Monday night ESPN offered up another version of the Megacast, this one not with coaches film rooms and alternate voices calling games like they have for the College Football Championship. It was a running dialogue about the game and a wide variety of sports luminaries, from Dabo Swinney and Charles Barkley to Kenny Chesney and Mark Cuban, to talk football, watch a little of the goings on on the field and keep casual fans entertained. There were Twitter links, polls and some fun streaming conversations that were pretty impromptu, all the while keeping a very entertaining game going in the upper right hand corner.
Was it for everyone, especially those wanting just to watch football? No. was it entertaining and a little different and engaging while not missing any action? Sure was.
Now if you are trying to sell traditional broadcast to a massive audience, you will have a mega-problem down the line. The viewer customization option which continues to grow for the consumer, is going to make it harder to aggregate numbers for brands the way measurement is still being done (even with aggregate numbers now being measured more accurately), and the splintering of an audience to various niche broadcast streams from one outlet is also going to cause some hand wringing for those who have doled out massive dollars for broadcast rights and are looking for traditional ROI. Those days are going, and in the world of the cord cutters and cord shavers, traditional is morphing from the norm to the exception. good news for those selling? The vast majority of consumers still followed the traditional and tuned in to the main broadcast. However the ask for the alternative view, one that can be sold, is growing.
So what’s next for the Megacast and MNF? Here’s an idea, one that we actually saw a piece of in the college space a few years ago with a Barry Switzer themed platform called “Coaches Cabana.” At that time Switzer, and a host of other ex coaches, would be on a digital platform, some literally in a cabana, watching a game from a remote location while fans, both in stadium and watching on TV, got insiders commentary as the game was going on. There were sponsors…local beer, chicken wings etc…and it played out as a second screen experience for dedicated fans of a particular team who wanted more than just watching a national broadcast. They wanted their guys live giving their spin with their guests. The problem was the platform had no live rights, so you literally had to watch the game on one device, or follow along in the stadium, and then use another device as a companion to get the coach comments. Great and fun insights but a bit clunky, and as with many first-time ideas, it never got to the national prominence as hoped.
However today you have more and more efficient ways to stream live, as we have seen with so many new massive partnerships with platforms like Twitter. Now take the “Cabana” concept, steal a piece from the Megacast and loop it in with a rights holding streaming platform where you can use live video and data and you have a truly unique tailored viewing experience.
Watching how I want, with who I want and on what device I want keeps evolving and moving forward. Maybe The Pandemic slowed progress a bit, but by the looks of MNF, our alternate choices are coming more often, and that’s a good thing for the consumer.
