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Affiliate Monitor Playmaker Q3 review
23
PLAYMAKER Q3 REVIEW
A LOT TO GET EXCITED ABOUT
Of all the affiliates in this report , it is relative newcomer Playmaker that talks the most about the underlying users of the websites it offers . While it doesn ’ t talk about NDCs , it does concentrate on the activities of the visits to its sites which topped an impressive 715 million in the third quarter .
In fact , Playmaker is very much the sports media business in operation that market leader Better Collective says it aspires to be . From its quarterly presentation highlights , the company said its sites received 95 million-plus monthly users resulting in 250 million-plus web sessions .
The company also has the social media metrics to back that up : it has more than 175 million social media followers and its sites receive more than 600 million YouTube views and 15 million TikTok likes .
To illustrate what these metrics mean , the company provided data from ComScore for the top sports media sites in the Americas in June last year which showed Playmakers ’ various sites were fourth in the list with 209 million total visits for the month , behind ESPN , Globo Esportes and Yahoo and ahead of Sports Illustrated and CBS Sports .
Asked about this business , chief executive Jordan Gnat said the company focused on RPM or RPS , “ which is the revenue that we ’ re generating from every 1,000 sessions on our property ”.
“ We ’ ve seen positive strength there , in part due to the improvements we ’ ve made to performance in web titles of our properties that ’ s allowing us to really optimise how we ’ re laying out ads on our page , ensuring that we ’ re delivering optimal ads per page view .”
TAKE A WEDGE
Still , its most recent significant M & A deal positions the company more clearly in the affiliate mainstream . Gnat said Playmaker sees the $ 31m acquisition of Wedge Media as providing a “ strong organic growth contributor ” in 2023 .
He noted that some of this would come from the slate of state openings . “ You just get a huge rush from operators that gives you this bump ,” he said .
“ You get this one-time bump of the market starting off , and then it begins to just get into steady state growth . And so it takes years for a market to develop . This is not a bang and done .”
But Gnat noted that “ on an organic basis ” Wedge continues to grow year-on-year . “ And it ’ s not just from new market openings . We see Wedge being a strong organic
March 2023