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People and Pop Culture

Plugged In: Adam Shaw, Sportle

A little more than two years ago Adam Shaw made a bet that consumers needed help navigating the unwieldy number of video streams available every day. As a result, the former Fox and NFL executive co-founded Sportle, which launched in 2016 as a Google for sports streams.


We’ve hit this inflection point where media habits have changed. What was seen as coming for quite a while has arrived. The recent launch of several over-the-top MVPDs like DirecTV Now and Hulu is an indication that everybody is gearing up for what the future is going to look like.

Photo: COURTESY OF ADAM SHAW
On media trends: I’m focused on figuring out how people will consume over-the-top channel bundles. Will several individuals in a household have their own subscription? Or will it look more traditionally like a household that has a subscription? You’re seeing a big bundle being replaced by skinny bundles. The only way that you’re not going to have significant dropoff is if the traditional family household cable bundle is replaced by a series of smaller, more individual bundles. If there’s a household with three kids, will each one have their own subscription? There are probably early indicators of what that would look like with services such as Spotify.

On tech companies investing in sports: A lot of the major rights are locked up, so some tech movement is limited. Plus, viewing habits still are evolving. But tech companies are bigger and probably can write bigger checks. It’s inevitable that they are going to be major players in the sports space.

On streaming media growth: You need to see more effort put toward the user experience. Digital has the ingredients to be a much better user experience — you can watch it when you want; you can get more detailed and personalized information. But the user experience is still in the first quarter.

On Sportle’s prospects: You only need to look to the recent upfronts to see the potential. Advertisers are embracing streaming as a true equal if not preference to traditional TV advertising. It’s clear that sports media is going to be a driver of the digital media future. It will be incredibly difficult to take on the incumbents in terms of owning rights and producing broadcasts. The underserved area was taking all of the available content and making sense out of it. Being able to increase awareness, discovery and help search, that was the space that I thought really needed focus and has the most potential..

— John Ourand

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