Perfect Game considers itself a media company. Embraces it, in fact.
But what happens when a bevy of independent creators and unaffiliated media begin using its events for their own content?
PG has opted to put them in the lineup rather than eject them. The platform announced a media rights pact with Doubted Athletes today — its second such deal after partnering wth Youth Prospects in April.
“We’ve really handpicked two that we saw were already doing it with an authentic voice at a level that fits our brand that was good for our players, good for our ecosystem, good for our partners,” PG head of content Josh Gotthelf told Buying Sandlot. “They were really helping to shine a positive light on the journeys of these young athletes.
“They were on the other side of the fence, shooting through the fence. We saw it, we loved their work and instead of tightening up, we gave them a call and said, ‘Hey, how can we help you enhance your coverage? How can we get you from outside the fence to behind the curtain?’”
DA — which specializes in cutting full games into 20-30 minute condensed versions on YouTube — will have rights to select PG events. Gotthelf said PG will provide more access and help with scouting information and storylines to inform content decisions. The partnership also opens up sponsorship doors given high engagement numbers.
“We want to meet the kids where they are, meet the audience where it is,” Gotthelf said. “In this particular case, it’s the young athletes, the teen audience, the players in our ecosystem, that’s where they consume content.”
Gotthelf expects PG will likely form more partnerships in the future, but nothing is currently planned.
Different scenario, but this is a much better way of handling an IP question than, say, how Black Bear Sports did.
PG is savvy and understands influencer content can further its goals— much the same way the NBA did (and MLB didn’t) on social media in the 2010s. One embraced shareable clips, and the other issued takedown notices and the sport suffered as a result. MLB’s delay cost it a generation of cultural relevance that the NBA had, though the league has gotten much better about this in the last 7-8 years.
But this does serve as a reminder for players and families that youth sports competitions increasingly fall under someone else’s monetizable IP rights. With a thicket of cameras, streaming platforms, tournaments, and media platforms - sometimes rolled into one company - the one-off media rights questions will be many. Pro sports rights are all about broad distribution (literally broadcast), but youth sports is all about the long-tail of niche viewing across a range of platforms. PG embraced the opportunity here, increased access for the influencer, and got to define the terms— not all IP owners will.
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