As fantasy sports continues to swell in numbers, Anthem Media Group is hitting year two of FNTSY Sports Network with an eye to capitalize on the passion of the sports fan via increased distribution, content and sponsors. The network is getting nimble in programming delivery, shoring up content for syndication as well as for its cable channel and digital platforms.
Adding to the ranks of FNTSY and Fight Network, Anthem Media Group last week also announced that it would continue to expand its portfolio, locking in a deal with Lucas Oil Products to bring motorsports network MAVTV to Canada. MAVTV Canada will now feature automotive/motorsports programming such as The Dave Despain Show, Full Custom Garage, Stacey David’s GearZ and Speed Sport hosted by Ralph Sheheen in partnership with National Speed Sports News and more.
Cynopsis Sports spoke with Leonard Asper, CEO of Anthem Media Group, about the challenges in play for new channels and the growth of fantasy sports
Asper on programming fantasy sports: People are realizing that we are like a Bloomberg for fantasy sports. If you think about it as being like a stock market, it is all day every day. It isn’t just a couple of programs put on a loop, we are doing six or seven hours live a day, or at least live to tape. The information has to be current and up-to-date with a news cycle going on every day that goes beyond just the NFL. You have the PGA, NASCAR, and daily fantasy sports. People are seeing how current the channel is, and from an MSO’s perspective, it can be a vehicle for them to send messages to their customers because we have tickets and screens that are both live and dynamic.
On the impact of daily fantasy: We picked the genre of fantasy sports because of how much it’s grown over the last five-ten years to 40 million players. I don’t really know when it’s going to stop because there is so much conversion going from season-long fantasy players who are now discovering daily so it is difficult to see any sort of apex any time soon. You have a lot of investment going into it from Wall Street and media companies; we are seeing the results of people advertising on our network as well. Our three or four biggest customers are daily fantasy sites and they are coming back because they are seeing results and conversion. It will continue to be a high-growth area for a long time.
On the state of the channel: We have signed a deal with a major casino group in Las Vegas to put the FNTSY Sports Network into their sports books. That is great distribution for us. You can see us on game consoles now. We have also gotten a studio in Las Vegas to start pumping content out of it. So that will be another source of programming for us. We are just getting into some deals with some national brands. We are also starting to distribute content with CineSport now as well and they are distributing our content to all of their publishing affiliates. What we’ve been successful at is being recognized as the experts in their field. So we are gaining traction through content syndication now as well as through our channel.
On modern difficulties of launching a network: It is very difficult right now. Five of the big eight of the big companies have been frozen in merger talks for the past year. There is a bit of a logjam on the major distributors right now. So we’ve been staying in touch and we feel we’ve made a lot of good progress with them. I would advise anybody getting into this business to first launch a video brand and make cable/satellite only one part of your strategy. You have to build something a lower cost that you can take to digital but will still allow you to one day become a traditional channel.
