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1.7 million subscribers. A Global deal. Live Bundesliga rights. And a studio in Brooklyn for the World Cup. The Overlap built it all without owning a single match.
This episode of the Media Odyssey Podcast features Scott Melvin, CEO of The Overlap, the multi-award winning sports channel, for the beginning of the 2026 World Cup. What started as a side hustle for a Sky Sports pundit itching to do long-form conversation has grown into one of the most-watched football content businesses in the UK, now backed by media company Global and expanding its creator network on YouTube and social media.
Scott walks through how The Overlap was built from the cold-open, unscripted format of Stick to Football, to the decision to own the conversation around football rather than chase expensive live rights. He breaks down the platform's growth strategy including the acquisition of Mark Goldbridge's Man United channel (2.2 million subscribers) and That's Football (1.3 million) to shortcut years of audience-building, and the Bundesliga deal that proved social clips outperform live streams by roughly 20x in reach.
The conversation also zooms out into the bigger structural questions around the World Cup and sports media more broadly: is permanently eating into live viewing, whether rights fragmentation is pushing fans toward highlights, and if the 2026 tournament can permanently shift America's relationship with the sport the rest of the world calls football.
Key Takeaways
1. Own the Conversation
Live rights for F1 cost Sky $200 million a year while Netflix paid $10–20 million for Drive to Survive and became the defining F1 content brand for a generation. The Overlap applied the same logic to football: if you can't own the rights, own the conversation around them. For any creator or media company priced out of live sports rights, shoulder content is the viable entry point.
2. Clips Beat Live
During The Overlap's Bundesliga partnership, social clips of live games outperformed the streams themselves by approximately 20x in total reach. Live attendance figures remain strong, but viewing full matches is declining as fragmented rights force fans across multiple paid subscriptions. The World Cup's expanded format will test that tipping point at unprecedented scale.
3. Acquire Audiences, Don't Build From Scratch
It took The Overlap 4.5 years to reach 1.7 million YouTube subscribers. Mark Goldbridge spent 10 years building his channel to 2.2 million. Rather than launch a Man United channel from zero, The Overlap partnered with Goldbridge and acquired his existing audience — effectively skipping 5–7 years of organic growth.
4. Platform Age Beats Talent Age
The Overlap's core panel averages 50 years old, yet its biggest demographic is 18–34. Scott's explanation: YouTube is a young platform, and the platform itself attracts younger audiences — the talent keeps them there.
5. The Post-World Cup Moment
The 1994 US World Cup triggered a brief soccer boom that faded within months. Scott and Evan both see 2026 as structurally different because the internet has made the world smaller, Gen Z and Gen A are more globally oriented, and the Women's World Cup in Brazil follows a year later. Whether the tournament converts casual viewers into long-term fans of MLS and the Premier League will be a closely watched audience metric in sports media over the next 18 months.
Thank you Scott Melvin for joining the pod!
Scott Melvin - https://www.linkedin.com/in/scott-melvin-331071a7/
The Overlap - https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-overlap/
Interested in sponsorship? https://forms.gle/2LCWfX2HBNT8mtpx8
Connect with us on Linkedin:
Evan Shapiro - https://www.linkedin.com/in/eshap-media-cartographer/
Marion Ranchet - https://www.linkedin.com/in/marionranchet/
The Media Odyssey Podcast - https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-media-odyssey-podcast
- (00:00) - World Cup Fever in NYC
- (01:14) - Meet Scott Melvin and The Overlap
- (02:49) - Stick to Football Breakout
- (05:03) - Owning the Conversation
- (07:50) - Bundesliga Rights Experiment
- (10:49) - Clip Culture and Sports
- (13:25) - World Cup Highlights vs Live
- (18:42) - Growing a YouTube Network
- (23:24) - Why Partner with Global
- (25:52) - Who Watches The Overlap
- (26:25) - Platform Over Talent
- (27:48) - No Rules Playbook
- (29:01) - Late Launch Competition
- (30:00) - Club Shirt Banter
- (32:01) - World Cup Without Rights
- (34:17) - Brooklyn Studio Setup
- (34:59) - Why Not Daily Live
- (39:40) - US Soccer After World Cup
- (42:13) - Predictions And Wrap
Creators and Guests
Host
What is The Media Odyssey?
Each week, two of media’s most influential thinkers, Evan Shapiro & Marion Ranchet, take on the hottest media topics with their hottest takes, helping their audience chart a course through the maelstrom that is today’s Media Odyssey.
Based in the US, Evan Shapiro is the Media Industry’s official Cartographer, known for his well-researched and provocative analysis of the entertainment ecosystem in his must read treatises on Media’s latest trends and trajectories.
Marion Ranchet, French expat based in Amsterdam, has become the industry’s go-to expert in all things streaming, building a following for turning even the most complex problems into easily digestible and actionable insights.
Ranchet and Shapiro are known for their sharp-yet-accessible content on Media consumption, audience trends, and the shifting fundamentals of the business itself. Even during the toughest of topics, they each make talking about Media fun. Together every week, these two will offer entertaining, often humorous, and always educational content on today’s Media Odyssey.
Marion Ranchet: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Media Odyssey Podcast. That is Evan Shapiro.
Evan Shapiro: And that is Marion Ranchet.
Marion Ranchet: So it's the first day of the World Cup, and I wanna know, Evan, do you get, are you getting some soccer fever?
Evan Shapiro: What's the World Cup?
I am a little bit more concerned about the invasion of New York, but it's actually interesting. New York has World Cup fever, without question. Everybody's working, walking around with merch. Last night I rode on a subway car that was entirely, and actually the whole train was branded for the World Cup.
