CEOInterviews.AIAxios Newsmaker Hour: How Tech and Media Brings Athletes, Fans and Newsmakers Together

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Sarah Fisher0:00

Greatness of women's sports, I know we will all do that moving forward right now we are going to switch into our Axios Newsmaker Hour. Each day at 2:30, Axios will be taking over the Sports Beach stage for a series of conversations with newsmakers across Cannes. Today's conversation, moderated by Axios's Sarah Fisher and Carrie Flynn, will examine how technology and media brings athletes, fans, and newsmakers all together. So to kick the hour off, please join me in welcoming New York Times President and CEO Meredith Kopit Levien in conversation with Sarah. Come on up, welcome back Sarah.

I know the music. Actually, I feel like we should do a little dribble competition at the end. Thank you all so much for joining. We have a jam-packed hour of newsmakers, and we are so lucky to be joined by Meredith Kopit Levien, the President and CEO of the New York Times, who will be kicking us off today. Meredith, thank you so much for joining.

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Meredith Kopit Levien1:13

So happy to be here. And props to Stagwell, this is the best setup I've seen yet. It's really good. I like the basketballs. The colored basketballs are amazing. Folks might be wondering why we have the New York Times kicking us off, and the reason is you all bought The Athletic in an all-cash deal for $550 million. But the thing about The Athletic is that it's lost some money. It was losing money, it's losing less now since you've acquired it. When do you expect it to break even? Are you still giving investors the same sort of three-year timeline?

First, thanks for having me. Very happy to be here, very happy to talk about The Athletic. The Athletic is doing great. We are so, so happy we acquired it. When we bought The Athletic, it was a subscription business with just under about a million subscribers. It had been around for six years, and those million subscribers loved the product. The rest of the world of sports fans didn't actually know it existed. So what I tell everyone who asks me about The Athletic is this is not about taking on a business with a million subscribers. This is about the New York Times owning The Athletic. It is about what is arguably the leading brand and destination in global journalism making a 10-year bet to build the leading brand and destination in global sports journalism. So we have really, really big ambitions here. The Athletic was losing money when we bought it. We were very transparent about the fact it would take us some time to get it on a path to profitability. We are very happy with how it's going so far. Last year, and we're a public company so we report all this publicly, we exceeded our economic expectations in the first year of ownership, and we are just getting started.

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Sarah Fisher3:10

But why sports? There are so many different types of journalistic entities that you could have invested in. Why sports?

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Meredith Kopit Levien3:17

I'd say two reasons. One, sports itself as an area of interest is exploding. There's more value in sports in terms of teams and rights than we've seen at any point in my lifetime. The players' stardom has exploded. Players have much more power than they ever have to bring fans in, and fan interest is at an all-time high and growing. The New York Times endeavors to be essential every single day in as many ways as possible to curious people everywhere who want to understand the world and engage with their passions. We thought sports is a huge space where we have an effort to cover it for a general interest audience, but we don't have a giant newsroom that can cover sports in an everyday way for the passionate sports fans of all the major teams and leagues. So that's why The Athletic and why sports. I can't think of a space that is more akin to news in driving daily interest and needing an authoritative property with really strong journalism against a backdrop of lots of speculative information. I can't think of a space that needs it more.

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Sarah Fisher5:01

To push back on that for a second, when it comes to moving away not just from general interest but drilling down and giving sports fans and team fans passionate niche stuff, the New York Times or The Athletic's leadership just announced that you were laying off around 20 people to reorg so that you're not just putting one reporter per each sports team and it's going to be broader. How does that square with the outset of the ambition of serving teams?

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Meredith Kopit Levien5:26

Great question. When The Athletic was founded seven years ago, it endeavored to cover every major team in the big leagues in the U.S. and English Premier League football. We basically had a reporter on every major team, or at least most of them. I'd say three or four years ago, even before we acquired it, the idea began to shift as fandom got bigger and as players became in some ways the most interesting story. As this explosion of value happened around players and leagues and rights, The Athletic began to move, even before our ownership, to cover stories of even greater national interest. Player movement is a great example. You might not be a Green Bay Packers fan, but damn do you care about Aaron Rodgers if you love the NFL or the New York Jets. Where did he go? There's so much interest in Aaron Rodgers. We just did what I would describe as a fairly modest, unfortunate but modest reduction in force. That was 18 people on a journalistic staff that's in the neighborhood of 500. The idea was essentially to double down on stories that are of really wide national interest in sports. The Athletic has been on a journey to do that. You've seen that in our NBA coverage. We actually didn't have a beat reporter on the Heat, didn't have a beat reporter on the Nuggets. We've had the biggest audience for NBA Finals coverage we've ever had. We're covering it at more of a level of who is Jokic, what's happening from a national interest standpoint, why do the Nuggets look so different in this finals.

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Sarah Fisher7:43

Why does the New York Times report The Athletic separately? Is there a plan, and if so when, to bring The Athletic into the New York Times' financial reporting ecosystem the way that you have with Wirecutter, with Games, with Cooking, etc.?

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Meredith Kopit Levien7:58

That's a good question. The size of the acquisition and the size of the bet the Times is making in sports made us feel like that was the right thing to do, to report it as a segment. At this point, it gives us a chance to say we're taking a company that had the right idea for how to do sports journalism in a really modern way, and we are building that into a whole successful media company under the banner of the New York Times. By which I mean a successful subscription business first and most as part of the New York Times bundle. You buy the New York Times bundle and you get The Athletic with it. A successful advertising business. We are off to a gangbusters start in advertising at The Athletic. It's a green field. They didn't have real digital advertising, they only had podcast advertising before we bought it. As the New York Times can make money licensing subscriptions, advertising, partnerships, The Athletic can also make money. Reporting it as a separate segment allows us to signify a really big bet, a long-term bet. Pay attention to the whole of the economics.

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Sarah Fisher9:23

Question for you on the economics. A lot of sports subscriptions right now, if you think about an ESPN, rely on live rights. The New York Times does not have any live sports rights. So what makes you think you can grow from a million to significantly bigger than that without paying to distribute the NBA or NFL, etc.?

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Meredith Kopit Levien9:42

If I had to boil that down to one word that's going to make The Athletic different from ESPN or everything else out there, it's the same word that makes the Times different than everything else out there. Maybe it's three words: scale of reporting. The Athletic has a journalistic staff of roughly 450 to 500 people who are doing deep reporting on behalf of fans on the biggest teams and leagues and players that those fans care about in the United States and, for now, Premier League football. But you can imagine we've got international ambitions for all of European football. We believe the white space in the market is authority. A need on the part of fans for really authoritative, trusted, credible journalism that is reported. That's what The Athletic was doing great when we bought it, and under Times ownership is doing with more of the momentum of a daily news cycle, with better ability to swarm the big stories as they happen. We're bringing that to The Athletic as well. Watching a game while using The Athletic and following what's happening is getting more and more like we help you follow a breaking news event at the Times.

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Sarah Fisher11:15

In terms of the Athletic product itself, we talked about the business product: subscriptions, advertising, licensing. On the editorial side, when you acquired The Athletic there were some podcasts but not so robust. A lot of podcasts. What is the editorial product vision for The Athletic? Is it one day video, is it more podcast? What does that look like?

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Meredith Kopit Levien11:39

That's a great question. What we acquired, we believe, was the preeminent reporting organization for sports journalism in the United States with a big footprint in the UK on football. We want to grow that. Most importantly, to all the marketers in the room, we want to make people aware it even exists. When we bought The Athletic, the million people who subscribed knew it existed. Very few other people did. We are on a journey to change that dramatically. We have gone from one reporter on every team to a reporter on every one of the most compelling stories in sports in the leagues we cover every single day. That's what we're endeavoring to do, and it'll be in every format. Just like the New York Times is in text, audio, video, and multimedia, The Athletic is already in some ways in every format, although less ambitiously to date than the Times. It will be in every format like the Times is in every format.

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Sarah Fisher12:51

Speaking of formats, you just rolled out an NYT Audio app. Why? And that's for subscribers only. Why a separate app? Why not just put audio in the app that you already have? Don't you think that would make it easier for consumers?

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Meredith Kopit Levien13:04

What Sarah's referring to, let me make sure people know what we're talking about. The Times rolled out a destination audio experience where all of our podcasts and podcasts from a number of other places like This American Life are now featured. It's essentially a curated listening experience. One of the problems with the broader podcast ecosystem is it's very hard to know what to listen to next. You might have a podcast you love, but unless you hear about the next thing in its feed, discovery of the next great thing is really hard. That's the first reason we rolled it out. The second reason is we think there is a huge need for a New York Times app where you can see at the presentation and editing layer how all the news relates to each story. We think there's an opportunity like that in audio. There's an opportunity in audio for more than just the long-form 60-minute or 15-minute podcast. What you'll see in the audio app is a lot of experimentation around short things. What we're doing in that audio app is experimenting: can we actually have a direct relationship with users around an audio destination? What are they interested in, in addition to full-bore podcasts? A lot of what's in the New York Times audio app, by the way, The Athletic podcasts are there, but a lot of what's there is also journalists reading or other people reading stories that we've written. We're also experimenting with what if you could just listen to the New York Times every day. We think there is a giant space in the audio market still to be carved, and this is a big experiment on our part to say is part of the answer a destination where we have a direct relationship. Everyone should download it: NYT Audio, NYT Audio in the iTunes Store.

