NICOLE PIKE - YOU GOV, Global Head of Sport. The data behind the world of sports; the evolution of video games research; valuing the e-sports audience; using AI without smearing data provenance

In a world like sports  - where a clean number can seal a deal, but a fuzzy story can sink it - how do you ensure data fidelity and really robust conclusions? And what's the data behind the scenes that moves investment?  Well, I can't think of anyone better to explain that balance than the  fantastic  Nicole Pike, Global Head of Sport for YouGov (and formerly head of video games and E-sports at Nielsen.)  We dig into:

- Nicole's journey from pet food research to movies, video games, e-sports and sport.

- How audience behavior has shifted in the world of games

- Where AI helps analysis without breaking trust

- The unique mechanics of entertainment sector forecasting

- The reality behind the E-sports boom

- The emergent uses of consumer data to fill out stadiums and monetize sports content

All episodes available at https://www.insightplatforms.com/podcasts/

Suggestions, thoughts etc to futureviewpod@gmail.com

Chapters

• 0:08 Guest intro
• 1:01 Nicole’s path into insights: pet food to entertainment
• 7:00 The evolution of video games research
• 17:56 Esports: hype and reality
• 22:39 Where are younger audiences today?
• 24:58 Can we accurately gauge attention & multi-screen viewing?
• 27:10 Moving into the world of traditional sports
• 32:01 How the importance of media rights and sponsorship in the sports world
• 37:11 How clients leverage YouGov's data
• 40:35 How will AI affect the future of sports research?
• 44:36 Quickfire round

Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 0:08

As it relates specifically to like consumer and fan data, a little bit of concern about generative AI. Clients buy data because they want very clear-cut this percent of people believe this and it builds a story that is not biased, that to your point has the sources that you can put behind it. And they're worried that if you start mixing that with everything else on the internet, that it's going to create a narrative that goes farther than they're willing to take it based on what the data says.

SPEAKER_00: 0:59

But of course that's not all we cover. We trace Nicole's personal journey through the insight space, including the development of research for video games, esports, traditional sports, how business models work in those sectors, and how data and insights supports the brands and organizations that make up those worlds. Lots to get into here, but before we do, a quick reminder. Please review, like, follow, subscribe, all that good stuff on your usual podcast platform if you want to support more interviews like this. So onto the interview with Nicole Pike of UCOV. So, Nicole, firstly, thanks for joining today. Uh, really delighted to have you on the podcast.

SPEAKER_01: 1:37

Yeah, thank you so much for having me and looking forward to it.

SPEAKER_00: 1:39

Brilliant. Now let's get going with an icebreaker. So, what's one thing most people don't know about you or that they might find surprising? Something that isn't generally in the public domain.

SPEAKER_01: 1:50

Yeah. So I actually asked my kids about this this morning. I told them I was going to be on a podcast and said, What would you say? And and my daughter, who is nine and becoming uh very witty, sometimes in a sassy way, said, It's that you're not surprising.

SPEAKER_00: 2:06

So, ouch. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01: 2:09

Exactly. Then I started thinking, okay, um, probably for your parent to be unpredictable is not good as a kid. So I'll take it as a positive. But my own that that I think is interesting, just to kind of kick off this conversation, is that I actually went into university thinking that I was going to be a political journalist. So kind of reflecting on that and where I've ended up now and where that might actually have me at this point. It's obviously an interesting uh topic in the US right now. Um, I think that's, you know, reflecting back on what got me here as opposed to theirs is pretty interesting.

SPEAKER_00: 2:46

Yeah, that is interesting. Funnily enough, I started out working in journalism for ABC News back in the day, a million years ago. And there are quite a few people, I think, who do end up in consumer insights that have some type of journalism background. I don't know, it's probably something to do with the storytelling component and pulling together different components of evidence of that type of thing.

SPEAKER_01: 3:08

Yeah, I think that is a logical through line. I know for me it was always finding out the why behind things. So when it came to research, it's okay, talking to consumers and understanding why they purchase things or make decisions or, you know, and sport or fans. And I think that yeah, ties back into journalism as well, is kind of digging into what's actually motivating people to do the things they do, make the decisions they do, et cetera.

SPEAKER_00: 3:32

Yeah, and I remember it going back to working on the news desk. And if we'd be working on a story, you know, you had to have that old journalistic thing of at least two sources of evidence, and then through a slightly roundabout way, which I won't get into. This is a podcast about you, not about me, ended up in the research field. But I saw it as kind of like a similar process as well, in some ways, of going, okay, I've got a piece of evidence over here, but I've only got one data point that supports this. Have I got two or three data points that support this?

SPEAKER_01: 4:04

Yeah, there are more things that point to that being the truth versus you know that being an anomaly. And yeah, um, yeah, it's a lot of, I feel like, what we do for our clients.

SPEAKER_00: 4:13

So absolutely. And just finally on this point, if anybody's really interested in this particular area, actually, if you scroll all the way down to the very beginnings of the podcasts on wherever people are listening to it, Gareth Schweitzer, one of the founders of Kelton, was an old White House producer, maybe, or correspondent. I can't remember. And he's really interesting on this subject. Most of the podcast is about journalism and market research and why he feels that a lot of market researchers are not good storytellers. Anyway, so that's a call out for an old podcast, but really, really interesting.