People are very excited and you can see this massive influx of people from around the world, who are coming here to watch their team play or just who are [00:01:00] football fans in general. So I wore my football shirt today, Philadelphia Eagles.
Marion Ranchet: Nice.
Evan Shapiro: For AJ Brown.
Marion Ranchet: Of course, we're super excited.
I have to say we're dubious as well, but for different reasons. We'll get into that because the guest- that we have with us, today, I'm super excited to welcome Scott Melvin is the executive director of The Overlap.
Hey, Scott.
Scott Melvin: Hi, guys. How are you?
Marion Ranchet: Super good. Awesome having you here. so you're at the World Cup.
You're super lucky. You're in New York already. Tell us a bit more about yourself, the origin story behind The Overlap.
Scott Melvin: So The Overlap started off as a bit of a side hustle. About four and a half years ago, Gary Neville, who obviously was, a, is still a prominent pundit for Sky Sports, had a bit of an itch to scratch around doing long-form conversation.
Obviously, a lot of [00:02:00] the broadcasters now throughout the live game broadcast have moved away from longer form conversation pieces, and he felt, Gary likes to talk, and he felt there was a gap to do much longer form pieces.
So The Overlap started really as a bit of an experiment. Gary wanted to interview sports people, for an hour and a half or however long it took.
You don't get that privilege on broadcast television, on linear television. And it really just started as a, like I say, an experiment. We were very fortunate we were able to speak to some pretty high-profile people in the first six months, people like Harry Kane, Anthony Joshua, Tyson Fury, and it all just bubbled along.
It wasn't a business. We didn't think of it as a business. And it wasn't really until September '23, we launched a show called Stick to Football, which is our premium show. [00:03:00] and it just exploded.
It was a very revolutionary idea of getting five people in a room to talk about football. But actually, what, was good for it was that all the guys we had have all come from a broadcast background, and it's very difficult in a TV show, particularly around live sport, to have time. In a, half-hour buildup or a one-hour buildup of a show, you've only really got 15, 20 minutes of conversation time. Around half time, you're lucky to get two, three minutes.
So actually, by putting these people in this room and saying, you've got an hour and a half, talk about whatever you want." They all just found it quite liberating. And actually what works best often is the content that isn't really about football, because you feel like you're listening in on friends' conversations.
So there was an example last year when Ian Wright came in and said, "Oh, I went to the cinema yesterday." They then spent 15 minutes talking about Toy Story 3 and the best animated films of all [00:04:00] time. But it was brilliant because that's just how the show starts. We have a very cold open whereby as soon as they walk in the studio, we just start rolling, and it can be 10 minutes, it can be 15 minutes, and it's just they come in and they sit down, they get ready, the team come in, the floor managers come in, the makeup comes in, and we just put it all out because it feels really authentic, and it is authentic. It's never scripted. It's never, there's no running order for that first part of the show.
And people just really took to it because you didn't see these guys in that situation whereby, in broadcast it's very polished, and obviously that's right and there's a place for it. But we just thought, "Let's just be completely raw with this."
And people seemed to take to it, and that was a real big moment for us. That was, nearly three years ago now. and yeah, it just exploded into, from the side hustle into a real business and a real show in particular for Stick to Football that people seem to love.
I wouldn't [00:05:00] say it was lucky, but we didn't necessarily plan it that way, if that makes sense.
Evan Shapiro: What's interesting is you, so there are other YouTubers like Case or Mark Goldbridge who will go out and get the rights for these leagues or for these games, and they'll do deals with the, with FIFA or whomever, and they're building those channels on commentary, while the game's happening- during, before, and after. But that's not the way you went. You went for a rights-free strategy here, and the content around the game as opposed to the content in the game itself, as you were just mentioning. How, why was that your strategy, and why you think that works so well?
Scott Melvin: It's less of a strategy more than a it's prohibitive to try and buy rights.
So as you know, the rights for, let's look at F1 as an example. I think Apple paid $750 million for the latest F1 rights. I think Sky are paying 200 million a [00:06:00] year, something like that. Netflix pay $10 to $20 million for a series of "Drive to Survive." So the rights is really prohibitive.
You either do it all in or you can't do it. It's very hard to dip your toe into live rights. But on the Netflix example, Netflix for a 10th of the cost of the live rights, if you ask people to name a, talk about an F1 show, they'll talk about "Drive to Survive." So it's not really about, the business model for the networks is obviously it's live rights. It, drives everything. Live sport is the only thing keeping television afloat in some cases because you don't watch the Super Bowl box set in two months' time, you watch it live, similar to a Premier League game.
So for us, and I think for most podcasts, and Netflix obviously have the same model, hence they're moving into podcasts, if you can't own the rights, own the conversation.
And we think that owning the conversation around the sport is as powerful as owning the [00:07:00] sport, depending on the level. So again, it wasn't a strategy, it was more that you were never gonna buy live rights, right? Live rights are off the scale in terms of the cost. But you can piggyback that and be the shoulder content to that.
And like I said, around the time that we have to talk about the issues and talk about the games, we can talk about a game for three and a half hours. That luxury is not afforded to people on TV. So it was very much a, I think we all benefit from that. And again, when it comes to football particularly, the appetite for it is 24/7.
It's com- it's nonstop. People want it all the time. So there's room for everyone in this space. But yeah, the, live rights was a, is a particular, I'd say it's a challenging market and will continue to be a challenging market.
Obviously we did, we have a deal with the Bundesliga from last season, which was a surprise to us. It came to us like a week before the season started. [00:08:00] and I think to be fair to the Bundesliga, it was a really bold move. Partnering with us as a YouTube channel and Mark Goldbridge as a creator was really brave because they got quite a lot of stick for it. They surprised a lot of people.
