October proved historical for Monumental Sports, not only partnering with NBC Sports Group for a new multi-platform deal but also flipping the switch on the new OTT Monumental Sports Network. The new digital platform will look to redefine regional sports coverage, with the subscription service allowing fans to watch live games that will include the WNBA’s Washington Mystics, the Arena Football League’s Washington Valor, affiliate teams for the Wizards and Capitals as well as studio analysis. With NBC Sports now onboard as an equity partner in the new deal, Monumental Sports will Monumental Sports Network will offer more than 80 hours of original programs per year, including 15 new original shows such as an interview series hosted by Reggie Love and a reality series spotlighting DC-area basketball players.
Cynopsis Sports spoke with Zach Leonsis, VP and GM of Monumental Sports Network in a two-part interview. Today’s portion will cover the developing strategy at Monumental Sports and the launch of the OTT service, while part two will run in Thursday’s eSports edition to discuss the company’s recent forays into the competitive gaming industry.
Leonsis on the scope of Monumental Sports: We have always believed that we were a unique enterprise. We are an expanding portfolio of branded teams from the NBA and WNBA to the NHL to the AFL to our recent investment in an eSports holding company which owns Team Liquid. We are now planning to continue to expand. At the same time we own a portfolio of venues including the Verizon Center here in DC; we operate EagleBank Arena, which is a 10,000-person venue and Kettler Capitals Iceplex and we are building a new practice facility for the Wizards that will have a standalone arena right next door that will be home to the Mystics and our D-League team. We started to see that we have this accordion-style ability to scale up audiences and scale down audiences depending on the type of content and venue. So we started to think that our media strategy needed to reflect that. We believe that our region is uniquely positioned in the new media world order to make this happen.
On the DC sports market: There are many reports out there that show that the population of the DC/Mid-Atlantic region could double in just the next decade or so with the biggest influx coming from Millennial and Gen-Z consumers. Those are the customers who are deciding not to subscribe to cable but may not be adverse to subscription services. That said, the cable industry is still pretty strong so as we move down with our deal with NBC Sports Group and CSN Mid-Atlantic, it became pretty apparent that to both parties that we should use this opportunity to create a really forward-thinking platform to use for smaller, but highly concentrated and strong niche audiences. Together we are now able to take a step back and think about programming throughout the entire region through multiple models.
On programming: We’ve opened ourselves up to serve as a bit of a petri dish for NBC with the OTT network. We are jointly creating close to 100 hours of original programming that will include live games with a goal of going over 300 live games given some of the deal we are pursuing. We are going to aggressively pursue other rights including high school games. We would also love to have college hoops or even football in the mix. That would mean that between CSN and our platform, we would have over 700 and come close to 1000 games showcased every year.
On the launch: This is really the first-regionalized approach to OTT featuring multiple home teams or teams with local touchpoints across multiple-league and multiple-calendar seasons. Our approach will be different, and while we will surely make some mistakes on the way, I believe that we are set to change how fans and sponsors can embrace sports.
