Genius Sports Limited (GENI) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome to the stage, CEO of Genius Sports, Mark Locke.

Good morning, everyone. Quite the introduction. Thanks, Josh. New from week is, obviously, as we can see, very crowded, and it's great to see such a good turnout today. Every company this week will tell you that they can reach sports fans. Almost none of them, though, can reach them when it actually matters. You can buy context and you can buy audiences, but you lose the one thing that matters most in sport timing. Because in sport, moments aren't just part of the experience. They are the experience. Being near the game isn't enough. If you want to win in sports, you have to show up at the right moment. for the right fan in a way that actually means something. That's why this is changing. At Genius Sports, our mission has always been clear. to become the operating system of modern Sport. For years, that meant building the foundation, partnering with leagues, capturing and distributing the most trusted real-time data in sports at global scale. But data alone isn't the answer. Understanding fans is. That's why last year, with the addition of Sports Innovation Lab, we further established the Genius Fan graft, a deterministic view of sports fans that goes far beyond demographics, into behaviors. Passions, intent. From that, we built fan hub, where official game data and deep fan intelligence come together. So brands can activate with real precision. And what we proved is simple. When you connect what's happening in the game with who the fan is, you don't just improve performance you change it entirely. But you also told us something very clearly. You don't want another destination. You want this capability where you already work inside your planning tools, inside your supply platforms and inside your existing workflows. So no more trade-off. As you'll hear today, we're taking the next step. The world's most advanced view of the game and the deepest fan intelligence are now available directly across the ad tech and publisher ecosystem, not as an add-on as infrastructure. What brings us what -- which brings us to what actually powers all of this because if sport runs on moments, then the marketing needs to as well, not after the fact not in post analysis, but in real time, understanding when something meaningful is happening, recognizing intent as it forms and making that moment actionable instantly. That's why today, we're introducing the Genius Sports moment engine, a new way to connect live sport fan intelligence and activation, so you can show up exactly when it matters most. Thank you all for being here, and thank you for your partnership. And I'd like to now introduce our SVP of Marketing, Gena Waldhorn, who's going to show you what this actually looks like.

Thank you so much. My name is Gena Waldhorn Walton. I'm going to be your host today, but I don't want you to think about me as your host. I want you to think of me as your coach, okay? We're all a team here together, and we are up against a formidable challenge because we have entered a new age of sport and the fan has changed. The fan has evolved. We're reaching a fluid fan who is open to change and powered to choose continuously evolving and who has never had more choice when it comes to media and entertainment than they have today. So we all need a game plan, right? If we're going to succeed in this new age of sport, we need to be inspired, yes, we need to know what's possible, and we're going to bring you those conversations from visionaries today, but we also need a game plan to win. And that's what I'm going to deliver for you today because don't worry, have we got one. But before I get into the game plan, I'm excited to set that foundation and build that strategy for you by inviting to the stage our Chief Revenue Officer, Josh Linforth.

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for being here. New Front Week is loud. Every platform is promising reach. Every streaming service is promising premium. Every ad tech company is promising precision. But you showed up for sports. Why? Because nothing else in media feels like this. The last second shot, the overtime upset, the record-breaking play or the impossible comeback. There is no skip bundle in that moment. No algorithm deciding what comes next. No passive scrolling. These are the moments that matter. And that's because sports is live, sports is scaled, sports is premium. And in 2026, it remains the most valuable media asset in the world. the power of sports hasn't changed, but how you connect and reach fans has. The average fan now watches the game, check stats, follows, highlights, tracks bets, engages socially all at the same time. A motion is concentrated. Attention is fragmented. Intent is immediate. So why are you still buying sports the old-fashioned way with a 30-second spot during the game or programmatically targeting sports fans and hope relevancy leads to impact. That model is outdated. Context is not intelligence. Keyword targeting is not intelligence. And none of these media channels connect you to what really matters. Being in the moment. In a world where milliseconds matter, almost ripe is completely wrong. If your data is delayed, you're late. If your signal is scraped, you're flawed. If you congratulate wrong fan, you're canceled. If you're targeting is inferred instead of none, you missed the moment entirely. Moments are not just highlights. They're what make fans feel and what gets felt gets remembered. And that's why we're here today to formally launch our latest sports media solution, the Genius Moment Engine, critical ad tech infrastructure for sports media. Built on official live signals, predictive moment models and our Genius Fan Graph audiences, allowing specific sports moments, in game around the game, all season to be planned, packaged and activated at scale. Now accessible natively inside the platforms you already use via Deal IDs. Across the channels where sports fans show up, all made possible because no one can see the game like Genius Sports. Our in-venue optical tracking captures every moment of every player with sub-second latency. Not just the scoring play. Every second of the game. And layered on top of that is Genius IQ with its predictive analytics running across the NFL, NCAA, Premier League, MBA and more. We don't just attack moments. We predict them. We can see when probability swings when momentum turns or when history is forming in real time. Because a touchdown isn't just 6 points. It might be a rookie breakout, a playoff clincher, a momentum shift, the start of a comeback. These signals don't start at the highlight. They build before it. Our technology is installed in thousands of venues around the world. More than 400 leagues and federations trust us as their official data partner. We have deep relationships with the NFL, NCAA, the English Premier League, NBA and WNBA, to name just a few. Sportsbooks build their trading engines on our data. Broadcasters enhance their live coverage with it. Leagues operate with it, coaches and players rely on it. We are not adjacent to the game. We power it. If sports is the most powerful media channel in the world, Genius is the intelligence layer underneath it. With the Genius moment engine, your brands aren't chasing moments. You're predicting them, but it's not enough to just see the game. You have to know the fan insider because not every fan experiences the same play the same way. For some, it's joy. For some, it's anxiety. To some, it's money on the line. And for others, it's legacy. A motion is personal which is why our moment engine connects directly to the Genius fan graph, with 250 million U.S. consumers built on deterministic transaction-based data not cookies, not look like, not broad demographic assumptions, real behavior. The teams they follow, the games they stream, the bets they place the brands they buy with official exclusive first-party data, you cannot get anywhere else. And with the addition of Legend and covers, that graph grows even stronger. Adding additional search, betting and intent signals to solidify the Genius Fan Graph as the only scaled addressable consumer data cloud purpose built for sports. So when the momentum shifts on the field, we don't just know what's happening. We know who it matters to and what they're likely to do next. For the right moment, the right fans and all within the existing programmatic media buying workflow. Because intelligence doesn't scale if it requires a separate buying path. So today, we're announcing a series of transformative partnerships. Genius Sports has integrated the moment engine directly into the world's largest SSPs and premium publishers, including Magnet DIRECTV, Free Wheel, Equative, The Weather Company, Index Exchange, OpenX and PubMatic with more to come. And the world's largest advertising holding company Publicis we'll be integrating the moment engine directly into Epsilon, giving publicist's clients early access to the groundbreaking technology. Now layer that intelligence and activation into premium rights-based inventory, Betvision, where official data, live odds and brand messaging live inside the stream. NBC and Fanjul Sports Network, scaled environment enhanced by real-time signals and data who covers one of the most engaged bedding communities in North America, where fans actively declare intent. The fan journey is always on and Genius Sports is there. And today, we're taking another step forward. We're proud to partner with Univision to introduce moment-driven in-game ads across Liga MX, the most watched soccer league in the U.S. This is what it looks like when intelligence meets scale where brands don't just show up in the game, they become part of it. So today, for the first time, the same official data layer that powers leagues and sports books is embedded directly into the native advertising ecosystem. So whether you're buying our owned environments or activating across broader premium supply, the intelligence travels with you. This isn't about choosing between reach or precision or between premium and performance. It's about operating with both, and that unlocks a new framework for 2026 activate the moment, extend beyond the game. On the season through rights-based environments where your brand is embedded in the most valuable properties in media. Activate the moment with predictive signals and deterministic audiences while a motion is rising, extend beyond the final whistle into culture, community, intent-driven environments. All powered by the same moment engine. If sports is the most valuable emotionally driven asset in the world. Genius is the infrastructure behind it. And over the next hour, we're going to show you exactly how to plug in, how to plan smarter, how to activate faster. This is the year you see the game, know the fan and win the moments that matter. Thank you.

