CES 2018: Turner's Sports Business Innovation Conference Delves Into Evolving Content Ecosystem Panel examines Turner-UEFA Deal, Twitter's evolution, the importance of diversity in sports, and more By Jason Dachman, Chief Editor
Tuesday, January 16, 2018 - 12:25 pm
Print This Story
Story Highlights
Turner Sports once again trotted out the big guns for its annual CES Sports Zone last week. The event featured not only live productions of Inside the NBA, The Warm-up, and ELEAGUE Street Fighter V Celebrity Showdown but also the two-day Sports Business Innovation conference featuring leading execs in the sports-media industry.
From left: Turner's David Levy, WNBA's Lisa Borders, Twitter's Anthony Noto, Control Media's Steve Nash, and UEFA's Guy-Laurent Epstein
Day 2 of the Sports Business Innovation conference featured a panel titled The Evolving Content Ecosystem, moderated by Turner Sports commentator Ernie Johnson, and featuring WNBA President Lisa Borders, UEFA Events S.A. Marketing Director Guy-Laurent Epstein, Turner President David Levy, Control Media CEO and two-time NBA MVP Steven Nash, and Twitter COO Anthony Noto. The panel provided a deeper look at Turner's recent rights deal with UEFA and planned OTT platform, Twitter's sports strategy, the future of esports, and more.
Inside the Turner-UEFA Deal
In August, Turner Sports announced a landmark deal with UEFA to broadcast Champions League games in the U.S. and launch a new direct-to-consumer OTT service based on the global soccer property. Levy explained why he sees value in the UEFA rights and previewed Turner's plans for the new property.
We're excited to have UEFA as part of the family, he said. It was a unique thing for us because this is our first property that I can remember that we actually purchased not for the linear television business. There will be access on our channels to some of the Champion League and Europa League games, but a majority will be on a new sports OTT product.
Levy also detailed how he sees Turner's multiplatform coverage of Champions League and Europa League appealing to the all-important millennial generation.
We're moving into [an era] where the largest living generation right now is millennials and the next is Generation Z, he noted. They've grown up with the internet and grown up watching content very, very differently. And how they get content, consume content, find content is very different than how we do having grown up in a cable-TV world.
From a Turner perspective, he continued, we're entering that OTT space right now, and we believe this is the exact time to enter. UEFA is our foundation, and we believe there's a passionate fan base here in the U.S. for European soccer and they will seek out and find it and watch it on any device. There just wasn't that opportunity before.
Epstein also weighed in on why the deal with Turner appealed to UEFA, noting that the broadcaster's work building the NBA as a property represents a model for success.
Here in the U.S., [UEFA Champions League and Europa League have] become a real brand that has been built along 25 years, he said. We're very pleased to partner with Turner and what we've seen achieved on the NBA we would like to replicate and even go further because it's great content delivery.
Evolution of Twitter in Sports, Need for Reliable Measurement
The role of Twitter in promoting and distributing live sports content has evolved over the past decade. For its part, the social-media giant has made an effort to partner with major sports-content creators to extend their audiences by promoting their content and, more recently, has acquired streaming rights in an effort to appeal to viewers of non-linear content.
We've really tried to position ourselves as a company that makes other brands and their content better, said Noto. I used to use an analogy, when we were taking Twitter public, that Michael Jordan and Steve Nash make the other four people on the basketball court better than they would otherwise be. At Twitter, our goal is to make our partners better than they'd otherwise be. We're not trying to disrupt anyone; we're trying to extend the audience.
However, the significant growth of any major media platform creates the need for reliable audience measurement, and this is true of Twitter and other social-media channels.
[In terms of] our properties, historically, TV audience was the measurement. For me, that's irrelevant now, said UEFA's Epstein. I think the conversation around sports and the competition is far more global than the core TV audience. And how do we measure that in the future? I don't have the answer, but I think it's very important for all of us to be able to [determine] the social-media impact of our competitions rather than the pure TV audience. We have to find the definition of how to count all these conversations going on around [the content] in a much different manner.
WNBA's Borders seconded the notion that reliable audience measurement across multiple platforms is an absolute must as the industry evolves: I think what we're going to have to start measuring is relevance and resonance in real time. We've always talked about viewers and attendance. I think those metrics will still hold, but they need to be complemented. I don't have the answer today, but being able to say what is relevant, what is resonant [is important].
The NBA vs. NFL: Two Leagues at a Precipice
Over the past year, much has been made of the NFL's ratings dips this season along with the growth of the NBA's viewership and position in the cultural zeitgeist. Nash, no stranger to the NBA or creating media, noted how the two leagues differ in both their content-distribution strategy (
Most recent headlines
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
06/09/2026
June 9 2026, 23:00 (PDT) Dolby and MagentaTV Bring Fans Closer to the FIFA Worl...
04/08/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...
04/07/2026
April 7 2026, 19:00 (PDT) Detective Conan: Fallen Angel of the Highway Opens in...
15/06/2026
Detach from Direct-Attached: How Remote Editing with EVO Keeps Creative Teams Mo...
14/06/2026
Library captures 1960s R&B/pop drum sound
Following on from their recent wave of plug-in effects, Iconic Instruments have just launched an all-new virtual d...
