1) Is nobody safe from having to host a sports documentary/podcast series?
The news that Bill Murray is to host a series on the golf courses of Ireland for Paramount+ and the BBC filled me with joy. I love Bill Murray, I like golf, I’ve been to Ireland, and I know which app I need to use to find things on the BBC. It’s the sweetspot where star, subject matter, and platform combine. And that is an increasingly important sweetspot to find in this fragmented media landscape we now operate in. Skydance Sports is the production company behind it. They’re effectively now the in-house documentary maker for Paramount+, which is owned by the Skydance group, and they have form in the documentary game. Skydance Sports produced the excellent Jerry Jones/Dallas Cowboys series for Netflix, and are all over the Kelces’ televisual output like a Swiftie on Ticketmaster. We are the Watchalong Generation and we live on Planet Podcast. We are drawn to stars and personalities like any other generation, but we find them and follow them like no other has been able to. Production clout – who you get to host your new thingummy, to guest on your new whatsit, or to front your new doodah – has never been more important. It’s why the Manning brothers’ Omaha Productions is having such a great run of form; it’s why Bill Murray is such a great get; and it’s probably partly why Ari Emanuel and his mate Elon Musk cooked up this new Rushmore series for X.
2) Does your organisation need a Head of Original Content?
Depending on its size and ambition – and taking into account the above Re: production clout – then the answer is probably yes. Isabelle Stewart has occupied that role at F1 for almost three years and it’s safe to say she’s making hay. We all know about the gigantic success of the F1 movie (and – perhaps – its role in beckoning Apple to the rights table in the US); the next thing on Stewart’s slate is a tie-up with Chicken Shop Date’s Amelia Dimoldenberg. Stewart came on the Leaders Worth Knowing podcast last year and the episode is a masterclass in matching target demographics to elite production chops.
3) Is Netflix the new YouTube?
If this seems a little bit ‘is media eating itself?’ then that’s because it is. A raft of Spotify podcasts – including the bulk of The Ringer’s output – will be broadcast on Netflix from the beginning of 2026. Billowing some smoke up the deal on LinkedIn, Netflix comms chief Emily Feingold pointed to statistics that indicate that 72% of podcast listeners prefer shows with video. I don’t dispute those stats. But I do wonder about the definition of a podcast. If something looks like a TV chat show, acts like a TV chat show and is found in the places where TV chat shows are, is it not a TV chat show? Perhaps it doesn’t matter. What is clear is that Netflix are becoming increasingly aggressive and imaginative in their sports content ambitions. From next summer, for example, TF1 will be available on Netflix in France. That’s a seismic – if regional – distribution play that observers will be watching closely.
4) Will Netflix come in for Champions League rights?
The slicing and dicing of the packages for the next Uefa club competition cycle includes a new standalone opening game that will feature the reigning champions. It certainly looks like a come-and-get-me-plea from new commercial agency Relevent Football Partners to the streaming services that look at sports content as one-off major subscription driving events. But who knows? By the time the next Uefa Champions League cycle kicks off in 2027, perhaps Netflix will already have TF1-style distribution deals sewn up with rights-owning broadcasters across Europe.
5) What’s in a name?
The direction of travel is clear: associations, federations, and committees are so last century. The European Club Association - now European Football Clubs - and the ITF – soon to be World Tennis – are the latest sports entities to put new names over the door.
