BEVERLY HILLS -- The Milken Global Conference annually attracts some of the finance world’s top power brokers, and this year’s edition has been no exception. In fact, a crowd that included Clearlake Capital co-founder and incoming Padres owner Jose Feliciano sat in on a panel about the future of sports investment on Monday afternoon.
That conversation -- featuring Brewers owner Mark Attanasio; NWSL Commissioner Jessica Berman; Monarch Collective Managing Partner Kara Nortman; Paramount President of Sports Entertainment Jesse Sisgold; and Jeff Wilbur, partner and head of sports and entertainment for Eldridge Capital Management -- initially focused on rising team values, but quickly pivoted into the role original content plays attracting new fans and, thus, driving future revenue growth.
Attanasio acknowledged that baseball has lagged behind in terms of mainstream relevance, but that there are signs the sport has room to grow, like the World Baseball Classic’s title game drawing a bigger broadcast audience than the NBA Finals.
“We need to embrace all of this, which we’ve been slow to. Of all the other leagues, I’d say we have the lowest-profile players,” Attanasio said. “So baseball has made an investment in a couple media companies that can tell stories like Jomboy [Media]. ... The one challenge we’re going to have is that by the time we get to it, the pie may already be carved up. So we’re trying to figure out how to accelerate responsibly.”
Sisgold noted that original content is especially valuable to the larger sports leagues that are already maximizing their reach via live broadcasts. He said the NFL’s pursuit of a content deal with Skydance -- since expanded to include more scripted content -- originated from NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell realizing that original series and movies offer a path to continued growth.
“What [Goodell] recognizes is, ‘I think my team is excellent at talking to the audience we already have, but we actually need professional storytellers who speak to everyone. That’s a way we can actually expand our audience and therefore expand our valuation,’” Sisgold said. “Because they’re quite a mature league, they’ve done about what they can do on media rights.”
NWSL Commissioner Jessica Berman also tackled the subject, noting that her league’s athlete-driven storytelling is partly responsible for the NWSL’s especially young and female-skewing fanbase.
“There is an incredible opportunity to engage the next generation of fans who, candidly, expect to have an active role as a fan and want an opportunity to be in the driver’s seat of their experience,” Berman said. “We’re going to see a lot of innovation around this. Not just through betting, but through a customized viewing experience, through other forms of technology, through the introduction of player and ball tracking.”
The NWSL is piloting new player tracking software this season that is intended to provide viewers even greater insights around the game. “I do think it’s going to lead to incredible storytelling and relatability of that experience,” Berman said.
