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Manu Sawhney walks into his office at the ESPN-STAR Sports headquarters in Singapore looking fresh, even though he had arrived several hours earlier on a red-eye flight from New Delhi and stepped straight into the first of two back-to-back meetings before this interview.
The Indian national travels to his homeland frequently, but not because he has family there. South Asia, which includes India, and Southeast Asia are the two biggest markets in terms of revenue for the sports channel. The two geographical regions, together with North Asia (China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and South Korea), come under Sawhney's purview as managing director for ESPN-STAR Sports (ESS).
ESPN (the acronym for its old name Entertainment and Sports Programming Network), which owns the broadcast rights for, among others, the Barclays Premier League matches, International Cricket Council (ICC) matches, Wimbledon and the Australian Open, has become a byword for sports aficionados in the region.
And for Sawhney, the job combines the best of both worlds — making a living from an avid interest in sports. The 43-year-old, who holds a Bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering from the Birla Institute of Technology and Science in Pilani, India and a Master's in international business from the reputed Indian Institute of Foreign Trade in New Delhi, was captain of both his school and college football teams “and like any South Asian, played cricket”.
Sawhney's office at ESS testifies to the most important things in his life. Photographs of his family sit near the desk, and sporting memorabilia that take up an entire shelf running along one side of the room include cricket bats autographed by all the teams in the ICC World Twenty20 2007 as well as by the English team for the 2009 Ashes, and a football autographed by FIFA president Sepp Blatter.
A television screen on the wall is switched to the ESPN channel, which Sawhney says he watches with his family at home.
While a passion for sports is not a prerequisite, he says it makes the job “that much more special”. “It gives you that edge, that extra bit of commitment that you’re willing to put in because you genuinely believe in not only what you’re creating, but with your passion you’re able to understand the consumer a bit better.”
“Phil Collins once said ‘Blessed are those who can make money from what they love’. So from that viewpoint, I guess I am extremely blessed,” he says.
Sawhney has been with ESPN for the last 13 years, and says he has not regretted a single day of it and continues to look forward to each new day.
The cachet that the ESPN brand has built up over the years is evident, he says during the interview on Dec 11.
“Whenever you tell people that you work for ESPN-STAR Sports, you can see the person’s eyes light up! That kind of gives you an indication of the respect people have for the brand and the passion people have for sports. The brand truly makes them light up and that’s a great thing to be part of.”
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But the brand has not always enjoyed such widespread popularity in Asia, recalls the former commodities trader. “When I was headhunted to join ESPN India as marketing manager in April 1996, my first reaction was ‘What is ESPN?’ "
Cable operators then were just as clueless about the brand, he says. ESPN India, the country’s second pay TV channel then, had just commenced operations in 1995 with a small office of three staff.
“We rented office space from a leather garment exporter so the only poster we had in our office was of girls wearing leather jackets!” he says, adding that the only furniture was a dining table that was given to the company.
When he became managing director of ESPN India in 1999, Sawhney not only sought to establish the sports media business, but to grow the nascent pay-TV industry by changing the mindsets of cable operators who were not used to paying for content.
Together with his team, he introduced initiatives as benchmarks to improve presentation and production quality, such as featuring cricket icons and former players as commentators during match presentations as well as developing original programmes to increase audience engagement and viewership.
ESPN India also focused on expanding the audience’s interest beyond cricket — the biggest sport on the Indian subcontinent — by acquiring the broadcast rights and promoting top-class sporting properties in football, tennis, motor racing and golf.
Sawhney's management experience in India did not go unnoticed. In 2003, he was appointed senior vice-president of programming and event management at ESS headquarters in Singapore. Four years later, he was made managing director of ESS.
As managing director, Sawhney oversees the development, management and growth of the various businesses under ESS, which includes content acquisition, content creation, content distribution and human resource development. ESS employs more than 800 staff working in 10 departments at its New Tech Park headquarters along Lorong Chuan in Singapore as well as at its branches in China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, India and Malaysia.
Sawhney's job scope also includes exploring new business opportunities in the different markets and media platforms, as well as working with ESS’ global partners, business associates and governments.