But I think when you look at the way that the rights market's heading, domestic rights will always be ring-fenced and protected. And the German market is particularly, they do really well at the domestic rights. The international rights is a challenge.
The Premier League's a freak. The Premier League, I think it's probably the only league in the world in any sport where the international rights outstrip the domestic rights.
Compare that to, the NFL. I think the NFL's maybe 10 times domestic versus international. So to try and get exposure for your league in overseas countries, like I say, the money's been spent on the domestic rights, so it's very hard to try and get any sort of serious income for [00:09:00] your rights. So the idea of saying, "Let's make it free in the UK, partner with YouTube channels, partner with creators," was brave, and I think we'll see more of it. I think it'll, I think it'll keep happening.
It's happened in France with, I know M6 are doing a partnership with Michu on, on the World Cup stuff. Yep. So that cross-pollination's only gonna increase over the next few years, I'm sure.
Marion Ranchet: And on the Bundesliga, what type of rights do you have? Are you actually showcasing a couple of games a week, or is it highlights?
Scott Melvin: So we have Friday Night Live matches. I think we did 20 of them last year, just in the UK, so geo-blocked on our channel for the UK market. Same with Mark. But again, the challenge with that is that it's very hard to get people to watch something for 90 minutes, even if it's domestic. So-
Evan Shapiro: Especially when it's a 0-0 tie at the end of it, but that's, my own personal...
Marion Ranchet: Oh, look at him
Scott Melvin: it's, all about jeopardy, isn't it?[00:10:00]
Marion Ranchet: Look at him dishing at football.
Scott Melvin: One word for you, mate: relegation. It's all very exciting.
Evan Shapiro: Okay. All right. Fair enough.
Scott Melvin: Yeah. But yeah, it's difficult, but we, obviously the part of the reason we thought the partnership worked for them was obviously our social reach is, quite significant. So as well as streaming the live games, able to release live goal clips and previews and highlights.
And to be frank, the social clips on the games outstripped the live by about 20X. So-
Marion Ranchet: Oh, wow.
Scott Melvin: But, from an exposure point of view, it makes perfect sense for them. If someone was gonna come in and offer them multimillion pounds for the rights, great, that's exactly what they should be trying to do.
But I think as an experiment, it's been very interesting. I think it has worked for them. But I think we'll see more and more of it.
Evan Shapiro: It's interesting. The clip culture thing, so this week, the, there was the A.J. Brown trade from the Philly to New England, and the amount of clip culture that's going on around [00:11:00] that controversy is massive. It's my entire feed right now.
What do you think the clip culture does to sport? You're right. The clips are really outpacing the games. Yeah and the commenters, the online commenters are really becoming superstars unto themselves. What do you think clip culture does to the, business of sport?
Scott Melvin: Obviously it's the new marketing, right? It's simple. It's the only way or the best way to get people in front of your product. I don't think, think back to 25 years ago, for football in particular, the, free marketing was newspapers and the evening news, and in the UK, Match of the Day, and that sort of show.
It's now so prominent that, it's a positive in the sense of it drives awareness and traffic, but it also does it does skew the conversation slightly. So I was listening to a, I was at a talk, [00:12:00] last year with, I think it was Don Garber, who is the MLS commissioner, and he was talking about the overall views of the MLS, which were big in the whole.
But when you look at if Lionel Messi scores a hat trick for Inter Miami, it's gonna get a billion views.
Evan Shapiro: Yeah, of course.
Scott Melvin: How many of those billion people will sit and watch 90 minutes of Seattle versus Portland? It's very hard to find that middle ground of look at all the eyeballs we've got versus how many people are actually watching the games on TV.
The attendances will be good 'cause sport in live is always better than on TV in any sport. But it does kinda skew the narrative slightly. That's not to say it's a negative. It does help drive awareness. But I think it can distort the messaging slightly.
Marion Ranchet: We had [00:13:00] a few months back, the producers of the format Drag Race, and we love this quote.
What he was saying, the show is the clip, and the clip is the show. But ultimately, when you talk to a lot of players within the ecosystem, they're saying it's very hard to build bridges between those watching clips and those going to your owned and operated to watch the full thing.
And talking about clips, when we were prepping for this, you viewed this World Cup as a bit of a test at scale of a bit of that make it or break it because, again, there's, many more games than we've ever seen, many more teams. It's not time zone friendly for us in Europe at least, where a lot of the, I think, the expected viewing is gonna be.
And so it's gonna be fascinating to see, and I'd, be curious to see how, you see this. Will people be watching, live games, or they will just settle [00:14:00] for the highlights and the conversation around it? And we're seeing Netflix, right? They don't have rights, and they're gonna have The Rest is Football the entire time. There's gonna be this daily show for X, days, 40 days, et cetera.
So do you think that this is the moment where maybe it's gonna, tip over and highlights could actually become more valuable than full game live rights?
Scott Melvin: I'm not sure about valuable in terms of the value of them to a broadcaster.
I think valuable to the consumer, yes. I think we're, I think we're already there. I think we've already hit that point. The challenge with the World Cup now, and it's similar to the domestic football here. Hence my point around the Bundesliga, it's hard to get people to watch things for 90 minutes.
There's so much football on TV now, it's very hard to dedicate that much time. There's a game of football every single night of the week in the UK, sometimes multiple games a night.
Evan Shapiro: And the rights are spread out, right? They're not on the same platform.
Scott Melvin: So spread out. So spread out. If I want-
Evan Shapiro: That's the big complaint fans [00:15:00] have right now, is that, "I can't find my fucking game."
There's there are TikToks and Instagram posts that are just about, like "Where can I find..."