SPEAKER_01: 4:50

I will add that to my library.

SPEAKER_00: 4:52

Anyway, let's get back to you and your career, which is really, really interesting. So building for Bases and then focusing on the games industry and esports. In time, you headed up Nielsen's business in that sector, then you moved on to UGAV. So could you talk through your initial move into games research? So what pulled you in that direction?

SPEAKER_01: 5:12

Sure, absolutely. So for those who may not be aware, Basies uh was and still is just under a different name, a division of Nielsen. And um, when I joined the team, I was essentially just an analyst straight out of school, um, working on sales forecasting and survey-based research in the CPG business, specifically in pet food. Um, so after a couple of years of researching pet food, and obviously the direct consumer of pet food you can't research, which is a cat or a dog or whoever it may be. So you're actually interviewing humans about what they think they're animals like, which is fascinating in its own right. But after a few years, it got a little repetitive. There's only so many things you can do to a dry dog food to change the formula enough to make it sound new and market it. Um, and and so at that time, Basies was looking at their core offering of sales forecasting and how that could be applied to areas outside of CPG. And because they had been integrated into Nielsen, one of the big areas they were interested in exploring was entertainment. So I actually started out in like a small kind of experimental group and we tried uh sales forecasting for box office sales for movies. So we did consumer-based research and testing on movie trailers and tried from that to forecast how many tickets would be sold in the opening weekend for the box office and then weekends hereafter. And what we started to do was, you know, that was somewhat successful, but didn't, you know, didn't quite lead into a large business. But then we said, all right, what are other areas of entertainment that we could start to apply the sales forecasting rigor to? And um, that led us ultimately into video games. Um and so things kind of took off from there.

SPEAKER_00: 7:02

What's the difference then between forecasting for video games as opposed to forecasting for movies? Were there fundamental differences in the characteristics of the markets and therefore the methodology you would use that meant that it was more applicable to games?

SPEAKER_01: 7:18

Yeah, I think there's there's a few different things. Um, so let's call it like starting in 2008, which I'm sure we'll get into later how that everything has changed in the industry since. Um, but in 2008, a game would come out. Obviously, the at the beginning of the release, there's a big bump, but um, seasonality plays a huge factor in video game sales. So if you look at the percent of sales for the entire industry that happened in November and December around the holidays, it's staggering. Um so depending on when something is released, there could be uh lull kind of for a few months, and then you could have a really big bump in sales a few months after if that's when the holidays hit. Um, so that was one really interesting dynamic. And then of course, there's um the whole what we would call install-based um impact, which in order, in most cases, in order to buy a video game, you need to per already own the system that the game is available on, unless it's a game that will actually drive system sales, which there of course are some of those out there, but they tend to be the exception rather than the rule. Um, whereas a movie, anyone could go to a theater um down the road from them tomorrow. So lots more nuance beyond that, but those were a couple of the big ones.

SPEAKER_00: 8:29

Yeah. And and I can imagine it's also different because the install base is moving as well. So you're trying to predict how the install base is moving, whereas I know yet more movie theaters are builds, but not that much. You know, it's kind of there's a certain number of screens in the US. I don't know how many there are. And I imagine it's probably COVID notwithstanding and recent problems, it's probably fairly easy to predict. But that must be really tricky as something like video games, where it's almost like the the available market is changing as well.

SPEAKER_01: 8:59

Exactly. It's a forecast within a forecast. Uh, and then bring into account the fact that, you know, every, well, it used to be closer to every seven years, but now the cycles have extended closer to every 10 plus years. You change over from the old generation of video game platforms to the new, and then it becomes, is the game going to be available on both? Or um, when are people going to upgrade? Um, at that point, sometimes people switch to another platform um depending on which offers what. So yeah, lots of nuance there. Um, but it was really, really fun to explore and really build out from the ground up, which is not something people always get to do.

SPEAKER_00: 9:37

And then in terms of the methodology that you were using, was a key input survey-based stimulus, as in you'd ask interest or you'd show some type of visual creative stimulus for a forthcoming video game, and then you'd get the consumer intent or whatever other metrics you were looking at, and then you'd sort of model that against the macroeconomic factors. Is that broadly how it would work?

SPEAKER_01: 9:59

Yeah, that's exactly right. So the Bases model of for sales forecasting involves what we call a concept board or concept stimuli. You could also use a video, um, but sometimes actually in the video game space, you would get overstatement from a trailer versus a concept board that was a bit more factual and people reacting and getting excited to just watching a movie on screen as opposed to paying attention to the actual facts of it. So you um re have consumers in an online survey react to a concept stimulus. And then we essentially had a set of core questions that consumers answer. So you mentioned purchase intent, that's like number one on a five-point scale. And then a lot of other questions beyond that that we through the Bases sales forecasting model was developed, um, know played some sort of role in ultimately predicting sales for a product. And then yeah, you take that um, put it, we had an entire sales forecasting model. And to your point, there were a lot of different um assumptions that went into that. So things like how likely are people to, if the game is out, um, if they go back in the day, if they went to GameStop and the game wasn't available, would they go to another GameStop to get it? So, kind of how much do people care about it? Um, how what stores will it be available in? To your point, you know, more macro trends, what's the seasonality of it? So when is it launched and how does it align with when people typically buy video games? Um, exactly. And so then from there you'd have a forecast. Usually you're looking at the first year of sales for the game. Um, but the first two months tended to be really important to um the video game publishers as well, because that's kind of what they're gearing up for in terms of their big marketing push and all that. And that's another thing you factor in all the marketing activity that they plan around it too, just see how they're gonna make people aware and to what extent.