Thank you, Josh. I love something Josh said. He said, what gets felt, gets remembered. And that's what we're all here to do today. And I mentioned I want to be your coach today. And some of the best coaches were players want. So why was part of your team? Okay. I was a buyer for over a decade at Cara at GroupM. And I've been to these new fronts and dozens of these presentations, and after the LED cube shut off and after the big announcements are made, you've got to go back to your desk. You've got to issue dozens of RFPs and you've got to figure out a way to activate, to make this real. So I mentioned we've got to have a game plan, and we do. And there are three things that I heard Josh tell us today. So step into my proverbial locker room, and we're going to leave here today with our plan to go to market. And Josh said, critical things. He said we've got to see the game. He said, if we want to succeed, we have to know the fan, right? And once we can see the game and once we truly know the fan that is going to allow us to win the moment and specifically when the moments that matter. And so I want to start here. I want to start with seeing the game. And let me say game, what do we think about? Well, for most of us, we kind of think about this, right, gain time and everything that's happening in the game. But for fans, for fluid fans, it's not just about this. right? It's about what happens before this. It's a pregame. It's the buildup. It's the emotion and what happens after the game, right? It's the post game because the fan journey is always on. the fluid fan journey, the emotion of sport does not stop at the final whistle, and it builds even preseason. And when I think about how we're going to create an always-on fan journey that allows us to truly see the game and see the moments that matter, I think about creating a narrative. And I think about what leagues have truly created everlasting narratives that transcend culture and conversation that become part of the sight gist and I think of the NFL. Nobody creates storylines and narratives just like the. So I want to lead us to a conversation that's going to inspire us with some visionaries from the NFL from one of their sponsors, Lowe's and from Publicis. So I would like to welcome to the stage for this next conversation, our moderator, EVP of North America from Genius Sports, Sean Conroy, joining him, Marissa Solis, SVP of Global Brand and Consumer Marketing at the NFL; Chief Creative Officer from Lowe's, Kyle McCarthy; and CEO of Publicis Sports, Suzie Deering.

Thank you, Gena, and good morning, everyone. As Gena said, the topic of our first panel today is designing the ultimate fan journey. And we're going to talk about the NFL and how the league -- some of the league's most defining moments, both on the build and before, during and after the games have driven fan emotion and connection and impact and what that means for brands. And we're delighted to be able to get perspectives from the league as well as from a brand as well as from an agency. So maybe let's start with some quick introductions, and I'll start, Marissa with you on my left.

Yes. Hello, everybody. Marissa Solis, I lead our global brand and consumer marketing at the NFL have been there Five incredible years where we have seen a tremendous amount of change in terms of how we tell stories and how we engage with a new fan base that's quickly evolving.

Good morning. I'm Suzie Deering, I'm the CEO of [indiscernible], but I also refer to myself very often as a recovering CMO. That's probably more the truth, but a huge fan, love sports, but great to be here with you all today.

Kyle McCarthy, Chief Creative Officer at Lowe's. We are in our believe, our fourth year with our NFL partnership right -- it's one -- not only one of the most fun things we do, one of the most powerful engines that we have for the brand.

So Marissa, as I think everyone in this room would agree, the NFL drives unique and very powerful storylines. Rivalries, breakout performances, and this isn't just on the field. This is throughout the course of the season. Can you talk to us about how at the NFL you think about creating narratives that sustained throughout the course of the season beyond just on Game Day.

Yes. I mean, first of all, that's the power and the greatness of the league. There are so, so many stories. And the myth is that it's during the season, right? I mean, last year in 2025, there were over 15 billion conversations about the league, 365 days, 24/7. It just doesn't stop. If you look today, we're talking about the great prospects coming to draft in Pittsburgh. We're talking about stadiums being built. We're talking about who's trading to who -- so there's always, always a story. And what I love is that the stories can range from great things happening on the field to who's showing up at the stadium and who you can see on broadcast to the tunnel walks, all the way to what's happening in the culture. And so it is a very, very powerful thing that partners like Lowe's really can get a handle on and create great storytelling.

And Kyle, you obviously, as you said, have been working with the NFL for some time now. What makes the NFL such a powerful platform for brands to connect with.

Yes. I think it's -- for us, I think it's three things, right? It's the scale, first and foremost, right? And then who that scale is reaching, what the audience is that engage with that? And then finally, for us, it's the activity around the game, the behavior around the game. So scale, at 180 million fans watch, right? And it's not just on Sundays, as you said, people -- this is their lives, especially within the season, right? So there's a cadence there. And then $100 million of those are millennials and Gen Zs and everybody wants to talk to millennials and Gen Zs, Lowe's included, right? And then the last part is the -- maybe the most interesting for me, which is the behavior around the game, right? There's a lead up. There's an anticipation. Sunday is an event. And if you're hosting, that means you're cooking, that means you're fixing things around the house. So it's a real natural place for Lowe's to fit into that world, right? So we're showing up on a regular basis to an audience that we want to reach in a situation that they have a lot of love for in an authentic way, and that's a real powerful mix.

And Marissa the storylines around the NFL are not necessarily new. But what is new is the availability of data. I think about Genius' role with the NFL and the types of sports data that we're collecting now and the understanding of fans and the data that we have on fans. Can you talk a bit about how the league is beginning to harness that data to tell better stories and amplify the great storytelling opportunities that exist across the league.

Yes. I mean, data is everything, right? Data is everything. And I think what it helps us to do -- you mentioned the ultimate fan journey. There is no ultimate fan journey. There's thousands of fan journeys each very, very unique. And so what the data allows us to do is, yes, harness insights at scale where you can a massive Super Bowl commercial, but also harness the very personal insights. And if you allow me to indulge I have a very interesting example of how we're able to reach a very avid male fan versus maybe a casual female fan with the very same player, and that's Joe Burrow. If you guys recall in the great game versus the Cleveland Browns where Joe Burrow literally tell and through that last minute past, it was unbelievable. And it captured our avid fans in a crazy way. I mean that had tremendous amount of conversation. But 80% of that conversation was led by male fans. Fast forward to Paris Fashion Week when Joe Burrow walks onto the stage with a back less suit looking fab, guess what? Tons of conversations, but led by our female fans, and -- that's why the journeys are so different, and that's why the data matters because it's details like that really allow you to reach different bands in different ways with the same player.

And Suzie, I may ask you a similar question. We -- I know from the work that we've been doing with Publicis that you're at the cutting edge of how you use data, all forms of data and your types of experiences. Can you talk to us a bit about how you are using data to drive new types of opportunities for brands and for fans to connect across a variety of different digital platforms.

