Visionary: Sunset Vine's Jeff Foulser on record turnovers, its work with Amazon, plus the potential of esports and AR By Ross Biddiscombe
Thursday, May 11, 2023 - 12:30
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Sunset Vine's biggest client in terms of turnover is Amazon
Welcome to a new series of articles from SVG Europe, titled Visionary, which are taking an in-depth look into the businesses at the heart of sports broadcasting today. From production companies and broadcasters to outside broadcast firms, we uncover where these business are today, how they got there, and where they are going.
It is only three years ago that the pandemic changed everyone's life and most brought industries, including live sports production, to a standstill. Yet, for one company - London-based Sunset Vine - the struggles of the pandemic already seem like a distant memory because it has notched up a record turnover for the year to September 2022, up to £89 million, from £56 million in 2021. And, in spring 2023, chairman Jeff Foulser says another excellent financial performance will be reported this autumn.
But even for Foulser, who is a man with five decades of experience in the TV business, this is a remarkable turnaround. COVID was a major trauma and we went from dozens of OBs every week to none, overnight. However, we're proud to say that we didn't let go of any staff. Sunset Vine put over 100 staff on furlough and everyone else took 40% pay cuts, but thankfully, its largest client, BT Sport, kept paying. By July 2020, sport started to comeback without crowds and we then picked up quite quickly.
Despite the loss of its BT Sport contract at the end of June this year, which will affect its figures for the last quarter to September, Sunset Vine continues to invest in staff above all else. These kinds of bumps in the road from the pandemic to losing a major client have been manageable because the company's philosophy has long been one of continual growth, according to Foulser.
Sunset Vine chair, Jeff Foulser
Confident company
For instance, even after the pandemic, Sunset Vine was confident enough to take the role as host broadcaster at the Commonwealth Games in 2022 for the first time after previously working within a partnership.
It wasn't that big of a decision for us because we'd had the experience of two previous Commonwealth Games. We took a completely fresh approach because what drives us mad is the people who say they've produced something the same way for years so it must be the right approach.
We wanted to be creative so we took a blank sheet of paper and came up with a new plan and a budget that scaled back on inappropriate areas such as production quality control where six or seven people were traditionally monitoring the different sports; we already had top producers and directors doing that job so why did we need someone else overlooking things as well? We based the bid on a creative approach to each different sport, but cutting out unnecessary costs as well helped us win the contract.
The Commonwealth Games job was a major plus for Sunset Vine, but it has been balanced by a minus; last autumn's merger between BT Sport and Warner Bros. Discovery, which removes a top client from the production company's books. But when one door closes for this business, another one usually opens and, in this case, that has been the growth of its work with Amazon Prime who has bought rights to English Premier League (EPL) and Champions League football plus Autumn Series rugby union. Sunset Vine produces all this for the streaming platform.
Amazonian strength
As Amazon Prime have come into the market, we've hung onto their coattails. It's been a significant change for us. We pitched, along with our partner BT Sport, against Sky for the production contract on the EPL games in 2018 which was a bit of a surprise because Sky had never pitched for non-Sky work as far as I know, and haven't since. Back then we could offer BT Sport studios and editing, but that won't happen next year when we do the job on our own.
Even replacing BT Sport's support does not faze Foulser or the client. Amazon is comfortable with us working alone on their productions because of what we've already done for them and we are comfortable too. It's a logical step, he says.
Foulser also welcomes the speed with which the relationship with Amazon has grown. Take out the Commonwealth Games, which is only every four years, and Amazon is our biggest client in terms of turnover and that's gone from nothing three years ago, so it's been amazing.
But it has been a learning curve with a client new to sports, and one that is so big. We didn't do things much differently at first because it was only 20 games in 2019, but then they bought more rights and now we have a dedicated Amazon team with specific people as points of contact.
We run their events like a big division of Sunset Vine; a company within a company. There is a project lead and exec producers and production management of each sport, and we've restructured to accommodate that. They are growing and we want to grow with them and also scale up if they buy rights to other sports, maybe in other countries.
As work with Amazon has increased, opening a Sunset Vine office in Milan and also partnering with a small production company in Germany to produce the Champions League, have been added benefits.
Foulser says working with rights purchasers like Amazon, even though they are new to sport, is not much different than working with a governing body. Sunset Vine's relationships with the International Cricket Council (ICC) and World Rugby and its Sevens Series have thrived for several years. Everyone is more sophisticated now about their vision and the budgets too. It's a partnership in a lot of ways
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Visionary: Sunset Vine's Jeff Foulser on record turnovers, its work with Amazon, plus the potential of esports and AR By Ross Biddiscombe 