SPEAKER_00: 11:48

Yeah, got it. Thank you. And now you'd mentioned that quite a lot has changed since then. We're talking roughly, you know, whatever it is, 2007, 2008 type of time frame. So, what have been the major changes in the video game space and how has the research industry had to adapt to that?

SPEAKER_01: 12:07

Yeah, great question. Um, and I'm actually gonna start a couple years back from that time period because I think it was really interesting how and and the timing with which we were able to move into the sales forecasting space for video games. So the Nintendo Wii came out, uh, I think it was maybe late 2006. Um, and that basically turned video game industry research on its head because all of a sudden, you know, that kind of um the stereotype of a 13-year-old gamer in his basement on his Xbox um had existed forever. And to a large extent, if you looked at the profile of gamers and who was purchasing video games back in the day, um, it was very consistent with that. And then the Nintendo Wii came and all of a sudden it was like, oh, we have families who want to play video games. We have young kids who want to play video games. Um, they they bought this device just in massively high numbers that no one was expecting. And then it became, well, what did they want to play on it? Um, and it was so different from the Assassin Creeds and Maddens and kind of those stalwart franchises that um the industry went from being able to just do research among its really core user base, a lot of which was qual-based research, to saying, wow, we need to look at the entire population and see if there are games, you know, which games could potentially motivate people to buy a Wii. Because if you think of some of those fitness games and things like that, it wasn't the Wii that in itself people wanted to buy, it was the content for it. So thinking of, okay, what types of content can you put out that will actually appeal to a broad audience that will drive them to purchase this? And so it just totally changed the entire scope and approach to research for a lot of these companies who, even if they weren't Nintendo, wanted to find that, you know, crack that same code that Nintendo did and try to broaden their base. Um, so that was a fantastic time for us to get in and say, hey, we can help with that. We, you know, can forecast it on the national level and help you figure out what's what's going to expand your audience. Um if you then look now, fast forward to to where we're at in the industry, it's completely different for a number of reasons. One and and we um, I kind of navigated this throughout my career at Nielsen working on it, is the transition from brick and mortar gaming stores and purchases to digital. So the vast majority now of purchases that that are done for video games are just bought through the console and people download it, which is very different from having to go out to a GameStop on the first day a game is released and purchasing it. Um, and then even, you know, Amazon at that time was just kind of coming up. So even just the online purchasing of a physical disc. So there's been a lot that has changed in terms of purchase dynamics and and format of games. Um, and then of course, you also have this kind of massive evolution to the Fortnites and Minecraft's and Robloxes of the world, where it's actually not about the purchase of the game at all. It's about all of the micro purchases within it and how to continue to keep people engaged in a gaming platform longer term. So so much of the research I was doing at the time we started this was game drops, how many people are gonna buy it. Most of the money in video games these days, sure, there's still a lot of those that that are out there, but most of it is now tied up in games people have been playing for 10 plus years and are investing in them in other ways with microtransactions, cosmetic items, et cetera. So it's just a really different model from that standpoint as well.

SPEAKER_00: 15:45

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And how has that impacted then? I know you've been out of, I don't know if you've been fully out of the games world for a while, but you're obviously still very knowledgeable around it. But in terms of what research firms would then be looking at, does it shift more to retention strategies, sort of upselling that type of thing?

SPEAKER_01: 16:06

Yeah, exactly. So retention is huge, retention and engagement, right? So um, that's why you see a lot, like take Fortnite, for example. I have an 11-year-old boy. So it's a cornerstone of our basement these days. Um, and it's all about, you know, how do you create moments to keep people coming back to the platform? So they will have exclusive drops, they will have events, they have seasons. Um, so it's kind of identifying what because people they're the attention economy, right? People, especially gamers, younger kids, they get bored with things. So you have to be constantly innovating and finding ways to keep them coming back so you don't lose them to another form of entertainment. So yes, it's a lot more about that.

SPEAKER_00: 16:51

Now, moving on to the esports world, we were chatting about this the other day. And at one point, I can't exactly give it a year, maybe you can. There was a huge amount of focus. One might even say, you know, hype around the esports world. I mean, I remember who whoever I was working with at the time, it probably would have been market costs. We're like, we've got to get into esports. What do we do around that? However, it sort of seems like that's diminished a bit now. And so I was I was wondering if you could give some perspective as to what's going on. I mean, was there a hype bubble? Is esports still a big thing? What what's going on in that space?

