EXCLUSIVE! BPM Sports to launch new digital sports brand (very soon)

Who doesn’t want to make money in life? After all, that’s kind of the point of living in a capitalist system like ours.

Who doesn’t want to make big money?

Ever since the world began, people have been looking for ways to make lots of cash so they don’t have to work 8 or 10 hours a day to make someone else rich. Some succeed; others try something, but fail.

But most people would never dare give up the security of their 9 to 5 and jump into the void.

The world of traditional media once served as a profit windfall for many investors… but in recent years, it’s been much less obvious. The media are cutting back (and having to beg for subsidies); they believe less in the home run than they did 20 years ago.

In the old days, rolling over a TV or radio station was almost tantamount to making a big “easy” profit. The arrival of digital technology has completely changed the picture.

Barriers to entry are much lower in the digital world – all you need to get started is a camera, a computer and/or a blog hosted on a cloud server – diluting the big companies’ slice of the pie. And the wealth is redistributed A LITTLE to the real world. The key word, however, is “little”.

Most people who create digital content don’t manage to break the bank with it… but sometimes they do. Just think of Dave Portnoy and his Barstool brand…

And closer to home, Maxim Lapierre and Guillaume Latendresse and their podcast Sous Écoute Poche Bleue.

Portnoy made hundreds of millions of dollars selling his brand to Penn Entertainment (before buying it back for $1), while the LPB guys will have cashed in close to $10 million from the sale of their digital brand (which has already been sold to a company in Denmark).

Since digital is largely unregulated, it’s understandable that local media want to invest online. At worst, it helps them connect with their audience (of customers)… and at best, they too may have access to tens of millions of dollars (although the challenge is much greater in French-speaking Quebec than south of the border, due to the size of the target audience).

BPM Sports gets in on the game and launches its digital brand very soon
Over the past few weeks, I’ve learned that BPM Sports – formerly 91.9 Sports – will be launching a brand new digital brand in the next few days. This brand will be used to produce online content, including podcasts and capsules for social networks.

It will not be called BPM Sports or BPM Sports numérique. The name of this brand should be known by the end of the week, I’m told.

What will be broadcast under this new brand? Podcasts (available in video and audio) about, you guessed it, sports.

Mathias Brunet and Simon “Le Snake” Boisvert will once again collaborate on a podcast focusing on NHL (and therefore Habs) prospects.

Boisvert and Brunet, a journalist who already contributes on a daily basis to BPM Sports, met when the latter had a blog on the La Presse website. Boisvert isn’t afraid of his opinions. Sometimes they age well, sometimes not. But he’s not afraid to stick his neck out, and he doesn’t mince his words. I like that!

It’s ironic to see Simon Boisvert, who was fed up with social networking and closed all his public accounts, making a comeback in the media via the digital door…

Ben Roger, whose presence on the FM airwaves has diminished considerably this season, will also host a weekly podcast that takes listeners inside the head of a radio guy. Last autumn, he began recounting his radio days in audio form via Soundcloud and his personal social networks.

Listeners who miss Ben alongside Gilbert Delorme on the air should find something to enjoy.

I’m told that Greg Lanctôt and his tour of North American amphitheaters and stadiums are also likely to be the subject of content for this new digital brand…

And at some point, Maxime Van Houtte is likely to be involved in the new BPM Sports project too.

Finally, I’ve heard that something is being worked on to link football and business, but that the final pieces of the puzzle are not yet in place. Some big names could be added to the project, but we’ll have to wait a little before we hear any news.

Wecan’t wait to see what this new sports brand will look like.

Will we be launching a new website (more user-friendly than the current BPM Sports site)?

Will we start new social networking pages in the image of the new brand… or will we use the current pages? The answer this week, if my information is correct.

Extension

In business, the earlier you enter a market, the better your chances of making big money. Launching a podcast in 2024 is a slightly bigger challenge than, say,2018…

The market is getting saturated, and listeners already have their preferences. That said, there will always be room for a quality product in the market. In the end, it will always be the customer who speaks.

But BPM Sports won’t be the only one investing in digital in Quebec in 2024.

Kevin Raphaël is also reportedly planning to launch a new media outlet similar to La Poche Bleue and Barstool, i.e. a (new) brand with several podcasts/shows. I don’t know where Kevin stands with his project, however.

Serge Fortin, former boss of Groupe TVA, has just launched 9 Millions, a digital medium whose first show, hosted by Denis Lévesque, is starting to create a buzz on the Web. Serge knows how to mix news and entertainment, and has an interesting sports project in the oven. It remains to be seen whether this sports project will materialize…

One of the most interesting podcasts on the Quebec sports scene right now is probably the one co-hosted by Nilton Jorge and Sofiane Benzaza entitled Couscous Piri Piri. The guys create great content and have become a must for anyone wanting to know all about CF Montreal.

And they do it with VERY FEW resources! Some should take notes…