Absolutely. Number one, I would say data is not new. I mean we've been talking about data forever and ever. I think the biggest change for us is, and I would say that in the sense that what Marissa talked about is we haven't -- I think what has changed tremendously is, and I give the league a ton of credit in this regard, which is we've turned it into not just sport. We turned it into lifestyle. To turn it into lifestyle, we now have taken past just the game that happens on the field. And to do that and do it authentically and especially on behalf of brands, you have to have the right data to make it living. It can't just be data for data's sake. You have to make sure that it actually is actionable. So for us, a poses, that's why we talk about being very disruptive in the sports space, making our fan rave on top of Epsilon, which is what you talked about, we really take that very seriously because it's not just the moment. The moment matters but being able to take that moment and take that data and making it so that we can action off of it being very nuanced. The nuance matters because the nuance have not just been in that moment, but being able to take it across the journey the journey of the season is the season, but the season now is 365. The fan doesn't shut off. We have to make sure on behalf of our brands, we can connect that data to where it's very relevant across every moment at which they're going to want to connect with that experience. So for us, we've got to make sure that we can show up in the right place. make sure that, that connects to our creators that everyone want to make sure that they are also creating the right content at that moment. So for where we sit in the ecosystem and making sure across this very fragmented space, that we can ensure that we can have that moment in that data that ensures that connection and the authenticity sits there and is well it for our brands.

And Kyle, I think you would agree. The NFL is not just about Sunday afternoon. It's about the weekly rhythm leading up to it. Can you share with the group your approach to building the earner Sunday campaign? Around those sort of pregame rituals that fans have. And what that allowed you to creatively for those.

Yes. I mean, it started with the simple human truth, right? Sundays are for football. I work at a home improvement company and nobody wants to be fixing anything during the season on a Sunday, right? You want to be watching about the game. So like refrained everything for us, right? We then became the enabler of that, right? We help you earn that moment, get all your things done, right? The [indiscernible] is not going away. But we can hope you get it done. So you have that sacred time on Sunday to enjoy those moments in those stores that you really love. And it's an active role for us, right? We are along that journey with those fans from giving them inspiration to showing them how getting them the right product. And then -- and finally, like when it's close to the end, right, like it's its Saturday, we can help you get that done really, really quickly. So for us, it's capturing that journey, capturing that moment and being part of the experience versus just showing up on Sunday and selling things.

And Marissa, the NFL, as we've talked about, and as we all know, sits at the intersection of support and culture. And that provides opportunities to engage new generations and new types of fans. Can you talk about how brands can authentically tap in to those more cultural moments around the sport?

Yes, absolutely. I think the key is understanding your brand, your values, where you want to be and then creating your own fan journey. Clearly, for Lowe's, it is about the rituals, but it's also about home improvement. At the end of the day, you got to drive your guest to your store. For any other brand, it's really tapping into what is happening in culture that has to do with my brand. And we have incredible partners, whether it's Toyota talking about heroes and tapping into flag football whether it's Abercrombie and Fitch tapping into this craziness around fashion and the tunnel walks and everything in between, whether it's P&G and Tide and laundry and doing your laundry on game day and a very similar inside of, hey, game days for game day, how do we get the laundry done. So there are 1,000 ways that you can tap into, whether it's pop culture and what's happening with the creators and influencers and how your brand can partner with the NFL to do that or whether it's moments that are very functionable, right, that are also tied to your brand so that at the end of the day, you can leverage the partnership to drive your customer or your consumer to the action that you need them to do, right, to be loyal to your brand to leverage your brand to go to your store -- so there are many, many ways to do that. And I think tapping into what you said the data, the fan journey and where your brand fits into all that culture and storytelling is the key.

And building on that, Suzie, as consumption shifts from linear to digital, where are the new and real monetization opportunities around these new digital touch points? And how is that changing both the depth and the frequency compared to more traditional linear broadcast formats?

This is my favorite question ever because I just laugh when I think about -- maybe I've been in this industry too long. When I go back in time and think, gosh, it must have been really boring. It didn't seem like it then, but when it was just a one-way conversation. And now I look at it and like, gosh, we think it's so complex. But gosh, how incredibly rich it is now that we have so much opportunity to really engage and engage at such an incredible level with customers. Let me also give you a little dirty secret. Most marketers will come to you and tell you, I just speak from experience because I was one of these animals that would come to you and tell you, here's our customer and here's who we're going after. We don't really know. We think we know, but the reality is, is that we needed data and again, living data that would really try and tell us how to sharpen and really understand all the audiences that we were missing because we thought that we had perfected our understanding and research so much that we could really target as to who we wanted to really reach. Now because of the fact that we do have this fragmentation and because we have so many other ways that we can truly engage We, again, from our standpoint, being able to take the data, being able to put it from a fan graph standpoint, put that on top of our Epsilon data. One of the things I love because, again, if you think about it, we look so straightforward and think about a fan as a fan. And we missed the fact that like, oh, my gosh, they have all these other characteristics to them that we can grab a hold of Guess what? They love fashion. They're actually interested in music. They actually have entertainment that they're interested in. We have so many other ways to capture audiences, females, younger audiences. They may not be engaging in broadcast. They may be in TikTok. They may not be just on a Saturday or -- sorry, a Sunday or on a Thursday. They may be engaging in other ways. So now because of this, we can monetize in such a really like a massive platforms that we didn't have that advantage before. Even if we did have the advantage, we didn't have the signals to tell us. So now we have that advantage in the sense that we take and go back to our brands and say, hey, I know you told us that your audience was this, but guess what, we also now can tell you your remissed all of these customers and consumers over here that are engaging with your brand and you need to now put the right creators and content in front of them in a different way. So to me, it's a playground. It's amazing. We have so much opportunity.

And Kyle, for you, this digitization of sport, it will enable and is enabling more opportunities for personalized, adaptive, creative. Can you share some of the opportunities you see it in the context of your role at Lowe's?

Yes. So let me refrain that a little bit. I think about it more along the lines of timeliness, right, to steal a theme from today, showing up in the moments that matter, right? And one of the things that I've been thinking about a lot is there's actually a really interesting parallel between a home improvement project that you do and how your favorite NFL team prepares for the game on Sunday, right? There is inspiration. There is planning, there's execution and there's a reward, right? The NFL team early in the week, they are looking at a film. They're putting in a game plan in the middle of the week, they are practicing their game plan. They're in the film rooms together, right? They're honing that, and then Sunday is the execution and reward of that. Same thing with your project. maybe Monday, you get inspired or maybe Monday, you decided you can't put that thing off any longer. So you make the decision to do at the middle of the week is figuring out the how and the what. What product do I need? How do I do it? And then towards [indiscernible] execution. So this is a really nice parallel that allows us to show up in the right ways, right, with digital, TV, social, all of the places in a meaningful way. So we're not just there to sell things. We're a long for that journey.

And Marissa, looking ahead, and this is a topic dear to my heart as a bit living in New York and the states now and becoming a huge NFL fan. One of the big focuses for the league is expanding the global footprint. Can you talk a bit about which trends and strategies you see being fundamental to driving that international reach and how partners and brands can best tap into that focus?

