBA Thursday night show with Ernie Shaq, Charles. Everybody wants Charles Markley now, right? They’re the free agents, so we’ll lose a little bit of that magic. They, I am pretty sure the, these other companies are gonna try to replicate it too, and probably dangle a pretty penny to bring those guys on board.

But losing those rights I think was a big hit. You’ve seen them try to do some moves here to stem that with Sublicensing college football playoff rights. Getting some more rides games. But the reason the NBA price went so high too, is it’s the last big premium sports property that’s gonna be open on the market for quite some time. So it’ll be tough for Warner Brothers to get something else unless there’s Sublicensing.

Anne Ristau: How about Disney in Direct TV? Another contentious relationship?

Umar Hussain: Yeah, that was a big one. It just got solved before the, was it week three of college football? Head of week two of Monday Night Football, which is gonna be an exclusive game on ESPN, which is probably where Direct TV would get the biggest hurt, the winners, and the losers [00:25:00] there.

It’s hard. I’ve been racking my head around it. Obviously I’ve sat in that chair on the Disney side multiple times, even with Direct Tv. Back then, Direct Tv, publicly traded company. Now it’s privately owned. But Direct Tv, this was the most I’ve seen Disney out in the public commenting. They usually, the typical talking points.

Providing air value, they’re not coming to the table. But this time you really had the heads at Disney out in the marketplace. Jimmy Pitaro and Justin Connolly who are former bosses of mine and great people, and obviously I have a lot of friends on both sides that are rooting for something happen there for their lives ’cause they’re probably working around the clock.

A lot of pizza, late night pizza. But Direct Tv, publicly reporting Direct Tv was out to try to get genre packages. Sports, kids, family entertainment instead of these bloated big packages, then, you know, they call ’em expanded basic digital basic where they’re general entertainment packages, but sports, those are the most highly [00:26:00] penetrated to all their subscribers. So Direct TV really wanted to shift the model there. And I think for Disney it was a little look in the mirror and hey, Direct Tv’s got 11 million subs. They’re one of the bigger providers. You lose probably like $7 million a day being dark on Direct Tv. Do you lose more if you cave into what you give Direct Tv in that those changes, and this goes back to earlier our conversation, the NM FN clauses, the protections you build and does it trip those NFN clauses in the other deals, and that’s even more economic impact for Disney.

Now with the deal, the announcement in the public announcement of the deal does, you said they were able to keep their distribution at market rates, so it’s a win for Disney, but they were also giving directivity some rights on the genre packaging. So I think both parties got a little bit of what they wanted. I think Disney getting market rates is a big win for them. I think probably Disney is a slightly bigger winner, but I think Direct Tv obviously was able to get some [00:27:00] new carriage terms that perhaps didn’t exist in the market for Disney and, and maybe do something to help their business because. They’re a one trick pony, right?

They always sell satellite. They don’t have broadband like a Comcast or these cable companies do, or like a YouTube tv. It’s a larger corporate entity with, with so many other profitable businesses. So Direct Tv was more emboldened to get a cut, a better deal to save themselves. So to answer your question, I think Disney, slightly bigger winner and because they also got incremental Disney plus distribution out of it, which is a, a big company priority, but Direct Tv, I think probably fared better than just cutting a standard deal.

Anne Ristau: All right. And the last one, how about Diamond Sports Group in the future of the RSN?

Umar Hussain: That one is super interesting. As you can imagine, all of our, a lot of our clients are impacts directly. The RSN business was a great business for the teams and leagues, but it was also expensive, and I think also contributing to the ball of cable. But again, sports fans [00:28:00] will pay, but will they pay enough for a direct to consumer, which would have to be in a $20 to $40? The New York. Teams just announced Gotham SportsNet, which was basically a bundle of all the RSN games across all the sports teams in the New York metropolitan area, which is interesting, but then like it comes out to 40, 50 bucks and YouTube TV is like $70.

The price value equation, you know, for consumers perhaps isn’t there yet. But where do I think, I still think, like you said, it may take the teams and, and it might be market to market team to team specific. You’re seeing some teams just go directly to broadcast and they’re certainly taking less dollars than they went from what the RSN would give them, but without an RSN existing. Broadcast is not a bad option. And creating some direct to consumer, opportunities for customers as well is another area to like recapture that revenue. I think there’s a reset that’s gonna happen to some extent. There are some markets where teams are [00:29:00] very valuable or teams are very good, so you’ll have customers that pay for it.

But I think, and you’ve seen Diamond go out and try to cut creative deals that perhaps are lower than what they were paying for, but still higher guarantees than broadcast. For me as a sports fan, I still think like cable is the best product because it, if you’re a fan of your local teams and the national teams, you get it all within the same ui. Like I’m still a Charter Spectrum subscriber. I get my Dodgers, I get my Lakers, my Kings, but it is expensive. And at what point does the price go up so much that it’s not worth being a as avid of a fan anymore? And I think that’s a scary question for a lot of teams. Are you gonna lose fans? Are you gonna lose people coming to arena and checking in?