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Sarah Fisher15:26

Part of the experimentation I've noticed is not just new formats in terms of video versus audio versus text, but also the way you're communicating. In audio, you added The Headlines, which is a short podcast. You're starting to experiment with bullets in some of your print reporting. Why are you doing that? Is your research showing that that's what your audience wants? What's the purpose of that?

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Meredith Kopit Levien15:50

The first thing I would say, Sarah, I think what you're asking me about is there are a number of places where the Times is making the news easier for people to absorb. I wouldn't say we're just starting to do that. I've been at the Times 10 years this year. When I was a year in, we put an app out into the world called NYT Now, which was essentially a summation of the news. It was an early attempt to say can we give you the news in bullet form. That app didn't work well as a destination app in and of itself. People didn't want to leave the New York Times, but what they wanted was to come to the New York Times and at the surface layers, just scrolling through the app, you could actually get a sense of what was going on that day without ever clicking into a story. That's a huge part of the value of the New York Times even before you click into the deeply reported story. Even in the audio app and also on The Athletic for sports news of the day, just scrolling through the presentation layer, you're getting a lot of value of the Times' judgment pointing to these are the most important things going on right now and here's just a little bit of information about them. I would not say that's new. That aspect of just the judgment being the consumer value is fascinating.

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Sarah Fisher17:15

Can I poke on that for a minute? The internet broke that, right? The internet broke that for 25 years. So much of what news was, was stories floating around the web. If you don't also pick up the judgment layer, the editing layer, the presentation layer where people get context and the relative importance of things and how one thing relates to another, or is this news or is it opinion, when you sever stories from the editing layer and the presentation layer, the consumer is really losing something that helps them feel trust and get the benefit of that authority. That's why we're building destinations.

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Meredith Kopit Levien18:06

We have just a few minutes, so two newsy questions for you. One, there was a report out that the New York Times, as well as other news organizations, is talking to AI companies about possible deals in which they're leveraging the New York Times' journalism to improve their algorithms. Is that true, and if so, where do those conversations stand?

Let me give you a step-back answer about how we're thinking about AI generally. It is hard not to feel like we are at the dawn of the next chapter of the internet. The leadership team of the Times, particularly the business leadership but news leadership too, kind of grew up as leaders of news organizations in the wake of what the first wave of the internet did to quality news. We learned a ton of lessons. Let me tell you the three things that we are certain of as we embark on this next chapter. The first one, and if I say only one thing on the stage today that anyone takes away, it's this: journalism, hardcore serious news journalism, is first, best, and most a human endeavor. It is the act of bearing witness and translating that witness with expertise and judgment for people into understanding, helping them do that for themselves. You cannot put bots on the front lines of Bakhmut in Ukraine to tell you what is happening there and to help you make sense of it. You just can't. First and most, the work we do in all five domains — the New York Times news journalism, the full report, culture, all of that, sports, shopping advice with Wirecutter, cooking, games — the journalism and the content is going to be first, best, and most requiring human creators with expertise and judgment. I am delighted at the possibility that tech can help us augment that, help us take some of the grunt work out of it, certainly help us run our business processes more efficiently, help us engage you in the next most interesting story. But journalism, first, best, and most, human endeavor. Second thing I want to say: there must be a way in the ecosystem for audiences to come to the destinations I just described to you. If you disintermediate serious news journalism or anything else that is done in a quality way on the internet, if you disintermediate the provider from the user, something is broken with trust. I think we've all seen that movie in this last chapter of the internet. The third thing to say, which is what you're poking at, is there must be fair value exchange for the content that's already been used and the content that will continue to be used to train models.

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Sarah Fisher21:12

I'll take that as a yes that you're having conversations. You didn't answer my question, but that's okay. One last quick thing: the New York Times just announced that it has finally, after many, many months, shook a deal with its union in a new contract. What did you learn from that experience?

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Meredith Kopit Levien21:36

I'll say two things. First, in every business represented at Cannes, I'm guessing that as a creative business — certainly journalism is a creative business — talent is everything. Your ability to attract, retain, draw the best out of, and motivate human beings to do brilliant creative work is the whole goddamn game. I don't care what business you're in, that's it. I have learned that lesson in every job I've been in since I was 22 years old, probably actually before that. This just reinforced that. The Times must be a place where the best journalists in the world and all the disciplines we play in want to come work. The new contract that we have just agreed to, which we feel very, very happy about — not just the agreement, the contract itself — gives $100 million more over the life of the contract in pay and benefits to journalists. The Times, in digital and print journalism, is among the best payers in journalism already, and we intend to stay that way. We endeavor to hire more journalists, pay them as much more as we can afford to do, and run a sustainable business over time.

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Sarah Fisher22:58

Before we let you go, is there a piece of journalism from The Athletic in sports, since we're at Sports Beach, that you would recommend?

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Meredith Kopit Levien23:09

There's Meg Linehan, who is the senior soccer writer on women's soccer, in the audience. I don't know where her writing partner Steph Yang is. I just interviewed them. I want to say we are making, in The Athletic under the New York Times, a very serious effort to cover women's sports in a really big way. We do not think that the money that should be in women's sports is there if the media coverage isn't there. We have significantly expanded our coverage. I would say read everything Meg and Steph are writing. It's really good, particularly the stories about money now flowing into women's soccer and what that's going to mean for everybody here. You should all be sponsoring women's sports, just my plug. The most subscribed-to story on The Athletic this year — do you want to guess?

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Sarah Fisher24:03

I can't imagine. What is it?

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Meredith Kopit Levien24:06

I'll shock everybody. It's a story about abuse in the Harvard women's hockey program. It's the most subscribed-to story on The Athletic this year. It's an unbelievable story, so emblematic of the kind of hardcore reporting both The Athletic and the New York Times teams do.

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Sarah Fisher24:25

We'll have to check that out. Megan and Steph's reporting. Download NYT Audio. I appreciate the value judgment the New York Times brings to different audiences. No response on whether or not you're having those conversations with AI companies, but you said that there must be a fair value exchange, which we appreciate. Thank you, Meredith. Love it. Thank you so much.

Thank you. This way. Yeah, my mic working? We've got another extraordinary CEO on tap today. Again, this whole Newsmaker Hour is about bringing together fans with the best athletes in the world, and there's no one better to describe that than Ami Gan, who is the CEO of OnlyFans. I've had the pleasure of knowing Ami for a little while since she's become CEO, since before she was CEO, and you would not believe some of the things that are happening on OnlyFans. Ami, come on out.

Ami and I were in Brazil a few months ago talking about all things sports and fandom. One of the things that she said to me was that we have a bunch of pro athletes using OnlyFans. Ami, why do athletes want to be on OnlyFans? They're famous, they can go on Instagram and get a bajillion followers. Why OnlyFans?

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Ami Gan25:51

OnlyFans is a platform that truly allows creators who are also athletes to connect with their fans. It's basically a modern-day fan club where you're developing these digital connections. You're able to direct message any creator that you're a fan of, that you follow and subscribe to on the platform, and it creates this unique connection that you don't get on other platforms. You're only seeing content from people you subscribe to. We have well over 200 athletes, if not more, on the platform. Those are the ones that we're actively working with. A lot of people are surprised to know that there are sports professionals using the platform as another way to build their community but also be able to monetize.

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Sarah Fisher26:40

But these are not athletes doing adult content, right? These are athletes that are speaking to fans about what they're eating in a day or how they train. Walk me through what they're doing on OnlyFans, because I think most people think of OnlyFans as adult content, but that's not all it is.

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Ami Gan26:55

Absolutely. We are an 18 and over platform, so everyone using OnlyFans is an adult. Anyone that's following a sports star might see their training routine, their fitness regimen, nutrition, and also just really behind-the-scenes of their personal life. Those very casual out-and-about shots, selfies, BTS at the gym. Things that might not be as exciting on other platforms, but when you're truly a fan of someone, you want to have more of that access. A great example is Alysha Newman, who is an Olympic pole vaulter. She launched on OnlyFans during the Olympics and was sharing behind the scenes of the village, her training, even the walk-on during the games. That kind of connection and access you can't get elsewhere.

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Sarah Fisher27:57

What are you doing to try to lure more professionals outside of adult content, like athletes, like comedians, like artists? Because I think one of the challenges might just be an education problem, making sure people know you can use the platform in this way.

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Ami Gan28:10

Absolutely. Obviously we're known for the spicier content, but we also have the sporty content, we have cooking content, we have tons of comedians on the platform. We're doing a lot with OFTV, which is our free-to-view streaming platform and app. We have a new show that just debuted there called Rise and Grind. The debut episode features Cris Cyborg, who's a fighter from Brazil, and it follows her training regimen and gets much more up close and personal. We have more episodes of that coming out with some pretty impressive athletes in a range of different sports.

