Axios House: Sports must prove it can scale as live events surge

CANNES, France — Sports is now the single biggest driver of live viewing, and everyone is scrambling to own a piece of it, sports and media leaders said at an Axios event.

Why it matters: Live viewing is the most monetizable content left in a fragmented media landscape, said Rita Ferro, president of global advertising at the Walt Disney Company.

Axios' Sara Fischer and Kerry Flynn moderated discussions with Ferro, ESPN host and "Monday Night Football" reporter Laura Rutledge, FIFA Women's World Cup champion and Olympic gold medalist Ashlyn Harris, and Brandon Marshall, Pro Bowl wide receiver and co-founder of I Am Athlete. The June 22 event was sponsored by Nielsen.

Zoom in: ESPN will air its first-ever Super Bowl on Valentine's Day next year, with 50% of the audience expected to be women, Ferro said. "There is way more demand than there is units available to sell," she said of the ad market. "It's a blessing and a curse."

• Rutledge said Disney's new ESPN Unlimited streaming platform puts every game and stat "on a silver platter," making the live experience more custom-made to consumers and more valuable to sponsors, than ever before.
• "Our mission is to serve sports fans anytime, anywhere — this is a true example of doing that in the modern age," Rutledge said.

Zoom out: That investment in live is paying off across the board. Sports brings male, female and all age demographics together in a way no other content can, Ferro said.

• "We come into the office on Monday, and the guys are like, I watched with my kids, they loved it," Ferro said of women's sports. "That's when I know it's resonating."

Between the lines: That audience is only getting bigger. Women's sports viewership keeps growing, and the brands and the athletes are driving it, panelists said.

• "If we can just keep putting these sports on television and continue to grow the scope of the knowledge around these women by telling their stories, it'll just continue to blow up," Rutledge said.
• Harris, who said she retired without owning any of her own IP, said young athletes today are playing a smarter game: "These younger athletes are super savvy and smart — they're tired of other people making money off of them."

Yes, but: While the audience is there, the athletes are ready, and the brands are spending, the industry is still "not there yet in the ultimate goal of counting every impression and every opportunity that touches a fan," according to Ferro.

What's next: As an athlete, Marshall said he figured it out mid-career, pioneering full-time broadcasting while still playing in the NFL. Now he teaches others.

• "You'll never, ever, ever have that opportunity again to run out of that tunnel and make that type of money. So you need to focus," Marshall said.

Content from the sponsor's segment:

In a View from the Top conversation, Nielsen CEO Karthik Rao said sports is where measurement matters most.

• "Sports is the number one content that drives live viewing [and] live viewing is the best monetizable viewing that's out there," Rao said.