Ted Leonsis always has been a “content guy.” Now, the owner of the Washington Wizards and Capitals is creating an in-house production company to develop and control the content coming from his sports and entertainment assets.
Leonsis’ company, Monumental Sports & Entertainment, which also owns the Washington Mystics and the Verizon Center, already has hired production staff for the new entity, called Monumental Productions. It expects to be fully staffed with about 20 employees later this year.
“Monumental Productions is a new arm of Monumental Sports & Entertainment and it will greatly expand our existing video production capabilities as well as the breadth and depth of content being presented to our consumers,” said Leonsis, founder, chairman, majority owner and CEO of Monumental Sports & Entertainment. “We will be able to dramatically increase our in-house capabilities to produce creative video content that will be consumed by our fans and customers across many platforms: in-arena, online and on TV.”
Leonsis has long talked about getting further into what he calls the “network-content-delivery business.” This move to bring production in-house gives the Leonsis-owned company more control over video content derived from each of its three sports properties and the arena.
The Wizards and Capitals’ live game rights are tied up with Comcast SportsNet for several more years, so the new group will not be involved in streaming those games. Monumental will use its new production unit to create shoulder programming around the teams and the arena that will be available via digital and mobile platforms. Monumental also will use the production unit to improve its in-game video presentation at Verizon Center for all three of the teams.
One of Monumental’s immediate goals is to reduce the costs that come from hiring outside production companies used to create video and other content over its three franchises, costing the company around $1 million annually. For example, the company has used Base Productions to produce video for the Verizon Center as well as Comcast SportsNet Mid-Atlantic shows such as “Caps Red Line.” Base also previously produced “Wizards Magazine” for CSN Mid-Atlantic, but the NBA team took those rights in-house. Monumental likely will produce those shows for broadband and mobile, sources said, making segments or clips available to the RSN.
“By having an expanded in-house production group, we will be able to enhance the in-game experience through additional video assets while adding more unique areas of content to our digital platforms,” said Greg Bibb, executive vice president of business operations for the Wizards.
Monumental officials did not disclose startup costs of the new venture, which will be run out of the Verizon Center and overseen by Bibb and by Capitals Chief Marketing Officer Joe Dupriest.
Other teams, including the Chicago Bulls and the Madison Square Garden Sports-owned New York Knicks, have their own in-house production units, and Leonsis has made no secret of his desire to have more control over the content that comes from his teams, including the live game rights. Sources said it’s not likely that this new production unit will morph into a full-blown cable channel when the Wizards and Capitals rights deals expire toward the end of the decade.
The content from this new group will reside on the teams’ websites and Monumental’s existing corporate site. Eventually, that programming could move to a new site, but those plans are not yet firm.
