Wim Sweldens, co-founder and chief marketing officer of Kiswe, a company that has built DTC streaming platforms for the NBA's Phoenix Suns and Utah Jazz, as well as numerous other pro sports teams, doesn't believe the future of sports TV lies in bundled linear channels.
And he feels pretty strongly about it.
Speaking to Next TV via email last week, Sweldens cast doubt on so-called Spulu, the as-yet-not-officially-named joint venture aimed at bundling all of The Walt Disney Co., Fox and Warner Bros. Discovery’s linear sports channels.
“Spulu is as relevant as a Blockbuster store in the age of Netflix,“ Sweldens said. “What Spulu offers in essence is a cable bundle delivered through the internet. While bundles made sense in the ’90’s on linear TV, they are obsolete in today’s streaming world and ignore what the fans actually want.“
“The fact that the big TV networks who used to fiercely compete are now working together confirms that they are fighting obsolescence,” the Belgian-American engineer added. “What fans are telling us loud and clear is that they want easy access to their favorite sports content on any device and have flexible choices to pay for content, say by season, year, month, or game. In addition they want to directly engage with the sports brand — without a middle man — and get access to additional content, altcasts and interact with their fellow fans. This is exactly what a true D2C streaming partner provides.”
Also read: Former Apple and Hulu Exec Pete Distad Tapped to Head Spulu
Sweldens’ provocative statement grabbed our attention, and we responded. If consumers are so over bundled linear channels, we asked him, how did YouTube TV just add 3 million subscribers in two years?
“YouTubeTV is a vMVPD and indeed a standard linear bundle delivered over the internet. Its success confirms that people want to purchase internet services instead of traditional cable bundles. Its popularity has been helped by attractive pricing, easy-to-use UI and the availability of key content such as Sunday Ticket,” Sweldens responded.
“This confirms that end users today still do not really have a choice in just purchasing the content they actually want,” he added. “The only choice they have is between a cable bundle and an internet one, and they prefer an internet one. YouTube TV is popular because it has bundled in popular content.”
Isn't that what Spulu is doing?
“Spulu is now unbundling sports content from non-sports content and rebundling sports for different networks,” Sweldens said. “In that way, it will compete with YouTubeTV and it is a step forward, but it fundamentally is only a partial step and Spulu re-bundles the networks back together. The real disruption is coming with more teams and leagues adopting a D2C distribution option without any 3rd party bundling and giving end users a real choice.”
