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John Gleasure has been on the forefront of sports media distribution from his early days in BskyB to the dotcom boom days of Sportal to launching 3G applications for Hutchison Whampoa. And then starting Inform with a group of fellow sports executives 15 years ago which turned into PERFORM and now DAZN (the leading Sports OTT platform globally). Incredible journey and learning along the way.\xa0\n\xa0\nKey Highlights\nPlaying some decent football can get you a good job, ask John. \xa0His early days at EMI Music\xa0\nBskyB, learning the ropes in the cable industry, Marketing Manager for Sky Sports, Sky Digital, his true University in business and sports\xa0\nDotcom days, Sportal \u2013 interviewed by Andrew Croker, incredible team of people, launching various websites (portals) for sports properties, wild ride \u2013 dotcom crash\nLeading to role at Hutchison Whampoa, Head of Sports \u2013 3G rollout, video clips, etc \u2013 learning, it takes a lot longer than you expect for technology and consumers to pick it up (as example, the company didn\u2019t use the Premier League rights for 1.5 years because they were not ready to deploy it)\nInform Group \u2013 ventured into Entrepreneurship together with Simon Denyer, Stefano D\u2019Anna and Mike Ingram \xa0\xa0\nFirst business model didn\u2019t work and then stumbled into the Live streaming for Betting websites space, started to work with Premium TV (Oli Slipper)\nBusiness started to take off and grow, merger with Premium TV to create Perform Group \u2013 mutually beneficial for both sides, bringing in Access Industries (Ukraine born, UK/US Billionaire, Sir Len Blavatnik)\nLots of opportunities to grow internationally for a mostly UK based business at the time\xa0\nTook role as MD APAC and moved to Asia \u2013 acquisition of content, driving new digital revenues which were not there before for rights holders, building partnerships\xa0\nKey to Performs success was ingesting huge volume of content at the right cost and driving new revenue streams from it \u2013 betting revenue, PPV, other subscription services (first look at OTT)\nIPO in 2011, raised GBP 168 million in process, looking for growth \u2013 buying Goal.com, Opta, Livesport services, etc\xa0\nGoing from B2B to B2C business model and the challenges along the way\xa0\nDe-listing in 2013 (GBP 700 mil valuation), market didn\u2019t appreciate all the new business areas the management was exploring, including OTT \u2013 safer to be private\xa0\nThe start of the DAZN idea, in 2014 \u2013 OTT is much more than streaming on the web \u2013 radical change of business model\xa0\nTwo distinct businesses, Perform B2B and DAZN B2C \u2013 clear focus on growing DAZN and Perform needed its own home to continue its growth\xa0\nDivested out of Perform, Goal.com, etc \u2013 kept equity stakes \u2013 New partnership now known as "Perform Stats"\nHow the DAZN launch markets were picked, DACH (German-speaking region) and Japan \u2013 similarities in PayTV markets and opportunities to buy strong content for a reasonable price\nLaunching across multiple platforms from native Apps (Android & IOS), web, smart TV, consoles, Pay TV boxes, etc \u2013 find DAZN everywhere, anytime\xa0\nOTT and beyond \u2013 60-75% watch DAZN on TV in Germany \u2013 certain events over 1 million streams \u2013 watching through traditional TV still the largest viewership (surprising for me)\xa0\nOTT goes way beyond traditional linear TV coverage in terms of fan engagement and user interactivity\nBut the \u201cold\u201d arbitrage model is still there and pure subscription model is tough to make work, advertising still plays an important role and other revenue streams \xa0\nDAZN\u2019s global boxing offerings \u2013 US$ 1.99 per month (test price) \u2013 purchased big rights globally\xa0\nMulti-sport focused, different offerings across the world. Scale is a big differentiator, better rates, etc\nF1 in Spain, Bundesliga and Champions League in Germany \u2013 lots of new rights coming on stream and new management firepower\xa0\nPartnership model vs straight forward rights sales model \u2013 current tough times might help in a positive way if we all learn from it\n\xa0\nAbout\nJohn Gleasure is DAZN Group