SPEAKER_01: 17:26

Yeah, absolutely. So I'm guessing the time frame you're talking about is probably around 2016, I think, was um when from a US or Western world perspective, I should say that esports really kind of um made its mark, which is interesting because in Asian countries it had been popular or kind of a more consistent growth over time. Um, but I think in US and UK, especially it was like all of a sudden, boom, it was here and caught people off guard. And because of that, it seemed like it went from zero to 100 overnight, where actually the infrastructure behind it that wasn't necessarily the case. Um, but when I think about what has happened with esports, I try to compartmentalize it into three different areas. So one is the external investment coming from, you know, outside private equity, people wanting to make a quick buck on esports and what has happened there. The second is um the actual, like the fandom and the audience around it. And then the third is the business revenue that the companies who are actually putting on these events and and you know, developing these circuits have made. So what you hear the most about and what you heard the most about back then was the investor side of things. So everyone getting excited because quote unquote, the um, you know, League of Legends was bigger than the Super Bowl kind of stats, right? Um, so big numbers being thrown out, big money being thrown into the industry because of that, without necessarily a view of number one, was it sustainable? And number two, were we encouraging these businesses that were growing at the time to be able to grow in a sustainable and healthy way? It was there was a lot of, all right, we're throwing money at you, therefore we expect 4x return in a year, which is really hard for a business building from the ground up to be able to do that and grow in a way that is healthy and and good for them long term. Um, so when you think about kind of the the fallout of esports, to me, that's the biggest piece of it is the you know, kind of big bucks coming in, not as big of a return as people expected coming out, um, because of, in my opinion, unrealistic expectations. The second is the business revenue side of things. So I believe there are certainly a lot of businesses that entered esports and failed or entered at a higher valuation and now aren't there as much. I think it kind of is is somewhat a symptom of these first two things we talked about combined, where you know, we used to have um, you know, at at Nielsen, we would talk to and we had great engagement across esports uh world. So whether it's game publishers, event creators, actual teams, and a lot of teams would tell us we don't want to purchase uh sponsorship valuation work from you because we know what the value that we are delivering is lower than what people are willing to pay right now.

SPEAKER_00: 20:28

Okay, so that really was a bit of a it really was a bit of a sort of a hype thing, which they were aware of.

SPEAKER_01: 20:33

Exactly. And so they said, well, why would we have data that shows that you know what we're gonna deliver is actually half the cost of what you, you know, what they're willing to pay us because there was the kind of this narrative around it. So when you talk about the esports bubble, there certainly was some of that. Now there was a lot of other good, healthy things, and I think the vast majority of that was driven by the growing fandom. And that was real. And what we've seen is that that has is essentially remained stable. Obviously, game to game things change. But if you look at kind of the stalwarts of a League of Legends or something like that, and if you look at it on a global scale, it has remained level, if not continued to grow, you know, kind of consistently and slowly over the past several years. So that part is there. I think what the industry has always struggled to figure out, especially compared to sports, which I know we'll talk more about here in a bit, is how to monetize it. Because at the end of the day, the biggest revenue stream for the sports industry is media rights. And by its nature, esports is free to watch. That's how it got big in the first place. It's how it's been able to grow so much. But when you think about the business sense of it, there's not a lot of revenue attached to that. So it's hard to find unique and you know meaningful ways to make money off of it. And I think that's where the industry part of it has struggled.

SPEAKER_00: 21:53

Yeah, because then you're into, I guess, as you say, sponsorship uh or maybe advertising, but then you're into the question of valuing that sponsorship and relative return on investment for sponsors or advertisers, and which, I don't know, can but can be a thorny issue, um, unl unless you've got a really strong story that you can back up with good data, I guess.

SPEAKER_01: 22:16

Exactly. Yeah, which is where a lot of that comes in. And I mean, I think the the biggest starting from when I was at Nielsen and still all the way through, I'm still involved with, you know, we have esports and gaming clients as well. So I'm still involved with that here at UGUV. The biggest stats that we are always asked is like, give us the comparative data for 18 to 24 year olds or 18 to 34 year olds versus sports leaks. Because that, if you if you want to find the story, that's where it is. We know it's so hard to reach young audiences through traditional advertising and media. And you know, live sports is amazing and is still the the reason that people tune into live television. Um, but younger audiences aren't necessarily watching it on the television. So esports is a way, esports and broader gaming content, which is I really think where the a lot of the attention that used to be focused on esports has now shifted as kind of gaming creators and and the more content side of things. Um that is a way to meet audiences that are defensively young and meet them on the platforms that they want to be on, not try to shift their eyeballs to watch you and capture them there.

SPEAKER_00: 23:27

Yeah, I see. And and so this question of attention, I'd imagine that's part of the argument for esports, possibly games as well, in that not only do you have a younger cohort engaging, but they're really engaging, as in they're they're they're paying rapt attention. I know Twitch is, I guess, slightly different, but I could see an argument of Twitch, all sorts of similar platforms that not only you kind of got the people you want there, they're actually it's not just like the games on in the background, you know, that they're really watching it.

