Welcome back. Edition #72 of The SEG3 Report at your service!

Today’s edition spotlights Goalhanger Podcasts acquisition of LaLiga clip rights for the UK, and the journey podcasts have taken to become one of the most powerful media channels.

Also covered: City Football Group launch ‘Stickerbook Challenge’ on Roblox, and the groups wider focus on innovation + Paramount locks in 7-year, $7.7 billion deal with TKO for UFC rights, and what that could spell for pay-per-view’s future.

Let’s get into it!

Contents: Edition #72

• Goalhanger Podcasts acquire LaLiga clip rights for UK

• Manchester City Football Club launch Stickerbook Challenge on Roblox

• Paramount locks in 7-year, $7.7 billion deal with TKO for UFC rights

Goalhanger Podcasts acquire LaLiga clip rights for UK

Goalhanger Podcasts has entered a three-year agreement with LaLiga, becoming the first podcast to secure official rights to weekly clips from a major European football league. The new show, The Rest Is Football: LaLiga, will be hosted by Gary Lineker and Alex Aljoe. It will feature match highlights and analysis, and be available on Spotify and YouTube in the UK and Ireland, with audio released globally.

Why should you care?

TL;DR: With podcasts increasingly becoming video-first, Goalhanger Podcasts acquiring LaLiga clip rights for The Rest is Football is a big deal. They have 400M+ downloads across their portfolio, a talent lineup that brings credibility from traditional TV formats, and now that they’re the home of LaLiga in the UK (atleast in the short-form!), they’re able to build new content and commercial offerings that will grow their following and brands even further. What can traditional media do to avoid their lunch being eaten by new media brands?

In full: LaLiga have had a hugely successful week in the UK. A new deal with Premier Sports & Disney, and now, a digital distribution partnership with Goalhanger Podcasts, which will see them as proud new owners of the clip rights in the UK.

So, who are Goalhanger Podcasts for the uninitiated amongst you?

Well, they own a plethora of popular podcasts - The Rest is Politics, The Rest is History, The Rest is Football, and you know, the rest…

The Rest is Football, hosted by well known faces of Gary Lineker, Alan Shearer & Micah Richards has grown to one of the most successful in the sports podcasting category - with the show heavily contributing to the Goalhanger portfolio reaching over 400 million downloads in 2024, and more than 1 billion lifetime streams.

So, with a hardcore football community listening along, recognisable talent involved, and formats that have the ability to scale, where do they take the show next?

Well, now that podcasting is becoming more video-first (Spotify has seen a 140% increase in top-50 podcasts using video in 2024), having clip rights to accompany the conversation certainly seems like a smart addition. It shifts the conversation towards watching rather than just listening. Something of course all three hosts of the main podcast have been known to do on another slightly well known BBC football show (cough, Match of the Day, cough).

And given YouTube is a key distribution tool for the team, and now the second most watched TV source, it seems like a good time to look back at what Charles Kerr from YouTube (who works with the team at Goalhanger) shared about their approach to community building on the platform at SEG3 London👇

As you’ll have heard there, Goalhangers approach isn’t just to build out a podcast - it’s to build a brand, an IP and a community around their podcasts. So whilst the podcast acts as the foundation - their strategy allows them to expand into different formats (like Tours), and to work with specific brands (like LaLiga) to acquire rights and build out specialised content. All moves which make it feel much more like a TV product than just a podcast.

And it looks like they’re wasting no time in building said specialised content👇

And so, will we see more clip rights being bought into successful podcasts? If the audience demand is there, and the podcast has the right community, format and distribution - I don’t see why other rights holders wouldn’t explore it.

The way people are consuming media, and where, has immeasurably changed - and the one metric that really matters is about being visible. If podcasts can offer that where traditional media cannot, we will begin to see more of these creative partnerships become the norm.

And that should be a wake up call that it’s no longer whether new media can compete, but how traditional media can evolve to keep up.

Manchester City Football Club return to Roblox with StickerBook Challenge

Manchester City have launched the StickerBook Challenge on Roblox, bringing the nostalgic football sticker experience to life. Players can collect stickers featuring City players across six popular Roblox games, including the Man City Blue Moon experience. The campaign includes power-ups, live match stats and exclusive UGC for those who collect them all. The event will run in two phases: Phase 1 kicks offs today on August 12 with two featured games, followed by additional content drops in October. Fans can also earn membership to Cityzens, Manchester City’s loyalty program.

