Nine CEO Mike Sneesby on why a splintered sports streaming market is good for consumers
Nine-owned Stan Sport recently wrapped up its coverage of Wimbledon including a free-to-air element on the Nine Network that culminated in Ash Barty’s win becoming the #3 rating program of the calendar year. Nine Entertainment Co CEO Mike Sneesby goes behind the numbers with Mumbrella’s Zanda Wilson to chat BVOD measurement, Stan Sport’s growth, commercial opportunities and landing the rights to the UEFA Champions League.
Mike Sneesby, the man credited with the rise and rise of Stan and now chief executive officer of Nine Entertainment Co (NEC), is rightly pleased by the performance of Stan Sport in its early months.
The platform is dovetailing well with Nine’s free-to-air assets, Sneesby says, and subscriber numbers are growing, with consumers who want more than the surface level match coverage getting their value for the $10 a month Stan Sport costs on top of a regular Stan subscription.
“Nine has a really unique ability to arrange sports in a way that would be very difficult to do if you didn’t have a free and paid platform in terms of giving it the breadth of audience on free-to-air, and the yield of commercial opportunity on the subscription side,” Sneesby explains.
