StreamTime Sports

With Premier League kickoff just a day away, Men in Blazers pulled off something it had never done before — live-streaming a Tottenham preseason match direct to North America and pulling in over 3x the concurrent viewership it had forecast.On this episode, Nick sits down with Roger Bennett, Co-Founder and CEO of the Men in Blazers Media Network, to unpack how MiB became one of the biggest independent football media businesses in North America — and what football's rapid rise in the US means for the sport's next 50 years.How Men in Blazers built its business on two first-mover bets: spotting football's rise in the US back in the early 2010s, and timing its launch around the emergence of podcastingInside the World Cup output that pushed MiB's streams up over 500% — 200+ podcasts plus TV shows, newsletters, alternate broadcasts and live eventsWhy NBC's 2013 Premier League deal — and its off-primetime kickoff slots — became an accidental masterstroke in growing US fandomMLS's move behind the Apple paywall, and why friction is the enemy of a fanbase that "finds football easily"America's multi-team fandom habit, and why Wrexham draws roughly seven times the average Premier League club's US followingDebrief: streaming Tottenham vs Hoffenheim live to North America ~10,000 concurrent viewers against an internal forecast of 2,800–3,200 — and what it signals for the next wave of club-direct broadcasts

Don't adjust your dials. This episode of StreamTime Sports features an interview by host Nick Meacham with Genius Sports CEO Mark Locke featured on t he SportsPro Pod.
For decades, the sports industry has relied on broadcasters to fund growth, distribute content and monetise audiences. But what happens when that model starts to change?Locke discusses Genius Sports' evolution from its betting roots into a global technology business, the company's acquisition of Legend, the growing role of AI and data ownership, and why he believes the next generation of sports growth will come from direct relationships with fans.
The conversation also examines the changing economics of media rights, the NFL partnership, gaming as a future distribution channel and what sports organisations need to do to thrive in a more personalised digital world.
This is the first episode in SportsPro's New Economics of Fandom series, exploring how sport's commercial future is being rewritten.

Streaming was supposed to unbundle television. Instead, the sports industry may be building a new bundle altogether.
This episode explores YouTube's new partnership with NBCUniversal, which brings Peacock into the YouTube ecosystem, and DAZN's move to become the streaming home of YES Network and MSG Networks content in the United States.
The discussion examines whether aggregators are becoming the new gatekeepers of sports media, how live sports continue to drive platform strategy, and why the streaming industry increasingly resembles the cable bundle it once set out to replace. The pair also discuss the Commonwealth Games' move from BBC to TNT Sports and the trade-off between audience reach and premium coverage.
Key Topics:
What does the YouTube-Peacock partnership reveal about YouTube's long-term ambitions in sports and streaming?
Has the streaming industry come full circle and begun rebuilding the traditional television bundle?
Can regional sports networks thrive by partnering with platforms like DAZN rather than operating their own streaming services?
How much audience reach should rights holders sacrifice in exchange for deeper streaming coverage and higher commercial returns?

Roku just agreed to be acquired by Fox in a deal valuing the streaming giant at $22 billion — but long before the headlines, Roku had quietly built one of the most ambitious sports strategies in streaming.
On this episode, Nick sits down with Joe Franzetta, Head of Sports for Roku Media, to unpack how a platform reaching 100 million households is working to make sports content frictionless to find, aggregate, and monetize in an increasingly fragmented rights landscape.
How Roku's "Sports Zone" aggregates live games, clips, highlights and stats across leagues like the NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL, NWSL and WNBA — and how that model scaled to seven territories for the World Cup
The difference between Roku as a platform (distribution partner integrations) versus the Roku Channel as a first-party service (FAST channels, originals, live rights deals with MLB, Formula E, X Games and the Savannah Bananas)
Why rights fragmentation isn't reversing — and how personalization, metadata and interactivity are becoming the tools to reaggregate the viewing experience without a cable-style bundle
How Roku funds its sports push through advertising and sponsorship rather than subscription or affiliate fees, and what "shared upside" partnerships look like in practice
A first take on what the pending Fox acquisition could mean for Roku's sports ambitions, and why it's "business as usual" until the deal closes

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FIFA's proposed $20 billion enterprise plan lasted less than 48 hours before facing widespread opposition, reigniting debate around private equity's role in sport and whether football's governing bodies should be selling stakes in their commercial future.
The episode explores why the proposal generated such a strong reaction, how it compares to similar investments across the sports industry, and what it reveals about FIFA's long-term commercial ambitions. Chris and Nick also break down the first major audience figures from the FIFA World Cup, examining record-breaking television audiences, streaming growth, and the eye-watering social media numbers generated across platforms including TikTok and YouTube. 
Key Points:
Why did FIFA's proposed $20 billion enterprise plan unravel so quickly, and was the backlash justified? 
What do the World Cup's record television and streaming audiences tell us about the future of sports consumption? 
Have platforms like TikTok and YouTube become as important as broadcasters in the global sports ecosystem? 
How should rights holders measure success when social media engagement reaches into the trillions but audience behaviour continues to fragment?