Rights Holders as Media Owners
Soccerex Europe 2019
The Studio | 5 September 2019 | 3:30 PM - 4:15 PM
Football’s rights holders and broadcasters have long been reliant on each other; broadcaster’s rely on rights holders for the content that brings them viewers and advertisers; rights holders rely on broadcasters to generate revenues through rights sales and to help them expand their global reach. This relationship may be about to change. Rights holders are now seizing the opportunity presented to them by direct-to-consumer technologies to create and develop their own OTT offering, allowing them to control what fans can watch and how they can watch it. With rights holders now becoming media owners, how will this affect the production and distribution of their content? And how will this impact their relationship with traditional broadcasters? At Soccerex Europe, a panel of senior rights holder representatives will discuss the challenges and opportunities faced in developing an OTT offering and how they see the sports rights market changing as a result.
Suggested for: Clubs & Rightsholders, Commercial & Sponsorship, Broadcasting & New Media
Speakers
Phil Lynch joined Manchester United as the Chief Executive Officer of Media where he will be responsible for overseeing the Club’s Media initiatives, including the management and operations of MUTV (the Clubs 24x7 linear television network), the creation and editorial oversight of United Review (official match day programme) and Inside United (official monthly magazine), as well as the Clubs digital media partnerships and direct to consumer products.
Prior to his time at Manchester United Phil was the Global Head / Vice President of Content & Media Partnerships at Yahoo, overseeing 3500+ content partnerships across all verticals, as well as their digital distribution efforts. During his tenure he was selected by Variety as one of “Hollywood’s New Leaders” for 2016 and credited with developing Yahoo’s over the top live sports offering via securing broadcast rights and partnerships with the likes of the National Football League, National Hockey League, Major League Baseball, and PGA Tour.
Prior to Yahoo Phil was the senior vice president, digital networks & games for Sony Pictures Television (SPT). In this position, he was responsible for negotiating distribution deals and managing relationships with partners on behalf of Crackle, the studio’s multi-platform video entertainment network worldwide, and for acquisitions, programming, marketing, and operations for Crackle’s English language services in the US, Canada and Australia. Additionally, Lynch supervised and managed the game applications business for the Studio which includes games such as “Wheel of Fortune” and “Jeopardy!”, as well as Original IP like Suits & Swords, and brand extensions like Sports Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune Cubed.
Nuno Santos was born on 19 April 1968 and has been immersed in the world of media since an early age, beginning in radio when he was 17 years old. He was a producer and presenter at Rádio Comercial, before moving into television.
He was part of the team that founded SIC, the first private TV channel in Portugal, and SIC Notícias (SIC News), the country’s first 100% news-dedicated cable channel.
He was the director of information at SIC Notícias, and later programme and content director at RTP and again at SIC. He returned to RTP again as director of information.
Throughout his career Nuno Santos has kept in permanent touch with several of the key players involved in television and the press. In 2013 he embraced a new project in Africa, overseeing the content management with the Portuguese language partners of Multichoice, a South African TV operator that broadcasts in 130 countries, including Angola and Mozambique.
In 2016 he moved to the Story Lab international platform, where he was in charge of the content and programming department and the business unit for Portugal, Spain and Sub-Saharan Africa.
He is currently the director of 11 the first free to air football channel and content platform owned by a Football Association.
Guy-Laurent Epstein is the Marketing Director of UEFA Events S.A. set up in 2009 as a wholly owned UEFA subsidiary company; it manages the marketing and commercial interests of UEFA.
In 2002, Guy-Laurent joined UEFA as TV & Sponsorship Manager and soon became Head of Marketing Activities. In 2005, he created the Media Rights unit which is responsible for the overall sales of broadcast rights for UEFA competitions. Thereafter in 2010, he was appointed Marketing Director, responsible for the on-going development of all marketing and commercial activities, including brand, media and sponsorship, across all UEFA competitions.
After graduating from Paris IX Dauphine University in 1990 with a Masters in applied mathematics and social science and since gained an MBA from ESSEC Business School also in Paris, Guy-Laurent started his career as a financial consultant for Arthur Andersen before moving into the field of sports marketing. He worked on the 1998 FIFA World Cup in France before joining ISL Marketing where he was responsible for the licensing and merchandising for the 2002 FIFA World Cup held in South Korea and Japan. In 2001, he joined the marketing division of FIFA, overseeing the development and implementation of the World Cup licensing programme.
Lewis joined Seven League in 2017, having worked in sport, media and technology for over 22 years.
Most of his career before Seven League was spent with two iconic global brands: BBC Sport (11 years) & Twitter (5 years). He was editor of the BBC Sport website, BBC Sport’s first social media editor, and led the planning for BBC Sport’s coverage of London 2012 on digital channels. He then oversaw the same event for Twitter, as Twitter UK’s first Head of Sport, later becoming Director of Media Partnerships and Twitter’s inaugural Global Chair of Sports.
Prior to working for those two organisations, Lewis began his career as a sports reporter in local newspapers, where he first saw that the future of media would be in digital. Now in his third year at Seven League, Lewis has spearheaded digital projects for The FA, UEFA, England Netball, Laureus World Sports Awards, NFL and FIFA.