There was a great one the other day that says "This game is only on Delta." You have to buy a ticket to a, on, to, on a Delta flight and watch it on their seat back 'cause that's the only way to watch this game.
It's a joke obviously, but that's where people feel like it's going.
Scott Melvin: Do you know what? There's an argument saying that monopolies in sports rights maybe isn't a bad thing. It's quite clear in people's heads.
Evan Shapiro: At least I'll know where to watch, right?
Scott Melvin: At least we'll know where it is. As long as they're not being priced out.
If you have to pay 35, 50 pounds a month for Sky Sports, but they have got everything, I know where I'm going.
Sky, TNT, Amazon, et cetera, if you're playing, paying multiple subscriptions, hence why I said, if you're gonna go in, you've gotta go all in. Having one Saturday morning game or one Friday night game isn't maybe enough.
Marion Ranchet: No.
Scott Melvin: So I think the clips, on the, on your point, Mair, I think we're already there on the tipping point. if I want to watch a game of football, I'm booking it in two weeks ahead of time [00:16:00] with compliance aka the wife and family.
Evan Shapiro: Yeah, Of course.
Scott Melvin: And I build my weekend around it. Whereas the games that I'm half interested in, I'll watch the highlights later. People haven't got the time to watch wall-to-wall sport.
But I think for the World Cup in particular, you're right, the time zone's an issue for the Western viewer. I would also say, look, it's the biggest World Cup of all time.
They've added a lot more teams. They haven't necessarily added a lot more good teams.
Evan Shapiro: Yeah.
Scott Melvin: You... There's only one Brazil, there's only one Argentina. So the volume could become a problem. Will we stay up till 2:00 o'clock in the morning and watch Uzbekistan versus Colombia? No. But if there's a great goal, I'll watch the clips.
Evan Shapiro: You'll stay up till 2:00 to watch the semifinals or the finals.
Scott Melvin: As soon as we get through the group stages and we're into the knockouts then it gets interesting. It's very hard to not qualify from the group stage this World Cup, and I'm saying that with a caveat of I am Scottish, and we will find a way to [00:17:00] not do it.
However, it's almost, harder to not qualify than qualify. Yeah, when we get to the knockout stages and it's, and you say the jeopardy is there's a, result, someone's going out, then I think it will get serious, and you will stay up till 2:00 o'clock in the morning. But the majority of the games in the tournament are the group stages.
So the clips will be more important than ever, hence FIFA's deal with TikTok. That's clearly a strategy around, eyeballs getting, driving awareness of some of the lesser-known teams but it'll be very interesting to see what the linear numbers come out as post-tournament globally.
My feeling is it will be low, but again, there's more games, so cumulative it might be more. But Qatar was great for time zones. For us it was middle of the day. For US it was early morning. I think it was ideal. So it'll be interesting to see how things play out post-tournament on the, [00:18:00] live numbers.
Marion Ranchet: Yes, 'cause my point is if less, despite the fact that broadcasters rely heavily on live, if live draws less viewers every four years, but we still see the value, the price point keep growing, there's a bit of a mismatch, so I was wondering whether there would be some sort of new balance coming in, into play.
But I guess to the point you were making at the top, because live and sports are really helping traditional TV stay together, it's likely they'll keep investing, just the fear of seeing it go to a Netflix or anyone else.
Scott Melvin: Yeah.
Marion Ranchet: If we go back to The Overlap, so you've done Stick to Football.
We haven't spoken to it, but clearly you were saying, you were trying to do something that wasn't possible on traditional TV, on broadcast TV, therefore you went to YouTube and social. So this is where, [00:19:00] The Overlap and, the programming is hosted.
Could you tell us a bit more about that channel in terms of a couple, of KPIs, and how do you see it growing? Because you've made some recent, moves in clearly what looks like a bit of a YouTube channel net- network approach.
Scott Melvin: Yeah. We did a deal a few months ago for the Mark Goldbridge and the United Stand basketball channels. This sort of stemmed from about a year ago we were thinking about what do we do next?
The Overlap was going well. The business was still in its infancy as a proper business, having had a couple years of trial and error. And there was a decision to be made of do we just keep doing what we're doing and enjoying it and the business will make money and it's all good, or do we actually try and grow relatively aggressively?[00:20:00]
And Gary Neville being Gary Neville said, "Let's be aggressive," so we decided to be aggressive. And the only way for us to do that really was to, try and find a partner that would help us do that. And we had a, process and we ended up doing a deal with Global, who came in in January. And for us it was about finding a strategic partner around commercial distribution, advertising, that whole global infrastructure, which is very powerful, particularly in the UK.
And then looking at who do you wanna partner with, from a channel creator point of view. Obviously the Man United heritage in the group, Gary, Roy, myself being a Man United fan. Man United was the club we knew. It's probably the biggest club in the world in terms of audience globally.
So how do we attract that Man United audience? It's very easy for us to say, "Let's just start a Man United channel." which we could have started from scratch [00:21:00]. But growing YouTube channels is very difficult from scratch. it's taken us four and a half years to get to 1.7 million subs. So you could start a channel tomorrow, spend five years getting to a million, And, it's a battle. Mark spent 10 years building his channel up to 2.2 million subs. So we thought, let's partner with him. We have an audience that we know are engaged in the club, engaged in his content, and what we've done is we've just shortcut five to seven years of building that audience, which Mark's done a fantastic job of building.
So that was the first one really, and the second channel of Mark's was called That's Football. We're looking to reshape from the start of next season to more of a kind of always-on football, I don't wanna say news, news always sounds a bit straight, but always-on conversation. And I think for us that was quite important because we record Stick to Football once a fortnight.
