How Direct-To-Consumer Streaming Gives Sports Franchises and Creators Revenue Control with Wim Sweldens, Co-Founder of Kiswe

Why A Streaming Builder Matters

Tim Rowe, State of Streaming 0:00

Has your TV ever stopped working? Did you start a company because it wasn't working? Well, today's guest did. Today's guest is Wim Sweldens, co-founder of Kiswe, a company that's working with some of the biggest teams, the biggest creators in the world to create direct-to-consumer streaming experiences. What does that mean? It means control over your audience, the relationship that you have, the way that you develop content and ultimately monetize it. And that's what Wim's company, Kiswe, specializes in. So if you want to understand better the fragmented journey of local sports teams, how they're solving for their fans, what creators are doing at global scale to better connect and engage with their audiences, then this is the conversation for you. Enjoy.

The Cable Box That Changed Everything

Tim Rowe, State of Streaming 0:55

Wim, not everyone starts a company when their TV stops working, but you did. Can you take us back in time? What happened?

Wim Sweldens, Co-Founder of Kiswe 1:03

Yes. So to go back to sort of the very beginning of Kiswe now more than 12 years ago, there's a number of different threats that came together, including some of us working in telecom and having built 4G networks at the time and knowing that they were ready for video. There was sort of a little anecdote that happened in my in my home when my kids were teenagers at the time. And one day our setup box just stopped working. It probably had crashed or something. And I'm sure I only had to like reboot it like with anything else for it to work.

Tim Rowe, State of Streaming 1:34

Sure.

Wim Sweldens, Co-Founder of Kiswe 1:35

But I sort of forgot. It sort of slipped my mind. And and a week went by and two weeks went by. And at some point I was like, wait a minute, I forgot to reboot the setup box. And I realized, like, well, I don't really care. My kids didn't care because they already had like tablets and smartphones and were consuming content that way. My wife didn't particularly care. And I'm like, wait a minute, I'm not gonna reboot this thing. I'm just gonna unplug it and return it and pocket like 150 bucks a month or something like that. And then I know we were talking and I was thinking, like, why doesn't every American family sort of do the same thing and cut the cord, which now is is commonplace, but at the time was still not that common. And I think the answer was obvious because at the time, the only way to really get your favorite American sports, whether it's NBA or NFL or whatever you're into, it would be through a linear TV subscription. That was the only way to do it. And then I sort of realized, like, hey, wait a minute, mobile networks are ready for video, streaming technology is becoming mature, sports content is highly desirable, and particularly live, because we wanted to do live. Then I figured, and this is what that told my co-founders, if we can find a better way to bring sports over digital streaming to devices like mobile devices or laptops, particularly devices that have a level of user engagement and interactivity. I think we can disrupt this broadcast world that at the time was completely dominated by ESPN and a few other big rights holders. Now, today the world is very different, obviously. But today we're sort of doing what we envisioned 12 years ago, which gives me a lot of pride as a co-founder.

Seeing Mobile Video Before It Hit

Tim Rowe, State of Streaming 3:16

And we're going to talk about that. We're going to talk about what you're doing today. I think at the time you were maybe a little bit early. You mentioned 4G and knowing it could support video. How did you know that? How did you have that early insight that the technology was ready?

Wim Sweldens, Co-Founder of Kiswe 3:30

Well, I mean, uh, my co-founder Jung Kim and myself actually worked in the telecom industry. We worked at Bell Labs, we worked at Lucent that became Alcatel, that was just in the transition of becoming Nokia, which is sort of we didn't really feel like being part of that transition. This is why we left and sort of took some time off and then started Kizby. So we knew that the 4G networks were ready because we had built some of the biggest 4G networks in the world. And so we knew the kind of capacities and latencies that they had, and we had run a bunch of tests. Nobody was really mobile video, it wasn't super prevalent yet, but we knew the capacity was getting there. And so I started thinking like, hey, I spent a big part of my career building mobile networks. Let me spend the rest of my career filling them up. And that's what we're we've sort of been doing.

Building Direct-To-Consumer Streaming Stacks

Tim Rowe, State of Streaming 4:16

Well, thank you for doing that. And and and your focus is really uh it's a problem that I think streaming more broadly is is trying to solve, which is sports fragmentation. Seems like Kiswe's kind of found a sweet spot in the sports rights, helping teams and leagues understand kind of this diversified revenue model. Can you can you explain to us what that looks like? What the challenges are facing those organizations?