Yes. We were talking about flying about our international expansion strategy, and it's really fascinating for us because we are truly the students in this. We are not the lead brand. We are not the lead sport abroad. We're a challenger brand, and it's really forcing us to think very differently about how we approach the sport, how we approach the fans Education is massive. We know that if fans don't understand the sport, they can't engage with the sport. And so figuring out really creative ways through the data to bring to life those incredible plays the stories of our incredible players to this audience is going to be key. One of the things, as we talk about creators and influencers that we've learned is if it was 10 years ago, we would take a very GloCal approach, right? You want to be global, but then you also want to connect with the local community, great. But what we're learning is that communities aren't tied to geographies anymore. So Gen Z and Shanghai looks very similar to Gen Z in New York. And so how do we tap into those communities through the power of influencers and creators to really get to these moments that matter, these cultural points that get people to connect and start that Spark to engage with our game. So a very cool example we're doing creator flag games now. So I show speed, Tom Brady, maybe doing these incredible flag moves that people who may not be as familiar with the sport, get to see, get to get excited about and just sparks that interest of I want to learn more I want to get more engaged. And that's really been our strategy, Spark those cultural moments to get them interested in the game.

Thank you very much. And I notice, we are just up on time. So thank you so much for joining us, guys. Thank you for the support, and thank you.

All right. So we just turned a lot about -- I love something that Suzie said, she said, "You need live data. You need signals in order to tap into those moments that matter." But again, if I'm sitting in your shoes, I'm also starting to wonder, is it worth it, right? Sports is premium, sports is expensive, getting in those moments, a peak, a motion, what we call the moments that matter. Is it actually worth it? Well, Genius Sports teamed up with industry research leader Media Science to study just that thing. We looked at how live intense moments of surprise, emotion during live sports. What kind of impact did that have on the ads that ran directly adjacent and after those moments of surprise and emotional intensity. And what we found is that brand recall was 2x higher when a brand ad followed an emotional moment that mattered. So it does. It matters. So we're going to go back to our game plan. How are you planning to execute against the moments that matter -- and we need to start thinking about a different way to buy, and we need to start thinking about the game a little bit differently. So here's how a lot of times we're buying today, right? You're going in, you're buying a little bit of the preshow. Maybe you're buying some in-game spots, maybe if you're lucky, you hope one of those spots is going to air after a touchdown. And then things, and maybe you're going to do a little post-game recap, right? This is how we're buying sports today. And we're buying early. You're making these commitments 9 months in advance, right? But this assumes that all games are created equally. And you're making this buy ahead of time and you don't know where these other moments are going to hit. When you have those live signals. When you can see the game like Genius Sports, you start to see that not all games are created evenly because what if there's a game and there's an intense rivalry between these two guys. That makes for a totally different game. What if there's a record chase. This game is all the more meaningful because somebody might go ahead and hit that 2,000 Yard Club, right? What if there's a new rookie breakout, right? There's some player news. That makes this game completely more valuable. And the game hasn't even started. And then when we're in the game before this touch down, did you know that there was an unbelievable interception right before that touch down, there are some like , there are some game-making moments that change the game, right? What about if there's something a little bit controversial right, a controversial call, maybe right here, maybe we don't know but there was a VAR. We had a complete turnover of a ruling on the field. And then the game ends, right? We've got the score over here. Oh gosh, the game ends. Well, that game end is very different. Somebody is static and somebody is not so happy, right? So there's a motion. There's different fans. There's different stories. Maybe there are some other injuries. So there's new player stories at the back of this game. And this is what that always on fan journey looks like. It's not just these 3 points, right? Now we're seeing an ebb and a flow. And this is also how you're able to find scale. Because today, when we think about that model, how we're buying sports today, we're mostly over here, right? It's premium, it's live, it's in game. It's a bit scarce, and you don't know -- you don't know if you're going to hit one of those moments that really matter. So maybe you're trying to complement that by with scale and precision and audiences kind of over here, right? That is not a box, right? You've got your audiences, maybe you're buying some contextual. You're going on to espn.com. But again, you're missing the emotion. This is running any time always on nothing until today has been able to close that gap, and that is what we are bringing you a new buying model. This is where Genius moments sit. And they sit through DL IDs within your existing buying framework. This is how you see the game. When you have the underlying infrastructure as Genius Sports does, you can package up these moments to change what it means during a game and follow all the moments that matter, ahead of time. So that when they hit, your brand is there, and you are there when what gets spelt gets remembered. And so now that we've got a plan, we know how we're going to structure packages in order to be always on, during the moments that matter, it comes to a point we're, all right. We got them. We got them during a moment. We hit them. We get them at the right time. What are we going to say? And that's all about storytelling. That's about creative format. That's about bringing them an ad message that causes conversation. And when I think about who's out there drawing up conversation, bringing the drama, bring in the heat, I think about women's sports. And I think about WNBA. And I think about storytellers like NBC and Peacock. So I'm excited now to bring our next conversation, our next set of visionaries to the stage, moderated by Genius Sports, Director of Media Operations, Anabella Chiossone and joining her on stage, please welcome Phil Cook, CMO of the WNBA, Sam Levy, EVP of Optimum Sports and Kevin Lappen, SVP, sales and sports sponsorships at NBC University years by first.

Well, thank you, Gena, and thank you, everybody, for being here and joining us on this Lowly chat that I'm honored to be here. So yes, let's talk about a little bit about the activity. Let's talk about what we actually are going to message these fans. Because these fans are different. This is not the traditional fan. This is a fluid fan. It's a fan that is here, is there. It's everywhere. So we have to really deep dive into who is this fan. And I want Phil to tell us a little bit about this fan. This fluid fan, I think that you guys at the WNBA have a great experience here. And just probably we should give -- 2 minutes of what you do at the WNBA.

Sure. Forgot about that. My name is Phil Cook. I'm the Chief Marketing Officer of the WNBA. I've been there. I'm in my sixth season this year.

Kevin Lappen, NBC Sports with NBC for about 25 years. Maybe a payroll glitch, but I'm still there.

Sam Levy, Executive Director of Sports Marketing at Optum Sports, and I'm in my 11th season with Omnicom Media.

You're the rookie.

I'm the rookie.

That's good. Okay. So let's talk about the fan. Let's talk about this fluid fair. What has changed on fan? How do you reach this fan, keep them engaged/what is it about this fan that is so different from past generations?

The WNBA has been experiencing this tremendous growth of unique fans into our ecosystem over the last few years. Thank you, Gail, Clark, and Charese. And the result has been -- these are fans who are first time experiencing the WNBA, and they're coming in because so many of our athletes are building identities and brands in advance of them coming into the W. So fans are following them early in their careers, college or maybe even international and they're following them into our ecosystem. What we're finding is this fan is very much aligned with the brand values of these athletes. Secondly, they certainly recognize just how good they are as performers. And I'm going to give you kind of 2 examples. Sabrina asked you a couple of years ago, NBA All-Star game takes on stepury for a 3-point contest. And Steph hits the 3 of the last 5 balls in the rack, final rack to beat Sabrina by 1 point. What that did was it validated just how good our athletes are. So immediately, fans are like it, these players can hope. I didn't know that. They were watching BA, -- they got a taste of A and it surprised them. So we were authentically connected and we validated just how good our athletes are with the young fan who watches things like All-Star weekend, and that fan came into our ecosystem, thanks to Sabrina. A year later, Angela and Catlin have this rivalry in college that they bring into our sport. The river is on the core, 2 very, very distinct athletes as individuals, two great basketball players, one really leaning into the culture, Angel Reese is undeniably a cultural icon. And this, again, connects to that new fan who enters into the WNBA ecosystem through a different door. Not through the magnificence of a 3-point shooting door, but through the fact that Angel is rocking the cover of Vogue or she's over Paris Fashion Week, and she's driving cultural influence because of her connections outside of the game of basketball. And this is what we're finding is the fan is a very, very distinctive fan that is aligning themselves through the performance aspect of our athletes through the cultural influence they carry. And the third piece of this or the third lane of connection is through our authentic connection with purpose. And we, as the WNBA, we're in our 30th year. Purpose in social justice has always been a part of our DNA since day 1. And so we have a very distinctive fan that aligns with the W through that lens as well. So this fluid fan is coming in through different doors, aligning themselves, engaging themselves with the WNBA and it's incumbent upon us to serve them where they are with content and stories and insights around those 3 different lanes of performance, culture and purpose.