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Sarah Fisher28:50

What is OFTV? Is that like a subscription video, advertising video? What is it? Why do you do it?

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Ami Gan28:56

OFTV is a free-to-view streaming platform and app available on Apple, Android, Smart TVs, all of those great places. It's become this incredible vehicle for us to share the range of creators that are on the platform. Creators themselves are able to submit content that's all reviewed by us and have a channel on OFTV too. It helps creators, whether they're sports creators, comedian creators, whomever, have another way to express themselves.

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Sarah Fisher29:28

So this is more of a marketing thing than it is like a business venture for OnlyFans?

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Ami Gan29:32

Absolutely. It really complements the subscription platform of OnlyFans. With OnlyFans, as everyone knows, all content is behind a subscription paywall. With OFTV, everything you can view immediately, it's all safe-for-work content because we are so publicly out there.

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Sarah Fisher29:53

Let's talk about what you just said: that every piece of content is reviewed by a human, or it's reviewed by you. I mean, there are hundreds of thousands of videos and hundreds of millions of hours of video that's uploaded to OnlyFans and OFTV. How do you physically monitor all of that? And also, what are your standards? I mean, clearly adult content is now part of that standard.

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Ami Gan30:12

On OFTV, we have guidelines that creators must follow when it comes to content quality, which gets shared with them. All content that we manually upload to OFTV ourselves, so it's all reviewed by our team. Same with OnlyFans. We are very, very strict when it comes to content moderation. To us, it's important that anything that gets on your platform, you have that responsibility to make sure that it's safe and follows your terms of service.

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Sarah Fisher30:51

How do you physically do it? I mean, if these videos are private between me and you, how do you manually review that?

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Ami Gan30:58

With OnlyFans, on the platform itself, we invest in human moderators. We do use some technologies to help us prioritize content, kind of like a pre-check before it goes live. But all content on OnlyFans itself is reviewed by a human, and that includes photos, videos, direct messages, text. Really everything. There's nothing happening on that platform that we're not seeing.

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Sarah Fisher31:28

So how much of your staff then is just people reviewing content? It must be massive.

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Ami Gan31:32

About 80% of our workforce is dedicated to content moderation and support. That's a number that's continuing to grow as we grow as a business. We will always invest in human-led moderation because there's nothing that replaces the human eye.

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Sarah Fisher31:53

How many people work at OnlyFans?

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Ami Gan31:56

Globally, we have about 1,400.

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Sarah Fisher31:59

1,400 people. And I know you likely can't comment on this publicly, but there have been reports that your 2021 revenues were upwards of like 4.8 billion euros, which is astronomical. Meredith from The New York Times, that's a $2 billion US dollar business. So that is an extraordinary margin of having just 1,400 people produce that kind of money. At this point, with this rate of growth, what's next for OnlyFans? Do you just continue to grow like that as a private company? I know at one point we had reported you were having conversations about an IPO. What does that look like?

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Ami Gan32:31

We're very happy being a privately held business. We're going to continue growing globally. That's where we met in Rio. Latin America is a massive growth market for us, as well as Australia, Canada. Looking ahead, the future is really on that of the creator. We're a creator-first business, so we want to provide opportunities for creators to connect with their community, to grow their community. That's why OFTV has been such an important investment for us.

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Sarah Fisher33:03

Question for you, it's the same one I posed to Meredith. You all are right now user-generated content, but a lot of the big platforms that you might compete with, whether they're free ones like YouTube and TikTok, etc., they invest in proprietary content, whether it be live rights or exclusives. Is OnlyFans going to get into the business of investing in its own content?

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Ami Gan33:28

That's kind of what we're doing with OFTV actually. We have a range of original content which includes the Rise and Grind series I referenced earlier. We also have one of our marquee shows, In Real Life, which is an action-adventure interview series with some of our bigger known creators. We have a comedy show called LMAOF which we record and air monthly. And we have, this one's one of my favorites, our cooking show This Is Fire, which is a cooking competition show among OnlyFans creators.

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Sarah Fisher34:03

So the idea is that you're going to continue just growing out globally, but you're not planning to spin the company out, merge the company? You want to just continue to be standalone, privately owned for now?

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Ami Gan34:13

We're very happy with how things are operated, how we're continuing to grow the business, and most importantly supporting the content creators.

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Sarah Fisher34:23

So I said about 4.8 billion euros, I think 2021. How much bigger is OnlyFans' business today versus then?

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Ami Gan34:26

We're still growing. I think that's what surprises everyone. They kind of look at the platform and think, oh, that was just really popular during the pandemic in 2020. But then when you hear figures, when you see we were number 11 on the FT's Fastest Growing Companies list, and we were one of the few companies to make it on that list twice, that just shows the power of the platform and the creators and the creator economy.

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Sarah Fisher35:01

What is the purpose of you and OnlyFans being here at Cannes? Are you trying to bring in advertising partners? Right now, most of what you do is subscriptions, correct?

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Ami Gan35:06

We don't have any advertising on OnlyFans or OFTV. But that's where maybe there's an opportunity. We haven't had... we're very much about creator and fan connections. But we get asked a lot by different brands and agencies, 'Oh, how can I use the platform? Is there an opportunity there?' In my mind, yes. I think that there are ways to leverage the platform, potentially work with a spokesperson, collaborate with different creators, similar to how you work with creators on other platforms. There are ways to do that across OnlyFans.

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Sarah Fisher35:48

So this is like sponsored posts, branded posts, as opposed to someone coming in with an RFP and buying run-of-site against OnlyFans video?

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Ami Gan35:56

Yes. We are not going to have any advertising on any of our platforms.

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Sarah Fisher36:00

Fascinating. And when it comes to the OnlyFans workforce and OnlyFans as a company, obviously you're global, you're headquartered in the UK, you're based in the US. What should we be thinking about in terms of OnlyFans' global presence? Are you mostly employee-based here? I know you had a lot of employees in Ukraine at one point. Are they still there?

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Ami Gan36:15

Yes, a lot of our workforce is in Ukraine. That's the content moderation and support I was referencing. Our global headquarters is in London. But at the end of the day, we're a global tech company. We all work remotely. You can be anywhere and work, just like we're here today.

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Sarah Fisher36:36

Let's talk about some of the OnlyFans products. Obviously you went into OFTV. There are a lot of different ways that a creator can monetize, whether it's DMs or sending private photos, private videos. What else are you considering? Are you thinking about podcasts? Are you thinking about licensing the OF brand? What's next?

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Ami Gan36:52

We don't want to overcomplicate it. We're happy to have opportunities for creators to be able to monetize. That's where we want to support. For example, we launched an integration with Spring and Shopify where creators are able to plug in their stores and have an additional stream of revenue. Opportunities like that, where we can have meaningful collaborations that ultimately support a creator, is what we're all about.

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Sarah Fisher37:20

What's the creator split in terms of what you take and what the creator takes?

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Ami Gan37:23

It's 80/20. We have a very simple business model, all in favor of the content creator. They earn 80% of everything they make on the platform. To date, we were founded in 2016, we've paid out over $10 billion to creators. $10 billion, correct, with a B. That's something we're proud of. For every dollar we make, creators earn four dollars. Very few companies can really say that. That's where I make it a point that we are a creator-first business.

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Sarah Fisher38:01

Do you have any thoughts on ever changing that ratio? For example, YouTube has 55/45 for video, but Shorts is 45/55. Will you change that equation across products?

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Ami Gan38:12

No. Never. Why? Again, it's all about supporting the content creator. We have a very straightforward business model. It helps the creator. We're doing well as a business, so it's not broken.

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Sarah Fisher38:28

There was a point with OnlyFans where some of the payment providers were a little bit skittish around working with you all. Obviously they want to make sure they're accountable for quality content that's not violating any under-18 pornography rules, etc. As a response to that, you all said okay, you're going to limit adult content, but then you reversed and now you let adult content back. Did you have to work with the payment providers to get them back on board? What was it that ultimately allowed you to switch back and make you feel comfortable about it?

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Ami Gan38:56

When that happened, I wasn't CEO at the time, but I was with the organization as CMO. That really goes to show the power of our creator community. For that week, it was probably the biggest news story there was. That's where I've made it a very clear point to embrace our adult content creators, have conversations with any third party that may have misconceptions about who we are and what we're about. Because when you look at OnlyFans and the things that we're doing when it comes to content moderation and creator verification, we truly are one of the safest platforms that there is.

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Sarah Fisher39:37

What do you do for creator verification that others don't?

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Ami Gan39:40

We do a lot. You can't just sign up and start posting content. You have to submit your first and last name, your email address, a photo of your ID, a valid government ID, a photo of yourself holding your ID. All of this is not instantly approved; it gets reviewed by a human. That's the difference that's made. There are a lot of times, for example, we also ask for social media links because we'll go look at your social media to make sure you are who you say you are and you're going to be posting content that is also in line with our terms of service.

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Sarah Fisher40:20

What about in countries where pornography is not as embraced or accepted as it is here in the United States? Do you have to work to protect your creators? How does that work?