Wim Sweldens, Co-Founder of Kiswe 4:42

Happy to. So the way we sort of positioned ourselves, because obviously the market has evolved a lot. A lot of the linear broadcasters also became streamers. We have big streaming platforms from you know the Peacocks and other people in the world. And so, in that sense, a lot of sports rights are still tied to, let's say, traditional broadcasters with streaming platforms. But the sort of angle and uh the part of the market that we've cut out for ourselves is what we like to call the direct-to-consumer streaming market. And what we mean by that is direct-to-consumer from the original content owner. So there really isn't a linear broadcasting or a social media platform or an Amazon or whoever else, a YouTube, in between the content and the end user. We sort of cut out that middle person and really bring and we enable technology and build and operate technology that enables content providers to have a direct connection to their users. So they can often what I tell them is like, don't sell your rights, just sell your content. Sell your content to people who want to buy your content, like end users. And so we enable brands to basically become their own platform. Because often we get a question like, well, what is your platform? Like, we are not a platform, we're not something that is on the same discussion level as a Prime or as a YouTube or anything like us. No, we allow you, whether you're an MBA team or a regional sports distribution or whatever content you have, influencers, musicians, you be your own platform. And then so what the technologies that we provide and operate are obviously streaming technology at high quality, at low latency, at global scale, fan engagement capabilities, the kind of interactivity that people expect from social media, liking and sharing, and commenting and chatting and putting selfies and all those types of things. So we provide that level of interactivity, very different from linear watching, obviously. And then the most important part is monetization, you know, because ultimately, like you said, you if you're a sports team, you need to diversify. We provide a wide variety of monetization ranging from pay-per-view. There's an event, pay 10 bucks, 15 bucks, sometimes 100 bucks for a big uh card in the fighting sports pay-per-view, or we have subscription, you can buy a season or buy a month or buy a year. And so, like if you have regular content of a team or a league, you can just buy a subscription. We have capabilities by which you can have advertising or sponsorship or ad insertion or digital ad insertion or all those types of things. So there is a plethora of ways to monetize. I mean, uh, and then the business model that we typically, not always, but typically take is more of a revenue share business model. So, like, yes, we want to enable you to make money, ideally, a lot of money. We really like to work in a partnership model where our interests are aligned, meaning that you're the content provider, I'm the technology provider, our interests are aligned. So we want to sell as many tickets or as many subscriptions or as many ads as possible, and then we divide that the pie once we make it as big as possible. You, the content person, obviously gets the masterpiece of the pie, and we take a smaller piece because obviously we need to get paid as well. So we are willing to take some risk as well with these types of events, risk and reward, obviously, which is why we tend to gravitate to the larger events. You know, if you're a tiny little baseball team and you're gonna have 20 people watching, then we're probably not the right place for you to work with. You probably stream on Facebook or YouTube or wherever. But if you're like Bacon, if you're global, like a BTS or like an NBA team or like you know, the Aussie Osborne concert or global influencers, then yeah, we're the right place. We can help you monetize in lots of different countries and lots of different banking ways and lots of different payment systems. We just announced a big partnership with One, the Fighting League, very, very big all over the world, particularly in Southeast Asia, where you have a variety of different payment mechanisms in these countries, and we enable many of them. And so that's the kind of partners that we like to work with. And obviously, to be your own platform and to be your own brand, you have to be a big brand. You know, you have to be able to carry that. I mean, uh, because discoverability is always harder on your own platform than it is on a YouTube or on another shared platform. That's just a given. But if you've made a big name for yourself, and obviously sports teams and leagues and some of the top YouTube creators and influencers, they have enough of a brand that they can say, like, hey, we are smosh, we are mythical. You know, people will come to us because they know who we are, and we want to take our premium content, particularly for influencers, they take a lot of the premium content, the live content, the things that they really put a lot of effort in. They don't necessarily want to put that for free on YouTube. They they will say, like, hey, we'll do an event, we'll do a live show, a sketch comedy, we'll engage the fans, we'll do uh choose your own adventure type of interactivity, and we'll sell tickets. Not super expensive, like 20 bucks around the world in different currencies. And some of these kids, because at my age I like to call them kids because they're the same age as my kids, they will literally sell 50,000 tickets for one event, and that's that's a revenue of a million bucks. So um, that's the kind of things that we do.

Utah Jazz Example And Multiview

Tim Rowe, State of Streaming 9:54

Can you give us maybe maybe a specific example that comes to mind? I think that even just the the outline that you gave us there is really helpful to think about someone that has an audience, whether that's a league or a creator, an influencer, they have an audience, they have content to monetize.

Wim Sweldens, Co-Founder of Kiswe 10:10

But yeah, yeah, maybe a uh a specific would be a really good example is is uh the Smith Entertainment Group that we've worked with now for a number of years. So the Utah Jazz, Utah Mammoth. Yes, so this is then obviously contains the mammoth, it contains the jazz. So it's a combined NHL MBA franchises, and we've been working with that for a couple of years, and it's really a good group because they from the Orner Town really understand this direct-to-consumable model. And so we started by enabling Jazz Live and we enabled the mammoth, but then we also did special things where you could say, like, hey, we also enable SEG platform because it is an entertainment group, and we allow special purchases where you can say, like, hey, I may want to buy an MBA game and an NHL game, or I want to want to buy both seasons and I can get benefit from them. We've also enabled things where, well, maybe there is a mammoth game and a jazz game at the same time. So we have a feature with We've Pioneered called Multiview, where you can actually get two streams at the same time and watch them picture in picture or side by side or figure out, hey, I want to watch the NBA game because something really is going down. And then two minutes later I want to switch to the to the mammoth game. So those are the kind of capabilities that we provide, a level of interactivity and really a level of serving the end user. Because the thing is like, what do the end users want? They want to consume content where and when and how, and on the device and with the friends that they want to be in. And that's sort of a good example. We've made some case studies available. You can find out more about that. But I think it's a really good sort of joint pioneering effort to really understand this nascent regional streaming because we really focus on the regional parts here. And there's a lot of turmoil, as I'm sure you've covered in your podcast in the regional markets. But I think we've provided the solution that really is sort of future-proof and engages and users.

