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March 30, 2023

Men in Blazers Gearing Up for '26, Football Ready to Enter "Promised Land" in U.S.

Men in Blazers (MiB) evolution from a single podcast hosted by Roger Bennett and Michael Davies to a multi-voiced digital football network continued this week with the announcement of several talent additions and new show formats. 

The independent media company believes the global game is finally about to enter "the promised land" in the United States and is positioning itself to capitalize on the opportunity accordingly.  

“Our whole business is pointing to 2026,” Roger Bennett (co-founder, Men in Blazers Media Network) said. “All indications are the World Cup coming to our shores in '26 will finish the job that 1994 was supposed to in [terms of] making America a full-blooded, passionate, deeply knowledgeable football nation. By that time, our network will be a diverse, multi-voiced community [ready to serve] the largest, most passionate football-loving fanbase in North America." 

The U.S., Mexico and Canada will co-host the Men’s FIFA World Cup that summer.

Bennett and Davies started the MiB podcast in 2010. The show began free of any commercial imperative. “We just loved football [and wanted to grow the game in America]," Bennett said.

Their authenticity and passion cut through and the podcast began to build an audience. Its success led to a weekly television show (now in its ninth season with NBC Sports) and eventually to the introduction of several complimentary football pods. Today, the MiB Media Network has 11 different show formats.

MiB announced this week that it will be adding five additional formats in ’23.

Former USMNT player Herculez Gomez, a leading Hispanic voice on football in the United States, and USWNT captain Becky Sauerbrunn, will host two of the new formats on the platform.

USMNT captain Tyler Adams and USWNT player Sam Mewis have also signed on. The latter will cover this summer’s Women’s World Cup on Twitch and in podcasts.

But the biggest addition is Fabrizio Romano.

“He’s essentially the [Adrian Wojnarowski] or Adam Schefter of global football,” Bennett said. 

Romano has 14.2 million Twitter followers, nearly as many as Woj (5.8 million) and Schefter (10.3 million) combined. He'll be hosting a podcast twice-a-week on the MiB Media Network.

The breaking news authority should raise MiB’s global profile and “take [the company] to another level in terms of what [it] can provide, who is speaking to the American audience,” Bennett said.

The live football rights landscape in the U.S. is fragmented. Fox, ESPN, Turner Sports, HBO Max and Apple all control high-profile league or tournament packages.

MiB’s sees itself as Switzerland weaving all their storylines and narratives together for the U.S. fan. Ultimately, Bennett envisions having media properties specifically focused on every major league and tournament across the U.S. and Europe.

And he envisions each of those properties delivering high-quality storytelling “by land, by sea, by air.” That means covering them “digitally, live on Twitch and through podcasts,” and re-packaging the content so it can live across a multitude of platforms (think: Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube).

The company currently generates 140 million digital impressions/month.

MiB’s rise tracks alongside football’s growth in the U.S. “The driver of this [consumption] is the young American,” Bennett said. “Our audience is all in the 20-30 [age range].”

It’s a demographic that has gone from "football curious" to “obsessed” in a little more than a decade. “2010 was a real game changer when ESPN started to cover the World Cup seriously,” Bennett said. “2014 it went next level with the Premier League being broadcast in a serious way by NBC.”

Now, U.S. football fans can watch just about any league or tournament game, men’s or women’s, domestic or international, live on the device of their choice.

As the game continues to gain popularity stateside, the presumption is consumption of MiB content will increase with it.

EA Sports’ FIFA franchise has also played an instrumental role in developing football fandom in the U.S.

“That game has been the silent hand that has grown the [sport],” Bennett said. “A whole generation of American college kids realized the difference between Messi and Ronaldo by controlling them [in a video game].”

MiB’s rise tracks alongside a second trend too, the rise of podcasting. While the company delivers programming across a host of formats and platforms, podcasts remain at the heart of the business–and its P&L.  

The company’s two largest revenue streams are ad sales/media partnerships (see: co-production deals with Wondery & Twitch) and sponsor tie-ups. The former represents ~30% of company revenues, the latter makes up somewhere between 35% and 40%.

MiB also has a production arm, a merchandise line, a book publishing division, and a touring business. Bennett and Davies sold-out 10 shows across America during last summer’s World Cup.

The profitable media business generated annual revenues in the “mid-to-high seven figures” in ‘22, a 147% YoY climb. Of course, last year was a World Cup year.

More than 10 million fans tuned into MiB’s version of the

Manningcast

on Twitch during the '22 Men's World Cup, including the 300,000 plus who watched the U.S.-England game alongside Bennett, Davies and Matthew McConaughey.

MiB plans to lean even more heavily into its Twitch business in the years ahead. The belief is that doing so will spawn a plethora of partnership integration opportunities.

“We’re in the nexus here between the entertainment industry that has fallen in love with football and the big teams in England and Europe that want to speak to fans in America,” Bennett said.

And the company has the capability to deliver brand partners both value and convenience. “We can affordably ideate with brands, talent [programming] ourselves, produce [content] ourselves and then we have our own platform [that generates] 140 million [organic] impressions a month [to push it out to],” Bennett explained.

The company is currently working to put together the talent lineup for the upcoming Women’s World Cup.

MiB’s next phase will also see the company add more talent, introduce original programming (via a co-production partnership with Skydance), roll-out a podcast for every major league in Europe and North America currently without one, and “step up [its] capacity to broadcast live on site before major games,” Bennett said.

MiB’s growth has been self-funded to date.

“We’ve taken almost nothing out and have put all of the profits back into the business,” Bennett said.

However, the company will likely have to take on outside capital in the not too distant future to maintain its growth trajectory and keep up with the opportunity in the run up to the ’26 World Cup.

For context:

• MiB published 137 podcasts in ’21, 234 in ’22 and is on target to publish 365 in ’23.

• The company generated nearly 1 billion social impressions in ’22, up from 60 million in ’20.

• Headcount has grown from 4 employees in ’21 to 20 today.