A

Ami Gan40:29

It's up to each creator to follow the laws of where they may be residing.

S

Sarah Fisher40:39

Okay. Last question for you then. You had mentioned a few athletes on the platform. Because we're at Sports Beach, give us a few examples of folks that are on OnlyFans that are athletes that you would recommend that we follow.

A

Ami Gan40:49

I would say Nico Ali Walsh. He's Muhammad Ali's grandson, and he's an up-and-coming fighter. We've been supporting him. He'll be on an upcoming episode of Rise and Grind too, so you can definitely check that out.

S

Sarah Fisher41:08

Okay. And in addition to following him, one last quick thing: how are you guys thinking about AI?

A

Ami Gan41:14

I make this joke that our platform is for only humans. We are, you know, you want to follow a human content creator, you want to engage with human fans. So we're not looking to have any sort of AI characters on the platform.

S

Sarah Fisher41:32

Fascinating. So no animation, nothing like that?

A

Ami Gan41:35

Not where anything... again, it's only about human-led content.

S

Sarah Fisher41:38

If Elmo wanted to create an OnlyFans, would that be possible?

A

Ami Gan41:43

I'm not sure he's 18.

S

Sarah Fisher41:46

Great answer. Ami Gan of OnlyFans, thank you so much.

A

Ami Gan41:51

Thank you all. It's great to be here.

S

Sarah Fisher41:55

All right guys, so we still have a few awesome newsmakers who are going to be joining us today. One of the things that we wanted to do is give you a good mix of people both in media and technology who are bringing fans together with athletes and doing storytelling around sports. Our next guest has an interesting story when it comes to storytelling around sports, because you might not know this, but his entire company is really built off of the backbone of sports. Jim Bankoff, who is the CEO of Vox Media, started Vox Media when at the time it was mostly just SB Nation. How many of y'all are familiar with SB Nation? They're now one of the biggest sports podcast networks in the entire country. In addition to SB Nation, Vox has a plethora of other platforms: they have Vox Media, they have New York Magazine, they have Eater, all of these other things. They have built all of those things leveraging some of the stuff that they have learned from SB Nation. I don't see Jim, he looks like he's coming in one second. But let's talk a little bit more about SB Nation while we wait for him. Part of what that also did was it gave Vox Media the authority to explore more in sports. You might have seen Full Swing on Netflix. That is a Vox Media presentation. They are also planning to do more in the sports stock world. One of the things we're going to ask about when it comes to Jim is how this has planted the seed for further investments in sports. Also, while we're waiting for Jim, just want to shout out to everyone here at Stagwell Sports Beach. Thank you so much for coming. We here at Axios are editorial partners. That means we're going to be producing an hour of programming every single day, so make sure to tune into the schedule. And with that, we have Jim Bankoff of Vox Media. Jim, welcome.

J

Jim Bankoff43:40

Thank you.

S

Sarah Fisher43:40

Jim, while we were waiting for you, I gave everyone the preamble about starting with SB Nation and now that's grown into a huge thing with Vox Media. But walk us through it in your terms. How did SB Nation go from being that one standalone property to now this massive empire of almost 2,000 people?

J

Jim Bankoff43:53

First, I have to say hi to my friend Sarah. Hi to all of you. This is great. You're working overtime here and doing a great job. I was on time, but they got the Jims confused. Anyway, SB Nation did start what is now Vox Media, and there's a consistent through line. SB Nation is built on the power of individual creators. We started 15 years ago, so they weren't TikTok creators. They were creating in the medium that was there for them, which was blogging, and we built individual communities. What separates SB Nation, which is now one of the largest digital media sports properties, from the other big ones whether it's ESPN or Yahoo Sports or Bleacher Report, even though it's kind of neck and neck in terms of size, is that it's not just one brand. It is about 300 different individual brands. If you are a Kansas City Chiefs fan, you might know us as Arrowhead Pride. If you are a mixed martial arts fan, you might know us for the MMA Hour. I can go on and list 300 of them. But when you cume them all together, they become one of the largest sports properties that there is. Extrapolate that to Vox Media. What Vox Media is really good at is building relevant intellectual property that creates community. You can extrapolate it to The Verge, which is a community of tech enthusiasts. You can extrapolate it to Polygon, or Eater, or The Cut, or The Dodo. I can go on and on. There's probably a good 20 Vox Media brands. What they all have in common, relative to a one-brand-fits-all approach, is we took an approach to become a platform for brands that are relevant to all their particular audiences. That audience could be a fan of a team, or that audience could be someone who loves to dine out.

S

Sarah Fisher45:42

Question for you. How are most people getting that content? Because I mostly think of SB Nation now as tons and tons of podcasts. But is it just podcasts? Is it video? Is it text? Where are you focusing?

J

Jim Bankoff45:55

To be a successful scaled media company right now, the answer has to be yes to just about all of the above. You have to meet audiences where they are. You have to be careful about it because you can't spread yourself too thin or you won't be good at it. But we tend to favor places where we can build direct relationships with audiences, where there's scaled opportunity, where of course we can have a successful business. Yes, podcasting has been a growth area for us in SB Nation, but we're still big on good old-fashioned websites as well. We have an enormous footprint there. We're big on YouTube with our community, our Secret Base community, where we have a huge community there.

S

Sarah Fisher46:40

So that's an SB Nation sports community?

J

Jim Bankoff46:43

It is. Sometimes communities are built around teams, sometimes they're built around talent. SB Nation is one that is built around talent. At the center of that is a guy named Jon Bois, who has won numerous major awards, has been written up in numerous publications. He has a huge following. If you care about sports, even if you don't care about sports and just want to laugh and cry and all the great things that storytelling brings to you, I highly recommend checking out Jon Bois's work at Secret Base. He tracks people who don't even care about sports, but if you do care about sports, it's a unique take on everything. Sometimes we build around people who have something to say, sometimes we build around teams.

S

Sarah Fisher47:25

I've noticed that you're starting to do more with sports on streaming. Obviously you were the team behind Full Swing on Netflix. You have a second season coming out. Is the plan for Vox to get more into sports docs and more into sports streaming, or is it just docuseries streaming in general?

J

Jim Bankoff47:41

We have a division of our company called Vox Media Studios. It's been really successful in selling shows to the big streamers. The most successful of which is the one that you mentioned, Full Swing. It follows, in a behind-the-scenes way, golfers on the PGA and LIV Tours. We did it in partnership with the PGA Tour and Netflix. It's a phenomenon. Off the back of that phenomenon, we built an online companion in a way that is backed by Michelob Ultra called Playing Through. That has become, we only launched it like last month, one of the leading online golf communities in a really short period of time. Yes, we do plan on leveraging our expertise. A Netflix production like Full Swing is a multi-million dollar type of production focused on television. We can do that kind of range. We can do a YouTube channel range, we can do a podcast channel range, we can do a text-based website range. We run the gamut. We do think that that type of high-end storytelling has its place in the ecosystem, and we can continue to do that.

S

Sarah Fisher48:55

How's that good for your business?

J

Jim Bankoff48:57

In a bunch of different ways. We're a storytelling business, I like to think. You can't do everything, but what we do is we tell stories to communities of interest, what I call the modern audiences. We're all modern audiences. Where do we consume content? We consume content on the web, we consume content on streaming platforms. We want to be there. It has some direct benefits. First of all, it's a profitable business in and of itself, the Studios business. But secondly, it has ancillary business opportunities for our business. In that specific example, the expertise that we showed to the Michelob Ultra brand through Full Swing, they were like, 'Can you help us? We're trying to reach golf communities. Can you do that?' Literally overnight, we stood up a digital golf community backed by Michelob Ultra that has a presence on TikTok, has a presence on Instagram, has a presence on the web. It speaks to younger millennial, Gen Z audiences who are into the sport and unlocks that opportunity for them. That's another business opportunity that was created by us really understanding that audience, understanding how to communicate and tell stories to that audience in different ways. Michelob Ultra has been a great partner along that ride. A different example is building a community of fantasy sports and sports betting in the U.S. I think you all know that sports betting has become a massive industry. We partnered with DraftKings to do the same thing. We had an expertise in content, they had an expertise in sports betting and daily fantasy. We came together with them to build up what is now literally the largest per-game score content area that gives people who may be interested in daily fantasy or sports betting information about the games, how to bet, but information just about everything that relates to sports. Now that has become a business into itself. We now partner with DraftKings and other brands who may want to access that audience too. Not only does it generate leads for them, but it's a platform for other marketers who might be interested in those audiences. Again, back to the same story: standing up communities using our understanding of digital audiences, our understanding of storytelling to engage.

S

Sarah Fisher51:32

Question for you. There have been news companies that have come out and said we won't engage in sports betting, we won't take sports betting advertising. They don't think it's moral. Why do you think it is?