SPEAKER_01: 23:57

Exactly. And they're doing it live as well, right? Which is important. They it's it's a tune-in moment because they want to be there when their favorite streamer is streaming with the other, you know, viewers and fans so that they can chat and there's there's a reason to be there and and tune in. Um, yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00: 24:16

Yeah. And obviously, this is a consumer insight focused uh podcast. And so how how do you gauge things like at attention? Have you been across the course of your career involved in you know eye tracking, facial coding, those type of things? What's the best way to get a read on attention?

SPEAKER_01: 24:32

Yeah, it's it's a great question. And I don't know that the industry has quite figured it out yet. I mean, at Nielsen, we did do a little bit, and I think that area at Nielsen has has grown sense of kind of that neuro eye tracking type type thing. But I think what traditional, just even like viewership metrics tend to just not fully capture. And and number one, I don't think the industry's found a good way to solve it. And number two, I'm not sure they want to, to be honest, is are people actually, you know, you have a viewership number for an audience um for a sport match or a Twitch stream or whatever it is, but are people actually watching that? Are they, is it on in the background? Um, are they walking away when the advertising comes on? Cause at the end of the day, that's why people care about audience numbers is because that's the number of people being exposed to the ads that are being sold, which is where the money is made. Um and I believe that, you know, yes, we have new ways and and metrics for aggregating multiple screens together, but I actually think that the percent of people who are watching and actually paying attention to that screen is falling at the same time that we're, you know, able to quote, increase the B Rochette based on more data sources and platforms being involved. So I don't think there's there's a great way to do that. But I also think once it's captured, like all the numbers would just fall. So I think basically what everyone is thinking is, okay, well, it's let's just assume that it's a level playing field for every type of content. Um but to your point, we used to get a lot of questions with um esports of, well, is there some sort of, you know, we would measure logo, um, you know, logo exposure within matches. Is there some sort of uplift you can give because we know people are more engaged with esports is kind of what people would say. And we're like, well, we actually don't know that. We can ask some survey questions and we do. We try to like inform best we can with qualitative ways of of doing it, but um, there isn't something comprehensive that that I'm aware of that's out there yet that can actually identify that attention piece of things.

SPEAKER_00: 26:43

So there's a good, great opportunity for anybody listening in. I could call out some of the companies, but I won't. Um who might be looking at solutions in in that space. Okay, so moving on from Nielsen to Ugov, initially, sorry, from a bit of LinkedIn stalking. So it was an esports and gaming, and then into the world of what we might see as more traditional sports. And so how how did that transition happen? How come you said you were drawn more towards that area?

SPEAKER_01: 27:10

Yeah, so first, you know, moving from Nielsen to Ugov, um, had a very long career at Nielsen. I started there straight out of school, um, so 2004 to 2020. And what excited me about UGov was they were looking to grow their esports and gaming practice. And I'd done a lot of that already at Nielsen. And um, much to my surprise in terms of like my own skill sets and what what I thought my strengths were, I was really successful at being being able to develop and grow something ground up, especially on the esports side of things. And so um we got into kind of a mature place um for that part of the business at Nielsen. Exciting opportunity to to move over and do the same at UGov with a different set of tools, resources, data, et cetera. Um, so yeah, was able to help build all of that out um at UGov, which involves kind of ground up taking a look at, okay, what data, what what questions are we asking around the industry, what data from my experience previously is missing that will be helpful to the point you made earlier of helping these companies to make the arguments that they want to, make the case for sponsorship investment, et cetera. Um, so it's really kind of given free reign to build that into all of our syndicated data products, um, which was exciting and and great to have the opportunity to do that. Um, so spent a couple of years creating the foundation of that and through all the esports work. I mean, it really obviously esports is part of the broader gaming industry. But when you think about research-wise, what clients are looking for, it's exactly the same as what sport clients are looking for. They want to understand their and measure their audience, they want to understand um the brand exposure that sponsors are getting within, you know, content, whether that's live events, um, in-game advertising, um, streamer content, whatever it may be. Um, and they want to be able to track and measure those partnerships over time, exactly the same as the sport industry. So I actually was working really closely already with our sport team. Um, and the opportunity came up through some transitions around the business for me to move in and um lead our US sport team. And so I jumped at it, was already working closely with them. And candidly, I'm much more a sport fan and person than um than gaming. You know, I played soccer in university, um, huge, huge fan across a number of different professional and collegiate sports. So even from an interest um perspective with me, uh obviously I I love gaming and have a passion for it for all the time that I've spent in it and have become an engaged person in the industry because of that. Um, but sport is actually more aligned with kind of my my personal passion point. So

SPEAKER_00: 30:00

Yeah, I was going to ask that actually in terms of if that was part of the reason for the move or not, in that I mean, it I getting a sense from the interview that actually you could kind of you're the type of person who could kind of get pretty interested in anything. Like so it was pet food and you and you'd follow that intellectual train and go, actually, this is really quite intriguing. These are the industry issues, this is how it works, this is how we could help. But um, but it seems like sport was the real passion. What what are some of your favorites?

