How to Measure Sports Viewership in a Streaming World with Russell Fink, Regional Sports Network (RSN) Expert

Welcome And Why This Matters

Tim Rowe, State of Streaming 0:00

Welcome back to the State of Streaming podcast. I'm your host, Tim Rowe, and today's conversation is with Russell Fink. Russell Fink is the senior director of programming and content analytics at Sports New York and a contributor to State of Streaming. His new piece, Too Much of a Good Thing, all about sports media measurement, is out on State of Streaming. And today our conversation is going to go into the past two decades of Russell's in the trenches experience firsthand leadership through the evolution of regional sports networks, what it looks like to program digital and linear sports content, what it all means for you as an advertiser, and how we can start to unpack the challenge of measurement in general. So if that's a topic, if that's something that you're trying to figure out for yourself, for your team, then this is the conversation for you. Enjoy. Russell, thank you so much for being here. You've spent 20 years, two decades, at the forefront of regional sports networks. And we're going to talk a little bit about the evolution of RSNs, but specifically, we're going to spend time talking about your new piece out in state of streaming this week. Thanks so much for being here.

Russell Fink, RSN Architect 1:14

Yeah, great to be here. Thanks for having me, Tim. Absolutely.

RSNs Rise And The 2007 Playbook

Tim Rowe, State of Streaming 1:18

We're going to find out how Jurassic Park, how that ties into what's going on with sports today, but maybe take us back in time. You started at Sports New York in 2007, which must not have been that long after SNY was was founded and started. Could you take us back in time maybe to 2007 at SNY? What was what was that like?

Russell Fink, RSN Architect 1:41

Yeah, so I'm non-original. SNY started mostly in 2006. I'm reminded by a lot of people I work with who are originals, saying, Ross, you can't say you're OG, which is fine. But yeah, I remember when it came out because I'm a diehard Mets and Jets fan for better and mainly for worse. But I saw when it came out, the regional sports network thing was on the rise. I followed actually the person who was in the position I wanted. He left strategy. I was a he was a friend of mine. As we all know in media, the business is about this big. So you I knew him when he left. I jumped in, I got the position. And RSNs, well, the Mets were actually, if you remember in 2007, they were gonna be a dynasty. And I was a hard Mets fan. We were one pitch away from the World Series. This is the best job. This is our year, yeah. Now I'm you know 19 years in. Uh, I think next week it's gonna be our year one year, but in that you'll be there for it too.

Tim Rowe, State of Streaming 2:35

When it happens, you're gonna be there. So in 2007, that was very different.

Russell Fink, RSN Architect 2:40

Very different. RSNs were on the rise, hyperloc were now becoming more of a thing because in our market in New York, you already had yes and MSG and you know, Fox, New York as well. Like it was hyperlocal was suddenly hitting and hitting big. So SMY was the next evolution of that. So when I came in, we were full like, what are we gonna do with this? How do you serve the fans? What is this gonna be? There's a huge appetite, and how are we gonna serve those fans? And of course, let's be honest, monetize it and what kind of revenue can we make? And it was a great rise for all RSNs, right? Because at that time, it wasn't even the Comcast or the NBC RSNs, but around the country, they were popping up everywhere, right? Like this was the serve the local fan and give them a ton of the sports the way they want it, not the national. Like, if you're a New York fan, if you're a Boston fan, if you're an Atlanta fan, how do you watch your sports? And it just got bigger and bigger, and it was a great business model for a long time.

Tim Rowe, State of Streaming 3:38

So it's almost, it sounds like the inverse of the sports streaming problem today, where then we didn't have access to the content necessarily.

From Cable Bundle To Fragmentation

Tim Rowe, State of Streaming 3:47

So the opportunity was lots of people create lots of access, we all make lots of money, the fans are happy, the leagues are happy, the teams are happy. Everyone's a winner. But today that's not necessarily the case.

