Welcome to the Summarin - your weekly dose of commentary and summaries of the most interesting topics from the world of culture, media and commerce. If you are new around here and like what you read, hit the subscribe button below.
In today’s edition (19.6.22):
Streaming turns to live sports
Luxury still in love with crypto
Behind the makings of a cultural icon
Read and listen:
Streaming ❤️ Sports
One place streaming platforms have found as an expansion opportunity is (live) sports. When the quest for an ever-increasing subscriber base gets tougher and tougher to complete, the world of sports can provide a welcomed relief and an opportunity to maintain a growing trajectory.
The appeal of sports - with flashy personalities, stories of rivalries, and the unique, unscripted content, is easy to grasp. An already existing fandom around the teams and players participating is another incentive to commit towards a strategy of integrating sports.
All the big streaming players are offering some sort of sports content to their subscribers. Some, like Amazon’s Prime Video have been offering live streaming for a while in select territories. Apple now has contracts with Major League Baseball and Major League Soccer to show its viewers live games. Netflix, with its hit Drive to Survive series about the Formula 1 season is also considering a live sports entrance with the possibility of covering live races.
In a move that resembles traditional cable networks, streaming platforms are quickly realizing that in order to keep subscribers engaged and to grow their market share, they’ll have to turn to the unique profile of live sports. The genre guarantees fresh, unique content delivered on a regular schedule for a predefined sum of cash with an existing fandom - something that scripted or unscripted shows cannot offer with certainty. With any sort of creative media, the art is subjective and you never know if people will like what they see and if it happens more often that they don’t like the content, they may leave. With live sports, no matter the outcome of a game or a race, you are almost guaranteed that the fans will come back the next week, filled with optimism and anticipation for their team’s success. That’s a lot of guaranteed extra eyeballs coming to the platforms!
Sky transformed English soccer. Will Apple’s $2.5bn deal do the same for MLS? (The Guardian)
“Most broadcast deals fail to move the needle, and there’s no guarantee this one will change much for MLS. But not every broadcast deal has the potential upside of MLS’s new agreement with Apple. It could be a landmark moment in MLS’s history just as the Premier League’s bold decision to partner with Sky Sports in the early 1990s was in English soccer’s history. Another memorable Apple commercial used the slogan “Think Different”. MLS is certainly doing that here.”
Netflix vying to acquire F1 broadcasting rights in US (Motorsport Week)
“Netflix’s Drive To Survive docu-series has proven to be a successful hit across the world, and is credited with introducing many new fans to the sport.”
Luxury ❤️ Crypto (still)
Luxury brands’ affection for technology keeps impressing. The commitment from companies such as LVMH towards crypto and NFTs is admirable and is still a major endorsement for the emerging medium. While the current narrative is all about doom and gloom around crypto and web 3, fashion and luxury companies are doubling down their efforts on extracting any possible opportunity in the space by building, announcing and launching new projects.
I’ve written a lot in this newsletter about why I think the marriage between web 3 and luxury brands makes sense. Exclusivity and belonging, upon which the whole industry is built, are traits that are at the core of NFTs. Currently, a very tiny minority of internet users are participants through ownership of NFTs (and one may expect that during the current down market that group has shrunk). This group consists of a majority of crypto-wealthy individuals. Doesn’t that sound like the traditional target customer for luxury brands that lives outside the internet? To me it does. This points me the hunch, once again, that the most important driver for the mainstream adoption of web 3 and NFTs is going to be the luxury industry through their commitment on crypto tech.
Emeralds, rubies and NFTs: Inside Bulgari’s new-era high jewellery (Vogue Business)
“The new collection includes a multi-million-euro, 10-carat Magnifica Ruby Metamorphosis necklace and the Emerald Glory necklace to be sold with digital twin NFTs, which link the physical goods to a virtual version.”
Prada plans monthly product, NFT drops (Retail Dive)
“The effort builds on previous NFT projects by the luxury brand. In January, for example, Prada and Adidas Originals teamed up on a user-generated NFT project, which featured art from consumers and creators.”
What Makes a Cultural Icon Tick?
Nike celebrated its 50th anniversary this year. The brand, known for its partnerships with celebrity sports personalities is constantly evolving and has seemingly cemented its position near or even at the top of the cultural zeitgeist. But probably few are aware of the journey and evolution that the company went through over the years in order to earn this place. A New York Times article takes us behind the scenes on some of the most iconic moments that resulted from an obsessive focus on merging culture with the company’s products.
How Nike Won the Cultural Marathon (New York Times)
“That’s why, as Nike embraced the heroic in the form of Michael Jordan, its first and most significant partner, giving him control over his own brand in a way no sports star had had before; as they famously bought up athletes and teams (more than 10,000 at last count) and sliced and diced their specialties into sports — from running and basketball into tennis, soccer, ice hockey and skateboarding; and as they named buildings on their campus after Serena Williams and LeBron James, they did something else: They wooed an entire universe of non-sport subcultures.”
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That’s all for this week. Have a good week(end)!
Marin