Sneak Preview: FAST Break: Packaging and Selling Sports on FAST
On Wednesday, May 21, Michael Nagle, Founder and CEO, Ashling Digital, will moderate the Streaming Media Connect May panel “FAST Break: Packaging and Selling Sports on FAST.” Premium sports streaming is a big event business, with licensing fees reaching into the stratosphere and large-scale, global delivery traffic demands threatening to overload the most formidable networks. The highest-profile sports streams happen on premium subscription services and draw users through exclusivity. As sports increasingly makes inroads with FAST, exclusivity is a much smaller part of the equation, according to the latest Gracenote data. What do FAST sports channels look like, what kind of sports programming works on FAST, and how do successful FAST sports channels target audiences and satisfy advertisers while breaking ranks with the industry trend of sports rights exclusivity?
Confirmed panelists include:
Get your free pass for Streaming Media Connect 2025 today!
Michael Nagle has spent his entire career in media. He is the Founder and CEO for Ashling Digital, where he assists FAST channels with distribution, marketing, and partnerships. Home Media Magazine listed him as one of its “Digital Drivers” in both 2016 and 2017. Nagle has served in leadership roles for Bloomberg, Playboy, Nature Vision, and Invincible Entertainment. He was GM of Streaming for USA TODAY and USA TODAY Sports from 2022 to 2024. In 2023, Michael was honored as one of “Gannett’s Greatest” for Diversity & Inclusion. He also teaches Advertising and Marketing Communications at Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) in New York.
“I’m seeking to get a better understanding of which sports help FAST stand out and whether live broadcasts are a crucial element for streaming sports,” Nagle says. On the panel, “I think we’re also going to cover some sports betting topics and what is necessary to draw not only viewership but also advertisers.”
Christy Tanner has transformed the world’s most recognizable brands and startups into dominant, profitable multi-platform media competitors. Recognized internationally for her innovations in live-streaming, AI, and social and digital growth strategies, Tanner currently chairs Swerve TV, serves as a Board Director of Audacy, and is a trusted C-suite consultant. Previously, as the leader of two divisions for CBS Interactive, she launched game-changing new streaming services that established market dominance and created exponential revenue growth for CBS’s Sports, News, Local, and Media businesses.
“Live sports viewership is surging in FAST—from well-established sports such as boxing to ascendant sports such as MMA. At Swerve, we’re focused on helping leagues expand their fanbases and on providing more opportunities for fans to watch the sports they love,” Tanner shares. “We have found that exclusivity is not critical to drawing audiences and monetizing content. In fact, our partners see a lift across the board in their sport’s fandom, whether that’s attendance in-person or viewership on other platforms.”
Cathy Rasenberger is President of Rasenberger Media LLC, a leading media industry consulting firm providing business development, outsourced management, and strategic advisory services. Rasenberger is also a Founder and Co-President of Sports Studio, a global sports platform, distribution, and monetization company dedicated to delivering and monetizing free, high-quality sports programming across linear and on-demand platforms. Sports Studio, owns and operates Free Live Sports TV, which is among the world’s largest dedicated free sports platforms. Rasenberger has been included among CableFax’s “Top 100 Heavy Hitters” and “Most Powerful Women,” and she was inducted into the Cable TV Pioneers.
“Sports on FAST is experiencing a big transformation. Until recently the most underrepresented category in FAST, sports is now the fastest growing, with sports FAST channels more than doubling in the past 9 months from 107 channels to 220 channels,” Rasenberger states. “Sports FAST services are adding many more marquee and live events, including the Super Bowl on TUBI, MLB and Formula 1 on ROKU Channel, and NBA on Amazon Prime Video. As viewership continues to shift from cable to streaming, major sports leagues and programmers are moving more premium and live content to FAST to reach audiences no longer watching traditional TV, particularly Gen Z. The growth of live sports on FAST will be a major driver for user acquisition, viewership and monetization on FAST, just as live sports on ESPN drove the early success of Cable TV.”
Sports channels showing pickleball, cricket, poker, MMA fights, and other events that aren’t necessarily mainstream “are also finding success on FAST,” she says, because “FAST has made these niche sports accessible due to lower costs and [fewer] barriers to entry.” Rasenberger adds, “According to eMarketer, Free Ad Supported Streaming accounts for 20% of all media viewership, yet ad spend on FAST is only 8% of total. The growth of more sports on FAST will be the magnet to attract bigger brands and ad budgets to FAST and help close that gap.”
Pamela Duckworth is an award-winning executive producer with extensive experience across all production disciplines and brand marketing. She is head of Fubo Studios, which is Fubo’s original production division dedicated to sports and entertainment programming across multiple formats. Duckworth brings more than 25 years of production experience—from initial conception to final distribution—in pay TV (live streaming, cable), commercials, live sports and events, syndicated television series, and short-form content to Fubo. In her role, Duckworth is responsible for all strategy, creative direction, and original programming for the company’s growing owned and operated TV networks, including Fubo Sports, Fubo Movie Network, and Fubo Latino Network.