Russell Fink, RSN Architect 4:00

No, at the beginning, it was even more than everyone, right? Because it was still part of your cable subscription. So to you, it was slightly invisible. So the cable company was happy because hey, I have SMY and people pay for the Mets. We're happy because now we're getting our own affiliate fees and advertising revenue. Fans are happy because they're getting 150 of the 162 games on one channel, right? Syndicators are happy because you're giving them some content, everyone's happy, and then of course the streaming wars happen. Streaming enters the business in a big, huge way. Cost becomes a much bigger issue for all of us, and now it's less of a growth mode. And RSN's hit very quickly a survival mode of how do we adapt? You know, what ways can we adapt? How are the audience now consuming content? How do we monetize it? And how is it keep evolving? And no one's really figured it out. The appetite for local sports doesn't change, but the appetite for paying for eight to ten channels to watch your Jets lose 10 to 15 games and your Mets just miss out on the playoffs, or even the teams that are really good, how much can you pay to watch all of those games? And then how many different content and distribution methods has become a real issue that no one's really uh solved it yet.

Tim Rowe, State of Streaming 5:15

I think uh Roger Goodell's on his way to Capitol Hill to explain that to us. The FCC has obviously been pressing really hard on that. It's something that we put comment together in response to that was picked up. So it's definitely an issue. I think that everyone is feeling that. But you mentioned how RSNs are sort of in survival mode today and finding creative strategies to to to still exist. What maybe without giving away the secret sauce, can you paint a picture of what that looks like today and how that's how that's different?

Russell Fink, RSN Architect 5:46

Of course. But the secret sauce, if anyone figures it out, I'll hide it from you. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Tim Rowe, State of Streaming 5:51

Actually, yeah, that's a good point. If anyone does have the secret, send us a message. Russ wan wants to go as the recipe.

Russell Fink, RSN Architect 5:57

There's no question where the fans are going, right? It's going streaming, it's going digital. You have your social channels, you have your streaming, you have your linear, you have all these different outlets. But the problem is the main money is still in linear. Linear is on the decline, sub loss, like we said, the fragmentation of distribution is all happening, but that's where the main money is. So people are moving to streaming, they're moving to digital, but they're not paying for it in the same way. E to C products are the future. No one argues with that, but they don't make up for the loss you see in the subscription revenue. That's not a secret to anyone, and everyone's still trying to figure out what we can do besides that. People know linear is still where the money is, and that's why a lot of these streamers use linear formats and linear strategies for their sports, because that's what's been proven to work. And I admit, I'll admit right here, I was wrong. When it went to Amazon and it went to Apple, and even when Facebook had baseball, I was like, they're just gonna change everything, it's gonna be a whole new viewing. And instead, they were like, Okay, you're gonna watch it on a platform, but it's gonna be a similar experience to what you've been used to. And that was surprising to me. Interesting. What what surprised you about that? Is it the simple way is when you're in streaming or DSC, you could do anything. You're not confined by the old rules of we have to cover this, we have this, here's advertising, here's commercial format, here's measurement, here's how we're gonna do it. I was like, they could do whatever they want. If anyone goes back, I think Facebook did a poor job of producing games, but they tried to have a live chat feed and everyone hated it. And then YouTube, you're like, well, YouTube has the biggest share of viewing of anyone, they're gonna switch everything up. And it was almost like, nope, the fans want to see it as they're used to seeing it, and we're gonna measure it how we used to measure it, just on a different platform. And the whole thing about you know, Goodell going is only interesting because I don't want to go too deep into history because I'm too obsessed with it. But if you remember back in the day, and I'm gonna age myself, do it, everyone was worried about the cable bundle. Oh, yeah. And Congress was like, we want a la carte, we want to break this all up. It was a big thing of spending the green. I forgot about that. We're gonna break it all up. This is unfair to the consumer. Now you speak to anyone of the age of 18 and 25, they go, I wish there was this way to put all my sports.

Tim Rowe, State of Streaming 8:12

Bundle it all together.

Russell Fink, RSN Architect 8:13

Yeah, right, right. It's like they wait for the word, you're like, you mean the word bundle? You're like, that's a great idea. I was like, man, it was like two decades of Congress fighting the idea of a la carte, and now it's right back to where, you know, it's a fascinating, like history repeats itself.

