← Next in Media
Next in Media
How a Blogging Network Became a Video First Sports Media Staple
00:23:36
Next in Media talked to Tyler Prince, head of content at Bleacher Report about the company's evolving connected TV strategy, how it works with its own talent and YouTube creators, and making decisions about growing it's audience versus leaning into revenue. Prince also talked about the company's big plans to dive deep into the NFL draft this year.
Loading summary
Transcript47 lines
- [00:01]
Mike Shields
Collaboration is a new competition. The One Audience alliance by Elemental TV unites premium publishers to tackle CTV's biggest challenge, fragmentation. By collaborating over AI powered audience insights and inventory, we're creating an ecosystem where advertisers win, publishers thrive and audiences stay engaged. Join The Movement Redefining CTV@elementaltv.com One audiencealliance that's E L E M E N T a l t v.com Oneaud I e n C E A A L L I A N C E Back in the early 2000s, Bleacher Report was one of those companies flooding the zone with fan written blog posts about every single sports team. That was a long time ago in digital media life. Having ridden the social video wave, a WarnerMedia acquisition and now a big push in the CTV Bleacher Report is fully professionalized and video First. I caught up with Tyler Prince, head of content, about how the company balances social video, its own app, its distribution deals with Max, as well as its big plans this year to cover the NFL draft. Even though ESPN is broadcasting the event. Lots to discuss. So let's get started. Hi everybody. Welcome to nexty Media. I'm Mike Shields. My guest this week is Tyler Price. He's the head of content at Bleach Report. Hey Tyler, how's it going? Thanks for being here.
- [01:23]
Tyler Prince
Hey Mike, how are you? Good to be here with you on NFL draft week. Yeah.
- [01:29]
Mike Shields
Although I'm looking at your LinkedIn and it's a picture of Fenway park, which I'm already kind of like turned off this conversation but.
- [01:35]
Tyler Prince
Well, let me make some concerns for you then. I am a New Englander through and through, except when it comes to professional football. I'm born and raised Pittsburgh Steelers fan. So I am a lost this week heading into a draft with no quarterback. But you don't have to worry about any Patriots talk here.
- [01:51]
Mike Shields
Yeah, well I don't know what it says when we the Giants sign Russell Wilson. You guys could not get rid of him fast enough. That that concerns me. Terrib. But we don't. This is not a sports podcast. We could be and in fact I actually took my kids to Fenway up in Boston and it was an awesome experience. But I digress. This is a weird question because it's like it's very obvious one. You know I've been following Bleacher Report for a long time. How do you define what you are today? You know, you historically you were a early like search driven content site, lots of very community oriented. Obviously you've evolved way past. You're much More of a video strategy. You're part of the Warner family, you're on television, you have apps. Give me like where you are today if you can.
- [02:33]
Tyler Prince
Yeah, I mean I think that's what's great about representing the brand of Bleacher Report is that it has been on an evolution, but it's still grounded in like a few very core principles. Right. This is conversations amongst fans and that's how we see ourselves too, as a voice of a fan joining a conversation we know is already happening with fans and it's still a personalized experience. So we make sure that whatever we're feeding you is relevant to your giants for you or whatever you've told us that you're interested in. We try to create the most personalized fan voice driven experience. And that was true when it was text based. Right. That was the launch. Bleacher Report is those early founders really felt like, hey, I wasn't, I'm not getting my San Francisco Giants news when I'm out here in Indiana. How do I get more of that? It has evolved in medium over time. Like we are now a very video first company focused on creating that, but still in the same core principles. We want to create video at scale to reach you around the moments that matter, around the teams and interests that matter to you. So now we've have some great opportunities over year to expand. Obviously the social boom was huge for bleacher report. There's 90 million strong out there following Bleacher across all social platforms. The integration into TNT and WBD has been huge because it's allowed us to integrate some of that great fan base content into the linear offerings that live on tnt, TBS and True. And then the VR app itself is an awesome destination. First in class alert strategy focused very much on those individuals. So we're super proud of the core position that BR has held since it started and excited about evolving into a video first offering.