Why should you care?

TL;DR: Manchester City are tapping into nostalgia with their new Roblox experience, the Man City StickerBook Challenge, which integrates with five popular experiences on the platform. Players collect stickers, get live match updates and earn UGC prizes tied to Man City’s real-life performance on the pitch. The experience feeds into City’s broader strategy, led by City Fans Labs, which focuses on key pillars like virtual worlds, Web3, XR, and Fan AI to build next-generation fan experiences through emerging platforms and technologies.

In full: Having spent many a penny trying to (unsuccessfully) finish sticker books, the nostalgia is strong with this one.

Manchester City, with the launch of the Man City StickerBook Challenge, are trying to lean into that collector culture, and inject it into their latest Roblox experience.

The collecting experience takes place in Man City’s Blue Moon experience & five others. Blue Moon, which launched in 2022, has had close to 11M visits, which places it 82nd on the all-time list for branded experiences.

So, how is the StickerBook experience leveraging Blue Moon, and what are the other key highlights?

Integrating with 5 experiences
→ The team have integrated with five popular experiences (The Floor is Lava, Team Work Puzzles, and more) to host Man City Zones where players can collect stickers.

As with any experience, the biggest challenge will be acquisition, so hopefully the 5 integrations can help to drive traffic, but then the next biggest is retaining those players, which leads me onto…

Getting live match scores, player stats & prizes tied to Man City match results
→ At those fan zones in-game, they’re linking IRL performance during the match to the digital experience, with goals equalling UGC prizes & powerups for players.

I’m always intrigued by the blending of realities and how one can be influenced by the other, so look forward to following along to see whether the offer of UGC and power ups can be a big enough driver to entice the community back every matchday. If they’re successful in building habit, with players congregating and socialising during matchday, that would be a real win.

The challenge for any non-endemic brand in gaming is that without constant updates (like Grow a Garden does with weekly updates), it can certainly be hard to keep attention and maintain the same buzz as launch.

They are however hoping to broaden their reach and audience even further by…

Allowing players to collect stickers representing men’s and women’s first team players
→ More players/teams included = more games covered = more opportunities for players to interact with the experience and get to know City’s talent.

And the more players return, different offerings can begin to make sense, like…

Unlocking membership to cityzens loyalty programs
→ This could be a smart move. In City’s Blue Moon experience, they did have a junior membership store of sorts, where players could redeem preferential rates through a Roblox-specific code.

This time, there seems to have been a shift in strategy, with the focus being on ‘earning’ the chance to unlock membership to the cityzens loyalty program by completing collections, rather than through purchasing.

Given the general audience of Roblox, who whilst are ageing up slightly, still thrive on grinding and rewards, this approach feels more in-line with the platforms culture. And given PSG’s Obby followed a similar strategy, and raked in 13k+ sign ups in 2 days of launch (with likely thousands more afterwards), it would be a pretty safe bet to say this will drive more sign-ups than the previous approach on Blue Moon.

And so, the broader goal will be to first build awareness through the experience, then spark interest through the integration of match stats etc, followed by engagement and building of habit through players returning for matchdays, and ultimately driving fandom by players becoming part of Cityzens loyalty program.

It’s a process, and Roblox is just one part of the journey to attracting new fans and delivering next-gen digital experiences. And City understand that - having had one of the bigger innovation and gaming teams in global sports for many years.

It does however look as if they’ll be pushing things even further forwards, with the launch of City Fan Labs (who led the development of the Roblox experience) - which is focusing on 4 key pillars:

• Virtual Worlds & Gaming

• Web3/Blockchain

• XR & Immersive Experiences

• Fan AI

The landscape of sports fandom has changed, and City seem to be changing with it, so it’ll certainly be a fascinating watch to see what’s next on the agenda, and how they’ll continue to leverage emerging platforms and technologies to try to build fandom and drive loyalty with the next-generation.