Tim Rowe, State of Streaming 8:30

It really is. It it doesn't, it doesn't rhyme, but it does repeat. Russ, I I want I want us to get into the piece, but maybe maybe one last touch point that I'd love to explore with you there is your purview. You are in the seat, you're you're you're managing, you're orchestrating the digital and the linear

Programming Linear Versus Digital Reality

Tim Rowe, State of Streaming 8:50

programming. So you're you're right at the intersection of those two worlds. How has the decision-making set changed? Is there is there a difference from what it's looked like traditionally? Like maybe maybe give us some of the tactical. What does your day-to-day look like? How are you thinking through some of those decisions between digital and linear? Or is there a decision? It's just a matter of getting it there.

Russell Fink, RSN Architect 9:13

Yeah, I mean, everyone's changed from a linear network to a multi-platform content distribution company. That's what we call ourselves now. And it's a matter of, it's always the same of serving your audience with the big caveat of also trying to monetize it. The interesting thing you have now is it's much easier to make a lot of content in digital and social than it is on linear, right? But advertisers still prefer a 30-second spot in TV. They still, I mean, this is not a secret to anyone. The perfect example is if anyone remembers the World Series a couple years ago, they had a change of picture and they split the screen and they had the seven-second, I think it was T-Mobile, if I'm allowed to say that. T Mobile has a seven second spot.

Tim Rowe, State of Streaming 9:57

Oh, earnest, earn media for T-Mobile.

Russell Fink, RSN Architect 9:59

Right, they get a free one. I was like, that's the future right there. Seven seconds. We're an audience, we're engaged, and we're watching the picture warm up. And then it went away. And then I did call to my people and my friends, and I said, What happened? They go, everyone hated it. I go, what do you mean? It was engaged. They go, nope, they just want a 30-second commercial. I go, you mean the commercial we don't pay attention to, or we go, or we look for, or the thing that we're they go, yeah, they didn't like it. And I said, that's kind of to me, encapsulates the uh hesitation right now of our move to digital. No one's arguing. We're moving to streaming digital social. That's the move of the industry. But when we talk about content and we talk about serving the audience, they want short clips on social, but advertisers want long commercials on linear. So when it becomes a programming decision, there's many different factors. There's our strategy for the audience, there's what's entertaining, there's what monetizes what we need to. And it is surprising to me that it's it's cohesive in the idea of for SMY, we're the home of all New York sports. So we're making sure to serve that brand, but incongruous when it comes to how we make money off of it. It's really interesting. That's not alone to us. Like I would say we're giving away secrets, but that's every everyone in sports right now is dealing with that issue.

Tim Rowe, State of Streaming 11:17

The teams are are going direct to advertisers themselves, finding a lot of success. It's something that we've covered certainly with the MLB, but across leagues, teams creating their own content, monetizing that with brands and activations directly with partners themselves. And then thinking about this from the from the RSN standpoint, that we actually had a conversation with Scott Young, who's the founder of Transmit, we'll be doing some upcoming content and research with their team. What they do, and they they work with a number of publishers, but what they are able to do is identify those moments in live sports where a goal was just scored, a timeout was called, there's a picture change, create net new ad inventory that pushes in from the side, an L-bar, a pop-up, something that's native to the viewing experience, is purely incremental revenue for the operator, puts no added toll on an ad ops team, doesn't require any additional creative support. It's just it's just there. It's being it's being monetized, materialized in the moment that it's actually happening. So certainly the monetization strategies are are changing pretty dramatically, to your point.

Russell Fink, RSN Architect 12:32

Yes. The only question I have for everyone is I would have expected it to happen sooner. It's not a it's not the technology that now that technology, I'd love to hear more about that because that's pretty awesome. But some of the elevator stuff you mentioned in you know, more basic form, the technology has been there to do that. Right.

Tim Rowe, State of Streaming 12:49

That's what I hear you describing.

Russell Fink, RSN Architect 12:51

Right. Yeah, it kind of either hurt the experience or advertisers didn't like it. Like, does anyone remember watching sports? He had the elevator, like someone would come up here and animate around the screen.

Tim Rowe, State of Streaming 13:00

Yeah, I forgot about that entirely. Sure. Someone runs across the bottom of the screen during the seventh thing stretch or whatever.