So I think at some level, just with the trends with where cable is going, they’ll probably need to be some sort of reset. I love what the Phoenix Suns tour are. Plenty of ours did. [00:30:00] They were the pioneers on getting on broadcast and D two C and the Suns even gave digital antennas to fans who wanted them and the prospect. And it goes back to the question earlier, the the value of live rights. They’re somewhat, they’re smart and their team is in a very, what is it? I’m gonna call it a golden age. They haven’t won a championship yet, but they’ve gone superstars. They’ve got great momentum. So instead of having less accents to less subscribers into your market, now you’ve blown the accents wide.

The reach is huge, and you probably just reset in building the value and the media rate value for that property with a various partner and who that partner is. I think that’s where a lot of teams are looking and I think there may be a happy medium with like Diamond if the teams can play ball and helping preserve reach. But I think the prices are aren too high right now.

Anne Ristau: I love the Sun’s example cause I think it hits both on just engaging and growing [00:31:00] your fan base, but also thinking very long term about how you monetize the media rights as a property. Certainly media fragmentation and the shifts in the landscape have probably been maybe one of, if not the biggest topic in sports in the last decade. But I’d say the other one that’s, either attire a close second, has been just the dominance of sports betting and how that’s driven engagement. Do you see the sports betting companies getting more involved in media rights in the near future? And do these worlds collide?

Umar Hussain: Yeah, it’s a great question. We would, even, the answer’s already a little bit out there and though it’s probably in the the way, you wouldn’t expect e ESPN’s like fully gone into ESPN bet and betting. So the rights holders and these rights are expensive, and I think that would be tough for the Draft Kings or the Fanduels or the Caesars or the Bed MGMs to get into because that’s a massive investment now. There are certain rights that are probably cheaper out there that you could experiment with they don’t have fast channels and fast [00:32:00] networks. There’s a way they can marry the two. I think you could create a very awesome product. ESPN, I think has got a little bit of a leg up. They maybe don’t have as much. They’re like a fourth, fifth, sixth, 10th mover in launching the betting platform, but they have all the sports rights.

So I think a big component of these next media rates deals are allowing to do those sorts of things. Now, of course. Right now sports betting isn’t available in all states, so they have to navigate going through geographic restrictions and all the rules that the legislature set up for activating on sports betting rates. But I think once against there and hopefully against there in all 50 states, but I think that the ones who own the media rights will win. And I wouldn’t be shocked if in Amazon. Buy a FanDuel or a DraftKings or one of these other big companies that team up. I think NBC had done something with Points Ben at one time, but I might have not gone further than just a, a sort of a brand [00:33:00] deal.

But I see opportunity there and I think, you know, if I were a FanDuel or DraftKings, I would be looking at some of the rights that e ESPN Plus has or ESPN three previously had on the cheaper side to do. And I know during COVID, ID. Russian table tennis went crazy because it was the only thing available to watch in be on. And I don’t know the exact numbers, but I remember talking to the sports bidding partners when I was at the NBA league office, that everyone was just so fixated on endorse table sports bidding. ’cause you could watch it and bad at the same time. And I think we’re gonna get there. And I think it’s just in terms of keeping the integrity.

And the other piece too is right now it’s streaming. There’s a delay in what happens on the action. So they need to solve for some of the latency issues on sports betting and and viewership to keep that experience less clunky. But it’ll only improve. And I think as it improves, it’ll eventually get there.

Anne Ristau: The entire landscape is fascinating. And again, Umar, we are so grateful to have your [00:34:00] expertise here with us at Navigate. I’d love to just wrap up with a few rapid fire questions because we’d also love to get to know you a little bit better. What are you streaming?

Umar Hussain: I’m a big TV watcher. The two things I’m really, I have a five month old daughter, so not as much TV watching, but when I get onto it Industry on Max, it’s like the, it’s scratching the inch of like missing Succession. It’s not quite as good as Succession, but it’s about, I know I’m not a finance guy. It’s like the brokerage firm, peer point of fictional brokerage firm in London, and it’s what you envision the life of an investment banker is. But even though they’re not investment bankers, and it’s, it’s very HBO, it’s very pushing the envelope, but it’s so well written. The writing has gotten to a level where it’s, okay, hey, this was like what I’ve missed with succession, and that’s what I’m watching right now.

Anne Ristau: All right. I’m in LA for one night. Where do you send me to eat?

Umar Hussain: Oh man. It all depends on what you like and what you want, but a favorite of mine [00:35:00] right now that I’ve been sending a lot of people to is called LA Great Outdoors.

It’s got this nice like backyard barbecue, upscale backyard, barbecue vibe in Santa Monica and amazing skewers, amazing fish, amazing veggies all over. Wood fire at coal fire. It’s so good.

Anne Ristau: Sounds amazing. Last one. Do you have any guilty pleasures outside of Netflix?

Umar Hussain: Yeah, I’m, I’ll say not rapid fire. I don’t really have a guilty pleasure because I have no shame, but I am very into love island USA on peacock right now.

Anne Ristau: Love it. Umar, thank you so much for being with us today and sharing your experience again across all aspects of the media landscape. These insights continue to be invaluable to our clients.

Umar Hussain: Well, thank you. Thanks for taking me down memory lane.

Anne Ristau: If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to reach out to us, me, or Umar. My email is ANNE@NVGT.com, and you can also connect with us on [00:36:00] the Navigate page or our personal LinkedIn. Again, this is Anne Ristau with Navigate Joined by Umar Hussain, Head of Media. Thank you so much for joining us on Navigating Sports Business. Please stay well.