Men in Blazers' Roger Bennett on the growth of US fandom, EPL vs the MLS, and their move into streaming live football matches

<p>With Premier League kickoff just a day away, Men in Blazers pulled off something it had never done before — live-streaming a Tottenham preseason match direct to North America and pulling in over 3x the concurrent viewership it had forecast.</p><p>On this episode, Nick sits down with Roger Bennett, Co-Founder and CEO of the Men in Blazers Media Network, to unpack how MiB became one of the biggest independent football media businesses in North America — and what football&#39;s rapid rise in the US means for the sport&#39;s next 50 years.</p><p>How Men in Blazers built its business on two first-mover bets: spotting football&#39;s rise in the US back in the early 2010s, and timing its launch around the emergence of podcasting</p><p>Inside the World Cup output that pushed MiB&#39;s streams up over 500% — 200+ podcasts plus TV shows, newsletters, alternate broadcasts and live eventsWhy NBC&#39;s 2013 Premier League deal — and its off-primetime kickoff slots — became an accidental masterstroke in growing US fandomMLS&#39;s move behind the Apple paywall, and why friction is the enemy of a fanbase that &quot;finds football easily&quot;</p><p>America&#39;s multi-team fandom habit, and why Wrexham draws roughly seven times the average Premier League club&#39;s US following</p><p>Debrief: streaming Tottenham vs Hoffenheim live to North America ~10,000 concurrent viewers against an internal forecast of 2,800–3,200 — and what it signals for the next wave of club-direct broadcasts</p><p><br></p><p>StreamTime Sports is thrilled to make the top 5 Sports Business podcasts. See the full list here: https://podcast.feedspot.com/sports_business_podcasts/</p>