SPEAKER_01: 30:28

Yeah, so um I the university I went to, Xavier University, is one of the rare um American schools that does not have an American football team. So basketball is our main sport. So love basketball. We have season tickets. I still I went to university in Cincinnati, which is where I live now. So our family has season tickets there to those games, but love basketball in general. Uh, we're big Golden State Warriors fans. Um, I grew up in Detroit, so grew up going to Pistons games. So that's from a fecator sport. Um, my favorite. But like I said, I played soccer all growing up and and through college. So um big fans of that as well. We are Arsenal fans, um, kind of before EPL got really big over here. We uh we we picked our team.

SPEAKER_00: 31:15

So yes, everybody has to put that caveat in. Like, you know, I picked them before they were good. No, actually, but Arsenal were Arsenal'd been good for a long time. So I'm gonna I can I can hear the booing, the virtual booing from uh British listeners in particular. Well, half of North London's booing, half isn't.

SPEAKER_01: 31:32

I'm just gonna say I hope I have some supporters. Yeah, well, it was funny back back then, um, there you couldn't watch the EPL on USA or you know, streaming, peacock, anything like that. So you basically had to, you there were four teams at the time that you could see in bars or pubs at like nine in the morning.

SPEAKER_00: 31:53

Uh at this point we hit one of those dreaded internet glitches. However, when the audio picks up in just a moment, Nicole is describing the relative revenue flow within the sports industry and how insights supports that, starting with media rights at the top of the tree.

SPEAKER_01: 32:08

Media rights, which we talked about a little bit earlier, and you're seeing that just kind of explode right now with all of the streaming networks coming in and being willing to bid on, you know, the the rights for things, and then the rights holders getting smart and saying, oh, well, we can carve out rights to this little part of things, and there's value in that for this stream and kind of you know expanding the the market for media rights. So that's really fascinating. We can talk about it um a bit more if you'd like, but just a really fascinating area right now and was already the biggest revenue driver for the industry, but just seems to be continuing to expand.

SPEAKER_00: 32:47

Um why is that? Yeah, sorry, what and why is that, Nicole? Is that I I have some guesses in terms of, you know, it's live, it's unpredictable, that type of thing, maybe you know, valuable demographics, I could see. But um, those are just suppositions. You know way more about it than I do.

SPEAKER_01: 33:05

Yeah, well, again, it all goes back to advertising dollars, right? So it's the the value is in being able to reach people. And the live portion is huge. I mean, it it's undeniable if you look at the live TV ratings or you know, the top-rated programs over the last, you know, however many years, it's it's all sport programs. Um, so that is when when you talk about kind of the holy grail from a marketer's perspective of being able to reach people and they can't fast forward through the ads or ignore them or buy a subscription that you know allows them to skip the ads, like that's it. Um, so the the value of live is huge. The proliferation of streaming platforms is is also huge because it just creates more demand, right? It's a simple supply and demand. You have the same number of sporting events and and major leagues and games per season, but that is starting to evolve too because they're saying there's more money um to be had. But but you have a lot more companies that are willing to bid and they've got a lot of money, the Netflixes of the world. You know, they're starting to move into live sport, which they were never in on live content. Um, so it's there's the ability for them to bid against each other. Andor, you know, we've seen the NBA do a great job of carving out different, you know, now they have the Emirates Cup, which is basically their in-season tournament, carving out media rights just for that. Um, so these leagues and organizations are getting creative there as well. Um, then I'd say the big third thing is also just the um the growth of international interest of you know leagues around the world. We're seeing a a ton of um interest and expanding internationally. And with that comes, okay, well, we can no longer just broadcast it on US networks or for baseball US regional networks. Um it has to be something that anyone around the world can access. And so it's it up to these streaming platforms and or needing to add more rights deals for non-local markets um into the rights package, which is just at the end of the day, more money for the rights holders.

SPEAKER_00: 35:14

And and then again, how does the research world play into that? I mean, is there much consumer insight work around the value of media rights? I I don't know. I mean I'm not sure there would be, but maybe I'm wrong.

SPEAKER_01: 35:26

Yeah. Um, I mean, it depends on the type of. I would say from a you gov perspective, in terms of the data that we bring and have, it's all about what the audience looks like. And um, you know, if a US-based sport is looking to expand into the UK and wants to grow an audience there and they're looking at different rights partners, um, either from an international perspective or just from the UK, we can provide the foundational data to say, okay, of the people who express interest in your league in the UK, here are the top platforms that they subscribe to, here are the top channels that they watch, here's where they overindex versus others. If you're looking specifically to capture a younger audience, we can break that data down. So from a media rights perspective, a lot of what we are doing is providing just kind of that foundational data for these rights holders to be able to go in and say, here's where our audience is, here's why the alignment with your platform is strong, et cetera. And then there's a lot of obviously, you know, the the Nielsen's of the world who are actually measuring the viewership. That's research, not necessarily something that that we um are playing as much in, but that's a big component of all of that. But then there's a lot of kind of consulting, more, you know, kind of very hands-on work that is not as much of what you gov does, admittedly, um, that that goes into the you know developing and valuing of the total package as well.

SPEAKER_00: 36:49

Got it. And then the next piece of it, so I guess sponsorship, I think you mentioned. Yep. And so I think you described some of the type of research that will be going on about that in relation to the parallels between esports and sports. And then sort of what's next in the chain after sponsorship.

