YouTube Set to Live Stream its First Premium Sporting Event

YouTube Set to Live Stream its First Premium Sporting Event

Combate Global will become the first premium sports property to live stream one of its events on YouTube later this evening (March 13). The broadcast will be the first of three MMA cards distributed across the global streaming platform (April 10 & April 24 are the others). 

The events will be available to watch for free on Combate’s English and Spanish YouTube channels. YouTube will aid viewer discovery with a call-to-action on its “Live” button just prior to the start of each card.

The Hispanic-focused fight sports promotion hopes the streamer’s reach will increase eyeballs and engagement on/with its live events and that the advertising revenues generated on the platform will exceed what it could command from an exclusive linear partner.

“With YouTube, Combate Global finally becomes global,” Campbell McLaren (CEO, Combate Global) said. “We are trading a linear TV audience for a digital, [worldwide partner].”

The three events represent the start of Combate’s transition from linear television to ‘the world’s number one streaming video destination’.

Combate Global flies under the radar of most English-speaking Americans. 

But “Spanish speakers in the U.S. and Mexico know us,” McLaren said. 

The promotion averaged 464,000 P2+ viewers over 25 events on Univision in 2023. Its most-watched event that year drew 1.3mm.

YouTube’s partnership with Combate speaks to the Spanish-speaking sports fans’ growing influence in the Americas.

The streamer “is looking to accomplish three things,” McLaren said. The first is “to grow their business in Mexico, we have a really good following there; and make it easier for [subscribers] on limited minutes to use the service.”

YouTube will be promoting Combate viewership on TV screens rather than mobile devices. Remember, plans with unlimited cell phone minutes are ‘almost unheard of’ in much of South America. 

YouTube also “wants to figure out live sports on the platform and we are [a good] property for their pilot program,” McLaren said. 

The promotion is big enough to be interesting, but not so widely known that early hiccups would draw the attention of national media; particularly, amongst English speaking journalists.

“And thirdly, they’re interested in growing their business amongst Spanish-dominant Hispanics in the U.S.,” McLaren said.

After the three shows, YouTube will do a deep data dive into the partnership’s performance (think: where viewership came from, how long fans tuned in) and make a determination on what to do with the promotion moving forward.

But Combate is planning to make the move exclusively to YouTube after April 24.

Their “interest in the pay-per-view model and global reach is something I just see in our future,” McLaren said.

That does not mean pricing events at $79.99 (cost of UFC PPVs), or even $49.99 (cost of PFL’s Battle of the Giants); as fight fans have become accustomed to.

“Maybe ours are $1.99 [worldwide] or $4.99 in the U.S., $.99 in Mexico, and $.50 in Columbia,” McLaren said. “We want people to feel good about purchasing [our events]. And if [we are able to] reach [even] a percentage the 600mm Spanish speakers in South America and get a buck [each from them], it’s a tremendous business.”

YouTube and the promotion will together work to figure out the right monetization model.

It’s not as if there are a ton of better options for Combate at the moment, particularly outside of the U.S.

“We all know the linear story here in this country. [Rights owners] are cutting back,” McLaren said. “Imagine that same scenario, but in Colombia, Argentina, or Brazil.”

There’s simply little money in those markets for tier two or three sports properties.

That does not mean Combate is planning for a dip in media rights-related revenues in the years ahead. Its rev-share projections for YouTube outpace the deals it has on the table from the establishment. 

The promotion will be on the partner tier with the highest domestic CPMs (YouTube Select, $28). For context, its existing Univision deal has a $40 CPM.

The expectation is meaningful growth in live event viewership will more than offset the $12 difference.

“And [don’t forget], for the month after you still generate that CPM [on YouTube],” McLaren. On linear, “you just get one shot [at viewership] during the live broadcast.”

That’s not to say the distribution model will net out for every tier two or three property. If you first must build a meaningful audience on the platform, it becomes a steeper hill to climb. 

“We have a running start. We [already] have a decent following [there] that is very engaged,” McLaren said.

Combate’s Spanish YouTube channel has 315,000 subscribers. Its average viewer tunes in for more than 14 minutes, ‘phenomenal’ by platform standards.

While Combate is excited by the opportunity, it is not putting all its eggs into YouTube’s rev-share driven basket, yet. 

“We’ve also done a deal with Samsung TV, we’re back on Univision, on Univision Radio, and on Fuse in English,” McLaren said. “So, we’re going to have wide distribution [for these next three events].”

One might assume YouTube would be opposed to Combate selling its content to other distributors as it’s ‘testing’ the viability of premium sports distribution on the platform. But the streaming giant is not concerned about losing viewers. 

“I asked the YouTube executives if the Univision broadcast would cannibalize our audience,” McLaren said. “Their answer was that ‘we are the cannibals’.”

YouTube’s share of TV time grew 2% YoY. It now commands 10.8% of all TV time consumed. 

“It’s beginning to look like a YouTube-Netflix world,” McLaren said. “Everything else lines up beneath those [two behemoths].”

While YouTube has tremendous reach, discovery on the platform can be problematic. But the Combate CEO insists his property will have help cutting through the noise.

“On the homepage, they’ll announce we’re live. They’re [going to be] sending programming alerts to Spanish speakers, Combate fans, [and] MMA fans [too],” McLaren said. And “that’s [also] partially why they’ve offered up [some of the top Spanish speaking] creators who have an established audience that overlaps with ours.”

Jawy Mendez, referred to as ‘the Spanish-language Jake Paul’, Patricio (Pato) Razo, and Foos Gone Wild/Lil’ Mr. E are among the prominent YouTube streamers collaborating with the MMA promotion.

“We’re incorporating them into the [fighters] training process [and] they’re [going to be] coming to the events,” McLaren said. “They’ll make content for their platforms. They’ll make content for our platform. We’ll do it together.”

Combate anticipates reaching as many as 100mm new fans across the U.S. and Mexico through the creator collective (think: each streamer has between 5-50mm subscribers on the platform).

If Combate is successful in meaningfully growing event viewership and can monetize its rights effectively, other tier two and three properties will quickly follow its lead to YouTube.

One already has. Power Slap announced it is moving from Rumble to the Google-owned platform after signing a 6-year $76 million sponsorship deal with VeChain.