- [04:22]
Mike Shields
I want to ask about the video first strategy, but catch me up on, you know, you can kind of follow the hit like the evolution of digital publishing through you guys or some of your early brethren. When you started, like you hear certain publishers talk about, well, you know, social was everything, it ain't what it used to be. The accounts are brands onto themselves and they matter just as much as some of our destinations. I get hard, hard to sum up because you're a lot of things, but where are, where are you in the social landscape right now? What matters, what doesn't, what's hit you.
- [04:55]
Tyler Prince
What hasn't we super value that audience, I would echo some of the conversations I've heard out there is that the growth has taken a unique turn as elements like TikTok and other YouTube shorts have popped up. Where now it's very much a focus on the content you make and less about scale of audience. But we're super proud of how large BR is off platform on social. I think that has driven our focus though even more to creating a similar scale in size and audience on our platforms as well on the app itself. So we have put a large amount of time, investment energy into creating unique app experience for our users. Again, very focused on interest based video. So we have not forgotten about how impactful and powerful social has been for BR and continues to be. But there's even more emphasis now on creating sort of like an interactive fan base experience in the app where you can connect with fans on a deeper level around the things that you've told us really matter to you.
- [05:57]
Mike Shields
So that that sounds challenging, like you know, being video first, it's changing a lot more resources you need to be like the professionals. It's not like it's something, it's not easy to do. UGC and sports coverage or in the traditional sense of ugc, I guess. How do you do that at scale? Get in, you know, cover all the different teams in sports you need to cover and also keep the quality of the level that you want it to be at.
- [06:23]
Tyler Prince
Yeah, well, you start with great people, egoless people who are willing to evaluate the way their production workflows go and create more scalable versions of it. I also think it's important to have a multifaceted production playbook. Mike, we can go top of the line. We're doing NFL draft show this week here, Thursday, Friday, Saturday. And when all your listeners tune in and watch that inside the BR app, they'll see what looks like a linear production level show. And we have that capability in house to do it. We also have the capability to do what some would equate to more of an Instagram live feeling live show. We're not afraid to spin up a green screen native TikTok video reacting to a sports moment as the first wave and then follow that up with a high production studio based live stream conversation that has clip outs that live everywhere. So we try to have that diverse playbook so that we can meet the moment and timing as effective as possible. And then it allows us to work with partners too, across. Some partners really want that social native feel no matter where it lives. Some want that higher fidelity production and we're super proud to have the ability to do all of those things because of the great people and skills that we have inside of br.
- [07:43]
Mike Shields
I want to go back, definitely go back to the giraffe stuff you mentioned. Just in general, this is. You're in an interesting spot because you're not. You are attached to a big media company that has a lot of great sports rights, but you're not on your own. A sports broadcaster. You don't. I don't think you're trying to out espn. Espn. How does that change your role in, like what you deliver to fans and what you produce when you're not covering games and then, you know, producing content around them. But you are trying to surround everything that matters to your fan base that makes sense.
- [08:12]
Tyler Prince
Yeah. We've always tried to shift away from telling people what's happening and more about experiencing the moments with you. That's always been its core, I think, no matter what we've been creating. So when a big moment happens and Russell Wilson signs with the Giants, we want to experience that story with Giants fans. Right. And here's.
- [08:33]
Mike Shields
I'm certain that's a big moment. Yeah.
- [08:35]
Tyler Prince
That really moved the needle for us, that dialogue back and forth. It's the voice we take. Right. We are your peer. I think the thing that really took this to another level for us is two things, actually. One, the access to the rights and the partnerships that TNT Sports has and being part of that ecosystem now, we've become a. We went from a friend you get to experience this with to a friend who has like the greatest tickets and access you could ever imagine that you get to experience this with. So when we are covering the Stanley cup this year for NHL, we're going to take some mega athletes, bring them to Right on the. On the glass of it. We'll mic them up and we'll. We'll shoot them experiencing their first Stanley cup game. Right. That to me is. It's more of the access piece that TNT has provided, has allowed us to just up the what we're providing to our friends as we all experience this moment. And then what we did a few years ago is we started bringing athletes into that conversation too, because we realized that they're experiencing these moments in real time, too. And they're not the one telling you what's happening. Right. When Mookie Betts hears about an MLB trade, he's hearing about it the same way you are.
- [09:47]
Mike Shields
He's a fan. He's as dialed in as anybody or.