J

Jim Bankoff51:43

First of all, you have to do it responsibly. Sports betting, I don't do much of it, but when I place a $10 or $20 bet, it makes watching the game a lot of fun. If you can do it responsibly, I think it's a big part of the experience. Honestly, we all know it was happening before digital sports betting. It was just being done under the table in not transparent and not healthy ways. Now it's become a regulated industry. Along with every time that we promote it, we promote how to do it responsibly, where to go if you need help with sports betting or any sort of addiction. You can say the same thing about a lot of things. For us, we work with all sorts of brands, and you have to be responsible on how you give those messages. I think we are.

S

Sarah Fisher52:43

In terms of Vox Media as a whole, I want to talk about just the state of your business, pivoting a little bit from sports. You all took a $100 million investment from Penske Media, which is another huge digital media privately owned conglomerate. Why did you take that investment? What was the added value to you, and why do you think they made the investment?

J

Jim Bankoff53:01

Penske has been an amazing partner. We're about a couple months into it. We had high expectations of the partnership going into it, and they've exceeded the partner expectations. Why? Because they're in a similar adjacent business to we are. We don't tend to compete too directly, which is helpful. But we operate in the same meat, we're roughly the same size, we struggle with the same types of things, we see opportunity in the same types of things. That creates ways to help one another and insights. We have a lot of great investors: Warner Brothers Discovery, NBCUniversal, General Atlantic, Excel Partners. We have a great list of investors, but they do what we do pretty precisely. Because of that, we can compare notes and help one another out. Jay himself is just an amazing operator. He can operate at a high strategic level, he is also in the weeds on everything. He's helpful as a second set of eyes on our business. It's just been wonderful. They learn from us, we learn from them. It's been a great partnership so far.

S

Sarah Fisher54:15

Does he sit on your board? Do they get any board seats?

J

Jim Bankoff54:19

Yes, he's on our board of directors. We've already had a couple of board meetings. In fact, I had one last week. It's been great. He's really contributed.

S

Sarah Fisher54:28

So Vox, you've raised this money. What's the long-term plan? Is it to sell the company? Is it to IPO the company? I mean, obviously the ad market is challenging right now, so I don't know that you would make a move right now, but what's the long-term vision?

J

Jim Bankoff54:42

When we talk about vision, and I think this is for the best, other people might argue differently, we don't say our vision is to sell the company. We don't think in financial outcomes like that. We think in building value as a company, building value for audiences, building value for marketing partners, building value for employees, and yes, of course, building value for our investors. But that is a result of doing those other things really well. There's an expression that I heard that I agree with: good media companies are generally bought, not sold. There are other companies, like SaaS businesses, where it's very formulaic: we get to a certain ARR runway and then we sell for a certain multiple and then we go on and do the next one. That's not how we do it. We try to build value. Look at our history. We've grown to tremendous heights as one of the leading media companies in the world over the past few years, and we want to continue to do that. To acknowledge the truth, you're absolutely right, this is what I'll call a flattest time in the ad markets in particular. I think Penske sought an opportunity to get in at an investment level that would not be possible in the next few years, was not possible in the last couple of years. We were grateful and happy to work with them. Once the ad market does rebound, I think you'll see a pretty quick inflation in those opportunities in the company. But in the meantime, we're just focused on doing great work, focused on building brands. Our company won its first Pulitzer Prize. Congratulations. For those of you not in the... I guess it's international.

M

Meredith Kopit Levien56:29

Know it's the leading prize in journalism. You know, Vox Media's first one. A lot of the accomplishments that you just mentioned, signing up new great podcasters like Esther Perel, and accomplishing big things every day, every week, every month at Vox Media. My goal is to strengthen the brands and emerge from this macroeconomic uncertainty in an even stronger position.

S

Sarah Fisher56:55

And when that happens, do you think conversations — and not all these conversations come from you, by the way — conversations that come from people who might not even know you, who say that could be a good acquisition target or I want to invest in that company, do you think that will ramp up?

M

Meredith Kopit Levien57:12

Absolutely. I mean, that's not our goal, but I'm not going to be coy or cute. That's just the way business works. I think if you build something of value, it has a value, and people who value it will value it accordingly. The stronger it becomes. That's what we're doing.

S

Sarah Fisher57:31

Question I asked Meredith — Ami, I'm going to ask you as well — when it comes to AI, a lot of news companies are thinking about it in different ways. Some are going to use AI to write articles, some are going to use it to help their back-end business practices. How is Vox Media thinking about leveraging AI, or are you not?

M

Meredith Kopit Levien57:51

We are, we're beginning to. The short answer is: how do we use it to elevate human creativity, journalism, storytelling? How do we allow — I'm on team human, I always will be — but we have always used technology to make the creative process stronger, whether it's analytics to get content in front of the right audience or making workflow faster for our creators and journalists. AI will advance it even further. We're always going to use it in service to great human creativity and journalism. There are menial, rote things that humans who are creators will welcome the machines to give them an assist with, so they can apply their intellectual horsepower to make even better things for the audience. The same thing can be said on the advertising side. And of course, we're going to make sure our content is valued by the platforms training their LLMs on it.

S

Sarah Fisher59:02

Are you having conversations with them about licensing your content?

M

Meredith Kopit Levien59:08

I'm not going to get into specific conversations, but suffice it to say it's in everyone's best interest to make sure not only what Vox Media creates, but other major publishers that have been contributing to the canon of knowledge, are both discoverable and present, and the content is being fairly valued.

S

Sarah Fisher59:28

On the advertising side, you have some subscriptions — one subscription podcast, two subscription newsletters. You could be a member of Vox Media. Is the plan to get much further into subscriptions, or do you want to stay mostly advertising-based for the foreseeable future?

M

Meredith Kopit Levien59:45

We already have some really healthy subscription relationships with audiences that translate into good businesses. The biggest is New York Magazine, which has several hundred thousand subscribers — it used to be a magazine, now it's a magazine plus a big digital subscription business we're investing in. We have newsletters under subscription, podcasts growing with a subscription model. Short answer is yes, we want to expand the pie of revenue streams. I think you can expect subscription and direct revenue relationships, which we call consumer revenue, to grow even faster than advertising, which we expect will continue to grow robustly as well.

S

Sarah Fisher1:00:43

Assuming subscriptions and events, what's the breakdown?

M

Meredith Kopit Levien1:00:49

Advertising is still the biggest, and it's diverse. We have video advertising growing really well, audio advertising in the podcast market, and a product called Concert, a marketplace of premium publishers that provides great reach and solutions. Even within advertising there's breadth. Then there's events — I'm glad you mentioned those. I hope people join us at the Code Conference in September. We have a great lineup, we'll be announcing our first set of speakers maybe tomorrow or next week, so stay tuned.

S

Sarah Fisher1:01:34

I know. The CEO that ruins things. Okay, question for you. You mentioned Concert. Vox was all in on tech — you had Chorus, Concert, then it seems like you pulled away from the licensing game. Why?

M

Meredith Kopit Levien1:01:56

That's a fair observation. When the pandemic hit, it forced us along with every company to focus on our core, and our core is audience growth. We've always used technology to advantage ourselves. Chorus is an amazing platform, but when the pandemic came and we had to retreat, it became a harder market — an entirely different market going out and servicing SaaS clients. We were succeeding, but we said if we're going to focus as a company, let's focus on our audience-based businesses. An amazing team of technologists, many of whom are now shifting focus to our audience businesses and advertising and subscription businesses.

S

Sarah Fisher1:02:46

Oh my god, we've gone through a lot. Business... business... I know you guys have cameras rolling for the second season of Full Swing. The PGA and LIV announced a merger. Any fun things you can tease about what we'll see?

M

Meredith Kopit Levien1:03:04

I can't get into specifics because I don't want to ruin it for everyone, especially for our partners. That said, you're right. Chad Mumm, our executive producer, has been doing the heavy lifting to make Full Swing a reality. He tweeted that cameras were rolling the day the PGA-LIV merger was announced, and they're still rolling. This story is far from done — there's a lot of drama. Not only did we capture it that day, but we're capturing it every day since, including amazing things on the golf course and behind the scenes. What I love about Full Swing for the second season is that when I think of golf, it's often thought of as a stuffier, more corporate vibe. That's not the case if you watch Full Swing. You see a new generation of athletes eager to express themselves, just like in other sports. Full Swing has become the platform for that, playing through our digital community as well.

S

Sarah Fisher1:04:41

Are you having conversations about a third season?

M

Meredith Kopit Levien1:04:53

We're happy to debut season two, and we'll take it one step at a time. Not to speak for our partner Netflix or the PGA Tour, but I think everyone's been extraordinarily pleased with the success and audience. As long as there are good stories to tell, we'll be there telling them. So maybe a third season.

S

Sarah Fisher1:05:10

Penske got in because it was a good time. Three hundred different brands within SB Nation, which launched 15 years ago — crazy to think it's been that long. I've known Jim for a while because we're both DC people. You guys aren't afraid to shy away from sports gambling advertising and partnerships, just do it responsibly. And when it comes to AI, you wouldn't let me know if you're having those conversations with AI companies, but you said it's in everyone's best interest to negotiate something really good. Reporter, she's taking notes for her reporting while she's moderating. It makes you so great. Thank you, Jim Bankoff. We appreciate it.