This is really interesting. I don't know about that. Tell me a little bit -- and this is for you, Kevin, on NBC. We always look at these like amazing moments. We're waiting for like the specific moments, the dung the interception at the last second, even the pass by a rate in the last curve. But -- these are just some moments, how you keep engaged the audiences during long seasons and some seasons could be not full of these moms -- that's the reality. It's a game. This is not scripted. So tell us a little bit how do you engage this audience also and fluid fan fluid audiences with this momentum.

And I think our job primarily is being prepared for the moments. And it's kind of harkens back to some of the conversations we've had earlier is that -- these moments are going to happen. Obviously, throughout every sport, everything is comprised of these big moments. But we -- as from a table stake side, we need to make sure that we prepare all the sports that we broadcast and stream in the same way that we have obviously a stellar pregame. It's focused on the match up and the athletes halftime. It's kind of jumping on some of those ICOS moments. And then obviously, a wrap-up of the game that's going to obviously segue into the season and a little bit of momentum. But beyond that, beyond the service level of production, we need to evolve sort of how we take advantage of our rights with our lead partners and figuring out ways how do we present content and unique and new ways, how do we broadcast a different audiences to Phil's point. And obviously, we have the mass reach and scale of a broadcast network, but not everybody is watching it that way. We have a huge, obviously, audience on Peacock, and that's a collection of cord cutters, shavers nevers that are not watching broadcast and obviously, in many cases, different demographics. So how do we program that. But in order to gain momentum, we have to do that consistently across all the sports that we have. So regardless if it's baseball to the NBA, the WNBA, to Sunday Night Football, we want to make sure we have some continuity in terms of how we -- what fans expect and we need to evolve. We obviously need to evolve. We need to figure out how we're presenting those specific games to get that momentum. From a moment standpoint, that's changed. Obviously, new platforms, new opportunities to distribute across social and kind of really honing on those [indiscernible] moments beyond our 4 walls of our broadcast and our streaming properties, how do we take advantage of that? So obviously, it's a comment upon us to make sure we're maximizing our rights, so we can put that out there. but also other kind of those moments that we know that are coming and that we were preparing for where we could really take advantage An example that Phil and I were talking about as we did with State Farm, we did a [indiscernible]. Back, we broadcast big 10 basketball and non-Peacock, and we had the game exclusively when Catlin Clark broke the scoring record for the -- for -- and when she did that, we actually had an ISO CAM dedicated to her because fans were so Intuit's chose moment, and we kind of did that on the fly because obviously, that's what fans expect. There's so much hype around it. we had the rights to do so. So we worked with a partner like State Farm to figure out a way that we could actually bring that to fans. You want -- the way you want to bring advertisers in is actually demonstrate that utility that you're bringing fans something that they can't get beyond the traditional streaming or broadcast. So that's what we're focused on, it's definitely evolving but really being in a position that we're prepared for those big moments across all the sports that we have.

Thanks, Kevin. I want to switch gears a little bit on creative, okay? I think I've been an agency with a couple years ago probably. But the creative war arms were very different. It was literally the copywriter and they took the lead and it was their decision. How is that war room change right now. We have data. We work with partners directly, not only broadcasters, but the leads. So we're all sitting in the same room and then ad tech partners like Genius. We're all sitting in this room, and we have to collaborate. How has that changed the creative room, Sam?

Well, the data used to tell you who to reach now it tells you what you need to say to them in that exact moment. And it's scary. It's a burden, frankly. It's an open canvas [indiscernible]. But it's -- when I say it's a burden, it's an opportunity because -- and we tell this to our clients all the time, it really drives in the need for relevance, right? I mean -- no one has a higher BS meter than a sports fan. And we talked a little bit about not being interruptive but amplifying and adding value to the equation. And that is sort of the sort of the gold star of achievement that's needed with real-time creative marketing and real-time actions off of these insights and these triggers that we've talked about that we have at our fingertips. And just to rip a little bit on Phil's points around the evolving fan, I mean the sports fan, it's not -- he or she is not a passive fan, right? The days of sitting watching the game, going to bed, look, maybe looking at the box score in the morning or maybe the really engaged fan with put on sports talk radio, right? Now there's multiple engagements happening during the game. There's gambling, fantasy, group chat, social chatter, all of these signals that are captured offer that opportunity for brands to maintain relevance. And the war room has to reflect that reality in real time. And that's a scary challenge, but a great opportunity.

Perfect. Goes directly into the next point we want to talk about is -- how do we not interrupt the game? Because people don't want distraction. You're watching the game, you're actually engaged on the TV, on your connected TV in your iPad or iPhone or phone. How do you do something different that does not involve distracting actually the gate. And this is key because as we know, some placements and app placements are finite. Traditional media finite. So we have to enhance, generate relevance, but also not interrupt that key moment. Phil, why don't you take this?

All right, I'll give it a shot. I think we're fortunate at the WNBA. We're pretty much a blank canvas. There was no broadcaster streaming just 5 years ago. It was impossible to be a fan of the WNBA because we're finding our games on the hallmark channel, if we're lucky, right? Or on back then Twitter. And which is great, but we've evolved tremendously in the last 5 years. So with that comes the opportunity to trial without I guess, disappointing or frustrating our fan base because our fan base is growing every day. Our fan base is coming from an environment where they've been watching other sports. And that's really who we're chasing every day is the casual sports fan who is dabbling in many different sports leagues and wanting to give the WNBA a consideration for engagement or viewership or just following because of the noise that's been created in our lead the last couple of years. So we're attracting a fan who is familiar with other sports. They recognize the value of the data that they're getting when they're consuming other sports. Partner that with the fact that we have tremendous broadcast and streaming partners who are really, really good at knowing what moves a fan, what adds value to a broadcast or a stream or a highlight. And so we lean on them tremendously because we haven't had this history of decades of trial and error where we are disappointing or shutting our fans because we've made mistakes. We are learning every day, and we lean heavily again on two things. fan behavior that comes into our ecosystem from other sports and what they're looking for, they let us know. And then our partners, like NBC, who provide us tremendous insights around what they've learned over time around what value add comes into the engagement or the viewing experience that we can then lean into. And the final piece of this is we now have partners who are coming into our ecosystem saying, I like being in your game. I'd like my 30-second ad, but how do I get closer to the game? How do I get my brand in corporate, just like what Gena was speaking to earlier today, how do I infuse my brand into the actual game flow into that 40 minutes of game time. I want my brand there beyond just an attribution or signage on the court, I want to be involved in the game. So they're challenging us as well, which is a great opportunity for us to think differently and again, use our partners like NBC to solve for that.

