Distribution Wins
Jon Rahm. $450 million richer.
On Friday it was confirmed that Jon Rahm had signed to LIV Golf for a figure believed to be in the region of $450m.
This might mean very little to anyone not deeply ensconced in the world of professional Golf or more broadly, the world of Sport. But, it’s a big deal. Rahm had been a staunch defender of the ‘incumbent’ tour, the PGA, and previously suggested that he didn’t believe in the quality of the new tour. Funded by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF), LIV golf has established itself as a rival tour and has spent the last two years trying to recruit the biggest names in the sport for astronomical sums of money. Total spending to date on signing on bonuses and tournament purses is believed to be in the region of $2bn.
The sums involved are frankly ludicrous. And now they have offered a single player half a billion dollars.
Whilst LIV claim it is offering an ‘innovative’ product (simultaneous ‘shotgun’ starts, the option to wear shorts, no mid-tournament eliminations, a team component and competition played over 54 holes rather than 72 - much of which is of no consequence to anyone not interested in the sport already) - LIV’s strategy for establishing their ‘rival’ to the PGA appears to largely revolve around brute force: buying talent with huge signing on bonuses and inflated tournament purses. What we might consider to be a field of dreams style strategy: if we build it, they will come.
But, the impact of the ‘innovation’ has been negligible. Even within Golfing circles.
Viewing on Youtube is modest. They have been unable to secure a network TV partner to broadcast the events. Attendence at the events themselves is also modest.
Compare this to The Kings League. Gerard Pique’s new football format. By contrast, there is genuine innovation and differentiation between ‘real’ football and this version - 7 aside, amateur players alongside ‘random’ experienced players who are unveiled in ways similar to The Masked Singer, fan-voted rules, fireworks after goals. As Zoe Scaman puts it - it borrows as much from the grammar of computer games as it does from traditional Football.
And it’s worked. They sell out stadiums. The numbers on Youtube, Twitch and other social platforms run into the millions.
Perhaps the key difference between The Kings League and LIV is the way they have incorporated Twitch streamers into the proposition. Each team has a well known and well established Twitch streamer attached, bringing with them a ready made audience and the influence to get them to watch. The Kings League has demonstrated that it understands the way media works today. Yes you need an interesting product and yes, you need ‘talent’ - but those things will only get you so far in a fractured media landscape where consumer attention is scarce.
What this shows us is that distribution wins. It always wins. The rules of how to achieve that distrubution in a platform enabled world are changing, but distribution is always the most important thing. LIV’s bet that talent will be a magnet for audiences hasn’t paid off. They are applying old rules to the new world and it’s proving to be an expensive mistake.
By incorporating influence into the fabric of the idea itself, rather than just appending them as ‘spokespeople’ the Kings League demonstrates an example of thinking in terms of ‘layers not channels’, creating a cohesive and fully integrated communications idea where the product and the promotion are increasingly hard to tease apart from one another.
