So ESPN was generating 1.1 million viewers versus the other, must be the America's race, getting 1.3. So I thought it was an interesting point because obviously the espn service i don't know exact distribution details but it's a cable and paid for it's a premium uh no no advertising about on the platform which actually irritates me if you watch espn because it's just endless ads of espn rather than anything else i'd rather watch crappy insurance ads than watch the same ad over and over again. But I digress. But just to show again, the scale of ESPN's reach and exposure when you compare it alongside a free-to broadcaster isn't as great as you might think on an ongoing basis. So look, it's definitely worth having a look if you're interested in F1 and interested in just the potential impact that, you know, the rise of social media, the rise of these documentary series might have on a series and particularly a target market. I think how that can impact other sports. It's worth digesting that article from Kian if you're interested in seeing what that all looks like. Right. Let's keep it moving. I want to talk a little bit about the PTO, which is the Professional Triathlon Organization. They've been around for a while now, Steve. And our colleague, Tom Bassam, did an article, an interview with the CEO, Sam Renouf, on a rather lovely beach, beach backdrop in Cannes, I think was the destination. And even Tom even got in the water to do one of the stages, which is something I would never even think about. So good on him for doing so. But we thought we'd just take some time to look at this because obviously one of the reasons we talk a lot about the big guys, the big tech companies, the big sports properties, and we need to keep making sure we do talk about the disruptors, the tier twos and tier threes, because they do have to take quite a different approach in how they drive value out of media, media rights, media exposure, and just how they run an organization that can generate enough value for what it delivers. Now, PTO is an interesting one. So can you give us a bit of a sense about what the PTO's approach is and why that does differ from your traditional sports property?

so pto i mean i guess it was initially founded almost like a bit like a grand slam concept for triathlon i mean so they'd have major events throughout throughout the season you know sort of marquee events in in i guess in major city locations one of the advantages of their sport is they don't really need much fixed infrastructure you just need to um have an open open body of water and and shut some streets so you know it's all glamorous locations around the world um but now they are shifting they want more regular events throughout throughout the season which is why they knew um the t100 has come into come into effect and you're right that you know not everyone can have a multi-million pound tv or you know 100 you're worth hundreds of millions and drive subscriptions it's just not the market is not really built for that you've got nfls and premier leagues of the world and you only have to look at what how difficult some tier twos are finding it in the current market it's so challenging so if you're a new sports property and you see this you see the trouble that i guess you know i'm going to say like rugby is having for example with its its media partners you think why do i want to get involved get involved in that you know why would i want to be reliant on a single source of income that in many cases i may not be able to control where that's coming in so they are working with warner brothers discovery so eurosport and you know for global deals for the market but it's not really exclusive it's not bound to bounded exclusivity the aim is just to get their content out as much as possible and earn revenue that from from that way i mean if you look at look at triathlon triathlons are huge lifestyle and participant sports so they want to tap into into that but people who do try you know if you do triathlons you know a couple a couple of times a couple times a year i don't actually know how frequently you do a triathlon i'm not really that way i'd love to be able to do one but i don't think i'm quite built for it anyway and but you want to see how the professionals are doing and if and if you watch the olympics triathlon is actually a really good tv sport i'm actually it's you know i think it's it's best than some of its parts. It's, you know, it's open water swimming, it's running, it's cycling. And it's, you know, for example, the cycling is devoid of all the team tactics because it's not that kind of sport. So it's actually a fantastic sport. If you watch the Olympics, it was great. So it's got a good, it's got a good product. It's got good lifestyle elements. So you can diversify through other ways. you've got the additional content, the commercial opportunities are kind of obvious for Triathlon in terms of the lifestyle elements and fitness brands. Although I think they are trying to also move away from endemic brands. I think they would like to be able to appeal to to i guess i guess more you know well known sort of blue chip companies which i think triathlon can do because i think it you know it can happen to brands that want you know want to be associated with what is quite affluent vibrant vibrant sports so it's just one of these these challenger brands or new properties that have come in to either mix up a sport or provide a commercial structure to a sport that hasn't necessarily had it before. And they are looking at it from a completely different perspective to a more established property and saying, yeah, we want to do these things differently. We don't want to build our entire business on exclusive media rights that are really unpredictable, especially in the current market.

Yeah, that's definitely the case. I do wonder, though, in this instance, it's not just with a PTO, but sometimes the market dictates that direction. I think there's a fundamentally there isn't the appetite anymore for some of those tiers of rights. So you have to be not trying to push a big rock up a hill and just embrace the fact that that model isn't going to work and trying to drive trying to meteorites deals and instead really do strategic deals are getting reach getting scale getting visibility and doing really good deals with hosting destinations and sponsors who now provide who really value more and more of that exposure at a digital level than they ever have because it used to be just the general generic ratings on free to wear that was that was um what the sponsors were looking for now they understand more about that reach and exposure that they can bring to the table the storytelling component uh and obviously that works well for endemic brands i do think a logical next step would be for someone like a pdo is to tap into the non-endemic space because from i mean i definitely know in more western markets that typically triathlon is met with people of a higher affluency because you know it does it's not cheap to buy the bikes you need to be able to compete at those levels as an example so yeah it makes a lot of sense in in that approach i'm not sure if the market dictates that as much as them but the opportunity what i do love about their model is they're blending probably as well as anyone I can think of. I think as anyone I can think of. I'm trying to rack my brain to see if there's anyone else that comes to mind as I'm talking. But it is that blend between mass participation and the professional world. Because I think that mass participation part is such a big opportunity. If you can bring fans and active people who are triathletes to close so much closer to the action that stuff is almost it's almost becomes nearly money but can't buy sort of thing experiences if you're really a passionate triathlete to get so to experience the same tracks and the same um race circuits etc and potentially even get access to some of those athletes in some instances i know people that for example do the i can't remember what the name of it is, but basically they follow the Tour de France. They do basically the Tour de France after the race is done. And that sort of experience of actually doing that gives you a completely different experience. And they become like super addicted to the sport after that because they can really appreciate what's being delivered at a professional level. So I love that connectivity with the mass participation part. And it also helps those hosting discussions saying we can bring thousands of people to a destination for you, helping a lot of economic impact. So pay us a nice hosting fee to ensure we can bring those people to your destination. And

it's a good advert, if you're on TV, showcase your city to the world um the only cycling is perhaps another example of that mass participation that can also be wrapped around lifestyle endemic brands um although cycling has a bit more of a i'd say more of a traditional tv as well particularly in in europe but you know look at something like gcn before it was um shut down by by wbd you know in terms of mixing that lifestyle on elite level um you know it's not it's not just people do the tour de france after the event that you can also do it on things like zwift so it's all it's all it's all blending together i do think there is there is a route for i definitely think some cycling properties could take a leaf out of this book. I definitely think some winter sports could as well. And then, you know, we were talking last time about challenger brands doing things differently. This is definitely one of them. So yeah, I think it's something that certain properties should definitely be watching.