We do one [00:22:00] topical show in the morning and then an evergreen guest episode in the afternoon. So it's very hard for us to react to a story. The Manchester United manager was sacked on a Monday morning. We didn't talk about it for 10 days. So how can you own the conversation of football when the biggest club in the world sacked their manager and you're not talking about it for 10 days?
So that was a light bulb for us that we need to be able to get on air, get out ASAP. And again, the channel Mark built has 1.3 million subscribers, does fantastic views, so with a little bit of a reshaping, we could be on air in 10 minutes reacting to news stories, and the biggest stories in football.
So strategically for us, that was very important. You can't be a credible football content business and not be able to react to big stories. Not in the same way that a TalkSport or a Five Live would or a Sky Sports News would. We don't see ourselves as a news organization. I don't think we [00:23:00] ever will. But we need to be able to react to these stories and do it in our own style.
So that's the first, of hopefully a few more partnerships we're looking to do in the next 12, 18 months. and yeah, the appetite for football content is, like I say, it's 24/7, it's, 365, it's nonstop. So there's a lot of other clubs to try and service.
Evan Shapiro: And Global is a very traditional, media company. This is a radio, remember radio? And outdoor. They do outdoor as well. but they seem to be really, getting heavily into creator world now. They backed The News Agents, which is basically the political version of what you do. And so I'm curious, what do you, think they give you that you couldn't have necessarily done on your own?
Scott Melvin: So they've recently just launched Global Studios, which is their, effectively their video production business.
I think [00:24:00] whilst you say they may be traditional, I think they are quite forward-thinking, and they have been forward-thinking with us. Incredibly ambitious. Obviously before us, they did a deal with the, podcast group, The Fellas Studios, so we were second through the door. Growth in the video space is obviously a, massive part of their plan going forward.
They've recently announced a deal to, they've got their own YouTube sales rights deal now, so they're looking to branch out and partner with other, creators in, video sales. I think for us, other than the, fact that obviously there's, capital to deploy and to help to grow the business, it's always about the people really.
There are lots of people we spoke to throughout the process who you will know. But I think with them it was very much a personal thing.
Evan Shapiro: Who? Wait, who, who?
Scott Melvin: I couldn't possibly. I'll text you later.
Evan Shapiro: Come on, no one's listening. We can just talk amongst ourselves.
Scott Melvin: No one's listening. That's not a great promo, is it? No one's listening.
[00:25:00] No, look, for us it was, for us it was alignment. And look, we're, we may have been four and a half years old, but we're still relatively a startup. We haven't got a huge infrastructure in terms of finance, HR, legal, all those things. We were making content. And we were quite simple in our methods. We're, a guy, bunch of guys who've made TV shows who started making this YouTube show.
So it was a bit of support really, in that sense.
Evan Shapiro: And they're also really good at, they're really good at monetization. They have this massive digital ad exchange. Is that part of the equation as well? They're helping you monetize your channels?
Scott Melvin: 100%, yeah. Yeah, We had, we told them what our ambitions were, and they said, "We can help you do it." And we believed them, and we bought into it, and it's been a, it's been a great partnership so far. And like I say, lots more, hopefully lots more to come from it.
Marion Ranchet: And let's talk about the audience for a minute, right? So Gary Neville, how old is he? 50 [00:26:00] or so?
Scott Melvin: Just turned 51, yeah.
Marion Ranchet: Most of the yeah, most of the hosts are 50. Who's watching?
Scott Melvin: So yeah, you're right. The average age of our panel is 50. Our biggest demographic, if you combine, is 18 to 34. I think there'll be a lot of YouTube strategists who will tell you that demographic would not work on YouTube. I think that's obviously not the case. We have the data to prove it.
I think what's interesting is that, I think the platform is what brings the younger demographic to it, not necessarily the talent.
Marion Ranchet: Yeah.
Scott Melvin: YouTube is a young platform, it attracts younger people. The talent, whatever age they are, will keep them there. But the platform itself has to feel young.
I always use the example of Instagram. Three or four years ago, the man who broke the record for the fastest two million [00:27:00] followers on Instagram in four hours was David Attenborough, who was 94.
Evan Shapiro: That's right.
Scott Melvin: Now, he's not
Evan Shapiro: He still has a massive following.
Scott Melvin: He's not an influencer, but-
Marion Ranchet: Yeah ...
Scott Melvin: he, put him on the right platform and give people good content on that platform, people will come to it. So the age of the talent or the hosts or the creators isn't a thing for me. I don't believe it is a thing.
I think it transcends that. The platforms give you access to that younger audience, and if you give them something good, they will come to you. It, I don't think it's rocket science. I think finding the right platform and giving them good content, that's the playbook. It's not complicated.
You need the right people to front the shows and the right talent, of course you do. And those who aren't high-profile talent, like we, we were lucky we launched with five high-profile football names in the UK. [00:28:00]
But that doesn't mean it, one, that it will succeed, 'cause lots of these things haven't succeeded.
But at the same time, you don't have to have a profile to launch on these platform. You can build your own profile. So there are no rules here. There there is no set playbook of how these things have to work.
Evan Shapiro: And that's part of the fun of it is that you can. There are no, there's no clock. You can do whatever you want. It's part of what makes this, frankly, more fun to do than traditional television.
Scott Melvin: Look, you self-commission, you self-regulate. If you don't, if you don't abide by common decency rules, you will fall over and you will not be on the platform for much longer.
But ultimately, if you're sensible and you play within your own rules that you've set, you'll succeed. but it... A lot of it's patience, right? A lot of these channels now- like Mark. Mark's been, like, say 2.2 million plus 1.3 million over 10 years. It's taken 10 years to [00:29:00] build that. I think what we've done, in a way, has shown that you can come in late with the right talent, and the right marketing, and the right social, strategy.