Alright guys, we have one more CEO, then we have the president of MSNBC. But we are so lucky to have Jim Lanzone with us. He is the CEO of Yahoo. For those not familiar, Jim ran CBS Digital, then went to Match Group and ran all the properties like Tinder. He has taken over Yahoo at one of its most pivotal times — they were acquired by Apollo, a global private investment firm. Ever since, Jim has been executing a vision to remake some of those big brands, including Yahoo Sports. Let's give a big hand to Jim Lanzone.

J

Jim Lanzone1:06:25

Okay, wow, bringing out the towel! Here's the marathon for Sarah.

S

Sarah Fisher1:06:31

Thank you so much. Right in the middle — is this interview number four for 20 minutes? Good time, are you good?

J

Jim Lanzone1:06:36

I'm good. More water. I'm thriving right now.

S

Sarah Fisher1:06:49

We're so lucky to have you, especially because not long ago — just a few weeks ago — you announced a serious acquisition in a company called Wager, in sports betting. I've always known Yahoo Sports to be about fantasy. Does this mean you'll go full ahead into sports betting? How are you going to manage this acquisition?

J

Jim Lanzone1:07:07

We've been trying to figure out where and how to play in sports betting. It was part of the thesis when we were spun out of Verizon with the name Yahoo — we also own AOL and its properties — in September 2021. One of the biggest theses was sports betting. Apollo, by the way, owns Caesars in Vegas and the Venetian, so there's a lot of gambling in the blood of the private equity firm that owns us. It's a no-brainer conceptually: if you're one of the top two fantasy platforms, Yahoo and ESPN, that lends itself naturally to sports betting. The challenge has been the business model — whether it could be profitable, and it's been a bloodbath of competition. So 'should we do it, and how?' is a business question. I approach things from a product point of view. Wager enables peer-to-peer betting. Think about how many bets are made at a casino counter versus with your friends. Whether it's fantasy football, baseball, or March Madness, Wager is a natural product progression from what we already do. That's why we pulled the trigger on that deal.

S

Sarah Fisher1:08:51

If I'm someone using Yahoo Sports for fantasy or reading articles, how can I expect sports betting to be integrated into that experience, and when?

J

Jim Lanzone1:08:57

It will start happening over the next six to eight months. We're trying to get as much ready as possible for the upcoming football season, but we just closed the deal, so timing may be a challenge. One of the challenges in the sports betting category is how many marketing dollars have been thrown in — TV ads everywhere, online ads if you're watching SportsCenter or an NBA game, DraftKings and others. That's expensive. Our thesis, and others like Michael at Fanatics, is that it's extremely congruent to add the ability to wager. We're already giving you scores; we're one of the top two apps for sports news. If you're already there for your fantasy team and your friends — community is a big part of Yahoo Sports — we'd integrate it seamlessly. If we do it right, it might be as simple as one button.

S

Sarah Fisher1:10:25

What's the revenue upside? You'll take a cut of transactions, build loyalty, or put a subscription on Yahoo Sports?

J

Jim Lanzone1:10:36

I don't think so, though maybe that's interesting. The category is still looking for its business model. The theory is that sports gambling companies will make a profit through iCasino — offering roulette, slot machines, blackjack. But that's not really sports. That's not what we're planning with Wager. For us, this is not competing with casinos; it's enabling a seamless way for people to make bets with friends within their communities. The model is transactional, not subscription.

S

Sarah Fisher1:11:22

How does this fit into the overall plan for Yahoo Sports? I know you just hired Ryan Spoon, an ESPN veteran, to manage that. What's the plan for Yahoo Sports? We just had Meredith Kopit Levien from The Athletic, Jim Bankoff from SB Nation. It's a crowded field. What makes you think Yahoo Sports will grow?

J

Jim Lanzone1:11:45

Not to be cheesy, but we were born on third base. Yahoo is already one of the two largest. From a product point of view, we haven't put our best foot forward in five to ten years. A lot of our talent is now at ESPN or The Athletic — Woj on ESPN, Shams on The Athletic. You don't have to spend $500 million to be aggressive; you just have to have the desire. Ryan Spoon ran ESPN.com for eight years, was head of product there, then went to BetMGM, then was CEO in the NFT space — amazing experience and a great leader. The thing he wanted to know coming here was: how much do we really want to compete? The answer is absolutely. That hasn't been the approach under Verizon, which did a great job for their telecom aspirations but not always for the consumer experience. Whether it's Yahoo Sports, Finance, or Mail, different objectives apply.

S

Sarah Fisher1:13:10

What does 'go for it' mean? Billions of dollars in resources to acquire smaller sports companies?

J

Jim Lanzone1:13:14

I always start from the point of view of our user base. We have tens of millions of users a month, neck and neck with ESPN. I took CBS Sports from 8th to perennially top three. We pick up Yahoo Sports at number two. There's a lot we can do; we're not playing from behind except for ESPN, which has a large cable channel and sports rights. That's fine. I start from a product point of view. There's core work to do. Across all of Yahoo, my personal thesis for coming in is: huge audience, but products have seen better days. That's an amazing starting point.

S

Sarah Fisher1:14:23

What are you going to do to bring talent back after Yahoo Sports was somewhat neglected under Verizon?

J

Jim Lanzone1:14:31

We have to understand our strategy for content. We still are a great home for great content. I don't think it's smart to boil the ocean. If Yahoo Sports breaks news, it's not generally given attribution five seconds later by everyone else. So breaking news is not a priority to own. Adding context to sports — being the trusted guide for sports users for their fandom, whether news, scores, or fantasy leader — that's the objective. How does content accentuate that to make you a more informed fan? That's how I think about content.

S

Sarah Fisher1:15:36

Yahoo Sports is one of several pillars. You have Yahoo Mail, Finance, News. You've said you could spin them out and IPO individually. Is that still the plan, and which vertical is ahead?

J

Jim Lanzone1:15:53

I watched the last couple of these and watched people dodge these questions, but Sarah, I'm not going to do that. The answer is all the above. The strength of the company is each individual property. If you're as old as I am, you remember Yahoo as a portal, but for most people, they have an affinity to one of the top two properties in a vertical. Yahoo Finance is number one, Sports number two, News number one, email number two. People have a preference for that product. I've run a big conglomerate before — CBS Interactive with CNET, SportsLine — each property must stand on its own with its own economy, culture, and competitors. But woven together thematically, they can be stronger together. Yahoo Finance competes with Bloomberg and CNBC; Yahoo Sports competes with New York Times, ESPN, CBS Sports. We have the construct to spin them out or take investment individually, but the most likely outcome is one unified approach, whether an IPO or, as Jim said, companies are bought not sold. We're 18 months into being standalone for the first time in six years. It's a great moment to be private and do the things we need to get to a great spot value-wise. We have a very strong balance sheet.

S

Sarah Fisher1:18:14

Walk us through that balance — revenue, profit?

J

Jim Lanzone1:18:19

CFO over here. No. We are very proud — it's a very profitable company with a lot of money on the balance sheet. We're not making decisions due to financial stressors or having to make a quarter. We can do the right things to fulfill its potential, which it hasn't done in a long time.

S

Sarah Fisher1:18:38

Just to clarify: when you say one day it could make sense to IPO, are you talking about individual brands or the entire thing?

J

Jim Lanzone1:18:44

An IPO would be much more likely to be one company together. The brands we own today aren't the only ones we need to own when that happens. We can be aggressive in thinking about what else should come into the portfolio. My team and I have a clear view on what makes sense. What we won't do is chase traffic, clicks, or engagement to deliver cheap ads or create the appearance of success. We want to do this for real.

S

Sarah Fisher1:19:20

Question for you then. You have a very clear sense of what would make sense to bring in or invest in. Is it one of those four buckets — finance, news, sports — or is it something we're not thinking about?

J

Jim Lanzone1:19:34

Both. I'm not giving an example on ones we haven't done yet. But again, it won't be traffic for traffic's sake. Going back to the beginning, Yahoo from its start 28 years ago was people's trusted guide through the Wild West. Where we're strongest, we still do that. Yahoo Finance is number one because most titans of Wall Street still have it as their homepage. Things we do going forward will be much more down that pathway. Wager is a good example — we've made acquisitions in the verticals we already own, small so far. We've looked at big ones but haven't done them yet. I won't tell you what they were, but it's very likely we'll pull the trigger at some point.

S

Sarah Fisher1:20:58

Final thing for you. I've asked everyone about AI. Yahoo is such a unique asset — so massive. Are you having conversations with AI companies about licensing or paying for your content to train their algorithms?

