There is always a feeling the competition stirs the competitive juices in the bets of businesses…adjust, or fail, or even worse, be swallowed up by the disruptor.
We have seen this constantly in sports when expansion comes along, or a challenger league steps up to fill what they see as a need to force the hand of the incumbent. The short-lived Continental Baseball League forced Major League Baseball into the early 1960’s expansion that brought us the Mets and Astros…the AFL’s disruption and free spending forced the NFL not just to the merger table but into some rule changes, just like the USFL did several years later. The Dunk competition and the full adoption of the three-point line in the NBA came from the ABA, the WHA brought about overtime and other areas of speeding up hockey that came into the NHL when those two leagues merged. Most recently we saw what many thin is the best possible chance at having a viable spring football league with the UFL, born from the struggles of the third XFL and the second USFL, and we have a strong and growing women’s hockey product with the PWHL which came also from a merger of two women’s leagues which struggled to find a competitive balance on their own.
Convergence and best practices don’t just make sense, in many cases, as we saw with the NBA and the NFL, it forces the established business to look, see what the fans and even brands are looking for, and adjust. The marketplace, just like in real estate, will tell you what the demand for teams and leagues is. Sometimes its an overcorrection, sometimes leagues are forced to reconsider locations they weren’t sure were sustainable. Sometimes new money arises for investors who were once thought not to be viable, sometimes investors who made claims could not own up to them, sometimes we have seen media companies locked out of deals pivot to a younger growing property to engage, sometimes we have learned the value of being truly “digital first” with startups because they are not encumbered with ratings and are quicker to pivot or try new ways to engage fans, sometimes we see brands come along that could not afford a premium price point for leagues deemed “major” or are locked out of a category and find a competitive marketplace better to suit them. We have even see startups and challengers take on the underappreciated, the undersized, even the underage talents as a pathway to success.
Some work, some fail, some merge, some teach the older established leader a thing or two…things which become adoptable to a business willing to move.
All of that is positive, and probably all of those things will be tested in the coming months as a whole slew of women’s properties, and some in emerging areas…track and field, The Snow Games, racquet sports like table tennis, Padel and Pickleball, even the upstart TGL, not to mention new cricket ventures and alas, even at least the 13th iteration of arena football try and find their spot.
In the case of women’s sports leagues there will be questions for sure of merging, survival and potential growth and engagement. What will the NWSL and the WNBA learn or pivot with as they are potentially challenged by new properties? This week we saw, yes, another women’s basketball league announced with ownership and some familiar faces. Is there a real market for all this women’s hoops, even if there is an obvious pool of growing talent.
In addition, think about this for a second…in the coming months we will have:
five volleyball leagues
two soccer leagues
baseball and softball
at least four basketball ventures
and just in North America...
Just for women’s sports, which many can argue is long overdue for the attention is getting.
But what is really sustainable?
A colleague pointed out today there aren’t that many MEN’s viable professional sports leagues as business on the continent, so where will all this net out?
The answer will be in several places. What are the viable long-term businesses regardless of the depth of talent available. What will the marketplace…consumers, brands, media platforms…areas with a FINITE amount of dollars and time…tell us about the best of the best. Who are the pretenders in the space, and who are the differentiators, and most importantly what will the properties that have a head start, established businesses, deeper routes in the community and a longer projected runway do to adjust, learn, adapt and maybe even acquire in some cases.
It would be great if every startup league and property was financially viable and supported across the board. More jobs, more innovation, more disruption, more learning. The reality is mergers, as in any industry, happen, cost containment is put into place, best practices are adapted and we move on to wax nostalgic at logos and team names now part of history, not future. By the way this rush to flood a sport or a sector with “leagues” is not new, and we maybe could learn from the past. MMA had a flood of ventures, many of whom the marketplace weeded out. Esports? Seems like the vast amount of competitive team based esports has a niche like professional gaming does, but Iracing isn’t vying against NASCAR any time soon. The market showed it was useful, but not at the level many who rushed in and boasted about and predicted thought it would be. Lost were lost, but lessons should have been learned.
I have several boxes full of them.
It will be an interesting time to listen, learn and watch how things play out. There are many, maybe too many, now entering the playing field. Where we end up? What will the incumbents learn from and now just laugh off or ignore? What hands can be forced trying to get to the top of the attention and dollar charts? The games…the business games, will let us know.