It's very hard now, I think, for some of the original creators on YouTube. If they were to launch today, I'm not sure they'd get to that million, 2 million, 3 million point.
Evan Shapiro: Sure.
Scott Melvin: Because there's so much else there. And some of it is high-profile talent, so that the competition on the platform is a lot harder.
But again, that's not to say it won't happen. It, of course it will happen again. It will happen regularly.
Marion Ranchet: To your point, it's, again, it could still happen. Maybe not as often as what we've seen these last few years because, to your point, there's a lot of competition. But with the right talent, the right format, the right content, something that, again, catches the audience, anything is possible.
YouTube loves to say that it's never too late, but to launch on YouTube. I think that's a good pitch. But, [00:30:00] yeah, agree with you.
Evan Shapiro: I wanna take this moment to point out that one of us wore our club shirt on the, on the show here today. I have an Eagles shirt on. Yeah. Marion is not wearing a Paris Saint-Germain shirt.
Marion Ranchet: No, I'm not.
Evan Shapiro: So I'm an actual fan, and she is not.
Scott Melvin: I'm very surprised.
Marion Ranchet: But-
Evan Shapiro: Yeah, I'm disappointed, actually to be blunt.
Marion Ranchet: So can I explain? There's a few reasons. Number one
Evan Shapiro: They are the league leaders right now, right? And the league champions aren't they?
Marion Ranchet: Yeah, but it's, it's in here. Scott knows.
You know what happened about that? So I don't have a club shirt. Even if I wanted, let me explain.
Scott Melvin: You have got a tattoo.
Marion Ranchet: I don't have a club shirt. Yeah, No, no. Nothing, like that. But that's the way that
Scott Melvin: I want us you to prove it.
Marion Ranchet: Yeah. No, please. No. let's not do that. No, but there's a few... So number one, I'm wearing a Radiohead T-shirt, so I'm wearing my fandom.
Evan Shapiro: Oh, okay. That's your number one fandom.
Marion Ranchet: One of my fandoms. I'd love to have a Paris Saint-Germain shirt, [00:31:00] but I don't know if but when they won on Saturday, people...
So the, game ended quite early- then some people partied, and some people, also messed it up for others. But let's put that aside. Some people started queuing from 3:00 AM in the morning on the Champs-Élysées in front outside of the Paris Saint-Germain shop, because they were making a special shirt that was saying, you had the two stars, and in the back it was saying, "Back to back," because we've won, two years in a row.
Anyway, and it was worth 150 euros, and I'm sure now it's selling on eBay for, 10 times that. So that's the explanation behind that. But, I am Paris Saint-Germain.
Evan Shapiro: Well, listeners, clearly Marion needs a Paris Saint-Germain, jersey.
Marion Ranchet: Yeah, send one my way. I would love that.
Evan Shapiro: Let's, see how avid our listeners are. I'd love it.
Scott Melvin: The Media Odyssey Secret Santa has just become a lot more boring in the last five-
Marion Ranchet: Yeah, I'd, I'd love that. I'd love one.
Evan Shapiro: We know what she's getting.
Marion Ranchet: I'd [00:32:00] love one. Yeah, for sure.
Evan Shapiro: So Scott, I'm really curious, what's your plan for covering the World Cup without any rights? I'm, really curious as to what your strategy is and, what your rollout plan is.
Scott Melvin: The the strategy for us doesn't change because of the fact that it's a, an international tournament versus a Premier League or a Champions League season. It's still conversations around the tournament.
I think what's important for us, particularly for the first two, three weeks, is just trying not to chase it. There's four games every single day.
Marion Ranchet: Yeah. Yeah.
Scott Melvin: If you record your show previewing the evening's games, your show's dead in three hours or four hours.
So unless you're doing something every single day, which a lot will do, and a lot will have a very successful tournament, for us, it's like, how do we just try and capture the feeling of the tournament, what's going on in New York, what's going on around the grounds. My earlier reference to "Toy Story," that we'll spend a lot of our time talking about the guys, "Where have you been for dinner? Where have you been for [00:33:00] a walk? Who did you bump into?"
Stories around it. Obviously, as it gets further down and England progress and Scotland progress and whoever else progresses, they will become the big topics. France, of course, yes. But I think for us, if we try and chase it every single day, I think we'll just fall over.
Yeah. So those previews to an evening game, if we get that episode out by 6:00 at night and the game kicks off at 8:00, our show's dead in two hours. So we're always trying to look three or four days ahead and just try and capture a bit of the feeling of the place rather than constant. We, don't really do, we try to avoid big tactical insights on the show.
There's lots of places for that, and that feels more relevant to a live broadcaster who has got rights and can show clips. We like to think we'll be doing more around the feeling of the place and, the, and the big stories. Obviously, if there's a big story around, I don't know, Messi gets injured and he's out for the tournament, of course that's a big topic.
But previewing [00:34:00] every group game doesn't seem sensible to us because we'll never have that longevity on YouTube once we launch. changes when you get to the knockouts. Every game's important, every game's huge. I think for the first two weeks just find our feet and get the lay of the land in terms of how the tournament's going.
Evan Shapiro: And how are you physically producing? What, are you building a studio in each town?
Scott Melvin: We have a studio in Brooklyn. Gary, Roy, and Ian are all working for ITV, during the tournament. So we've got a studio next to, if not in their hotel, that we can access kind of 24/7. So it makes it nice and easy for getting the guys in, getting the guys out.
