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| SNY President Steve Raab |
Since his promotion to President of SportsNet N.Y. last April,
STEVE RAAB has overseen the expansion and continuing development of the RSN, including a revamping and relaunch of the SNY Web site, the addition of sports and original entertainment programming and an investment in the digital business. Available in approximately 11 million homes, SNY has seen ad sales revenue rise by 30% heading into the '08 season, thanks in part to deals with such new clients as Anheuser-Busch, Bacardi, Bermuda Tourism, Jaguar and Sovereign Bank. Launched in '06 by Sterling Entertainment Enterprises, Time Warner and Comcast, SNY is the television home of the Mets and Jets and provides coverage of N.Y. sports, the Big East and Big Ten conferences, as well as original sports and entertainment programs. Raab spoke with SportsBusiness Journal N.Y. bureau chief
Jerry Kavanagh during Spring Training.
Favorite vacation spot: Jackson Hole, Wyoming.
Favorite piece of music: Anything old SPRINGSTEEN.
Favorite movie: "Animal House."
Favorite sports movie: "Brian's Song."
Favorite blogs: Metsblog.com, Deadspin, BRIAN WILLIAMS' blog.
Favorite magazine: Sports Illustrated.
Last book read: The new CLAPTON biography.
Pet peeve: I don't like "That's the way we do it because that's how it's always been done."
Earliest sports memory: My dad and my grandfather took me to a Baltimore Orioles Spring Training game in 1970 in Florida and I got BOOG POWELL's autograph.
Best career advice you received: Don't worry about how much money you're going to make in your 20s and 30s. Just get the experience and harvest it in your 40s and 50s. I'm hoping to capitalize on that in my 50s.
Indispensable piece of technology: My Blackberry, unfortunately.
Q: You were in charge of marketing and business development at SNY during its first year. What is the most important thing you learned that you have taken into your role as president?
Raab: There's a tremendous can-do spirit here. That's something you always want to further.
Q: What's your No. 1 priority?
Raab: Continuing to grow the business.
Q: What's the most pressing issue you, your network, your industry face?
Raab: For us it's about creating and managing meaningful content. I think it's always about that.
Q: What do you see in other networks that you like?
Raab: Two things jump to mind. One, the days of not having a very specific brand in this business are over. You have to really stand for something specific. The other thing I noticed -- and it has nothing to do with sports -- at Scripps and the networks they own, like HGTV, they have been really great about developing other platforms, and developing them ahead of the curve. They create the content, they own the content and therefore they can exploit the content in all these other mediums. It makes it a little tougher for us because we don't own all of our content, but it certainly drives us to why we want to create and own more valuable content.
Q: I read where you said, "It would be one thing if we were just competing with other sports channels. But the reality is that we're competing with everybody who's looking for viewers' leisure time. We're competing with anybody in the entertainment business." Your competition extends beyond YES, MSG and ESPN.
Raab: I think that's the bull's eye of our competition, but anybody who is trying to grab your discretionary time is a competitor of ours. And that can be other mediums, whether that be the Internet, an amusement park, or going to shows and museums in this market.
Q: You have a built-in audience with Mets fans who know that to watch their team, they must subscribe to SNY. Where are the new viewers to come from?
Raab: Let's take half a step back. Part of what you're trying to do is expose the converted to your other programming. The lowest-hanging fruit is to get the converted to spend more time with what they're already predisposed to. The next level is taking the converted and exposing them and selling them to other content that you have. And the next step is how do you get the ones who aren't coming to your network. People want to say, "Oh, they're the Mets network." But if you look at our business, we cover every team in this marketplace and everything in the sports world that is important to New York sports fans.
Q: DAVID HILL of Fox said, "Television in all its forms -- cable, broadcast -- is a very shaky swamp. The only firm ground is big events. The biggest of the big events is sports. With big-time sports, we can virtually guarantee the eyeballs." Would you agree with that?
Raab: Well, David Hill also said something to the effect that sports are tribal. That's his take on all sports is local. And, by the way, Fox has this tremendous regional sports business. I agree with that more on a national platform. But locally -- and I think he's acknowledged this as well -- sports is local.
Q: Does ownership of its own RSN provide a financial and, therefore, competitive advantage for a team?
Raab: Yeah, sure it does. It certainly provides a financial benefit if you do it correctly. There are plenty of team owners who have had to abandon that plan. Houston comes immediately to mind. I think in Denver they ran into that issue. Look, if it was easy, everybody would be doing it. It only works in certain situations, some of that being how compelling the team is, some of it the size of the market, and the combination of the two. So, when it works, it's beneficial. But there certainly are risks involved. There are plenty of owners who are happy to sign up and do the rights fee. Some of it is a risk/reward equation. Now, does that provide a benefit on the team side? Theoretically it can. I think you have to ask each owner how does he look at it.