14/06/2026
HBO Comedy Rooster Shot with URSA Cine 17K 65
Brie Clayton June 14, 2026
0 Comments
Large format brings viewers intimately close to characters.
Black...
13/06/2026
Latest expansion pack includes 252 presets
Devious Machines have recently introduced another expansion for their powerful multi-effects plug-in, Infiltrator...
13/06/2026
Create custom DAW/plug-in controllers using prompts
MetaGrid have recently introduced an all-new AI Builder function to their touchscreen-based control surf...
13/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
13/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
YES Network and The Gotham Sports App will air seven Athletes Unlimited Softball...
12/06/2026
The United Football League will host its FAST Innovation Suite at the 2026 United Bowl presented by Credit One Bank on Saturday, June 13 at 3:00 p.m. ET at Audi...
12/06/2026
PTZOptics and LayerJot will present live demonstrations at InfoComm 2026 showing how natural-language AI prompting, robotic camera control, and on-device comput...
12/06/2026
MultiDyne Video and Fiber Optic Systems will exhibit at InfoComm 2026, featuring...
12/06/2026
Ateme has announced that Eurovision Services is using Ateme's software-based frame-rate conversion technology for international live event workflows. The de...
12/06/2026
Bitmovin and Simplestream have announced a partnership with Xperi to simplify the launch of OTT streaming services on TiVo OS smart TVs and devices. The collabo...
12/06/2026
Net Insight has announced that a multinational technology company is deploying a...
12/06/2026
MLB Players Inc., the business arm of the MLB Players Association, has announced a partnership with Athletes First to develop and sell brand partnerships across...
12/06/2026
Guntermann and Drunck (G&D) and VuWall have announced the CommandKeyboard-Advanc...
12/06/2026
Comcast Smart Solutions announces a new smart technology deployment with Major L...
12/06/2026
Elevation Worship completed the initial leg of its Elevation Nights 2026 tour ...
12/06/2026
AJA Video Systems has announced KONA IP25 support for Colorfront Transkoder and ...
12/06/2026
Audinate Group Limited (ASX: AD8) will exhibit at InfoComm 2026 (Booth C7321, Ce...
12/06/2026
Pac-12 Commissioner Teresa Gould has announced the appointment of Scott Adametz as Chief Technology Officer. The Pac-12 describes the hire as the first CTO appo...
12/06/2026
Grass Valley has announced AMPP Edge Live, a production system combining Grass Valley hardware, NVIDIA Blackwell GPU acceleration, and AMPP OS in a single platf...
12/06/2026
At one time a trailblazer with the launch of the Longhorn Network, the Universit...
12/06/2026
Ratings Roundup is a rundown of recent rating news and is derived from press rel...
12/06/2026
Chyron has announced PAINT 10.4, an update to its illustrated replay and sports ...
12/06/2026
SVP, Production, Mark Gross: With the new schedule, with not having every Sunday night, it has given us an opportunity to take a step back and reimagine what o...
12/06/2026
For Televisa Technical Engineering Manager Roberto N nez Ibarra and the small team of 12 technicians and two production personnel at the IBC things are already ...
12/06/2026
Simple Steps to Better Acoustics - Taming The Small Room
Most of us mix in spare rooms and small spaces, where the acoustics fight us at every turn. At Gear...
12/06/2026
Latest addition expands vintage-inspired effects palette
Meris' Ottobit pedal range draws its inspiration from vintage gaming consoles, and the latest a...
12/06/2026
Soundbox-based chamber strings series expanded
Sonora Cinematic have just announced the launch of the second instalment in their Soundbox-based chamber stri...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
AJA Announces KONA IP25 Integration with Colorfront Software
Brie Clayton June 12, 2026
0 Comments
Collaboration enables uncompressed SMPTE ST 2110 I/O ...
12/06/2026
URSA Cine 12K LF Used to Create Visuals for STUTS' K-Arena Concert
Brie Clayton June 12, 2026
0 Comments
Organic visuals projected on a giant scre...
12/06/2026
MTI FILM Acquires Mango New Edit, Expanding its Global Post-Production Services ...
12/06/2026
AI Point Tracking Speeds Up Complex VFX Tracks in Mocha Pro
Jessie Electa Petrov June 12, 2026
0 Comments
The 2026.5 release adds automatic point trac...
12/06/2026
Bitmovin, a provider of video streaming solutions, has partnered with Simplestream, a provider of OTT and broadcast solutions, and technology provider Xperi, to...
12/06/2026
Leostream Corporation, creator of the world-leading Leostream Remote Desktop Access Platform, today announced Jigsaw24, a leading B2B IT solutions provider wit...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
How Aussie indie games and screen are levelling up with IP 11 June 2026
Ari Harrison, Pro Jank Footy
Head of Games Joey Egger and Ari Harrison of Umbrella sha...
12/06/2026
AgentPerf from Artificial Analysis, the industry's first agentic AI benchmark, gives developers, enterprises and infrastructure providers a clear way to com...
CES 2018: Turner's Sports Business Innovation Conference Delves Into Evolving Content Ecosystem Panel examines Turner-UEFA Deal, Twitter's evolution, the importance of diversity in sports, and more By Jason Dachman, Chief Editor 