It's a consistent space for the duration of the tournament, so we don't have to worry about rigging and de-rigging as we did in Berlin when we did it for the Euros. So yeah, so we're in Brooklyn, for six weeks. Production team around the corner. Talent in the hotel. Makes things nice and simple.
Marion Ranchet: [00:35:00] And, so 'cause you could go live nonstop. Some do that, right? We're seeing a lot more, streamers on Twitch, on YouTube going live. We've had an example that is not football related but this network, TPBN that was bought by OpenAI, and these guys initially, just to your point, they were saying, they're covering tech and business, and they wanted to do this as a weekly podcast, and then figured, we might, may as well just go live every day, and it turned into a three-hour daily live stream.
I guess if Gary and others have to work for ITV as well, it's not possible, but this could have been something you guys could have done or perhaps something you'll do two years, four years from now.
Scott Melvin: Possibly. I think my view would be that you could have too much of a good thing.
Marion Ranchet: Yeah.
Scott Melvin: I think the beauty of our show is the fact that [00:36:00] we only record once a week, once a fortnight, and we're doing two shows a week throughout the World Cup. I think that's plenty. There's, it's gonna be very congested.
Marion Ranchet: True.
Scott Melvin: It's a very congested space, and I think we like to think that by popping up twice a week it feels a little bit more special. And it's slightly different to the others. We're not always chasing the daily stories. Look, plenty will be doing live streams throughout the whole tournament. I think people will be getting very blurry eyes by the end of it, particularly due to the times.
Marion Ranchet: Yeah.
Scott Melvin: It's not something we've done much of.
We've done, we did one live watch along in our past, which was Arsenal v. Man United a couple of Novembers ago, which was great fun. But no, it's not something we'd do for the World Cup this time. Maybe for the next Euros, we'd think about it. It's slightly more friendly given it's in the UK but there's definitely a place for that.
And I think the one thing that the, live streamers have [00:37:00] and have to have is an awful lot of energy.
Marion Ranchet: Yeah, for sure.
Scott Melvin: And that's, it's, it takes a lot out of you, that.
Evan Shapiro: Are you gonna be covering the Women's World Cup in Brazil next year as well? This is similar fashion.
Scott Melvin: We don't know yet. Yeah, probably, but we haven't got that far.
This has taken up a lot of head space over the last 12 months as you can imagine. If you want to, I'm happy to go on a reconnaissance mission to, Brazil for a few weeks to scout some locations.
Evan Shapiro: Come with. I'm gonna go in the fall. Yeah, it's wonderful. Great.
Scott Melvin: Yeah, so we'd love to, and I'm sure we'll be doing something, hopefully on a similar scale.
Evan Shapiro: Well, on behalf of women's sports fans everywhere, I hope you do, 'cause it, for Americans, the Women's World Cup will be much more exciting than the men's.
Marion Ranchet: It's coming to an end, and I do have to ask you one more question, which is, who do you think is gonna win, I don't think we can leave that episode without us...
Evan Shapiro: I think let's make that the question of the week.
Let's each make our predictions, and then we'll come back afterwards and see who was right.
Marion Ranchet: Sounds good.
Scott Melvin: I think I know what you're gonna say, Marion.
Marion Ranchet: [00:38:00] No, I will say I hope it's France, but I think it's gonna be Portugal.
Evan Shapiro: Wow. That was what I was gonna say. I'm gonna go with Portugal as well.
Scott Melvin: I hope it's Scotland, but let's not be, let's not be stupid.
I just hope we, I hope we win a game and get out of the group. I think Portugal or I think Argentina could potentially do it again.
Marion Ranchet: Oh, no.
Scott Melvin: Do you know what? There's so much of this tournament is gonna be down to conditions.
Evan Shapiro: Yeah.
Scott Melvin: More so than ever. But I think South American teams could do very well. Heat, altitude. Yeah, it's gonna be hot. Yeah.
Evan Shapiro: It's gonna be hot.
Scott Melvin: It's gonna be hot.
The, sad thing is for Scotland, our last game of the group is against Brazil in Miami. So if we need to get something out of that, we are in serious trouble.
Evan Shapiro: Yeah, it's gonna be hot there, and it's gonna be pro- it's gonna be a home game probably for Brazil to a certain extent.
Scott Melvin: The one team that keeps getting tipped is, as a surprise package, not a winner, is Ecuador.
I [00:39:00] think-
Marion Ranchet: And I actually read about, the Netherlands, which I live in Netherlands, but I do not buy it, but apparently this guy, he's part economist, part football fan, and he predicted right the last few one, and he says that-
Scott Melvin: Yeah, I saw that.
Marion Ranchet: Yeah the final is Netherland, Portugal.
Scott Melvin: Yes.
Marion Ranchet: And Netherland wins.
Evan Shapiro: Really?
Marion Ranchet: Which would make my day, but I seriously doubt it.
Evan Shapiro: Has Netherlands ever won?
Marion Ranchet: No.
Scott Melvin: No.
Evan Shapiro: Neither of them have ever won, right? No. Yeah.
Scott Melvin: No.
Marion Ranchet: Portugal won the Euro
Scott Melvin: No, Portugal won the Euros. The Euros, yeah ... but, yeah. Netherlands have been tipped for every World Cup since 1970, so let's not get too carried away.
I, do you know what? The only thing I think I'll, as a caveat, I think it'll be very interesting to see, this is not one for now, Evan, but the, landscape of soccer in the US post this tournament will be very interesting.
Evan Shapiro: Yeah, it's gonna change. Yeah, I agree.
Scott Melvin: Because the last eight years, particularly since Qatar World Cup finished, it's all been about this World Cup [00:40:00] and how it will change the attitude to soccer in America.