J

Jim Lanzone1:21:10

Both. People definitely want access to our content. Funny — the companies shut down Yahoo Answers before I started. That was probably worth a lot in the AI era. Can you bring it back? Not a priority. I did ten years in search, so I'm realistic about where we sit, but we're still top three, and that's a lot of traffic to work with to make a new dent. On the AI front, I'm not an AI doomsday person, nor someone who thinks it'll solve every problem. It's much more likely to be a co-pilot. Internally and externally, we launched a few weeks ago in beta: AI as a co-pilot in Yahoo Mail — the second largest email platform already has AI as a test. We have test versions of new versions of almost all our products in the wild. If you use them enough, you'll catch a new version of Yahoo Finance out there. I've had some friends find it. They're not final versions — they'll be tweaked. I'm a product person; this is a product company. AI absolutely fits. It will be a co-pilot for our content creators, our engineers, and certainly for our users, whether email or fantasy players going forward.

S

Sarah Fisher1:22:42

Jim, so many great learnings here. I love what you said about the business model being traditionally challenged in betting, and that you think Wager will change that. We'll wait and see when that gets rolled out in 6-8 months: peer-to-peer betting. Talent not as much a priority in breaking news, but providing context. Interesting, because that's the opposite of what The Athletic is doing — they're all about original reporting and breaking news. And if there is to be a large IPO, it might be all of Yahoo together, though you could IPO each separately. Anything you wanted to add?

J

Jim Lanzone1:23:16

I'd say the New York Times is rooted in original content. If you look at Yahoo's history, it was the trusted guide as an aggregator. I think it's important to distinguish: we do both — original content will be very important, breaking news will be important, but it's not the only thing we do. So I wouldn't call that the priority, but not the only priority either.

S

Sarah Fisher1:23:53

One fun thing before we let you go: what's going on with AOL, other than that my mom is still using it? Is it a profitable media company? Have you folded it in?

J

Jim Lanzone1:23:59

No, Stan, it's a really profitable, very big company. Funny about it — how much profit does AOL make? We don't say; we're private. When we go public, we'll be able to split them out and tell you, but no, it's a very profitable business. It's a legacy business for people who've used it a long time. Look at the Comscore top 10 — how many of those companies were created in the '90s? Things change much more slowly and less often. Companies that really dent the consumer internet universe happen every three to five years: TikTok, ChatGPT. Before that was TikTok. What was before that? Instagram, it's been a while. People are quick to say 'AOL,' but AOL probably dwarfs most companies in the last ten years that had people on stage and may not even be here anymore. So I'm looking forward to seeing those AOL profit numbers.

S

Sarah Fisher1:24:56

Jim Lanzone of Yahoo, thank you so much.

J

Jim Lanzone1:25:02

Thank you.

S

Sarah Fisher1:25:02

Our last newsmaker guest needs no introduction. Rashida Jones is the president of MSNBC, which is having an extraordinary year — they beat Fox in ratings for the first time a couple of weeks ago, a huge feat. Rashida, thank you for joining us. Some folks might wonder why Rashida is here at SportsBeach. I said MSNBC has grown to be a platform for megafans. You have hosts who drive huge audiences — Jen Psaki repeatedly gets more than a million viewers, Simone Sanders. Rashida, my question: how are you thinking about news hosts as people with large fan bases, as opposed to just people with large viewership?

R

Rashida Jones1:25:46

Thank you for having me. We like to think about what we do as a brand. Jen is a great example: she has a show on Sundays that regularly gets more than a million viewers, she has a newsletter, original content on YouTube and streaming, and she writes regularly for our website. The idea is to take people who are interesting, dynamic, and have a pedigree like Jen Psaki, but are also interesting characters, and bring their stories to life. Simone Sanders is another example.

S

Sarah Fisher1:26:23

One could push back and say, 'Are you just going to hire old Democratic administration officials every time you launch a new product?' How do you branch out with talent beyond hyper-political people?

R

Rashida Jones1:26:35

With those two examples, they're both experienced in campaigns and administration — you can't deny that. But what makes them interesting is who they are and the perspective they bring. Jen has worked in the administration and campaigns, but she's also a mom, a wife, someone who cares about the same issues our audience does. Simone is a woman of color from the Midwest who brings a young, fresh perspective. The connection is less about where they worked and more about who they are. That's what MSNBC viewers see. We talk about fandom and connection with our talent — that's something we do uniquely.

S

Sarah Fisher1:27:24

Let's talk about news of the day. Cable news is in complete disarray — Chris Licht ousted at CNN, Fox with the $757 million defamation suit. MSNBC seems to have slid through without a big piece of drama. How are you leveraging that heading into 2024?

R

Rashida Jones1:27:43

For us, it's putting our heads down and doing the work. About two and a half years ago when I started, I shared with our team our objectives and mission statement. That hasn't changed: focus on breaking news and informed perspective, growing our audience, finding new eyeballs in new places — streaming, digital, social media — and reaching new audiences through long-form content. Those ideals haven't changed. It's about doing the work.

S

Sarah Fisher1:28:19

Fox has Fox Nation for opinion programming on a standalone streaming service. Why don't you have something like that? Why are you doing streaming through Peacock?

R

Rashida Jones1:28:31

We're lucky to have Peacock as a partnership. We find opportunities across the portfolio. Peacock is only three years old and growing fast — having that relationship is an advantage. Our content is growing month over month; we just saw the most consumed content in May.

S

Sarah Fisher1:28:57

What drove that?

R

Rashida Jones1:28:57

The news cycle — a lot in the Trump space — plus we introduced Morning News a few months ago. You can watch live Morning Joe, Squawk Box, and parts of The Today Show. It's about being more accessible.

S

Sarah Fisher1:29:18

What is the strategy for 2024? We reported about networks vying for debates and new products. What should we expect from MSNBC?

R

Rashida Jones1:29:30

One big focus is hearing from more voters. After every election, we talk about getting to people in the middle of the country, immersing in communities, telling their stories. We just announced our embed class — they're excited to get into the real world and find those voters. Also, being everywhere — the ecosystem has changed. Where people consume information looks different today. As a brand people trust, we bring that value to digital, text publishing, video, streaming, YouTube. How can we channel the value we have in addition to linear? Our linear channel is growing at a time when most are declining, so we hold that mainstay but appear everywhere else.

S

Sarah Fisher1:30:38

By 'growing,' do you mean just viewership, or is revenue growing too?

R

Rashida Jones1:30:43

Revenue follows eyeballs. Viewership is growing, engagement is growing, people are watching our channel longer than any other cable news channel. We're growing at a speed none of us expected, especially in a declining ecosystem.

S

Sarah Fisher1:31:03

When do you think you'll reach a point where you can no longer rely on the cable network as the primary focus of distribution and revenue, and need to transition to digital? Two years, five years, ten years?

R

Rashida Jones1:31:21

Depending on who you ask, it's tomorrow or in 20 years. Because we don't know for certain, we have to keep multiple plates spinning — hold on to the cable audience as long as possible and invest in digital platforms in a way that's relevant and authentic. We've focused on bringing our authentic brand to those platforms. It's both — you have to do both. There may be a ceiling where both coexist, or digital may overtake. As a business leader, I focus on doing both and preparing for all scenarios.

S

Sarah Fisher1:32:05

Quickly on talent, you have Steve Kornacki, an incredible data wizard bringing more sports coverage to MSNBC. Is that intentional — bringing more sports to news coverage — or just leveraging Steve?

R

Rashida Jones1:32:17

Sometimes sports is news — you see that on Morning Joe. But it's leveraging Steve's brand. We're under one umbrella with news networks, a movie studio, a sports unit. Part of the exercise is taking advantage of that. How do we take a talent like Steve — everyone's favorite data guy — or Rachel Maddow, skilled at deep dive analysis, and bring that to other places? I can hop on the phone with heads of those teams, and they're excited to partner.

S

Sarah Fisher1:33:18

How do you handle it when talent like Rachel Maddow says, 'I don't just want to anchor a show; I want my own podcast, documentaries, do more on Peacock'? Can you carve out a deal like that for everyone, or is it for highly visible, specialized people?

R

Rashida Jones1:33:35

Everyone has a different skill set. If you're Rachel Maddow with an idea for a podcast, it's something we'd lean into. We just premiered episode two of her new 'Deja News' podcast, still ranking high. For people we've gotten creative with, it's been a success. Steve had a podcast last year and a special newsletter leading up to the election. We get creative where it makes sense.

S

Sarah Fisher1:34:11

One fun thing I love watching each year — the networks rolling out their new embeds and training them. This election is different though — highly polarized, with candidates disparaging outlets like MSNBC. How do you think about safety and fairness and protecting your reporters?

R

Rashida Jones1:34:34

I got this question from members of the team: 'How can we protect your brand when we're out in the world? How can we stand up for what we do?' I go back to what I started with — their job is to find out what's on the hearts and minds of voters. Sometimes people have preconceived notions about who we are. The value of media overall — I'm excited for those guys to get out into the world because that may be part of the story. We put our heads down and let the work prove itself.

S

Sarah Fisher1:35:20

How will you do that? Putting people on TikTok, Snapchat this campaign?

R

Rashida Jones1:35:25

Exactly — meeting people where they are. If you ask my teenagers, they probably don't realize we have cable. They get content from TikTok and Snap. Part of our focus is taking the value of our brand to where people consume. I can't convince a 14-year-old to turn on MSNBC, but she'll send me a clip of Kornacki and say, 'I saw your guy on TikTok.'