- [09:51]
Tyler Prince
Exactly. And so giving the opportunity for your everyday fans, your megastar athletes to all experience those moments together through access and interactivity. That's kind of our core principle. And to your point, that's a compliment to the traditional sports experience, not a direct competition too.
- [10:09]
Mike Shields
Okay. So on the flip side, you know, like unlike the Stanley cup example, you've, you've tell us what you're doing on with the draft this year and how is it different? Because you don't, you don't have the draft quote, unquote. Yes. You know it's. But you're. So you try to attack that from a different way and give a sit fan something else when they're going to find out the results one way or the traditional. We think what does that, what does that look like?
- [10:30]
Tyler Prince
Yeah, I mean we've been doing draft live draft coverage since 2013. It's always been through that lens of like let's experience these moments together. Right. In a traditional format. They have obligations to follow the walk of the player up to watch the Goodell hug moment which are like super important parts of the NFL draft experience that allowed us always to like get to the reaction sooner. Right. Interact with the fans right away. So we started that in 2013 about four years ago. We started like, okay, listen fans really like this. It is always the busiest day in the BR app. We know people are in here for the interactivity. What if we started adding some athlete voices in there as well? And so now you're experiencing that with these like C.J. strouds of the world as the Texans make their draft pick. Right. And that took this up to another level. I think what's great about this year is we in playoffs. This past season we launched an official partnership with the NFL. That partnership provided us highlight rights if in game highlights inside the BR app, access to historical highlight usage off platform and some of the content that we create and access to some of their tempo events including draft. So this year we will have the most robust draft coverage we've ever had because you have that conversation reactionary feel. You have the athletes now it'll be Micah Parsons and Darius Slade Jr. This year. Adam Lefkoe, always the great host there. Michael Renner coming in as an analyst. But those two athletes kind of giving you that athlete reaction. And we have the ability now to show NFL highlights in the show when we're doing player comps. As you can imagine taking a look.
- [12:13]
Mike Shields
At how can it won't feel like you're a B listing, you know, at all. You're not like giving a sacrifice if you're enjoying this coverage, all the way.
- [12:21]
Tyler Prince
Down to being on site in Green Bay. So we're going to have access to the draftees when they come off that stage with Goodell to do interviews directly with their peers now with Micah and Darius talking directly to those draftees. So this show this year is like a evolution. It feels like we've been on this incredible journey and now we're amazed at, you know, what the NFL partnership has provided. I still feel like it's a complimentary experience because it is such a different experience than what you're watching on your linear networks. But it's super interactive, it's conversational, and that was at the core of this when we started in 2013.
- [12:57]
Mike Shields
When it comes to getting your stuff, like you said, being video first, you're on television in different ways now. How do you figure out, you know, it's still relatively early in the evolution of streaming tv. People, you know, people use a handful of apps, but it's changing. Okay. How do you prioritize what's going to be on your own app? Max? You've got YouTube, which is on television, sort of, but it's like, not exactly the same experience. How do you prioritize distribution? And then how do you figure out how to. How do you help people find stuff?
- [13:26]
Tyler Prince
It's an amazing opportunity because more and more avenues for access to new fans are opening up, both through our internal partnerships and just by the evolution of the platforms. But the thing we do the best, I think, is we listen, we see what works, we iterate, and no one's precious. So stuff that worked for us on Instagram for the last five years, all of a sudden YouTube shorts opens up and we're like, great, let's start pushing some of that stuff in there. Not working great. We need to change what lives there, and that doesn't mean that it wasn't right for what we were doing then. But evolution is so important.
- [14:00]
Mike Shields
Every platform is different. Yeah.
- [14:02]
Tyler Prince
And if you listen to your audience, they are telling you, it's really just, you have to listen. So that's the biggest thing for us across all platforms, because even the historic ones are evolving. Right. And we watch IG change every few months on what's working there. So we're great listeners. I have an incredible partnership with the programming team, who are really heads down running those feeds. They communicate that back to the content side quite regularly. And it's a really special partnership. The other thing that I think has been great is the partnership that BR has created with Max it's allowed us to elevate some of our more premium content into a premium platform and put it adjacent to these incredible sports rights. No surprise here. What reigns supreme in Max as far as sports goes is that live game, right? But if you're watching NBA playoffs and you're seeing these stars, you know, Jason Tatum go to work on the Magic yesterday, right after that, served up to you is this great interview of Candace Parker and another and Dwyane Wade talking about playoff mentality that BR has produced. The overlap between our social platforms off platform app and Max, there's a decent Venn diagram there, but it's a whole new audience within that MAX ecosystem that we've had chance to learn about. So we attack every opportunity.
