NBA: The great learning from the pandemic for us was diversification regarding live sporting events

The distribution of sports content, the opportunities of esports, the value of sports rights, and the creation of communities around OTTs were some of the topics addressed in the panel Teams, Leagues, and Federations: Winning the OTT game during the second and last day of the NexTV Series México.

Hosted by Ernesto Ecarri, editor of PRODU Tecnología, the panel includes industry experts such as Liliana Castillo, Global Media Distribution senior director of NBA Mexico; Dorian Roldán, general director of Lucha Libre AAA; Armando Baraldi, director for Mexico of Grupo Baral Promociones Deportivas, and Santiago Montes, manager of Innovation and Digital Business of Club Deportivo Guadalajara.

Castillo spoke about the distribution of NBA content in Mexico related to its agreements with local partners and their D2C offer. “We are looking to maximize our reach by diversifying content and platforms. Our content stands on three main pillars: live games, our 24/7 TV channel, and our NBA Pass platform, which gives access to live and on-demand content in real-time. This allows us, through our partners, to expand and reach a broader fan base.” He added that they recently launched their NBA app, which builds on tastes and preferences, and within it, there is a loyalty program where users will have exclusive rights and actions. “This positions Mexico as number two for the NBA in Latin America and number three internationally.”

Dorian Roldán noted that they never lived off the TV rights. “We had to go out and rely on sponsors, and at one point, television stations realized saw that and wanted to charge us. When we had the opportunity and access to platforms like Twitch, Facebook, and YouTube democratized, we started monetizing. We realized that there is a whole new world for us. Sports are beginning to generate disruptive effects in new technologies.”

Regarding FAST channels and the opportunities they provide to brands like the NBA, Liliana said that these come in to position themselves to change the mindset and the way to monetize content. “We are doing an internal exercise to review what possible business models we can implement, but from there, the issue of data stands out and understanding first where the audience is, what they consume, and how they do it. The user experience is of utmost importance to us, and we must take care of the advertising issue.”

About monetization, Dorian showed data regarding Lucha Libre AAA. “The reality is that 33% of the monetization comes from what we call ‘events,’ 33% from the content issue, pulverized in pay TV, digital, VOD, and finally 33% is sponsorships. For a long time, more than 50% came from two or three sponsors, and we are diversifying the risk more and more. For us today, transactional VOD becomes an additional element of how to monetize the media part.”

Santiago, from Club Deportivo Guadalajara, announced they recently closed the project to build an arena inside the Akron stadium for esports. “These are ways to connect with new audiences. It is a profitable project that allows us to internationalize the brand by having access to arenas where we have never been. We are looking to be an esports hub in Guadalajara and Mexico.”

Finally, Castillo spoke on what lessons they learned from the pandemic. “It came to change the mindset for those of us doing live events, pushing us to get creative about what content we wanted to keep current. We had to generate a multiplatform tool that allowed us to create content to distribute through partners and our social media community. It was a quantum leap in what we could do. Diversification is the main thing that this situation left us.”