Following the joint venture in 1996, ESPN STAR Sports has grown from four channels covering Asia to 18 networks across 24 markets, with some 310 million viewers.
The region’s top sports content provider, it was formed as a 50-50 joint venture between Walt Disney-owned ESPN Inc and STAR, a subsidiary of Rupert Murdoch-owned News Corp Ltd in 1996. Prior to the joint venture, ESPN International had had a presence in the region since its first broadcast in Guam in 1985. STAR had operated in Asia under the name Prime Sports since 1991 and distributed programmes in Greater China, Southeast Asia and India.
ESS earns revenue through four business revenue streams – advertising revenue, affiliate market, syndication and its Event Management Group (EMG). But Sawhney would not reveal revenue figures.
“The affiliate market is where we provide our channels to operators like Astro, SingTel or PCCW,” Sawhney explains. Syndication involves ESS acquiring global broadcast rights and selling them to different markets.
EMG creates, manages, promotes and syndicates sporting events for clients, such as the KIA X Games Asia, FIH (International Hockey Federation) Men’s Junior World Cup, and the World Netball Championships. To date, EMG has organised over 1,000 events in 11 countries.
In Malaysia, EMG has hosted several top sports events such as the X Games Asia, The KL World 5s futsal championship in 2008 and The Guinness 9 Ball Tour from 2007 to 2008.
ln December, EMG organised the Perak AmanJaya International Eco Adventure challenge, Goodyear Formula DRIFT Malaysia championship and the Malaysia World Band Competition.
“And the fifth (revenue stream), which is coming up, is production services, where EMG conceptualises and produces shows for clients,” says Sawhney, citing Singapore's Singtel’s Football Frenzy channel as an example.
Another growth area is the digital media space, where EMG is looking to strike partnerships to further grow the business across different media platforms, he adds.
Malaysia is an important market within the Southeast Asian region. With a population of close to 27 million and a very robust pay-TV market, it is a market with huge potential to grow further, says Sawhney.
Describing Malaysia as primarily a soccer market with growing interest in Formula 1, he says ESS has invested in football properties such as the Barclays Premier League, UEFA Champions League, The FA Cup and Asian Football Confederation as well as Formula One and MotoGP for motor racing. Tennis and golf are also popular with Malaysian viewers, he adds.
The 2008/09 EPL season drew 9.6 million Malaysian viewers, he says. “That’s equal to filling 96 Bukit Jalil Stadiums! That’s the reach we get for football.” Of this, 5.6 million watched the games at home and four million out-of-home.
Over the same period, football reached 63% of the total Malaysian pay-TV viewers aged 15 and above. Region-wide, the biggest sports in terms of viewership are football, cricket, tennis and F1.
In North Asia, ESS caters to viewers’ preference for American sports like baseball and basketball with broadcasts of US Major League Baseball and National Basketball Association games, Taiwan’s Super Basketball League and the Asean Basketball League. Cricket is the biggest sport in India, so ESS invests heavily in the acquisition of broadcast rights of the International Cricket Council and Champions League Twenty20.
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Sawhney says the ESS regional business actually did better during the economic downturn due to the broad appeal of sports as a genre and the way broadcasting continues to deliver results to marketers.
“To quote from The Economist — in hard times people need escapism more than ever, it seems. They like heroes to watch and cheer on. And still they are willing to pay… Nothing can entirely escape the economic downturn. But leading sports come close,” he says.
The ESS brand is successful because it has earned the credibility and respect of its viewers. “It has immaculate quality in terms of presentation style, production, original content and human resources,” says Sawhney.
The company’s ability to understand the consumer and keep pace with his or her changing needs has also helped build brand loyalty, as ESS is then able to respond with the right content offering. One such example is ESPNews, the company’s 24-hour news channel that was launched in November. With sports news highlights, match fixtures, sports league rankings and a ticker featuring real-time news updates, ESPNews aims to “feed consumers’ insatiable appetite” for real-time sports news and action from their favourite sports, he says.
Why are people mad about sports? Sawhney believes that nothing engages fans more than sports because it is the “biggest reality entertainment”.
