StreamTime Sports

Few companies have generated as many headlines, sparked as much debate, or attracted as much attention in sports media as DAZN. Once positioned as the 'Netflix of Sports', the company has spent the last decade transforming from an ambitious streaming start-up into one of the most influential and controversial players in global sports broadcasting.
 
This episode traces the complete DAZN story, from its roots in Perform Group and early expansion across Europe and Japan, through its billion-dollar betting on sports rights, the challenges of COVID, and its shift towards profitability. Chris and Nick explore the key decisions, acquisitions and personalities that shaped the company, including Len Blavatnik, Simon Denyer, John Skipper and Shay Segev, before examining what DAZN has become today and what its future could look like.
 
Key Topics:
How did DAZN evolve from a niche streaming start-up into one of the biggest sports media companies in the world? 
Which strategic decisions helped shape DAZN's journey, and which proved to be costly mistakes?
How did COVID, changing streaming economics and the drive for profitability fundamentally transform the business?
What is DAZN today, and is the company ultimately heading towards an IPO, an acquisition or something entirely different?

Sports organisations are increasingly prioritising reach over exclusivity, and the latest moves from Disney+, DAZN and Serie A show just how important audience growth has become in a fragmented media landscape.
 This episode explores Formula E's new global partnership with Disney+, why DAZN continues to expand through acquisitions and new distribution deals, and how leagues such as Serie A are balancing free-to-air exposure with subscription revenue. Along the way, Chris and Nick examine what these strategies reveal about the future of sports media, international distribution and audience growth.
 Key Topics:
What does Formula E's Disney+ partnership reveal about the growing importance of audience reach over media rights revenue?
Why is Disney expanding its sports offering globally, and what role could ESPN play in that strategy?
What is DAZN actually building through its growing portfolio of acquisitions, partnerships and rights deals?
Can leagues like Serie A grow international audiences by combining free-to-air visibility with premium streaming partnerships?

Pete Distad has spent much of his career at the centre of streaming’s evolution. He worked at the pioneering Hulu, spent a decade at Apple, and attempted to consolidate the world of sport DTC with Venu Sports. Now he’s leading Fox’s own digital ambitions with Fox One.
 
Distad sat down with Nick Meacham at SportsPro New York to unpack the thinking behind FOX One, what he has learned from launching and scaling multiple streaming products, and how those experiences are shaping Fox’s next chapter.
 
They discuss:
The strategy behind FOX One and where it fits in thechanging US sports media landscape
What a decade at Apple taught Distad about building and scaling streaming products
Why Venu Sports remains the one project he still looks back on and wonders what might have been
Building products consumers actually want and knowing when you’re onto something
The mistakes, lessons and decisions that have shaped his career across Hulu, Apple, Venu and Fox
Why the 2026 Fifa World Cup was a major test for FOX One and its streaming ambitions

StreamTime Sports is thrilled to make the top 5 Sports Business podcasts. See the full list here: https://podcast.feedspot.com/sports_business_podcasts/

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 podcasting
Inside 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 following
Debrief: 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

StreamTime Sports is thrilled to make the top 5 Sports Business podcasts. See the full list here: https://podcast.feedspot.com/sports_business_podcasts/

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.

StreamTime Sports is thrilled to make the top 5 Sports Business podcasts. See the full list here: https://podcast.feedspot.com/sports_business_podcasts/