Sports is changing. The media landscape is changing. In this new era, content will be king. As the media landscape shifted from the internet to mobile devices & social media, sports got impacted directly. Athlete-driven media has taken over. Many of the higher-end athletes have even gone straight to building production studios.
This shift in media will be most apparent in college sports over the next several years. And for an array of reasons:
1️⃣ NIL: Athletes can monetize their name, image, and likeness. This has created a frenzy to start building brands — which naturally happens on social media. From there, monetization occurs on the content athletes create (which is mostly achieved through video content).
2️⃣ Transfer Portal: NIL money is having a massive impact on where players decide to go play. This has created an interesting dynamic…Schools need to innovate — to attract players (and also retain the current ones they have).
3️⃣ Conference Realignment: Conferences are all competing now and need to be more than just a “name” with schools that represent them. Conferences that invest in storytelling and original content will win over the next several years.
Mercury, which labels itself as the college sports company, is one of the most fascinating. It was co-founded by former football star turned sports media entrepreneur Adam Breneman. Mercury is doing a bunch of interesting things from school partnerships, NIL deals with athletes, original content series, to in-house production.
Throw in NIL, increased interest in sports, athletes entering media, and massive media rights deals and things get interesting. Sports has always been about entertainment — but it’s more so NOW than ever before. Great opportunity lies ahead for those that can crack the code of…“Eyeballs, Eyeballs, Eyeballs”.