A transformative year at FOX on multiple levels has placed the company’s spotlight squarely on the power of FOX Sports and its role in driving premium, live events with the company last year landing rights to the Thursday Night Football franchise, along with deals that include the WWE, PBC, PBA, as well as a renewal of its MLB rights. With FOX’s run of NFL game broadcasts wrapping up with rating upticks for both packages, Cynopsis Sports caught up with FOX Sports CEO and Executive Producer Eric Shanks to discuss how the Disney sale impacts the division, the company’s recent deals as well as the upcoming Women’s World Cup.
Shanks on FOX’s approach to sports post-sale: FOX has always has been aggressive in sports. That’s the way we were born back in 1994 and we’ve stayed that way at our core. As soon as New FOX was announced, we were more aggressive than ever by increasing our portfolio of live, premier rights – TNF, WWE, MLB, PBC and PBA. It really feels like our mantra of Same Game, New Attitude is as relevant as ever when it comes to New FOX.
On pickups: Consumers have divided the media landscape into two distinct markets: Live and On Demand. FOX’s position as being the leader in live sports puts us in the best position to capitalize on the urgency of now when it comes to passionate fans and brands that want to be attached to the most premium of all live content. So, when we talk about solidifying our baseball relationship for the next decade, doing a five-year Thursday Night Football deal or WWE’s SmackDown LIVE coming to FOX Sports, that sets us up with a certain amount of predictability to run our business. This strategy strengthened and diversified our portfolio in 2018 and a big part of that diversification was getting into the PPV space with our PBC boxing deal. The other diversification comes from finding the perfect opportunity to be involved in the eSports and social broadcasting area with Caffeine.
On the acquisition of Caffeine and its view of esports: Business innovation and new technology implementation have always been at the heart of our brand. Investing in the Caffeine platform and starting Caffeine Studios was the perfect way for us to invest in eSports but it’s also exciting to see other types of content start to have success with the unique capabilities of the Caffeine platform. It’s early days but it’s exciting to see how real-time interactivity with eSports and other types of influencer driven content could launch new business models and new generations of fans. In 2019, our Caffeine Studios JV will focus on driving deals in the eSports space and others and bolstering that strong baseline of content with new influential users.
On NFL viewership: Our two priorities heading into the season were to put our best effort into elevating Thursday Night Football while maintaining our Sunday Game of the Week as the #1 show in all of television. We accomplished both of those goals. And when you factor in all the games being on one network for Thursday nights, with a better schedule than ever before, FOX kickstarted the NFL weekend in a way we had never done before. By having strong competitive matchups, Joe and Troy in the booth and the FOX way of producing the games — it was a season that provided a lot of momentum for us and all of the NFL’s partners.
On its approach to gambling: Fox Sports’ Lock It In is the pioneer and premier sports wagering show on television right now. We have an eclectic cast that has helps us engage with sports fans on a whole new level. And whether it’s fantasy, wagering or in-game wagering, it’s going to provide opportunity for more engagement. We’re continuing to learn a lot on the gambling front and you’ll see much more to come from FOX in an organic and an authentic way reflective of what the fans want. The current status is easing everybody into the system. State-by-state, we’re gathering intelligence: we’re all seeing how New Jersey is acting, and how the audience is reacting to it, how marketing is going. Then we’ll witness the move into other states. I think it’s a healthy way to roll out and allow people to prepare and do it the right way over the next five years.
On the Women’s World Cup: We are through one full World Cup cycle at FOX Sports with two more to go. Through our first men’s and women’s World Cups, we’ve developed a unique brand of storytelling for the US team and been prepared for stories that develop like Croatia making an historic run last year in what people said was the best World Cup ever.
Digital/social played an integral role in last summer’s World Cup and will do so again this summer. Due to the time difference, it was paramount to lean into our own digital products and mobile experiences and broker new partnerships with brands like Twitter to offer soccer fans access to content 24/7. Consumer appetite for digital content throughout the tournament was sizable, especially seeing as we set a number of streaming and highlights records over the course of the month. A good example is our highlight series is “90 in 90” (90 second highlights of 90 minute games), captured the perfect length for mobile consumption and did north of 100 million views across our digital platforms.
The collaboration with Twitter provided an opportunity to improve the live second screen experience by delivering native video on social in real-time for the first time ever in a World Cup. It’s the ideal partnership: we are all about live events and they are all about live conversations about live events. We expanded the partnership with Twitter for the Women’s World Cup and will be rolling out content ahead of the tournament, beginning with the SheBelieves Cup. The content will cover all the teams but focus heavily on the U.S. Women’s National Team.