Russell Fink, RSN Architect 13:06

Yeah, that was all sold and promoted and marketed, and everyone just as a whole was like, eh, it doesn't work yet. So I'm all for it. I think it's it's the future. It's just interesting that's lagged behind as much as we thought it would. And the league, they're the perfect example. You said the leagues and the teams, but they also have a little bit of conflict because they say we're changing all these things, and then when the media rights come up, they just sell it to everyone, as they should. But we talk about fragmentation distribution, but the NFL gave it to, I mean, you know, seven, eight. They're the worst defenders. Yeah. MLB's deal is coming up in 28. I don't think one person's gonna be able to afford all of it, so they're gonna split it up. So if you know, the only one you can think of is MLS used to be an Apple TV and plus, and like that's the only one you can say all in one spot. A different podcast for a different time to argue if it worked or not.

Tim Rowe, State of Streaming 13:58

We we we will have that conversation. This conversation, though, I want to talk about your recent piece that was out this Tuesday in state of streaming.

Jurassic Park Meets Sports Data

Tim Rowe, State of Streaming 14:07

You still you opened us up with a quote from Jurassic Park. Can you maybe maybe give us the quote and then and then take us through the piece? What did you work on? What did you find? What did you want us to learn?

Russell Fink, RSN Architect 14:18

Yeah, so the title of the piece is Too Much of a Good Thing Sports Measurement Problem. And the quote from Jeff Goldblum in Jurassic Park when he's talking about the dinosaurs being created and all this, he says, Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether they could, they didn't stop to think if they should. Right? The idea of the ethics and the issues that come along, we're so excited to do it. And the way it came to the sports measurement is we have all this data. It's amazing. I get caught up in it every day. I love it, but are we using it correctly? What does it mean? Are we defining it? Are we using it? There's just so much of it. And when we talk about linear and digital, I can name off the top of my head probably 50 to 100 metrics that we now have that we didn't have 19 years ago when I started SMY. And we talk about them every day, but are we using them correctly? Do we need them all? Or are we just stuck in loving having this much data? Hey, engagement on a Tuesday at 3:30 p.m. are social pumped. And why did it bump on 3 30 instead of 4 p.m. when they were making a signing or a free agent? Like, I don't know, but we love doing it. Or geographically, like on the mess, sometimes you'll get someone from another country, like, why were they checking it out? And you're like, wait, am I missing the point? But you know, a couple hundred people in another country doesn't really move the needle. And maybe it's just a sampling, or it could be a thousand things, but are we really focusing on what matters for programming, marketing, sales, affiliate, like the departments who need data for the business to grow the business, to serve the audience? And that's kind of where the iteration of it came from.

Tim Rowe, State of Streaming 15:54

So, how do you think about that to your point? I think this is probably relatable for everyone, regardless of what seat we've never had access to more information, which can lead to analysis paralysis. And then also, too, the trap of maybe following the wrong signal. Hey, I I like this metric, or this metric is fun to hypothesize about, but maybe it's not the right thing at all. How do you how do you start to make sense of what's there?

Russell Fink, RSN Architect 16:22

I think that's where we're stuck today, right? Like to me, making sense.

Tim Rowe, State of Streaming 16:26

We're stuck in the making sense.

Russell Fink, RSN Architect 16:27

Yeah, because what's our goal? And I think when the the theory was when the streamers started coming in during the streaming wars, everyone said, We're gonna have either one big metric that's gonna cover linear and digital, or there'll be a linear metric like Nielsen with ratings and the digital metric. What happened was is Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, they were all better in a specific metric. Like Netflix had total impressions, Amazon had total hours of view, so everyone was number one in a different metric. So everyone was, and they didn't share all of it, but what they shared was we're number one, and it was like, okay, cool. Like that's right, everyone's number one.

Tim Rowe, State of Streaming 17:08

That's that's insist, so okay, that makes it easy. Everyone's number one, right?

Russell Fink, RSN Architect 17:12

Everyone's doing and is their goal at that point, it's a land grab. So at that point, the goal was we're number one because we want to bring in subscribers. So now the streaming world has kind of figured itself out a little bit. Now everyone's still stuck with all this data, what they're sharing, where they're sharing. I mean, the example I used in the Oracle was the NBC Olympics, right? It came in.

