The NFL Players Association has launched an original content business that will create and identify opportunities for its members and other athletes to appear in television shows, Internet shows, games, films and books on a variety of platforms.
The company, Athlete Content and Entertainment, or ACE Media for short, is to officially launch today. Scott Langerman, a 20-year veteran of companies including Comcast SportsNet and Turner Broadcasting, has been hired as the business’ CEO. He will report to an independent board of directors made up of business executives and Ahmad Nassar, NFL Players Inc. president.
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The business could benefit both NFL players like Odell Beckham Jr. and athletes from other sports.
Photo by: KEVIN KOSKI / NFLPA
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ACE Media will serve as a hub or laboratory to provide access to NFL players to other companies, including television networks, websites and brands, to create original content.
“It’s not the NFLPA’s version of The Players’ Tribune,” Nassar said. “We are not trying to be a destination site. We are not trying to be an NFLPA television network. What we are trying to be is an enabler and a company that encourages and facilitates the creation of athlete content.”
Media companies, including BET Networks, The Players’ Tribune, Bleacher Report and 120 Sports, have already signed deals with ACE Media to distribute content, Nassar said. The companies pay a fee, but Nassar would not disclose the size of the fees or other financial details of the new company, including the startup costs.
ACE Media is to officially launch today, but it has already been quietly working on projects with its distribution partners. For example, it has a deal with Bleacher Report for a Web series, “Taking It to the House,” in which camera crews follow an NFL rookie player or free agent who is looking for a place to live in the city where he has signed a new contract.
ACE Media collaborated on the show concept, oversaw the shoots, scheduled and coordinated with the players and their representatives, and did follow-up promotion once episodes aired.
“In the future we could be in a position where we would say, ‘We like this concept and we are going to do a pilot’ and shop that around,” Nassar said. But for now, distribution partners already have the ideas and the budgets to make the content.
As of now, ACE Media has rights to work only with NFL players, but the union is in talks with other sports unions about joining the company, Nassar said. He would not identify those unions.
“We are not limiting this to football players,” Nassar said. “It’s athletes. It’s athletes of all sports.”
Minnesota Vikings tight end Kyle Rudolph, one of the first players to work with ACE Media, said, “Players have been asking for something like this.”
The NFLPA is the majority owner of ACE Media, but as other players unions join the venture, those unions and their players would get a stake in the company, depending on their level of involvement, he said.
What the NFLPA is creating is, in some ways, like what MLB created with MLB Advanced Media, its Internet media company. Baseball owners recently voted to make a stand-alone entity of a portion of MLBAM that handles digital media and streaming efforts for third parties in sports and beyond.
“ACE Media is similar to MLBAM in that the opportunity is not limited to any one sport,” Nassar said. “It is different in that it is content opportunities and working with distribution partners and not on Web delivery and mobile delivery of live sporting events. What’s under the hood is much different.”
While ACE Media focuses on content creation and distribution, Nassar said, NFL Players Inc. will remain focused on marketing and licensing deals.
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LANGERMAN
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Langerman, who before coming to ACE Media was an executive at and an adviser to SB Nation (now Vox Media), said he is looking to hire a handful of people to work in athlete relations, brand relations and distributor relations, among other things.
“What I envision is a lean team,” Langerman said. “We are not looking to hire 30 producers or 10 sales people.”
ACE Media is different from any other company out there, Langerman said. “We sit at a unique place. Yes, there are other content engines, so to speak, or content factories, but none that has access to, out of the gate, 1,800 professional athletes.”
Jason Coyle, president of 120 Sports and a co-founder of digital media company Silver Chalice, agreed that ACE Media is different. “I definitely haven’t seen anything like it, where you have all this untapped content,” Coyle said. “It could be a significant deal. I think there is an unlimited appetite out there for NFL players.”
Risks include producing bad content or not figuring out a way to monetize it or not achieving traction with players, the marketplace or both, Coyle said. “But if they get traction and it captures the imagination and the attention of the players, it can really build on itself.”