I think when we get to the 21st of July, I'll be fascinated to see how the mentality has shifted, if at all. Or do we have a repeat of what happened in '94, where there was a huge boom, and then two months later, it drops off.
Evan Shapiro: Yeah, I think the, big difference between '94 and now is the internet, is the kind of how the world has gotten so much smaller since then.
So I do think- and also, '94, you talk about millennials, very different generation. You've got Generation A here, now, and I just think they're much more global in their perspective. So I do think this'll be a transformational year with regards to America's relationship to football. Your football, not my football.
And I do think having the Women's World Cup coming right after it the next year, where US women have a, another good shot- I think that [00:41:00] one-two punch will really be transformational. That's my own opinion.
Scott Melvin: Do you think the men's game has suffered because of the success of the women's game?
Evan Shapiro: Yeah, I do.
Scott Melvin: As in the perception is it's a, it's more of a female sport than a male sport.
Evan Shapiro: I think it's because, America's, it, we love our winners. And so we're so focused on the women's team. And by the way, you can see what's happening in women's basketball as well, where Caitlin Clark is now, arguably the biggest basketball star in America right now.
So I just, I do think it, it'll be interesting. I think the men will, the US men will go a lot further than people are anticipating, and this always happens. The home team always goes further than they would normally go. The team, they're on their own clock, they're in- they're, oftentimes in their own towns.
And so I do think the combination of the US men going further, I don't think they'll win by any stretch of imagination, but them going further in the rounds, and it being here, and it, these happening in stadiums all around, I do think [00:42:00] you're gonna see, a major uptick in interest, especially amongst Gen Z and Gen A.
Scott Melvin: Good. Let's hope so, for your sake.
Evan Shapiro: Yeah, for your sake.
Marion Ranchet: For everyone's sake. Scott, it was amazing having you on. We met a while back, but I wanted to have you on for a long time. It's amazing what you guys have done, within, just three years, Yeah kudos. And let's circle back in a few weeks' time and see who's a winner.
I don't know, maybe, we- someone buys drinks, somewhere next time.
Evan Shapiro: We all picked Portugal, like-
Marion Ranchet: No, if we, well-
Scott Melvin: I'll, go, Argentina. I'll go Argentina.
Marion Ranchet: Okay.
Evan Shapiro: Okay. All right. Okay.
Marion Ranchet: Yeah, you just copied me Evan, 'cause I don't even, I...
How come you picked Portugal anyway? Let's, not get off the topic.
Evan Shapiro: 'cause I was just in Portugal and everyone there was telling me, "We're gonna win the World Cup."
Marion Ranchet: Oh. Yeah, but that's biased. No, I could see- If you go to France- I could see it,
Scott Melvin: I could see it in his eyes. As soon as you said Portugal, he thought, "I'll go with that."
He, had [00:43:00] nowhere to go.
Marion Ranchet: Yeah, he was like, "Oh, I was there. I know where it is on a map."
Scott Melvin: Yeah. Yeah.
Evan Shapiro: Exactly. It's the one country I can identify.
Marion Ranchet: Awesome. Scott, again, thank you so much.
Scott Melvin: Thank you, guys, great to see you.
Marion Ranchet: Yeah, he's so lucky. I'm so jealous.
I'd love to be there. I've never... Oh, actually, I did the Euro two years ago, and we've had the World Cup in 2018. No, when was it? 1998. When I turned 18 I was doing the Baccalauréat, I was supposed to study, and we had the World Cup in France, and out of the blue, we just, we were so bad at the top, but out of the blue we won.
That was amazing. And then 20 years later, I was about to move to Amsterdam, and on the day of the final, I was doing my farewell party, which turned into a World Cup party because it was us in the finals, and we won. [00:44:00] I cried my eyes out. And so I'd love to be there, with them in New York.
Evan Shapiro: You have a place to stay.
I'm here in New York. We have an extra room.
Marion Ranchet: Yeah, I know-
Evan Shapiro: You're more than welcome to stay
Marion Ranchet: But it's the money. It's the money, my friend. There's no way.
Evan Shapiro: Just, you won't have to pay for a hotel. I know, yeah. And by the way, you can't get tickets.
Marion Ranchet: That's true. Yeah, that's what Jesse said.
Evan Shapiro: It is impossible to get tickets. Yeah. You can't, it's, you have to go, you literally have to buy scalpers at this point. There are no tickets available.
Marion Ranchet: Yeah, no, I'm... I don't like it that much, to that point, to spend so much money, and plus I have a lot of stuff to do with you, over the next few weeks.
That's right. I'm gonna have to,
Evan Shapiro: And Cannes, in fact.
Marion Ranchet: Yeah. Cannes, I'm going to London. There's a lot going on. My husband counted and I'm gonna be traveling in June 16 days out of 30.
Evan Shapiro: Wow.
Marion Ranchet: That's a lot.
Evan Shapiro: Yeah, but you have small children. My kids don't give a shit when I travel.
Marion Ranchet: Yeah. But maybe your wife does.
Evan Shapiro: I don't know. She seems to be having a good time.[00:45:00]
Marion Ranchet: Well-
Evan Shapiro: It was great to have you, on. Next week's episode, we have, a co-host 'cause you're on vacation, and I'm really thrilled. We've got one of my childhood crushes, Valerie Bertinelli- from One Day at a Time on the podcast as my special co-host. listen to, thank you for listening to this podcast or watching this podcast, regardless of where you are, and tune in next week for a very special episode.
This has been the Media Odyssey Podcast. That is Paris Saint-Germain super fan- ... Marion Ranchet.
Marion Ranchet: And that is Eagles super fan Evan Shapiro.
Evan Shapiro: Go Birds. Thanks for listening.