Pro sports is known for its drama, from thrilling finishes to the agony of defeat. The New York Mets are no stranger to that across the team's 63 seasons, which includes one of the most shocking World Series victories in Major League Baseball history to the frustrating season it's currently having with one of the league's highest payrolls.
Drama has helped make live sports content more valuable than ever, with media companies touting the audience and advertising it brings in during recent upfronts while the NBA is negotiating upwards of $75 billion in new broadcast deals.
But with all the eyeballs on what happens during games, more effort is being made to capture what goes on behind the scenes, both good and bad, from Netflix's F1 "Drive to Survive" and PGA Tour "Full Swing" documentaries to the NFL and HBO's annual "Hard Knocks" series, and to what teams and leagues increasingly capture in locker rooms and in training.
To that end, the Mets will be working on development, production and distribution with Range Sports, a division of entertainment management firm Range Media Partners. Mets owner and hedge fund manager Steve Cohen is a minority investor in Range through his Point72 Ventures fund. A+E Networks, John Malone's Liberty Global, and private equity billionaire David Bonderman of TPG are also investors.
"Fans are connecting with content on social media and digital media more so than ever, and while sports teams do a pretty good job of pushing out game clips and other highlights, there's a wealth of opportunity beyond that," said Mets President of Business Operations M. Scott Havens.
Havens, who joined the Mets in November after previously serving as the CEO of Bloomberg Media, said he sees the audience opportunity for off-field content "probably just as big" as what goes on during games, noting how much existing fans are interested in "the human stories, the struggles, the drama, the personal lives of the players and coaches," but also how that appeals to non-sports fans.
The past 24 hours have been a good example of the drama that can engulf teams, with Mets' star slugger Pete Alonso hit in the hand by a 90mph-plus pitch, frustrated Mets pitcher Jorge Lopez getting ejected and throwing his glove into the stands, and the team's players, mired in a long losing stretch, holding a closed-doors meeting after the game.
Havens, who was interviewed about the production deal before the recent events, is looking to spread the team's brand and fanbase well beyond Queens, New York.
"Content plays a key role in the ecosystem of an organization like the New York Mets as both an extension for the brand, providing more touchpoints for fans to engage with the team, and as a path to new revenue streams," Range Sports co-presidents Will Funk and Greg Luckman said in a statement.
Founded in 2020, Range's management firm and content development operations spans TV, film, music and sports, including clients like Bradley Cooper, rapper Jack Harlow, San Francisco 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy and The CW Network's broadcast rights portfolio, which includes LIV Golf, ACC football, and soon WWE's NXT franchise and NASCAR's Xfinity Series.
The Mets will be focused on a variety of content, Havens said, from players talking about fashion or what they do in the offseason to storytelling around the culture of Mets fans. There could also be opportunities to work with Range's broader ecosystem of clients that range from actors and musicians and directors who are fans of the Mets or baseball or who have a story about sports that the Mets can help bring to life.
"There is plenty of baseball to watch and coverage of that, so we don't want to provide something that's already being done," Havens said.
The focus for this new content strategy for the Mets is two-fold: create content that will introduce the team's players and brand to viewers that may not have otherwise considered themselves Mets fans and create new opportunities for sponsors and partners to further build out that revenue stream.
All of this is also part of Cohen and the Mets' vision of building out the team to look like more a sports and entertainment business that is connecting with consumers every day through content, events, concerts, food and other efforts, not just during the 81 regular season home games that Citi Field hosts each MLB season.
"That opens up a bunch of new opportunities to engage Mets fans and non-Mets fans," Havens said.