And I want to go with that topic. I want to stay with that topic because I think in terms of streaming and broadcasting. There's been a huge evolvement over the years, and I think that these -- and Kevin, you can share with so many years at NBC, how the industry has to evolve how you guys often have to change that mindset, bring new causes to life work closer to everybody else. Before it was just you received 30-second commercial, you put it out there, and that's it. Now it's collaboration, it's teamwork is let's look at my data, let's look at your data. How can we co-create together, how technologies has also helped us. Look at, let's say, in NBC and Genius, we were doing augmentation for basketball games. So Kevin, I -- for me, it's critical like where do you see? How do you create these new campuses? New spaces, be creative, attract new buyers and brands without interrupting the game.

It's a lot. Yes. yes. And I think -- when we look at sort of where we're going and obviously, streaming sports and where the marketplace is going, is something that sort of has been paramount to our strategy for a long time. We've been streaming live sports for over 15 years, and we've always had DAI in mind. So to start, we wanted to have the ability to kind of surgically target specific audiences. We know that, obviously, broad has that put instrument of mass reach and scale. But really when it comes to streaming, you have the ability, obviously, through ad tech to target those audiences. So that was sort of like the base level that we started at. But now obviously, the table stakes of what fans expect it matters, right? So whether you're watching an NBA game and you want to see performance view with dynamic stats, that is kind of in real-time happening with kind of overlays over players themselves or you want to watch all CAMs, specific angles of a pitch or there's -- you want to view inside the dug out and you want to see what's going on in the specific baseball game. I think those types of things are going to continue to evolve. We have a lot of different unique presentations that we bring to a lot of the sports that we have. We've done a [indiscernible] cast around our [indiscernible] games in partnership with Genius.

We just got nominated. Exciting times.

It is. And I think that, again, like that think about the different audiences that are consuming, you're going to have passive audiences, you're going to have super fans. So super fans may be more inclined to watch a performance for you with those dynamic stats, a more passive fan, maybe watching a Madden cast to kind of watch it in a unique way, like it's looking like a video game. So I think the way that you actually serve up content has to continually evolve and obviously, from a streaming standpoint the way you bring marketers in I completely understand you want it to be less interruptive. I think there's certain sports that cater to a less interruptive experience, with like if you're doing golf and you do a double box or a break where you're actually showing live golf at a very base level. That's helpful. The fans is providing utility or you're doing commercial free by Callaway or a different advertiser for an hour. Fans, they recognize the fact that you're skipping an app break or several lab for more content. Not to mention there's all groups that you can show and obviously, different ags and perspectives you can show. So we need to continually evolve that. And from a streaming standpoint, just the canvas has actually expanded. And obviously, I've mentioned before, social and having the ability to actually really hone in on those like moments and actually bring in new audience back to our platforms because an amazing game is happening and record may be broken, those types of things and being able to use all the levers you have to kind of bring what fans expect is something that we're hyper focused in on. And I think that, obviously, that will evolve and we lean on partners like Genius Sports and WNBA and our partners OS to figure out what's next. So like we're here, obviously, to evolve and really maximize our rights, putting things on broadcast is not table stakes. That's a major part of our offering. But we need to figure out ways that we can actually expand our rights and really hit a longer-tail audience actually get a little bit more granular with the opportunities for marketers.

How do we measure this? Pass was viewership, your ship is not enough. How do we measure this and how do we generate value when a lot of the times we're sitting at a desk and we're just looking at numbers and KPIs. Sam. Why do you take this one?

Yes. I mean reach is no longer enough. And I think if anyone's had a conversation with a CFO or someone from finance department, we need to talk in terms of full funnel measurement. It's moving beyond reach to things like relevance residents in the moment and then ideally, action after the fact. And that's the incrementality that is the ultimate goal here with regards to driving business results. And I know we, at Omnicom Media have worked closely with Genius, you all on a study that's -- we're about to see the final results on. But from the peak of results, we've seen strong data points that suggest all of these augmented live experiences that we're talking about are driving mid- and low funnel action. And ultimately, that is what is going to keep the lights on for a lot of our businesses. So when we think about reach, not that simple, but it's largely attached to investment. It's very challenging to buy relevance. And I know the tools that we're talking about here make that a lot easier. But ultimately, it ties in all of the messaging that we're talking about and responding to those signals in real-time that will drive that residence and relevance for brands and ultimately, conversion in action.

Thanks, Sam. Well, we're short of time, but I want to leave -- before I leave, I want each of you to think of just one word, only one word because we don't have any more time. about what will happen in the future. How do you see this in 10, 15 years? Let's start with Kevin.

Yes. Yes. It's gotta be one? Customization.

Oh man. Synonym game we're gonna play? Personalization.

Moments.

Globalization for me. Globalization.

Yes, yes. That's great. Thank you. Thank you, all three. All right. So again, we talked a lot about -- I love hearing Sam say nobody has a better BS meter than the sports fan. And so we want to know when we do things like augmentation, when we put overlays into live games, do fans want it? And more importantly, does it work? So as Sam mentioned, we partnered with Omnicom to launch a study that looked at the efficacy of in-game augmented ads by Genius Sports, and what we found was that first off, 83% of bands are already on their second screens searching for more information about the game they're watching. And when we presented them with augmented sports, they enjoyed the game more. They actually said, it made the game easier to understand and 82% of fans liked or loved the augmentation that we put in the games. If you haven't seen it, took out the sports bar on your way out, we've got it playing. And again, that's good. they want it. They're here for it. It makes the game better, but does it work for your brands? We continue that study and we looked when video ads were paired with augmented ads, did it deliver impact. And the answer is a resounding yes. We saw 5x stronger brand lift and recall in favorability and more than 3x higher lift in search and purchase intent for distinct audiences when we paired an in-game video ad with Genius Sports augmentation. So it works. That's the good news. And we heard a lot about this BS radar. So we're going to go back into our locker room, and we're going to figure out how we game plan this, okay? So we've seen the game. We know how to find these moments. We know how to package them up. We know how to get them into the ecosystem. But if there's a BS meter man, we better know this span, okay? And we're in New York. This is going to be a Liberty fan. Here's our fan. We have got to know this fan. So how do you know the fan today? Well, you're probably buying some demographics. This is a male 25 to 34. We probably got their household income, maybe their DMA, but we got to be more intelligent. So we're going to layer on sports span or maybe women sports fan, if we can. All right. Not bad. Maybe we've got a little viewership data. They're watching ESPN or NBC, okay? This is how we're thinking about targeting the sports fan today. That's okay, but that does not tell us enough of the story to be able to drive the relevance and the resonance that our panelists were talking about. You've got to know how to they sport. All right, their favorite leagues with W. You've got to know that. You've got to know that they're in Liberty fan, but that also they travel regularly to Chicago because that's where they're born and they're also a Sky fan. And how do they fan -- they love their merch. And we know with the Genius fan graph that this Liberty fan spends on average $270 a year on March and their #1 merch provider is play a society. And we know in the stream, they're apparent. They've got a kid plays out sport, so they have a subscription to dribble up at $40 a month. This is how they support. This is the type of spots fan and women's sports fan, they are. This is how you start to create relevant messaging, but that's still not enough. That's only telling you half the picture of who this fan is. You've got to know, are they values-driven Well, women's sports band are, they're 3x more likely to be buying values-driven brands like Tom Shoes. Their concerts and festivals. They love to go to places like Coachella. In fact, they're 2x more likely to buy concert and live entertainment tickets. And this brand happens to be also 2x more likely to be in the silver curious community. They love their NA beverages, right? So now when we're looking at these moments when we can see the game and, oh my gosh, it's coming down to the wire and Natasha Cloud, there's like 2 seconds left. She shoot said, well, it's going in there, oh my gosh, she scored. This guy is absolutely elated, you can serve him an ad that says, you know what, celebrate with the Heineken 0%. But if you don't know the fan, you cannot deliver that relevance. Which is why we've connected the Genius fan graft within the genius moment engine to identify the moments, connect them with the right fan deliver DLID that ultimately serves the right ad, all in your native ecosystem and ad buying infrastructure. So great. we've got it set up. You can go back, those deal IDs will be sitting in your DSP. Now we wait for the moment. And like we said, all games aren't created equally. Well, meter are all moments created equally. And sometimes, sometimes you hit and you get a moment that is iconic that changes the history of sport. And I want to talk to you about one of those ones today and actually to come up here and actually tell us a bit more about 1 of those specific moments, those iconic moments those history changing moments. Please welcome to the stage, Josh Walker, CEO of Sports Innovation Lab, a Genius Sports Company. Josh?

