Daniel Frankel:
Hi, I am Daniel Frankel, co-founder and publisher of Next TMT. On behalf of StreamTV Live, we're here today with Christy Tanner. Christy is the chair of a new FAST called Swerve Sports. Hey, Christy, how are you?
Christy Tanner:
I'm great. I love to be at StreamTV.
Daniel Frankel:
Hi, I am Daniel Frankel, co-founder and publisher of Next TMT. On behalf of StreamTV Live, we're here today with Christy Tanner. Christy is the chair of a new FAST called Swerve Sports. Hey, Christy, how are you?
Christy Tanner:
I'm great. I love to be at StreamTV.
Daniel Frankel:
Can you tell us just real briefly what Swerve Sports is? It's a FAST channel dedicated to women's sports, but maybe fill us in a little bit more.
Christy Tanner:
We're 100% focused on women's sports, especially live women's sports. We've done research into Gen Z and it's a fascinating generation, and we really want to super serve their sports needs.
Daniel Frankel:
So I saw you're speaking here at the show. What is your engagement?
Christy Tanner:
I'm talking about the future of sports streaming Gen Z and women's sports. So we have some fascinating stats. Gen Z is a very different dynamic generation, and I want to tell you what some of our learnings are. So first off, we found that 71% of Gen Z begin their discovery journey on social and YouTube. That's for every type of media, from music to TV shows, to sports to podcasts. They start their discovery journey on social and YouTube. Second, 81% of them watch vertical video weekly. So when you put those two stats together, I think the implications for us in the streaming industry are that you must have a multi-platform strategy if you want to reach Gen Z. Then when we dove deeper into their sports habits, we asked a simple question, what are your favorite sports? But the results were surprising. Number one, and number two, football, basketball, yes. But number three is combat sports, boxing, MMA, Muay Thai, Jiu-Jitsu, etc.
Daniel Frankel:
Is this across male and female or?
Christy Tanner:
This is for both men and women. So to break it down, Gen Z's favorite sports played by men are football, basketball, combat. Gen Z's favorite sports played by women, basketball, gymnastics, combat. So combat is number three for both men and women. Then when you want to add one more interesting statistic to that, when we broke it down by women and men responding, among women, combat is their fifth most popular sport. But what's also interesting about this is that some of the traditional beloved sports are not showing up in the top five.
Daniel Frankel:
Really? Like what?
Christy Tanner:
Baseball, soccer not showing up in the top five-
Daniel Frankel:
Wow.
Christy Tanner:
For Gen Z's favorite sports.
Daniel Frankel:
Beyond combat sports, what does show up?
Christy Tanner:
Well, football, basketball, gymnastics, combat, etc. Okay, but let's frame this another way.
Daniel Frankel:
Right.
Christy Tanner:
For some people that's bad news that basketball and soccer don't show up in the top five. I would look at that as an opportunity, and I'd pair it with those other statistics about where Gen Z is spending time.
Daniel Frankel:
An opportunity how?
Christy Tanner:
An opportunity to reach them. What these statistics point to is that everybody needs a multi-platform strategy. If you are not pursuing a multi-platform strategy, regardless of whether you're a brand, a marketer, a content creator, a platform or programmer, you're not reaching Gen Z.
Daniel Frankel:
Right.
Christy Tanner:
And they will come to your streaming platform. They will come to your movie in real life. They will watch your sport, but you really need to super-serve them and you need to market to them where they're spending the most time. And that's on social YouTube and with vertical video. So we all have to get good at that.
Daniel Frankel:
Can we drill down a little bit on social? Are we talking TikTok, X? Where are they right now?
Christy Tanner:
Well, yeah, I mean, let's put it this way. On social, the top platforms are Instagram and TikTok, and then there's YouTube, which is sort of a hybrid. I mean, it is both a social platform and a streaming platform. It sort of gets counted in both categories.
Daniel Frankel:
So backing up a little bit, and your study belies this notion. There's this... I've heard this, it's anecdotal, but that Gen Z-age consumers don't consume sports in the same way that us old Gen X guys do. That's not true.
Christy Tanner:
Let's put it this way. It's not either-or.
Daniel Frankel:
Right.
Christy Tanner:
So their habits are different. They do watch live sports games on broadcast TV, and they also watch live sports on streaming, and they in some cases prefer highlights to full games. But I think we'd be missing an opportunity if we said, "Well, no more full games. We're only going to focus on highlights." Now, I think you have to do both, and what we are finding is that maybe for their favorite teams, for their favorite sports, they'll watch full games, but maybe they won't watch full games for every single sport that they follow.
Another interesting stat that we uncovered is that for Gen X, on average, Gen X follows three sports. For Gen Z, that number's 4.7. So they have an ability to do a lot of things at the same time. I think for me, the takeaway from this research is that regardless of what your core focus is, a FAST channel for instance, or an SVOD service or another, you still have be excellent at messaging on social and YouTube and in vertical video, or you're going to lose this generation and framed in a more positive way. The opportunity reach this generation is on social, YouTube, and with vertical video.