Paramount locks in 7-year, $7.7 billion deal with TKO for UFC rights

Paramount has secured a seven-year, $7.7 billion media rights deal with TKO Group Holdings to become the exclusive U.S. broadcaster for all UFC events starting in 2026. The agreement includes 13 marquee numbered events and 30 Fight Nights annually, which will be available on Paramount+ and simulcast on CBS. The deal represents a shift from the UFC's previous pay-per-view model, aiming to increase accessibility and subscriber growth for Paramount's platforms.

Why should you care?

TL;DR: Paramount celebrated its recent merger with Skydance by dropping $7.7 billion to secure UFC media rights, effectively doubling the previous deal and moving the UFC away from the traditional pay-per-view model. By bundling UFC rights with their vast content library, Paramount aims to boost subscriptions, reduce churn and compete for US consumer eyeballs and dollars with streaming giants like Netflix, Amazon and YouTube.

In full: Paramount’s merger with Skydance completed recently, and what did they do to celebrate?

Drop $7.7 billion on UFC rights of course!

The deal effectively doubles the last rights deal of the UFC, which is pretty staggering, and might be the catalyst for the end of the pay-per-view model (which many combat sports have been built on for decades).

So, what makes it such an attractive proposition for Paramount?

First up - since the merger, it’s reported that Paramount will look to make around $2 billion of savings by shutting down their cable networks, and reinvesting this into their streaming endeavours (or perhaps into UFC rights, more specifically).

Sports as we know is extremely sticky for content businesses - it provides almost year round content, the unscripted drama of live-sport is unlike any other form of entertainment, and that captures fans attention for the long-term.

Those ingredients make it a good bet to be the cornerstone for the new Paramount to build its streaming business around. With premium rights like the UFC bundled into a package, at a price that many UFC fans may have paid per fight through PPV, it seems like great value for the end consumer, who now also get access to Paramount’s library of content.

A win-win on paper, with the hope for Paramount being that the combination of these ingredients will drive subscriptions and lessen churn from those subscribers too.

The other likely driver of Paramount’s investment? Competition.

Netflix have rights to another of TKO’s products, WWE. YouTube & Amazon both have some NFL rights. All will likely have been interested in the UFC deal to expand their offerings, so the deal may have equally been about defence as much as attack.

So whilst much of the battle still remains in sports and sports adjacent documentaries, there’s certainly becoming more of an appetite from these platforms and streamers to dabble in live sports content too (even if most are still event by event focused for the time-being).

All in all, an incredible deal for the UFC and their athletes - and for Paramount, it’s an opportunity to set a new course post-Skydance merger, and challenge the big streamers and platforms for time and revenue from the US audience. We’ll have to wait and see which model wins out!

In other news this week…

• Crunchyroll partners with Delta Airlines for in-flight anime viewing: read here.

• LEGO & SEGA partner to bring LEGO to Sonic Speed Simulator in Roblox: read here.

• Amazon partners with LFP to launch Ligue 1+ channel: read here.

• Krafton launches $6 million creator program for PUBG: read here.

• The Hundred launches onto Roblox: read here.

• Arsenal FC extend partnership with Konami: read here.

• Avalanche & Helika launch new gaming accelerator: read here.

• TakeTwo’s CEO says AI will improve game workers value & pay: read here.

• Square Enix’s sales down, but profits up after restructuring: read here.

• Sensor Tower release July monthly gaming insights: read here.

• The four key pillars of 21st century franchises and the challenges, by Simon Pulman: read here.

• ESPN & WWE ink five-year deal on live premium events: read here.

• OpenAI hires Omnicom as global media agency of record: read here.

• Odeeo & Claritas launch in-game audio partnership: read here.

• Deltatre & Lega Basket Serie A announce strategic partnership: read here.

• Threedium becomes 3D content creator for Amazon: read here.

• BBC Studios & ABC have co-commissioned new Bluey short-form series: read here.

• YouTube launches museum to celebrate Roblox hitting 1 trillion views: read here.

• Sports.com Studios & GOATS Entertainment partner to monetise iconic sports IP: read here.

Working on anything cool, or have a press release you would like us to cover? Send it in for the chance for it to be covered in next week’s edition!

That’s all for now folks - thanks again for reading the latest edition of The SEG3 Report and if you found it of interest, please do consider sharing with a friend!