“Sports is unrehearsed, live, real-time, unpredictable and unscripted. When their favourite team or player plays, fans come to a stop. Quality sports action will always resonate with fans in the region.”
Successful programming is another reason why the company continues to be the top sports media broadcaster in the region. Sawhney says ESS reaches a diverse group of sports viewers through differentiated content proposition in various networks, as well as multiple media platforms, such as its recently revamped espnstar.com and mobileESPN portal.
 Programming is decided based on four key pillars — content acquisition, content creation, content distribution and people.
“When acquiring content, we have to ask ourselves whether the content works for the consumer and aim to get the right mix of different sports,” he says. Acquisition is becoming increasingly pertinent as more viewers no longer want just coverage of local sports but “the best of the best”, he adds.
With Sawhney at the helm, ESS acquired major sporting broadcasting rights such as Barclays Premier League in Asia, the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics, London 2012 Olympics, Champions League Twenty20 global commercial rights for cricket and FIFA World Cup 2010 broadcast rights in South Asia.
Asked what helped ESS win these rights, Sawhney credits ESS’ original programming, continual investment in content as well as strong relationships with rights holders and governing bodies.
Other international and regional sports properties under ESS are the FA Cup, UEFA Champions League and Asia Federations Cup for football; F1, MotoGP and WRC in motor racing; Australian Open, Wimbledon, French Open (South Asia) in tennis; the Masters, US Open, and the British Open in golf.
Live sports broadcasts may be the highlight for any sports channel but producing localised, original programming is just as important, says Sawhney. ESS produces more than 3,600 hours of original programmes and match presentations. Football takes the largest share at 1,500 hours, followed by cricket and news programming (1,000 hours each) and Formula 1 (100 hours).
Other factors that are taken into account when deciding programming include viewers’ consumption patterns among different demographics, TV ratings in different seasons and the amount of time spent by viewers on the channel.
Content distribution refers to making sure ESS fulfils the media consumption patterns of today’s consumer. Good programming is also highly reliant on the people or staff behind the content.
“You need a good team to deliver a good product so you have to make sure your people are able to lead the business,” says Sawhney.
Local sports are extremely important for ESS because “at the end of the day, we are the pan-regional broadcaster”, he says. The company has created Asian legs of international championships such as the Asian X Games and World Pool Championships, as well as organising programmes in schools to build sports awareness.
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Moving forward, Sawhney believes the market for sports will continue to grow, especially on the Internet and in the mobile space. Escalating costs of sports broadcast rights will continue to be a challenge but “that’s the function of the quality of content and competition in the market”, he says.
“Like any business, as players in the industry, you need to figure out where you want to be — the leader or the laggard? Our strategy is to invest in content which allows us to present a sound proposition to our partners and serve our sports fans across the region,” he says.
Another challenge is an increasingly fragmented audience that divides its time between myriad media channels. “Sports fans are moving beyond niche to individualised viewing, thanks to the availability of on-demand, self programming and search features,” says Sawhney.
He says with so many changes in the media landscape, ESS will remain focused on its core purpose of “serving the fan”. “The core of the business remains the same — engage and entertain the viewers by creating compelling and relevant content and presenting new opportunities to our business partners."
These are challenging times, and Sawhney counts himself fortunate to be in the industry as there is never a dull moment. “It gives me immense satisfaction to watch the company grow and become a major global player in the sports broadcast industry, and to see sporting action presented to millions of fans across the region,” he says.
While he loves his job, Sawhney's love for his family is also evident throughout the interview. He speaks fondly of his two children, a daughter who is going on eight and a son who is turning 12. As work demands sometimes outweigh time spent with family, he says it is critical to make up for it. Having a strong sense of discipline helps.
For Sawhney, sports is more than just a job — it brings his family together. The Arsenal supporter treasures the quality time spent watching football matches and playing golf with his son.
“You’ve got to be very blessed to be able to spend that time with your son on the golf course. My daughter plays tennis and as a family, we tend to watch a lot of sporting programmes together. To me, it is still the most interactive, passionate, cleanest form of entertainment available today,” he says.
This article appeared in Manager@work, the monthly management pullout of The Edge Malaysia, Issue 790, Jan 25-31, 2010
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