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“Sports is the best and most valuable content to do what you want to do for traditional and disruptive media”

September 14, 2024

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Despite sports being “the oldest media business in the world,”  we are in the midst of yet another boom in sports media. The number of new sports leagues in the U.S. has coincided with the additional media “shelf space” from streaming, with the social media outreach of sports figures, and with the legalization of gambling.  John Skipper, the former ESPN head and sports business deep thinker, details why this is so.  He spoke  with Semafor Media's Ben Smith and Nayeema Raza in an extended interview.  Some highlights: 

  • Fragmentation of media is a financial positive for making money in sports media, since all media companies want a piece of it
  • “Sports is to this decade what celebrity was to the 90s.”
  • Expansion of the market to include women as players, fans and sports media consumers is critical and is not going away
  • American tackle football is loved by American media because it demonstrates “American Exceptionalism” while being a perfect thing to broadcast:  lots of breaks, lots of time for commentary, showing the plays multiple times, in case you got up to go to the frig

More from Semafor Media Podcast, Mixed Signals here and here. 

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