“More audiences are watching sports on FAST platforms than ever before,” Duckworth agrees. “In 2024, global sports channel viewership on FAST increased 150%, according to Amagi’s Global FAST Report,” she notes. “FAST has carved out space for all types of sports and leagues to land broader distribution and attract more eyeballs. Now it’s not just the major leagues that are commanding viewers, it’s also the niche and emerging sports that are thriving thanks to FAST.”
Duckworth says that this is evident on Fubo Sports, “where we stream over 900 hours of live sports content a year, including breakout leagues like Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship and classics like World Poker Tour.”
Tom Buffolano is Head of Business Development at Tata Communications. He previously served as Head of Business Development, College Sports, at The Switch. A seasoned expert in the sports broadcasting and entertainment industry, his experience spans business development and partnerships, sales and marketing, rights acquisition, programming and production, distribution, and monetization. Buffolano holds decades of experience growing businesses and driving new partnerships at leading media companies, including MTV Networks, CBS College Sports, LTN Global Communications, BitFire Network/Studios, and LiveU. Buffolano co-founded and was Chairman of the SVG College Sports Summit and College Sports Media Awards.
“FAST Sports content can be programmed in a variety of ways, including live content and VOD according to the target audience preference, location/time zone, language, and sponsor integration,” Buffolano shares, and in addition, the content “does not rely on subscription, so it is 100% accessible to be viewed when and where you want it.”
He observes that sports that are too niche don’t really work, because “[w]hile FAST can help grow an audience, you need to sow revenue to offset operations costs, and you need a relatively large audience to do that.” The most important thing is “finding a target audience that will be loyal to your FAST Channel, [which] comes with research and a comprehensive programming plan, providing a predictable viewing experience.”
H. Robert Muzac is Director of Operations at HRM International Media. Muzac created a Sports Documentary Series called “Lacrosse Legends." A comprehensive look at America’s greatest game featuring Legends past, present, and future. In 5 years “Lacrosse Legends” has played a part in getting at least 8 different lacrosse players induction in various Hall of Fames. Muzac also runs HRMI Media, a company which creates media advertising campaigns, by producing video & audio commercials and scheduling them on broadcast platforms throughout the country. Muzac has been in advertising sales since 1998. At Power 99fm (Philadelphia), HOT97fm, WCBS Newsradio 88, and the NY Yankees (NY). Muzac also successfully completed the 2010 Broadcast Leadership Training Program given by the National Association of Broadcasters (Washington DC).
Register now for Streaming Media Connect 2025!
Related Articles
On Thursday, May 22, Brian Ring, Principal Analyst, Ring Digital llc, will moderate the Streaming Media Connect May panel "Publishers Pay to Play Free: Next Steps in Ad-Based Streaming Monetization." Increasingly, content publishers are finding they need more control over their ad stack. This panel looks beyond the touted monetization-ready feature sets in streaming playback solutions and drills down with key content providers on how well these solutions facilitate ad signaling and ad stitching and integrate with ad servers, discussing what kind of reporting they provide to measure success. The panel also highlights the differences in ad-based monetization strategies as between CTV platforms, online video players, and mobile apps. And finally, panelists dig deep into critical emerging standards that are changing SSAI this year.
14 May 2025
FuboTV Inc. (d/b/a Fubo) (NYSE: FUBO), the leading sports-first live TV streaming platform, and European League of Football (ELF) announced today a multi-year agreement for distribution on Fubo Sports, Fubo's FAST channel, available on streaming and over-the-air (OTA).
13 May 2025
Sports are an "accelerator" for ad-supported streaming in Europe with short-form sports content emerging as a key driver of engagement, says Keith Bedford, GM EMEA at CTV data company Wurl. "As studios and sports broadcasters struggle to tie in major upfront deals and connect with younger audiences, new models for revenue and content discovery will be required," he says. "Short-form video could be one way we start to see sports content companies garner interest and boost engagement for their long-form and TVOD (transactional video on demand) businesses."
12 May 2025
On Thursday, May 22, the NBA's Michelle Auguste, DAZN's Joe Caporoso, MTech's Matt Stagg, and WTFast's Darcy Lorincz will join Hub's Jon Giegengack for the Streaming Media Connect May panel "Highlights First: Gen AI, Gen Z, and Next-Generation Sports Streaming." As a new generation of highlights-first fans moves into the sports fandom mainstream, sports broadcasters need the agility and tech-savviness to produce and monetize personalized, short-form sports content at scale that meets the experiential demands of Millennial and Gen Z fans. If you're a sports rightsholder and you're not gaming out how to bring a personalized SportsCenter to every viewer, you're looking at where the puck was and not where it's going.
06 May 2025
On Thursday, May 22, Nadine Krefetz will moderate the Streaming Media Connect May panel "In AI We Trust? AI and Content Authenticity," featuring Think Alchemy's Andy Beach, I2A's Renard Jenkins, and Stringr's Lindsay Stewart. As generative AI is finding its way into streaming in many ways, this panel looks at two popular use cases: deep fakes and captioning. We'll discuss initiatives like C2PA to address emerging content authenticity issues and evaluate the current state of the art and tech.
05 May 2025