Tim Rowe, State of Streaming 17:32

16.7 billion minutes viewed. Yeah, what does that mean?

Russell Fink, RSN Architect 17:37

That's the thing. I don't know. I've spent my life in research. Now I could sit here for 20 minutes and break down the whole metrics and all this, but if I yell a metric out and you can't understand it pretty immediately, then what's the point of the metric? If I say the Super Bowl had 125 million homes watching, you go, okay, I understand that. If I say 16.7 billion minutes, it's such a massive number. Me and you are in the industry, you go, I don't get what it means. And I go, Yeah, I don't totally get it either. Are they selling? Are they doing a cost per billion instead of a cost per thousand for advertising? Are they trying to tout it's the biggest Olympics ever? Is it the combined Olympics? Is it a day per hour? I can go down this rabbit hole as I do all the time, but that's where I get stuck of the perfect example of that's such a massive number that we don't understand what's the point? What does it mean and what's the goal?

Metrics People Actually Understand

Tim Rowe, State of Streaming 18:33

If you if you were able to influence what that number, what that headline should be or should have been, what do you think the more useful metric would have been?

Russell Fink, RSN Architect 18:45

It's simple. I like total viewers of like how many people watch the Olympics.

Tim Rowe, State of Streaming 18:50

How many sets of eyeballs were in front of the TV for this thing?

Russell Fink, RSN Architect 18:54

If streamers are stealing that, not stealing or using those linear metrics to make it simple to understand, stick with that plan. If I say there was a hundred million viewers who watched the Olympics over a two-week period, I get it. Okay, we all know maybe 120 million watch the Super Bowl every year, and holy cow, in that two-week period, they match the Super Bowl number. That's pretty great. We know that on broadcasts you get maybe 15, 20 million viewers. It makes sense, it's easily digestible. And let's say you go to sales and you go, well, instead of 100, we had 20 million in the adults 18 of 49 demo, which is your great selling demo for people with disposable income. Like I think that simplification is key. And also, in my opinion, why we haven't seen that massive move to digital. Because I don't know how you go out. If I go out and sell, Tim, I'm selling to stay a streaming, I'll give you 20 million viewers to watch this podcast, or I'll give you a hundred billion minutes. You're gonna say, I don't understand the hundred. I understand viewers or listeners, I don't understand what I'm paying for a hundred billion minutes. And I think that kind of hesitation from advertisers or people to just easily understand it is I think where you get lost in it.

Tim Rowe, State of Streaming 20:05

I think that that is a great stopping point for this first installment, Russ. The piece is out. We'll make sure that it's linked and folks can go read it. We really encourage you to go take a look at that. Fascinating. All of it, I think, is very interesting. We will definitely get a part two on the books. I think going down deeper down the rabbit hole, thinking through maybe more of what's already happened historically. What can we learn from from history? Right? That's that's the goal is not to repeat the same mistakes. What can we learn from it to do better and be a little bit smarter ahead of it the next time that it comes? Russ,

Baseball Anxiety And Final Ask

Tim Rowe, State of Streaming 20:42

is there anything that's on your horizon, anything that you're most excited about here for the second half of 2026?

Russell Fink, RSN Architect 20:51

Excited or worried? I hope every day that baseball is gonna come together. I know it doesn't fit into measurement or anything, but I hope we're gonna figure out. I love baseball, and the idea of uh losing baseball next season is on my mind a lot. And for those historians, the 1994 did damage to baseball, and I'm just hoping. I I don't know where I stand. Well, I you know, we can argue that, but I just hope they figure it out before the end of the year.

Tim Rowe, State of Streaming 21:18

Someone's listening to this who has the ability to influence, figuring it out. Figure it out, figure it out for all of us, please. We want baseball. We've got opinions too. If you want them, we're not hard to find. Right. Yeah, it's absolutely thanks, Tim. Awesome. Russell, thanks so much for being here. Yeah, please, my pleasure. If you found this conversation to be helpful, please share it with a colleague or a client. Start a conversation yourself today, and we'll see y'all next time.