- [15:21]
Mike Shields
And what have you learned? For example, they like longer sessions. Are they a different demo? What might be interesting?
- [15:27]
Tyler Prince
I think that historical look back content does really, really well on MAX storytelling pieces. Right. That's why I referenced the Candace Duane conversation. I think that that seemed to be something that really is sticky with that group. So we've tried to create more long form experiences for those viewers that, you know, as you can imagine, traditionally would not work on a TikTok or an Instagram. In the app we see a lot of live reactionary type stuff. But some of that long form storytelling seems to be playing really, really well with the MAX audience.
- [16:00]
Mike Shields
How much in your life does this come up where you, you want to go wherever your audience is going to be and like different things work in different platforms like you said. But you, the financial arrangements are different for all these things. Some. And you know, you hear you make more money from connected television advertising than YouTube, let's say. But then I don't know if you make any money from TikTok right now or reels or maybe that's changing. Do you factor all those things in when you're making decisions? Do you have to kind of just go where the audience is? What does that look like?
- [16:27]
Tyler Prince
The focus on us has always been that audience. And then creating like some really high level partnerships, right. We'll do our part. We're going to curate the next generation of sports fans. We're going to make sure we're reaching all of them whenever we need to reach them. And then we're going to go and create partnerships like the ones with the NFL, right? Where now we have such a unique setup with them, where we're part of the OMP partnership within the NFL, but just from a digital perspective. And so when you combine those two things together, that's been the stories to success. When you start tinkering too much and saying we're only doing this or we're only doing that, we start to leave. What makes us our superpower, which is this giant audience. So really great partnerships. Listen, care, grow your audience. Those two things have led, you know, this year for even early in the NFL partnership. But we got to work with aws, Microsoft, Snickers right out of the gate because we just had the audience and reach on the digital that they had been seeking out in a partner for a long time. And that has just kind of given us a lot of confidence to continue to build powerful partnerships. Take care of your audience and the money follows.
- [17:35]
Mike Shields
You're seeing the NFL particular, but I think all the leagues are trying to experiment with working with creators more, bringing them into the fold. How do you guys look at that? Because on the one hand, you are creators or some of your. I would think you. You have talent that is good at YouTube and have audience has audiences there, versus there's a whole ecosystem of independent people that are really good at that. Do you want to partner with them? Do you want to try and build your own group audience? Both, all nothing. What does that look like?
- [18:03]
Tyler Prince
Yeah, we. We attack that type of partnership with open arms. We see the power of creators out there. You know, I was talking about this with the Drew Mueller, who oversees the House of Highlights brand inside of Bleacher Report as well. And they're super aggressive in that creator space. They've even launched a league called the House of Highlights Creator League, where they take some of the greatest creators, bring them together. They compete in traditional sports formats. All you would watch in a traditional league, and it does incredible performance numbers for them. I think what it is, is there's this narrative that Gen Z doesn't care about sports or they're less.
- [18:38]
Mike Shields
I was coming to that. Yeah, yeah. And then. And there's a narrative that traditional media isn't good at. Creators doesn't know what to do with.
- [18:42]
Tyler Prince
Them, but I think it's such the opposite. They care so much about sports that they're willing to watch. Joe Schmo, you and me go play golf for 45 minutes. Right? They're dialed into high school basketball games that they can now stream being voiced over by a creator in their community. They care deeply about sports. They care about the personalities and the people they're talking about more. And so we're super invested in creating really healthy relationships with those creators out there. What we can offer to those creators, and this is. I'M sounding like a broken record here a little bit, Mike, but is our audience right? Come here. If you want to talk about the Philadelphia Eagles, I will give you a platform to go live four times inside the BR app a week to talk to super dedicated Eagles fans who have been there for the last 10 years. So you mix that, we can make.
- [19:31]
Mike Shields
You bigger right off the bat. Like that's a selling point.