Thank you. All right. So I told Gena that I was going to mark up her whiteboard. So if you haven't taken a picture of this, get on it. Because it's about to get dirty. Where are my Patriots fans? Sorry about what's about to happen to you. Where are my giants fans? All right. Those two groups of people absolutely remember Super Bowl 42? But Josh said earlier, the moments that get felt get remembered. Maybe some of you didn't get all those fields in real time. Some of you didn't watch the game. So let me set it up for you. We're in Phoenix, Arizona. It's Super Bowl, 42. Some games are built different. This one has the New England Patriots coming into Phoenix, 180. They haven't lost a single game. The only other team in history and the NFL to do that was the 1972 Don Shula, Dolphins. But this, this is the Tom Brady and Bill BelCheck, Dynasty, they're coming into this game. They just won 3 Super Bowls. They're at the peak. They want a 190 record on their resume. And the giant shouldn't even be here. Let's be honest, David. You guys were a wildcard team. While card teams don't make the Super Bowl, let alone win them, so it seems like a foregone conclusion. This game doesn't even need to happen. The giants are merely a stepping stone for the Patriots to march into history. There are two touchdown, favorite. 12 points. But as the saying goes, that's why we play the game, and we do. And the game starts, it doesn't disappoint. We get out to a really slow start. These guys are beating the crop out of each other. It's a defensive struggle. The giant score first with a field goal. It's 3 to nothing at the end of the first quarter. The Patriots waste no time come back in the second quarter and now it's 7 to 3, and that's where we are at the half time, little scoring game, 7,3. The third quarter is not much different. Another defensive struggle. Nobody scores. Nothing happens in the third quarter, except really harm core defense. But then something happens that's never happened before in the history of the NFL. We have 3 lead changes in the fourth quarter. this little heart rate is going nuts. The first score in the fourth quarter, Eli Manning finds a guy named David Tire in the end zone. It's now 10 to 7. If the giants don't win this game, you will never know the name, David Tyree because nobody knows the name of a guy who caught a touch down for the losing team in the Super Bowl. And unfortunately, that looks like what's about to happen. Customer A true form comes back on the field, find Randy Mason the end-zone. And all of a sudden, it's 14 to 10 giant fans or dine. They can't believe what's about to happen. There's only 3 minutes left on the clock. And for those of you who follow American Football, you know that the last 2 minutes are some of the most intense heart beating. Nail biting, as you ever. Why? Because they have to run the 2-minute drill. The quarterback has no room for error. Screws up, get sacked toss the ball, anything could happen. The clock ticks down games over. So Eli manning gets behind centers start marching his team down the field, not only at the Super Bowl, he doesn't need a field go. He needs to touch down. It's getting crazy. He's running around. He's absolutely frantic. There's only a minute and 15 seconds left, Giant fans are losing their minds. It's third and 5. And then this happens. [Presentation]

Ladies gentlemen, I give you the helmet catch. If David Tyree doesn't make that catch, the Giants don't win the Super Bowl. The legend, David Tyree.

I got to hire you, man.

I don't know, man. I think I just felt like you just need a hype man. Some of those conversations before weren't doing you justice.

Love it.

That's a moment.

Hey, Boston fans.

One of the things I do love about Boston Fans is that if you go back and you watch this on YouTube, all the comments just give you tremendous profits. It's like the UN of football plays. Like it brings everybody together. Like nobody can hate on this because it was so incredible.

Yes. I mean like -- I wish I can say I planned it all out. My whole life it is absolutely destined.

Yes. Well, I mean, I want to ask you probably a question you've been asked a million times, like the craziest thing about this play is it's lasted almost 2 decades.

Yes, pretty well. It's been a hell a run. I appreciate it. It's working our for me.

And there are kids and -- mine are of the age where they weren't alive when the Super Bowl was played. And they still know this play because the NFL recycles it's in the top 5 plays ever in the NFL.

Top number three. I did a 100-year anniversary. I felt like it was #1. But you haven't named like immaculate reception of -- but no, it's been that unthinkable journey. Because even when you experience it, you expect to make the play. If you're not -- if you're a high-performing individual, you expect to get the job but you didn't know what the job was. You didn't know that it was to that magnitude, and it actually has taken years for me to realize the weight of that moment and the staying power is you never grow up playing sports and take it like hey, going to be a part of the story of the game to change my life.

Do you ever get tired of talking about it?

Well, it's cool for me because I don't go home and talk about it. I have a built-in mechanism that makes me like no one. That's my wife. She's like, who cares? Yes. So yes. So I guess, for lack of better terms, like I said, people can find that I got 7 kids when you go home, I'm just dad. And yes, so yes, I mean, like the helmet catch is high up there, but raise 7 kids was actually harder.

Yes. I was saying to David earlier, and he had a stat that puts him in probably the #3 or #4 NFL data Ryan Fitzpatrick was on stage with us once, and he has 7 kids too, and he's like "my wife, can't keep her hands off from me because of the beard". So I ask David, what's his super power?

Yes. My super power, it's probably -- it's the Jersey swag.

I mean like Jersey swag? That's all?

Absolutely. Jersey Swag is through the roof. That is county all day. That's how we do it.

I know that athletes often get just defined by what happens in the field. Everybody is here because they want to hear you talk about this. So just ingratiate me for a minute. Alexis, can I see that helmet? I might -- yes, I might put this on.

All right, good.

Okay. The thing is about a helmet guys, and I don't know how many of you took physics. It's round right? We can all agree on that. It's around right? What is it football? Also quite round. There's not a lot of surface area. How do you do it?

Yes. So yes, so [indiscernible].

Yes, exactly.

When you talk about...

It makes no sense.

It makes absolutely no sense. And I think that that's the worry of it. And people would ask -- I mean, they ask me, [indiscernible] is I went up and I did everything I was trained to do as a wide receiver. You see a ball, you want a high point that we, you want to reach it at the highest place and that's actually what you saw and nothing else made, once I felt like I had it.

I love seeing your face. If you guys go back and watch this on YouTube, look at David's face. The determination on his face you can't even in every acting class you [indiscernible] take, you could not replicate this. He -- you will not drop that ball.

Listen, I had it. People asked me, I said, "Well, what is going on in your head?" Gets the ball. And once I have I had it.

Deep thoughts.

All I know is I'm not letting to go. So you see a clenching moment. You see it by my face, and what I didn't know is that the ball was on my helmet. So what I did know is that there was the struggle mentally unprepared for contact. So yes, there's things going on that prepared me for the contact, and I think that made it not a surprise. But yes, at the end of the day, it's just like I'm not letting the su*** few years. I've got to make every single one of them count.