S

Sarah Fisher1:36:08

Why not build a show for Kornacki on Snapchat, like NBC News did? Is MSNBC having those conversations?

R

Rashida Jones1:36:15

We're having conversations about continuing to find relevance on all platforms. We're a portfolio — NBC News has a very successful Snapchat show for nine years. We divide and conquer. If they're strong there, how do I play more effectively on TikTok or YouTube? No single brand has to be everywhere, but we focus our efforts where we can have impact.

S

Sarah Fisher1:36:44

Last question as we're wrapping up. There's been drama around calling elections and whether news companies should play a role — when some candidates don't want it called, election denialism. How are you planning to deal with that in 2024 if a candidate refuses to step down?

R

Rashida Jones1:37:15

You see in Succession? Are you trying to say that NBC is merging with Discovery or something?

S

Sarah Fisher1:37:22

That's not what I'm saying.

R

Rashida Jones1:37:23

What I would say is there's got to be separation of church and state. The science behind elections is a protected class for us. The teams are very separate from editorial. We have the highest standards — if we're not 99.9% sure, we don't make the call. We do that without fear or favor from any candidate, party, or voter. We keep it very protected and isolated. We trust the team in that room; it's truly a quarantine room. We protect what they do at the highest level, knowing that what comes out can be trusted.

S

Sarah Fisher1:38:10

CNN did a Trump town hall, Fox a non-live town hall. If Trump came to you and said he wanted to do a town hall — which would probably be good for ratings — would you do it?

R

Rashida Jones1:38:24

We're having conversations with all candidates across our entire news group about how to bring their point of view to the audience. There are many ways — live interview, tape interview, town hall, debate. We still have 505 days until election day. There are many ways to approach that. I don't know that a town hall tomorrow is what our audience is looking for, but as you look at the next 505 days, you'll see a lot of that across the portfolio.

S

Sarah Fisher1:38:59

But if Trump came to you specifically and said, 'I want to be on your air,' would you say yes?

R

Rashida Jones1:39:03

If you said yesterday, it would be a conversation. You have to put parameters to control the environment.

S

Sarah Fisher1:39:10

One fun thing, Rashida. I asked to Summer — what's a piece of journalism on your platform you're particularly proud of that we should look at?

R

Rashida Jones1:39:15

There's so much. That's hard — like asking a mom which baby she loves most. I think some of the successes in the audio space: Ultra by Rachel Maddow coming out in fall last year and being optioned for a movie with Steven Spielberg — that doesn't happen often. Rachel and team recently won an award never given to an audio product. We launched 'Deja News' to great success. The audio space and new products we've launched in the last couple weeks are ones I'm very proud of.

S

Sarah Fisher1:39:53

Incredible. Rashida Jones, thank you so much.

R

Rashida Jones1:39:57

Thank you.

S

Sarah Fisher1:39:57

Awesome. All right, we've got one last fun one — just two DC people hanging out talking about SportsBeach. Mark Penn, we're so grateful you gave us this platform to talk to newsmakers and break some news. We've had a lot of really interesting conversations and news broken. I wanted to pick your brain as we kick off this Axios Happy Hour with our partners at Spark and Magnet to talk about trends. First off, sports is a trend — the value of teams is booming as an investment vehicle, fandom is booming. So it makes sense you wanted to do SportsBeach, but why is it a strategic fit for Stagwell? Are you investing more in sports in your portfolio?

M

Mark Penn1:40:43

Sports marketing and fandom are critical parts and exemplars of how marketing is done today. Marketing isn't just 'here's my product, buy it' — it's about getting that intense feeling about a product and getting credible people to endorse it. The power of celebrity... We've gone into a world of choice. As I wrote in 'Microtrends,' the paradox of choice is that when people have more choices, they make fewer — they get what they like and become more intense. Sports is an opportunity for people to align with big brands, celebrities, leagues, and teams.

S

Sarah Fisher1:41:44

It can also be an opportunity for teams to figure out which brands to align with. How do you advise different sports entities on that?

M

Mark Penn1:41:57

It's done case by case, product by product, athlete by athlete. You could choose the wrong influencer and wind up in trouble. We've formed a risk and reputation unit to look into what your consumers, employees, and investors are like. Most stakeholders are unified by sports. What remains a mostly unifying element in society is not news — it's sports.

S

Sarah Fisher1:42:44

At the World Cup, Qatar and Doha not being welcoming to the LGBTQ community forced brands and consumers to make decisions about how they showed up. Sometimes it can be divisive. How do you address that?

M

Mark Penn1:43:03

People are beginning to recognize that when you get into reputation, sponsorship, and political issues, people can use their political brain instead of their sports or commercial brain. That tells you that to the extent people in sports want to be marketable, creating a dividing line between politics, sports, and commerce is critical. Once it gets blurred, it might be great for a niche product, but not for an every-person product needing to reach 80-90% of the population.

S

Sarah Fisher1:43:50

I would argue for people above 21, Bud Light is an everybody product. But Bud Light chose to take a stance on something political and experienced a difficult time. Do you think they did the right thing partnering with Dylan Mulvaney, and are they handling it well?

M

Mark Penn1:44:10

I have to defer because you're not on our client lists. Oh my god, the deflections today! Is Kohl's on your client list? Is Target? Tell me about Kohl's — what do you think about these other brands?

S

Sarah Fisher1:44:28

Alright.

M

Mark Penn1:44:28

In general, the question is whether these conscious decisions companies made really understood the landscape. You better have a Democrat and a Republican on your staff and understand it's a 50-50 country on political issues. There are great ways to broaden your marketing base without getting into politics. When people don't like a phrasing, I say there are plenty of words in the dictionary. Finding an approach that broadens your consumer base without putting you in the middle of politics, especially as we enter the most contentious presidential cycle in modern history, is crucial. This will be an increasing problem. Conservatives have formed an effective backlash that didn't exist before.

S

Sarah Fisher1:45:44

Walk me through how they've created that impact on brands.

M

Mark Penn1:45:50

They're willing to change products based on politics in a counter-cycle that can be quite effective. But is it long-term? If they boycott Target for two days, Mom and Pop still go there to buy pajamas. It's somewhere in the middle. Americans have about a six-month memory, so if you can handle it, people move on. But there's a medium mechanism reinforcing the schism. We're seeing a correction in ESG and other policies — people are saying you better walk on both sides. Unless you're a brand like Patagonia, where politics is part of your brand, you're fine. If you're far removed from politics and suddenly step into it, you'd better have thought it out carefully. Or think of things that help society and community, like making sure everyone can read a book — that's socially beneficial, helps your corporation, and doesn't get you into wage issues.

S

Sarah Fisher1:47:28

You used the word 'correction,' not necessarily 'backlash.' Why that word? Do you think we went too far in ESG messaging and efforts?

M

Mark Penn1:47:38

I use 'correction' because many companies didn't have balanced consultation. The chief communications officer may have been from one party, and they put out programs without consulting both sides. I think it's possible to be completely inclusive without getting into trouble if you've consulted both sides.

S

Sarah Fisher1:48:15

What's an example of a brand that's done that well?

M

Mark Penn1:48:18

Tough question, but most brands have done it well. We're doing an analysis now — we're about to publish with Harris, hopefully you get the exclusive. We took brand IDs and measured favorability among Republicans and Democrats. There are companies very high with Democrats only, then Fox News is the single highest brand with Republicans. There are dramatic changes with Delta, Target. But there are many companies in what I call the sweet spot of plus or minus ten points — they achieved real balance, and they're good, modern brands, not backward. This new zone where people will look at this data is fascinating. If you shoot for the plus or minus eight to ten percent zone, that's ideal. That takes understanding the country in new ways.

S

Sarah Fisher1:49:39

Quick final thought. We're here at Cannes, and all anyone is talking about is AI. But this is a community of creatives — people who do human work. At what point do you think this industry is becoming too obsessed with AI and not focused enough on what they do best?

M

Mark Penn1:50:03

Humans reign supreme — that theme throughout the day. I don't worry. When we didn't ask AI if we should do SportsBeach, I don't think AI would have said yes. Human creativity is number one. Stagwell believes in the right combination of creativity and technology. We already have AI products in market — Prophet, which writes your news release, sees who will cover it favorably, writes pitches, and can do 40 effective pitches an hour that might have taken days. Over 10% of our company is engineers, another 10% digital designers. We're applying AI for clients for internal processes to speed things up and in products we offer. No, I don't think we can be too involved in it. You just have to have proper respect. As I say to people, 'Hey, where's your driverless car? It ain't exactly here yet. Elon Musk said it would be here many years ago.'

S

Sarah Fisher1:51:28

Mark Penn, this is awesome. Thanks for hosting us here at SportsBeach. As a reminder to everyone on the livestream and in the audience, we're doing newsmaker panels with Axios every single day. Stagwell has many athletes and celebs all week. Come back and stay tuned. Thank you everyone.

Axios Newsmaker Hour: How Tech and Media Brings Athletes, Fans and Newsmakers Together

About Ami Gan