SPEAKER_01: 37:07

Yeah. And just to quickly know on the sponsorship front, I mean, that's really if you think about how clients are leveraging UGOB, either syndicated data, our um brand valuation data or kind of our custom research, it I'd say probably 80% plus of the work we do is connected to sponsorship in some way. So that's really kind of where where our data thrives and is obviously still a huge revenue driver for the business overall. The next I would say is probably ticketing and events. Um, so actually people coming through the doors and purchasing, you know, the the tickets, but also food, everything that they're buying um in stadium and and the the value around that um is is next. And then after that, it's like merchandising and licensing. So the the hat you buy, the jersey you buy, um, all of that. Um yeah. And then I'd say one that kind of connects to the first and second, but I'm starting to think of it as its own thing, is just content. So there's just, I feel like, and this is where I think esports had it worse. Esports and gaming was has always kind of endemically had this as a component of their audience engagement as well as their revenue stream, but we're just starting to see so much more content around sport come into play, whether that's things like Netflix shows and documentaries, whether it's podcasts from all these athletes, um, athletes becoming popular and rising to fame just because of their TikTok account, you name it. Um, there's there's a lot of that. And I think more of the revenue and opportunity around there right now sits with the individual players, creators. But I think leagues and rights holders are trying to figure out how they can also harness that to drive more revenue on their side as well. So that's definitely a space to watch.

SPEAKER_00: 39:00

Yeah. And I'd imagine the research kind of follows that in that you've got the area around fan experience, I guess, you know, merchandise sales. So whether yougov's doing it or not, I'd imagine they're probably specialists that are looking at that, trying to understand that component of it. And then once you get into the media bit of it, you also have all sorts of firms will be helping to guide the development and marketing of that content as well.

SPEAKER_01: 39:25

Exactly. Yep. And it's interesting on like the ticketing side of things, our our goal is for every single part of a sport organization that's subscribing, especially to our syndicated data, to be leveraging it in some way because we believe there's a little bit of something there for everyone. One of the trends that we're seeing more and more, um why I love how our platform is built and that we are not just sports-specific data. We have a lot of sport data in our tools, but we also have data of everything else consumers do. Um, we're starting to look at things like which entertainment acts can bring people to our stadiums on days where they may not normally come. So, great example. Um, I live in Cincinnati. We are Cincinnati Reds fans, the baseball team here. Monday night games during the school year are really hard to get people to attend. Um, they brought Snoop Dogg in on a Monday night. That stadium was packed. Um, so looking at, you know, obviously you could just randomly pick musical acts that are available, or you could use data to say for the fans of this team in this area who are willing to travel and attend live events, what are the types of musical acts, genres, et cetera? What else is going to get them to come to the stadium and, you know, pay the money to get in, where in a normal day they probably wouldn't bother to come watch the Reds live. Um, but but are there other ways that we can entice them to get here? So that's becoming um a kind of uh an interesting and and great use case for our data where you can start to see the looking at the fan from a holistic perspective, not just how they engage with your sport and your property.

SPEAKER_00: 41:02

Yeah, that's really, really interesting. Now, you know, I have to ask, because everybody has to ask this now. How does AI impact all this?

SPEAKER_01: 41:09

It will be huge, I think. Um, when I look at Ugov and what what we're looking at. So we've recently launched um some AI tools that sit on top of our existing product. So what I see is you know, a lot of the time we have client servicing teams that help our clients with pulling data and using the tools on a day-to-day basis. Um I see a lot of the time that they are spending with just generic pulls, or even our clients who a lot of times use our data to put together a pitch for a potential sponsor. Um, and to do that, say you're going to pitch a beer brand, you need to go into the tool and say, okay, you know, search for or find the particular question that says, you know, the percent of people of your fan base who are in who drink beer, the percent who are interested in domestic beer versus um imported beer, the percent who like this particular brand and you kind of are you know the questions that you want to answer, but you're handpicking them. I see a world very soon where a client is going to be able to type into our UGOVAI tool, build a sponsorship pitch for a domestic beer brand and the makeup, you know, Cincinnati Reds, let's say it will know, not just because it's doing like simple word searches, but because it's identified and we've taught the AI to know all the questions within our tool that go into building a sports sponsorship pitch. It's just gonna pop it out. Um so all this manual time and trying to find the story, it will just be able to create that, put it into a deck for the client to pick and choose the data and go, which means my team can spend more time on more analytical questions and or trying to find the underlying things within our data sets that are trending that we should be alerting our um clients of, but that a lot of what we're spending our time on right now is just pulling like the basic data. So I think that's gonna be huge. Um, I think the flip side of it and having conversations with clients is um there's actually, as it relates specifically to like consumer and fan data, a little bit of concern about generative AI. Clients buy data because they want very clear-cut this percent of people believe this and it builds a story that is not biased, that to your point has the sources that you can put behind it. And they're worried that if you start mixing that with everything else on the internet, that it's going to create a narrative that goes farther than they're willing to take it based on what the data says. So we have a lot of clients, you know, asking questions about is your AI generative or not. And there's a lot of legality that comes around that. So we're trying to kind of tow that line between, you know, making sure that it still keeps the integrity of the data and that clients can go back and look at data if we have, you know, our AI tool telling them insights, um, but that it also does make their lives easier because at the end of the day, we we want, I think we all want that, and it's going to be a huge advantage of AI in the long term.

