All Sides Covered: Why The Hexagon Cup's Free-to-Air Deal with ITV is so Important
ITV's commitment to broadcasting the semi-finals and final of The Hexagon Cup live on ITVX, and providing highlights on ITV4, aligns perfectly with the tournament’s mantra of 'fame over fortune'
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BIG IDEA
The Hexagon Cup, an innovative and equality-driven Padel tournament, is poised to get underway in Madrid at the end of this month (31st Jan – 4th February) – but it is also doing everything it can to bring itself, currently a hugely popular Hispanic sport, to the attention of the UK public.
Having secured investment from DMG Ventures, the investment arm of the Daily Mail, the tournament has benefitted from significant converge in some of the leading news publications in the country (Daily Mail, i, Metro, etc).
Started by the founding team behind the likes of Formula E and Extreme E, the Hexagon Cup has also been further bolstered in its UK coverage due to the involvement of Sir Andy Murray, who is one of six high-profile team owners to have got involved (others include Rafael Nadal, Robert Lewandowski, and Eva Longoria).
However, the upstart tournament’s recently announced broadcast deal with ITV, one of the most popular free-to-air channels in the UK, is arguably the most significant move of all in its efforts to capture the attention of the British public.
As explained Julia Wall-Clarke (Head of Communications for the Hexagon Cup), when it comes to launching a new sports property, you need to find broadcast partners that are engaged and who are going to help promote it.
Though she was unable to reference this exact deal when she came on the Sports Pundit Podcast (as the deal wasn’t yet announced), it would appear ITV's commitment to broadcasting the semi-finals and final live on ITVX, and providing highlights on ITV4, aligns perfectly with this vision that Wall-Clarke spoke of.
“Generally, with start-up sports,” she continued, “you've got to look at the ‘fame over fortune’ aspects of trying to pick broadcasters that are going to give you the widest possible audience [and try to] get away from being hidden behind paywalls as much as possible…”
“We [have] certainly tried to go down an ‘access all areas’ route, and of course [partnering with] those that can offer good digital streaming as well [is important], because not everybody watches sport via their TV anymore. We need to catch people where they are.”
This is a lesson likely borrowed from Extreme E, where Wall-Clarke also previously worked with this same founding team.
Just as was the case with the international off-road racing series, the Hexagon Cup will also be available to stream on YouTube – a crucial platform for reaching younger generations of fans ‘where they are.’
For what it’s worth, having seen a link posted to Twitter, I found myself watching an Extreme E race via YouTube last year - and my thoughts on the competition are much richer for it.
This principle of prioritising audience engagement and long-term growth over immediate revenue considerations is a realisation which DAZN has recently come to as well, with the removal of the paywall for all their women’s football coverage.
“If you want to build the fandom, and actually get them following the personalities, and the players, and scores, and [eventually] coming to matches as well,” commented Wall-Clarke, “lowering those barriers is really important in building a bigger audience.”
While this may fly in the face of more traditional sports revenue generation models, which have typically rested heavily on big TV rights deals where the fan is paying for the content, Wall-Clarke believes that when it comes to new sports properties, you have to look at a lot more long-term approach when it comes to revenue and ROI.
“I think it should be about building audiences, engaging them, getting them hooked, and then looking at the future to look at the revenue streams,” she continued.
By having this bigger, more engaged audience, you’re likely going to be able to attract greater commercial opportunities in future, from sponsorships, to merchandise, to selling more tickets to your events.
Essentially, the content becomes the funnel, rather than being the product itself.
This is a model which has been adopted so successfully by top YouTubers like MrBeast, Emma Chamberlain, The Sidemen, and Logan Paul.
It’s worth noting that MrBeast is about to do a $100m deal for a TV show with Amazon Prime, and he’s STILL going to stream the first episode on his YouTube channel. That’s how important having access and reach is.
So, with all that said, it’s interesting to see the likes of Extreme E and the Hexagon Cup, as well as women’s football more broadly now, leading the charge with this mantra of ‘fame over fortune’ - and, with broadcast rights not simply going up and to the right anymore, it could be a model for others to finally consider (again*).
*Before you say it, I am aware that free-to-air TV isn’t a new idea. However, with so much high quality content now available for free, I believe that the distribution mechanics and the means of monetisation available today change how it should be viewed by most rightsholders in 2024 (vs in the past). Distribution is king.
A SIDE NOTE
Shaun Harvey (Director of Football at Wrexham AFC), a man who features heavily on the award-winning Welcome to Wrexham docu-series staring Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney, seems to be thinking along similar lines to those discussed in the above.
Speaking exclusively to World Soccer Talk, Harvey said that he would love to see Wrexham’s games become free-to-air in the US.
“Whilst that could have a significant financial negative impact on our P&L (profit and loss statement), actually as long as it’s readily available and easily accessible, we’d probably take our chance that we would generate more by creating a bigger fan base than we would on revenue from individual subscribers.”
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THE PODCAST
Want to hear more from my conversation with Julia?
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