And I just shared with David, a sports science episode from ESPN, where they say that if Harrison doesn't cradle you like a baby, and carry you softly to the ground. You don't catch that ball.

Yes. So many different factors, right? And I think that's what makes the magic going to help me catch it. It's the circumstance. It's the 2 hall of fame court bags. It's the 2 hall of fame coaches, it's the undefeated narrative. There's the David and Goliath narrative. There is -- and I'm literally the guy out of nowhere. Going against the Golliath or the world of Ron Harrison. You cannot create that many story lines in one moment for the most powerful potential moment within our league, in relation to a modern day team, free agency going forward under feet season. And I'll say, no, the only way to get over it is to recognize that no one's perfect, right? New England. No one's perfect. I think every athlete is pursuing perfection. And in that moment, you realize you just have to meet the moment. And I think I was just fortunate chosen if I could be in a humble way, chosen to be a representative of all our imperfections, but rise into the occasion.

You were definitely touched that day. I mean, there's no question about it. Okay. So again, I've had the pleasure of talking to a few different athletes on stage. And again, I want to move past a little bit of this moment because you said something really cool when we were talking beforehand, you said, look, and this is for the advertisers in the room that are trying to figure out like how do they get ready for this? Like because this is completely unanticipated like how the heck did this happen? What do we serve up now? How do we engage Patriot fans, how do we engage giant sands? How do we take this thing that happened and bring it after the game, Gena's graphic is like, how do you tell the story after the game. How have you told the story now over the last few years, either with brand partners, you told me did some work with Amazon. Like how does this like come to life in the corporate world or in advertising where they're still leveraging the energy and the emotion of this thing.

Yes. And it's the story behind it. I would call it helmet catch for me. It was a memorial. But it was also a lifetime of preparation leading up to that moment. So for me, I think most people would know that I won the third while receive a position my third year in the fill which is the starting role. It doesn't go. That's young Eli, coming of age. It doesn't go as well as I anticipated for all the other reasons being a specialty player. So it's the lifetime narrative of never being good enough that -- but yet still being respected and being reliable when you have your opportunity, what will you make the most of it. So for my personal journey was embodied to one -- my entire journey, life journey has a receiver at the highest level was embodied and satisfied in 1 month.

But it's a punctuation point because you're basically weaving together your entire journey and then you [indiscernible].

And I think that's what we have to kind of recognize is that everybody is looking for fire and a bomb, right? I'm the microwave generation. Now we're obviously, we're going to -- everything is at your disposal in a moment. But the reality is the moments that actually last, they don't come along that often. And the most meaningful moments. And we can talk about virality, but viral is happening every day. So just because its viral doesn't mean it's -- it's important doesn't mean is last.

Well, the craziest thing about this, and this will make a lot of you feel very old in this room, is the iPhone went for -- on sale for the first time the summer before David made this catch. More people had in their pocket of BlackBerry than they did an iPhone when he made this catch. So how do they get shared? How did they get hyped? 100 million people basically watch this Super Bowl. It was a record at the time. We've now exceeded that. But like how did you hear the buzz afterwards? Because I know you went to the sideline, I can see your face on the side and you're like, what the hell just happened. But like after the game, like now we have social media now we have all that stuff. How did you hear and really start to appreciate the significance of what you did?

Yes. I think like, number one, in your mind, you're doing your job, I didn't see the replay. I actually didn't see the replay so I got back to the hotel to celebrate post game. So I gave Eli all the credit post game. And it was like you [indiscernible]. It was 2 miracles of 1 play, right? To be honest -- and I think you got the black guy can't jump. That's me. You got Eli, you could blow on I mean he would fall back in the day. It was -- so I would say it was slow in relation to like man. I'm the most content nobody in the league. I was the highest pacesetting player at the time. I'm like I'm living a dream. I got a wife who loves me. I got wins on the way, my [indiscernible] 2.5 weeks after Super Bowl. So I'm kind of like -- but this just keeps happening, whether it's Ellen Degeneres, Jimmy Campbell. And that's kind of like the immediate effect, but then is -- I actually get recognized more now and I did hear the year or 2 after helmet catch, and it's just because of the visibility of the Internet the different breast and ways that I've been able. So it's just a very interesting dynamic. And for me, I really has never been a live like guy. But I think I enjoy people, I enjoy holding core and allow us stories to have their impact. So being chosen in that moment just kind of meant the world because the game has done so much.

Well, I know you're not a lime light guy. You said like in just talking to you an incredibly humble guy. This play meant so much to so many people, and it's awesome. And we talk a lot about our technology and our technology wasn't available in 2008 to do the stuff with you today. a gene Okay. So with that said, what I want to do is I want to leave you because we really appreciate you coming here with your own highlight in the way that Genius would have done it back in the day. [Presentation]

David, thanks for coming. Give it up for David Tyree.

All right. Thank you, David. Thank you, Josh. Let's get one for one more round. We're going back into the locker room. We've had a successful game. We've showed you how to see the game through the lens of technology and data signals. We've showed you how you've got to know the fan. And now it's time to put it all together and win that moment. And we've done that for you. When you leave here today, we have put together packages because you've got to combine all of these different moments, if you want to get scale and make sure that you show up in the moments that matter. So let me give you an example. Coming up this summer, the biggest sporting event the world has ever seen. Do you know that the World Cup is going to be equal to 108 Super Bowls for the host cities, it's going to be as big as running 8 SEC championships in a row back to back. And so we've gone ahead and built packages around these moments that matter, including something like rivalries every time, messy and comes up against Renaldo or there's a big other player rivalry, your brand can show up. Any time somebody goes for a record chase or a record break no matter what it is, let's say, it's an unbelievable heater goal from a distance never seen before. And because we know the fan, if you've got that package, I don't know, maybe you're advill. And every time there's a header, you're able to serve that Advill ad. We have packaged up all of these different moments into individual thematic genius moment packages each structured, as I mentioned, with its own Deal ID to be pushed to your preferred buying platform to be combined with our dynamic creative optimization and our genius fan graph to deliver that performance that truly makes the moments matter. And so we started today talking about how we needed a new buying framework, how just relying on premium, live sports with limited inventory, not sure whether or not you bought the games or moments happen or rely on contextual ads running across sports content, targeting sports spend. It might give you precision, it might give you scale, but it doesn't give you a motion. Genius Sports, gets rid of that trade-off. Our Moments engine and our Genius Moments packages bring you contextual relevance with a programmatic deterministic audience connected to the emotional journey that aligns with your brand campaign, and it's scaled with precision. And when you leave here today, you'll all be sent to access to a dedicated portal of our new front packages. Dedicated to the World Cup with things like knockout round moments, a record chasing moments, customized with your brand's audience because we have that graph connected to dynamic creative optimization to bring your campaign to life. We've done this for the World Cup. We've done this for the NFL. We've done it for women's sports. All of the major 2026, 2027 sports calendar now comes with Genius moments, DLIDs and packages. And that augmentation we talked about getting in the game, delivering 5x brand recall, 3 search intent and purchase intent are augmentation packages with NBC. MBA are all packaged up together for you and coming soon, our partnership with Univision and Liga MX as well as our recent announcement to integrate moment-driven augmented ads into the PAC 12. So I thank you today for being with us. We're spending your morning for helping you see the game, know the fan and when the moments that matter. Thank you.