SPEAKER_00: 44:07

Yeah, that's a really it's an interesting distinction because I suppose in the first case, in effect, it's almost like a more accessible version of machine learning, isn't it? It's kind of going, you know, okay, now I I don't need a data scientist to do this stuff for me. I can pull it really fast, I can access it, as opposed to, as you say, blending multiple data sources, and you're not quite sure of what's from where. And that's a bit of a leap of faith. Nicole, I could ask you questions all day, but I'm slightly conscious of time because we're coming up on the hour. So I'm going to jump onto a quick fire round if that's okay.

SPEAKER_01: 44:42

Yeah, let's do it. Sounds great.

SPEAKER_00: 44:43

So, what's your advice for young people making their way in the consumer insights industry today?

SPEAKER_01: 44:49

So I'd say drown yourself in data. Um, I've been part of university programs that have, you know, tried to get um students more experience in market research or data, and they'll have like a case study where they give them a small, you know, a few Excel files worth of data and ask them to run with it. Nowadays, there's the biggest problem is not being able to find the answers in the data. It's trying to get yourself out of all the data that's available and figure out what actually matters to the ones that can really kind of dig, dig through it and figure out what means something and what doesn't, and come up with a clear analysis.

SPEAKER_00: 45:27

Yeah, I think that's fantastic advice. It's kind of the the signal, not the noise type of idea, isn't it? Okay, a slightly cheeky question for you. What would your partner say your best and worst characteristics?

SPEAKER_01: 45:39

Good question. And I did not ask him this, but because I I knew I'd get a lecture, but um, I I think I know what it would be. Um, so I think he would say the the best is my dedication. When I do something, I am all in, I give it my time and attention. Um, and I I probably in some cases overdo it. I know that he would say my worst is that I don't stick up for myself. And that's not just in in the work world, it's everywhere. It's you know, being protective of your time, being protective of the line you draw with the kids when you say it's bedtime and they say no, and and really kind of you know, sticking up for for what you believe is is right and what you believe you deserve based on how how you spend the time and and what you've earned um as a person. So yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 46:24

Well, I I guess that's also partially uh you know a willingness to please, I suppose, as well. But that's a whole subject unto itself. Um, so from an agency perspective, what makes a good client?

SPEAKER_01: 46:38

Yeah, so I think a a couple of things. Number one, I always say I know we've hit the right mark with a client and that they are leveraging us in in the best possible way when they come to us with a question that they don't even know if we have data for, but they want our opinion. And that's what I love is when clients come to us and say, we know you see and and hear so much from all the different clients you work with. We want to hear what you have to say about this. And sometimes we can pull the data for it, and sometimes it's more anecdotal. But I love and and think that willingness to be open to your partner and partners in in data or you know, whatever line of work, being open to those kind of outside opinions that you know are well informed is is great. And then the other thing I'd say, which I probably wouldn't have said at the beginning of my career, but as you know, as I've evolved over time and worked with a lot of clients, I love directness. And you know, directness doesn't mean rudeness. Um, but if a client has an issue or, you know, doesn't like how we're servicing something, or I I want to hear it because that's how I fix it. In the same way, if they hear, if they think something's great or they want more of something, I want them to be be able to voice that clearly too.

SPEAKER_00: 47:54

Fantastic. Final question. What's your favorite book or recent book and and why?

SPEAKER_01: 47:59

Okay, I have two answers to this. So the first is um the ministry of time. I'm not sure how many people have heard about it. Um, but the author is Callie and Bradley. So it is fascinating. And the reason I love that I loved it is because it's sci-fi. And if you asked me if I was a sci-fi reader, I would say absolutely not. But my husband actually got it from me for birthday or something. I was like, okay, I'll give it a try. And it totally flipped my view on what sci-fi can be and thinking about kind of, you know, the future and and the past. And it's a really kind of like time-bending book. Um, so I loved that. And then I will also say, as parent in the room, um, and especially one that works in adjacent to or or within the tech side of things as well, The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Hayde. I just think every parent has to read it. Um, I know it's you know trending and and I hope it continues to. Um, but I just think it's really important as we talk about all these things that are evolving and developing and AI and and everything else for parents to be well informed about space.

SPEAKER_00: 49:05

Nicole, thank you so much. It's been really, really great. Such a pleasure talking to you.

SPEAKER_01: 49:10

Well, I loved it. Thank you so much. Do it again anytime. And um, yeah, this has been great. Thanks.

SPEAKER_00: 49:18

Isn't Nicole great? Love doing that interview. It's really not that frequent where you have interviewees who can really provide a longitudinal perspective on how industries have evolved and how insights sit within the relevant ecologies. In fact, even the way in which they regulate the reality or the hype to some extent. Anyway, thanks as always to Insight Platforms for their support, to Nicole for participating, and to you for listening. Another reminder, do please follow, leave reviews, and all that type of thing. Or for that matter, get in touch if there are sectors or people who you'd like to suggest as interviewees or future areas of focus. See you next time.