Matt Britton explains how live sports anchor television and why tech giants like Apple and Google could upend traditional TV if they grab NFL rights. Yahoo couldn't compete because it lacked the devices and ecosystem these companies already owned.
To the agreement. And my next guest believes that we could see some new deep pocketed players like Apple and even Google enter the game of providing content. Matt Britton is founder and CEO of mri. Welcome Matt.
Thanks for having me.
Huge story this week. Everybody's talking about it, but the NFL plays such a large role that it's almost like we're not even talking about how they have all the leverage here.
Well, they do in fact, that AT&T can back out of the deal if DirecTV can't consummate a renewal with the NFL. So the NFL is a huge part of DirecTV's business.
So big right now for live TV to. For TV in general to stay alive.
Well, the NFL is really the anchor of television in this country. I mean, every Sunday during the fall. It's what our country does. And there's really nothing else on TV that has the aggregated kind of scale and power that the NFL has. You do have some big live events like the Grammys and the Oscars. But besides that, the NFL is really the anchor for live television. And without it, if the NFL should shift to say, a Google or an Apple to come off linear television, the entire leverage in the entire advertising industry could have a massive shift.
Do you see it happening?
I mean, it's probably very likely DirecTV is going to renew with the NFL just because the NFL has had a very successful relationship with DirecTV over the years and consumers like it. But there are much more deep pocketed players like Apple, like Google, like Microsoft. Microsoft, for instance, just recently did a deal with the Xbox One and the NFL to allow consumers to interact with NFL content on the Xbox device. Apple TV already had Major League Baseball, the NHL and the other sport that I'm forgetting about, NBA already. So they're one sport away from basically having all the live sports.
So should they go digital, what happens to the scope of television as we know it today? What happens to all the deals on the table?
Right. Well, right now the way the advertising industry works is a major portion of all advertising spend goes to the big TV networks, NBC, abc, fox, CBS during the upfronts. And then after that there's a much smaller pie that first goes to traditional digital, which is display and search and the very small amounts going to mobile right now. But if there's a convergence, if the television dollars no longer go to traditional television but go to the web companies, well then the entire notion of the upfront might change. And recently in New York, there's something called the new fronts, which is basically digital companies coming in saying, we deserve our piece of the pie. So if that convergence ever happens, if the TV and the computer ever become one, then the entire way that advertisers look at spending, the massive parts of their budget could shift.
That could just be fascinating. That could happen soon. And if not this year, it could happen five years. It's going to happen 10 years from now. But it's not happening all at once. Or would it happen in bits and pieces at first?
Well, I mean, you look at what itunes, it's the music industry. You know, iTunes was born. And a year or two later, you stop seeing CDs actually happen. You look at what companies like Netflix and Apple TV did to DVDs. Now DVDs are kind of going away. So it really just takes one big invention or one big innovation in the marketplace. For instance, if Apple builds a television, a physical television that you can touch and switch, swipe and pull up apps, that could be the one innovation that completely disrupts and breaks this model.
You know, in your notes, I kind of got a giggle when I read that one of your points was that Yahoo should have sold to Microsoft. They had the chance.
Yeah.
Remember that? Every day we're talking about should they or shouldn't they? And then it was like, oh, my gosh, they should.
Absolutely. Because, you know, Yahoo. Really doesn't have much competitive advantage in the marketplace right now. They are a content company, but BuzzFeed and Business Insider and Bucks Business, they're all content companies. But what they don't have is they don't have a device ecosystem. People have physical devices. They don't have an operating system. They don't have pipelines to the home. So Yahoo really just is the lowest common denominator in terms of providing content and aggregating eyeballs. But it's really nothing that's going to create nearly the value that one thought they may be able to create years ago.
All right, Matt Britton, Mr. Y founder and CEO, joining us in studio. Thank you so much.