Q: Are you concerned about any effects on business from the steroids revelations?
Raab: No. I think sports is so ingrained in American society that I don't think steroids or betting or the next epidemic can kill it as long as the issues are always properly dealt with.
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Raab Says Santana Trade Boosted
SNY's Already Strong '08 Business |
Q: What did the Mets' collapse last season mean to SNY's business?
Raab: We didn't have any playoff coverage of the Mets. I don't know. The thing about our business is that you primarily see it really kind of a year in arrears, because so much of your sales is based on your performance in the prior season. Our outlook through 2008 is really good. Our business is up more than we planned and, frankly, it was up before the Mets signed [P JOHAN] SANTANA. And Santana -- the timing was great -- gave what had been a really good upfront for us another shot of enthusiasm. It's hard for me to isolate exactly what, but our business looks pretty good right now.
Q: Regarding the Mets' squandering of a seven-game lead last September, BOB GUTKOWSKI, former president of MSG Network and Madison Square Garden, was quoted in the New York Times: "There was such a taste of disappointment and malaise going into this season. ... Bringing in Santana cauterizes the wound and really lets you go upward quickly. I think there'd be real pressure on ratings if they hadn't gotten Santana."
Raab: It's always nice to speculate on something we'll never know. I don't know if I agree with that. I do agree with the idea that there is not a player out there who could have generated this level of enthusiasm in the offseason from '07 to '08 than Johan Santana. I don't know if I agree with that from a ratings standpoint because at the end of the day, the Mets perform on the field -- and I think the team was built to win for the long term with and without Santana.
Q: What does Santana mean to ratings?
Raab: I think that's very difficult to isolate. What I do believe is that Santana gives the Mets an even greater opportunity to be a championship team. And the Mets being a championship team is what drives those ratings. To the extent that one player makes you that much better, I think he's certainly an incredibly important piece of the puzzle. If, God forbid, the Mets underperform or Santana underperforms, nobody's tuning in to watch Santana underperform.
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Raab Disputes Notion A-Rod Alone Delivers Ratings,
Says Overall Team Performance Most Important |
Q: Ratings on the YES Network are up 47% since ALEX RODRIGUEZ became a Yankee [3.2 in '03; 4.7 in '07]. The signing of Santana means more than ratings to SNY, does it not? Ad sales, for example, and subscribers.
Raab: But ad sales are a function of ratings and from a subscriptions standpoint, we're 93-94% distributed. Does Santana get you the other 6-7%? No, by himself he doesn't. It comes back to the team's performance and a World Series championship, which he can certainly play a role in. That's what gets you the rest of the distribution. Had the Yankees not performed well, I don't think it would have mattered if A-Rod was on the team or not. I just don't buy that. I don't think many people on our side of the business do buy that. If that were the case, what happened with the Texas Rangers? Did anybody look at their ratings when [A-Rod] was there?
Q: Last year, you said, "There's a lot of interest in seeing the digital business evolve. The real opportunity is with two platforms -- online and TV." What's new this year on the digital side?
Raab: In that area, from last year to this year, we've made a concerted effort to make a big investment. We've created a dedicated stand-alone business for our on-line expectations. We've built our own production and edit facility over at the studio just for this business. We've got a stand-along P&L. In the first three months that our plan is now coming together (December to February), our traffic is up 10X against the same months last year. Our sales are on pace to be up 5X just on the digital side.
We've done some really interesting partnership deals and we've created a whole New York sports blog network. We're creating original programming just for the site, including a program that's scheduled to come on daily at noon. So, not only are we aggregating some of these existing businesses onto a bigger platform, but the cross promotions among these added segments or areas of content on our site and the cross promotion and interactivity between the site and what we're doing on the TV side is exceeding some really aggressive expectations.
Q: What risks that you have taken scare you the most?
Raab: There are two that I feel most challenged by. One is the digital plan.
Trying to pinch-hit off the TV side is not a recipe for success. We asked for pretty significant investments in capital because we believe in the plan, and yet we know it's not going to work exactly as we have drawn it up. But we believe we can figure it out and get there. On the programming side, nobody on an RSN basis is doing the original programming that we are as far as how much we're trying. The plan is to get some solid wins, some content that we create and own and can exploit.
Q: Any thoughts given to the road not taken?
Raab: When I went to business school, it seemed like everybody who had come in or everybody who had gone out was going into investment banking or management consulting. They all had their jobs worked out well in advance of graduating. I don't think I would have lasted. That never held any interest for me.
