Sports Media Report
The age of altcasts continued to grow this past season, where we saw the Mannings joined by content rich offerings tied to “The Simpsons,” Disney, Nickelodeon and the like. However the one that may bring the best value, and find a new audience who also is a football audience but may not be watching NFL broadcasts on traditional media, was the Madden NFL Cast that NBC/Peacock, EA Sports, the NFL and Genius Sports came up with in December. It was the prime topic of discussion on the Thursday prior to Super Bowl on a panel dedicated to the road ahead in streaming and new audiences, and some of the thoughts offered up made it clear that the marriage of a gaming audience to traditional sport did not die with the collapse of the NBA2K League last year.
As a reminder, the EA SPORTS Madden NFL Cast, a first-of-its-kind live football experience blending video game elements and live action, that streamed live exclusively on Peacock on Dec. 21 for the Houston Texans-Kansas City Chiefs game. The stream, a collaboration between NBC Sports, Peacock, the National Football League, EA SPORTS, and Genius Sports, was an immersive, data-powered live football experience that injected Madden NFL’s unique brand elements as animated overlays. It featured live EA SPORTS Madden NFL 25 graphics, route trees, play cards and player ratings, enabled by the NFL’s Next Gen Stats and GeniusIQ, Genius Sports’ next generation data and AI platform. GeniusIQ combines real-time data insights with fully branded animations, delivering an immersive viewing experience.
Why was it so different than other altcasts? Audience arrival.
“What we brought to this partnership was a dedicated audience of young people who have first engaged with the NFL not by watching it like other generations but by playing it on Madden,” said Evan Dexter, Vice President, Brand, EA SPORTS Madden NFL & College Football. “They now can enjoy the best of both worlds, maybe for the first time in some cases–taking the enhanced stats that they know and applying them to a game in real time. We are just scratching the surface with what can be done on a custom level, and Genius’ technology was the bridge to get us there with NBC.”
How deep is the Madden affinity? Dexter pointed out that we now have a generation of coaches and players who have grown up using the depth of Madden as a first adopter, and some have even moved that familiarity with the game into their game prep. If it’s good enough for the most elite athletes and coaches, it could then bring a non-gimmicky realism to enhance a fan experience as well. That realism and accuracy was what really turned the light on for NBC to give the Madden cast a chance, especially with the clean slate of streaming that Peacock presented.
“We have all seen what the altcasts can do to grow buzz and audience for people who love characters in Toy Story or “The Simpsons,” but this was a totally different test for what could be done,” added Fred Gaudelli, Executive Producer for NBC’s Sunday Night Football, who oversaw the production and the integration. “What the Madden broadcast did was different because it brought a dedicated audience and matched it with football fans who were already engaged, in one environment that both sides understood pretty clearly. The visualizations of the stats and the technology made great sense. There was very little learning from the audience that was needed. It was another way to reframe and use NextGen stats, with all the data that Madden fans were used to.”
For the NFL, the symbiotic work of their dedicated partners really made the Madden NFL Cast almost a no brainer, without any of the skepticism or the friction that may come from character-laden altcasts tried before.
“Our job with all our partners is to keep listening and teaching and learning and providing fans with content they enjoy without detracting from the game,” said Hans Schroeder, the CVP and COO OF NFL Media. “We think this partnership with EA Sports and Genius and NBC, with the buy in from the teams, was another great sneak peak of where the blend of data in a live broadcast can go.”
Where the altcasts will go in the future will be probably dictated by the consumer, and what the consumer is telling the content creator, in this case the leagues, where it wants to go and how it wants to engage. We saw on Sunday that FOX’s number was 126 million viewers, which included all platforms, not just the old Nielsen in-home numbers, which made it a record for engagement for those who chose to watch on any platform at any time. That measurement is going to be key, as the quantifiable leads to the ROI in seeing what forms of broadcast have the stickiness to resonate and go from test to consistent.
‘’I look ahead as to where we are going and the next step is going to be custom highlights amongst other choices,” concluded Steve Bornstein, President Genius Sports. “Giving fans their own feed of game content with what they want, not what the networks or a platform tell them they should want. The power will be much more in the hands of the consumer, and we are all adjusting to that concept, which is in no way the way it has been since broadcasting sports began.”
While sometimes we think what’s old is new again, in media consumption the old is gone…the new is here to stay. Gamers… Lead the way.