Tim Rowe, State of Streaming 12:01

It's interesting to hear that that that example is really helpful. That I could buy a ticket to a Utah Jazz game and a Utah Mammoth game, stream them on my home screen with multi-view. That I mean, that is that is kind of the way we want to consume. Maybe it is just a la carte, or maybe it is the entire season, or maybe it is mixing and matching. So being able to enable that is is pretty powerful.

Wim Sweldens, Co-Founder of Kiswe 12:24

Yeah, I think the the key is to really be tuned into what end users want, which is like sometimes we have sort of a complicated relationship with the traditional bundle, you know, like the in the traditional TV linear world, there's a bundle. You know, you gotta bundle stuff. And I'm like, okay, I can kind of see that, but is that always what end users want? It's sort of like when I go to the grocery market and I want to buy milk and cheese, then so you have to buy butter too. And I'm like, no, I know what I don't need butter. I want milk and cheese. I mean uh so sometimes I do want a la carte and I don't want to deal with a bundle. And so I think enabling that kind of flexibility for end users, like, yes, I want to watch two games at the same time, and I want to get highlights from a third game, so I want to chat with my friends and I want to share these types of things. That is sort of what the digital world and particularly the digital generation expect. And I think we like to believe that we bring the best of both worlds. It is that you want high quality content, obviously, but you also want to consume it how and when and where you actually want

Loyalty Data And The Churn Flywheel

Wim Sweldens, Co-Founder of Kiswe 13:26

that.

Tim Rowe, State of Streaming 13:26

And we've got some of the results on the side here from that case study. SEG group experienced over 40% subscriber growth over two years. Specifically, the mammoth saw 75% subscriber growth between its first and second year. So clearly the results are there. It's creating a sticky, and and I think that too, right? Churn and retention is such a big challenge for so many of the streaming apps. And here the case study is demonstrating the exact opposite. Hey, we've solved churn, we've improved retention by giving the user more of what they want.

Wim Sweldens, Co-Founder of Kiswe 14:02

And and and there's there's a couple things behind that. So we're very happy with the numbers that we get together with with our partners in terms of the adoption of the platform, like like you mentioned. But there's a couple things behind that. Is that first of all, there is a certain loyalty to a sports brand. When I'm a Knicks uh to Kek of the good, but I'm a Knicks fan, I'm gonna come back last night. I'm not an NBC fan, I'm not a CBS fan, I'm a Knicks fan. And there's a certain brand passion and loyalty around it. So you will see a lot less churn when you have that passion for the brand, as opposed to I don't have that same passion about a YouTube that I have about the Knicks, for example. So that's one thing. The other thing is that because of the interactivity, there is also so much more data you can collect. It's just like, oh, Wim likes to watch it this way or that way, or on his mobile, or on his home, or he likes to chat and so on. So you can sort of super serve the users depending on their needs. And the value is that that data to customize things is now directly available to the sports team. It's not, it doesn't belong to YouTube or Facebook or Prime or anybody else, it belongs directly to the to the team. Now, the team obviously knows a lot about their fans, about their merchandising experience, about their in-game experience, about their season tickets. And so there's a lot of capabilities by which you can say, like, hey, maybe I can sell you a seasons ticket and a streaming thing combined, which only a sports team themselves can do. So those are kind of merchandising and marketing techniques that are simply not available. And then finally, what we've seen and our data proves this time and time again, is that when you engage a user, meaning you don't just send them a game, you actually listen to the user as well. You see what do they want, what do they like, what camera do they click on, and so on. You create a level of engagement where a user feels like they're part of the event. They feel like they've been listened to. And once you create that level of engagement, you will see they will stay longer, they will come back more often, they will churn less, they will bring their friends, and they'll buy more merchandise. So it's sort of a virtuous cycle that keeps repeating itself.

Tim Rowe, State of Streaming 16:06

Well,

How To Connect With Kiswe

Tim Rowe, State of Streaming 16:07

how about that? I couldn't think of a better place for us to leave off, Wim. If folks want to learn more about Kiswe, get in touch with yourself or the team, where should they go?

Wim Sweldens, Co-Founder of Kiswe 16:16

Yeah, find me, find my colleagues, find our website. We're easy to reach and we're easy to to work with and do business with. So if you have some exciting content that you want to monetize, give us a call.

Tim Rowe, State of Streaming 16:27

Excellent. We'll make sure that all of that is easy to find. I can't thank you enough for being here today.

Wim Sweldens, Co-Founder of Kiswe 16:32

Thank you, Tim. Always great talking to you.

Tim Rowe, State of Streaming 16:34

Always. And if you found this conversation to be helpful, please share with a colleague or a client. Start a conversation yourself today, and we'll see you all next time.