In Broadcast - July 2021 - 27

July 2021 | www.inbroadcast.com
27
Summer of Sports
Convergence and data -
the future of live sports
been disclosed but is expected
to be significantly higher than the
previous deal of $65 million (i.e.,
paid annually).
From an operational perspective,
during the first half of 2020,
sports broadcasters had to swiftly
adapt, creatively filling the holes
in their programming schedules
caused by the cancellations with
archived
content,
new
content
formats or immersive events. For
example, the Caribbean Premier
League (CPL) delivered old cricket
matches
with
live
commentary,
giving a new reason for cricket fans
to watch archived material - bringing
it back to life for new audiences (and
old ones too). COPA90 and EA Sports
collaborated and recruited former
Manchester United footballer Rio
Ferdinand for a series focused on an
interactive FIFA tournament between
football players during the lockdown
period. Broadcasters such as ITV and
NASCAR enjoyed record audiences for
their virtual events in the first half of
2020. Technology budgets were swiftly
reallocated to these use cases, as well
as enabling more remote production
and virtualization capabilities at sports
media companies out of necessity.
While the massive acceleration in
remote production and distributed
workflows was driven by sheer
necessity during the pandemic, many
of the solutions used will stick for
future operations even when full onsite
operations become theoretically
possible again.
The increasing demand for
interactivity
is
clear
from
several
data points. I have reported above
the exponential growth in the
interactive platform Twitch in the last
two years. Sports has become the
sector of experimentation in business
models
as
events
have
cancellations
and the absence of fans in the
stadiums
driven
experiences
to
sports
media companies to provide more
interactive
prop
up virtual fan engagement and
differentiate their business models.
Demand for interactivity has
been boosted by social isolation
while supply has never been in a
better shape, with the combination
of technologies such as AI/ML,
5G, edge computing and VR/AR
giving more tools for businesses
to provide effective interactive
experiences. In the past, demand and
supply have not been as aligned as
they are today.
Let me give you some examples
of this trend on the supply-side of
interactivity, from the US market;
there is a rapidly growing number
of other media companies moving
in the same direction. FuboTV
acquired Vigtory, a sports betting and
interactive gaming platform, at the
start of the year. FuboTV's CEO said
that the acquisition is complementary
to their main streaming business as
he believes that betting will increase
engagement and monetization, for
example. Here's what David Gandler,
Co-founder and CEO, FuboTV, had to
say earlier this year:
" We believe online sports wagering
is a highly complementary business
to our sports-first live TV streaming
platform. We do not see wagering as
simply an add-on product to FuboTV.
Instead, we believe there is a real
flywheel opportunity with streaming
video content and interactivity. We not
only expect sports wagering to become
a new line of business and source of
revenue, but we also expect that it will
increase user engagement on FuboTV
resulting in higher ad monetization,
better subscriber retention and
reduced subscriber acquisition costs. "
Sinclair Broadcast Group is doing a
similar thing with its President and
CEO, Christopher S. Ripley, saying that
they are working on making the sports
experience in their streaming offering
much like a gaming experience:
" We are going to be jointly [with
Bally Sports] developing additional
programming, which is going to go
on our air, which will support and be
reasons not only for people to tune in
but also to engage more on the sports
betting platforms. The other thing
that we'll work on is a watch-andplay
experience. So that's not ready
yet, but that is on the drawing board
between us and Bally to create a nextgeneration
watch-and-play experience
that is going to revolutionize the way
people watch sports today and really
make it much more like playing a video
game. "
Live
Sports
also
needs
to
differentiate itself from the crowded
DTC on-demand content market to
maintain its edge, driving towards
unique fan engagement experiences to
deliver a new experience that includes
interactivity,
cont'd...
instant
highlights,
sharing, betting, gaming, analytics
and other functionalities; as FuboTV's
David Gandler says above, this is
all aimed at delivering " higher ad
monetization, better subscriber
retention and reduced subscriber
acquisition costs. " The key to
achieving this is data analytics,
and this is consistent with media
companies using interactivity as
a tool for this and more generally
improving user experiences.
Interactivity is increasingly
being leveraged to improve digital
experiences, to gather more data
on consumers, and achieve further
differentiation of business models.
FuboTV's David Gandler again: " We
are very focused on our ability to
manage our data and to analyze
and leverage that data in ways that
will allow us to find new opportunities.
And what we typically do is experiment
around everything. That includes
pricing. We've been experimenting
around packaging... But there's also
synergies between the information
we're getting across advertising,
wagering, our subscription plan. So
again, I look at this as a very small
Amazon, if you will, if you can think
that way, creatively. You have to think
about the future, right? That's the
whole job. But adding this wagering,
I'm looking for things we can sell that
can add $10 to $15 to $20 of monthly
revenue per customer. And I think it's
quite possible because... we're seeing
success in the way we're managing our
data. "
A recent IABM survey of technology
buyers' future priorities puts data
analytics at the top of their priorities
in Monetize and Consume, with
requirements in all the other BaM
Content Chain® categories supporting
this digital effort - as illustrated in
the following chart. Interestingly,
these are mostly not physical, and not
media-specific requirements; digital
convergence is happening across
verticals as well as horizontals.
I have only scratched the surface
of what's driving developments in
Live Sports here, dictated by word
count constraints! IABM members
can dive much deeper with the
plethora of resources available
to them from our Business
Intelligence unit. What is certain
however is that data will be at the
heart of the future of Live Sports
in defining user experiences,
increasing engagement, reducing
churn
and
subscribers.
further
monetizing
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