- [19:33]
Tyler Prince
You mix that with your own brand building efforts off platform and we've created a win win for both folks where like we're providing the audience with stuff that we know they want and are excited with and we're giving those creators a platform to acquire new folks who have been following Bleacher Report for years, specific to the things they want to talk about.
- [19:51]
Mike Shields
All right, so on your Gen Z point, you know, like I think I mentioned this, like there's the, there's definitely a, there's a narrative out there that they only care about highlights, they only care about stars. They, they can't sit there for a three hour game. Do you think, like, should the leagues be worried? Is it just about catering to them in a different way? They, their expectations of a sports broadcast or fandom? What, what should we know about them?
- [20:13]
Tyler Prince
I don't think worry is the right word. I think there's incredible opportunity. Are we going to have to continue to iterate on the playbook? For sure. Some of those leagues are already doing incredible jobs. Like I love what the NBA does every year. They're rolling out new initiatives, bringing new voices in to cover the game in unique ways. They have incredible creator partnership program there similar to creator league. They do a big creator game around All Star. They're constantly bringing folks on the road to reach them. They, they seem to have embraced this ecosystem quite robustly. And I think that's what it's going to take across for every league. Right. Is just like acknowledge that the audience is in different places. It doesn't mean that the core offering is any less powerful. We just got to make sure that that is distributed to the places where these people are. So I think it's an incredible opportunity. More than anything, shifts in media are always good for sports because people never stop caring about sports. Where they go, how they consume it, how they're talking about it changes. But I think that the feeling around it and the commitment to the game in sports has not changed. It's just how we speak to the audience about it.
- [21:23]
Mike Shields
Right. And it sounds like you're finding that they, and you know, we're seeing that they care about different stuff, too. They care about the traditional leagues, but they care about, like you said, high school sports a little. A lot more Premier League than. Than me, you know, a couple generations ago or whatever. There's a lot. This is a different range of stuff they are. They're into.
- [21:38]
Tyler Prince
I think they care about reacting to moments. Right. Is that they want to be quickly informed, be able to understand exactly what happened, and then instantly get into a conversation about it. I think that's the thing about this younger generation, more than anything, is like, I want to know everything that just happened. Even if I couldn't watch the whole game. How quickly can I digest it all so that I can launch into a conversation about it, so I can get into it with my community right now? So being able.
- [22:03]
Mike Shields
It's a lot more participatory than just.
- [22:05]
Tyler Prince
Being able to provide instant context so that you can launch into dialogue that I think is what this audience cares the most about.
- [22:12]
Mike Shields
All right, before I let you go, what else should we know about draft night? What's gonna be. What should fans be looking out for? What's gonna be exciting about this? And, you know, and then what does that maybe tell us about where you're headed as a company?
- [22:23]
Tyler Prince
Yeah, no, we're super excited. I think because of the level that we've reached on draft now, we're. We're able to increase distribution. So you can find the draft live in the BR app. We'll have it on VR, YouTube as well. Now I'll be live in Max, so if you tune into Max for your games, you'll see the BR draft night live right there. Obviously, we're super excited to have Micah back. Darius Slay Jr. Who is a Pittsburgh Steelers, I swear that's a coincidence, but having his perspective as the Steelers work their way through the draft, we just love that interactivity element where while we're waiting for picks to happen, Adam Lefkoe really does a great job facilitating the conversation between our audience and those stars, predicting what's going to happen, getting their takes, and it's just a great experience for you as you, you know, consume one of the most exciting nights in sports.
- [23:10]
Mike Shields
All right, well, I'll see if it's a great experience for me that night.
- [23:12]
Tyler Prince
All right, let me know.
- [23:13]
Mike Shields
It depends a lot on what the Giants do, but awesome conversation. Tyler, thanks so much and let's. Let's chat again down the road.
- [23:20]
Tyler Prince
I appreciate it, Mike. Hang in there.
- [23:22]
Mike Shields
Big thanks to my guests this week. Bleacher Reports Head of Content Tyler Prince and my partners at Elemental tv. If you like this week's episode, please take a moment to rate and leave a review. We have lots more to bring you, so please hit that subscribe button. See you next time for more with snexty Media. Thanks for listening.