Daniel Frankel:
Well, I myself am looking forward to the talk. You seem to be poised on a tremendous opportunity. Women's sports seems to be having a moment right now if you've watched your streaming service at all. Christy Tanner, Daniel Frankel, thank you very much. StreamTV Live out.
Can you tell us just real briefly what Swerve Sports is? It's a FAST channel dedicated to women's sports, but maybe fill us in a little bit more.
Christy Tanner:
We're 100% focused on women's sports, especially live women's sports. We've done research into Gen Z and it's a fascinating generation, and we really want to super serve their sports needs.
Daniel Frankel:
So I saw you're speaking here at the show. What is your engagement?
Christy Tanner:
I'm talking about the future of sports streaming Gen Z and women's sports. So we have some fascinating stats. Gen Z is a very different dynamic generation, and I want to tell you what some of our learnings are. So first off, we found that 71% of Gen Z begin their discovery journey on social and YouTube. That's for every type of media, from music to TV shows, to sports to podcasts. They start their discovery journey on social and YouTube. Second, 81% of them watch vertical video weekly. So when you put those two stats together, I think the implications for us in the streaming industry are that you must have a multi-platform strategy if you want to reach Gen Z. Then when we dove deeper into their sports habits, we asked a simple question, what are your favorite sports? But the results were surprising. Number one, and number two, football, basketball, yes. But number three is combat sports, boxing, MMA, Muay Thai, Jiu-Jitsu, etc.
Daniel Frankel:
Is this across male and female or?
Christy Tanner:
This is for both men and women. So to break it down, Gen Z's favorite sports played by men are football, basketball, combat. Gen Z's favorite sports played by women, basketball, gymnastics, combat. So combat is number three for both men and women. Then when you want to add one more interesting statistic to that, when we broke it down by women and men responding, among women, combat is their fifth most popular sport. But what's also interesting about this is that some of the traditional beloved sports are not showing up in the top five.
Daniel Frankel:
Really? Like what?
Christy Tanner:
Baseball, soccer not showing up in the top five-
Daniel Frankel:
Wow.
Christy Tanner:
For Gen Z's favorite sports.
Daniel Frankel:
Beyond combat sports, what does show up?
Christy Tanner:
Well, football, basketball, gymnastics, combat, etc. Okay, but let's frame this another way.
Daniel Frankel:
Right.
Christy Tanner:
For some people that's bad news that basketball and soccer don't show up in the top five. I would look at that as an opportunity, and I'd pair it with those other statistics about where Gen Z is spending time.
Daniel Frankel:
An opportunity how?
Christy Tanner:
An opportunity to reach them. What these statistics point to is that everybody needs a multi-platform strategy. If you are not pursuing a multi-platform strategy, regardless of whether you're a brand, a marketer, a content creator, a platform or programmer, you're not reaching Gen Z.
Daniel Frankel:
Right.
Christy Tanner:
And they will come to your streaming platform. They will come to your movie in real life. They will watch your sport, but you really need to super-serve them and you need to market to them where they're spending the most time. And that's on social YouTube and with vertical video. So we all have to get good at that.
Daniel Frankel:
Can we drill down a little bit on social? Are we talking TikTok, X? Where are they right now?
Christy Tanner:
Well, yeah, I mean, let's put it this way. On social, the top platforms are Instagram and TikTok, and then there's YouTube, which is sort of a hybrid. I mean, it is both a social platform and a streaming platform. It sort of gets counted in both categories.
Daniel Frankel:
So backing up a little bit, and your study belies this notion. There's this... I've heard this, it's anecdotal, but that Gen Z-age consumers don't consume sports in the same way that us old Gen X guys do. That's not true.
Christy Tanner:
Let's put it this way. It's not either-or.
Daniel Frankel:
Right.
Christy Tanner:
So their habits are different. They do watch live sports games on broadcast TV, and they also watch live sports on streaming, and they in some cases prefer highlights to full games. But I think we'd be missing an opportunity if we said, "Well, no more full games. We're only going to focus on highlights." Now, I think you have to do both, and what we are finding is that maybe for their favorite teams, for their favorite sports, they'll watch full games, but maybe they won't watch full games for every single sport that they follow.
Another interesting stat that we uncovered is that for Gen X, on average, Gen X follows three sports. For Gen Z, that number's 4.7. So they have an ability to do a lot of things at the same time. I think for me, the takeaway from this research is that regardless of what your core focus is, a FAST channel for instance, or an SVOD service or another, you still have be excellent at messaging on social and YouTube and in vertical video, or you're going to lose this generation and framed in a more positive way. The opportunity reach this generation is on social, YouTube, and with vertical video.
Daniel Frankel:
Well, I myself am looking forward to the talk. You seem to be poised on a tremendous opportunity. Women's sports seems to be having a moment right now if you've watched your streaming service at all. Christy Tanner, Daniel Frankel, thank you very much. StreamTV Live out.