Our industry is in choppy waters, as we have seen job cuts in streaming and the wider media world over the last couple of years. While streaming is increasingly picked over linear broadcast, the pressure on sports streaming services mounts as they wrestle with consumer churn, large-scale piracy, and streaming ad revenue not fully replacing linear broadcast ad revenue. Add an unstable geopolitical situation and fears of a recession to this mix, and it is safe to say that streaming services worldwide face a precarious situation. This article aims to identify key factors and trends, and to explain some of the dilemmas that sports platforms both large and small are dealing with. Special attention will be given to the role of AI within streaming services and the push for more personalization on the consumer side.
Mobii – Democratizing Premium Content Personalization: How Synthetic Intelligence Unlocks D2C Revenue Without Production Cost Barriers
Sports organizations entering the direct-to-consumer streaming market face a fundamental economic paradox. Audiences accustomed to Netflix-level personalization expect tailored viewing experiences – following favorite players, accessing alternative camera angles, choosing commentary styles, and controlling their content journey. Yet these same organizations must deliver these experiences using broadcast-era production models where creating multiple personalized streams requires proportionally scaling production resources, crews, and infrastructure.
NStarX – The Live Sports Broadcasting Crisis: How AI Can Navigate the Perfect Storm
Live sports broadcasting stands at a critical inflection point. What was once a straightforward linear television model has fractured into a complex ecosystem where fans need multiple streaming subscriptions exceeding $800 annually just to follow their favorite teams. The migration from appointment television to streaming platforms has created unprecedented technical and business challenges that threaten both viewer satisfaction and industry profitability.
TotalMedia – Empowering intelligent video processing solutions for over 30 years, revolutionizing video broadcasting and OTT services through innovative technology licensing
Founded in 1994 and headquartered in Silicon Valley, California, TotalMedia has over three decades of expertise in image and video core technologies. Leveraging a Software-Defined Architecture (SDAA), TotalMedia provides a flexible and scalable foundation for seamless integration with existing broadcast and OTT infrastructures while adapting to future technological advancements.
With over a decade of investment in artificial intelligence, AI serves as the cornerstone of TotalMedia’s UHD encoder, generative content and quality enhancement features. AI-powered algorithms enhance video resolution, smoothness, and color accuracy, restore aging content, and generate advanced visual effects such as super slow motion and afterimages. TotalMedia empowers industries including broadcasting, cable networks, telecom operators, OTT platforms, content providers, surveillance, and emerging sectors like in-vehicle entertainment systems.
LiveU – Clubs go bananas for LiveU’s sports production solutions
As the M&E industry continues to evolve, the growing pressure to produce more content at lower costs, while retaining the same high-quality, has increased the demand for cost-effective, flexible IP-based production models. As well as enabling broadcasters to utilize ground-to-cloud-to-crowd turnkey sports production workflows, this has opened up new opportunities for diverse and niche sports to create dynamic live content and to drive online fan engagement.
Net Insight – Efficiency first: streamlining sports video delivery
Innovation has always been integral to the broadcast industry, such as with the rise of HD, digital audio and 4K, as well as more recent developments surrounding IP. Each new wave of development has encouraged experimentation, leading to solutions that stand the test of time, like the ones mentioned, and solutions that do not. The latest experimental wave is, of course, AI which finds itself full of potential but lacking enough real-world use cases to make it resonate across the industry.
Imagine Communications – The Home Field Advantage: France TV delivers coverage of Paris 2024 Olympics in UHD, with an assist from Imagine Communications’ SNP
In the past for its coverage of the Olympic Games, France TV has built a dedicated facility at the International Broadcast Center (IBC) in the host city and delivered signals back to its headquarters in Paris for distribution to viewers via over-the-air TV. However, with the 2024 Games taking place in its own backyard, the broadcaster saw a unique opportunity — it could forgo the IBC and instead use its own facilities for the event. Furthermore, to enhance the viewer experience, France TV committed to delivering its Olympic coverage in UHD.
Net Insight – Maximizing efficiency and monetization in live sports
Live sports provide huge business growth opportunities that linear TV providers cannot ignore. This is reflected by the numbers, with the Premier League being the most-watched league globally, NFL games accounting for 96% of the most-watched 2023 US TV broadcasts and Super Bowl LVIII bringing in a record 123.7 million average viewers. The growth has extended to streaming as well, with the NFL’s first streaming-exclusive playoff breaking records with 23 million viewers.
Appear – How to be an immersive and green broadcaster
Delivering immersive live events, whether it’s the thrill of the Olympics’ 100-meter sprint or the suspense of an awards ceremony, while simultaneously meeting sustainability goals, is no easy feat. Broadcasters are rising to this challenge by leveraging cutting-edge technologies and innovative production methods. Today’s audiences expect nothing less than best-in-class coverage, and the recent summer of sports presented broadcasters with the dual challenge of delivering high-quality live content, while adhering to stringent sustainability standards.
Imagine Communications – The long road to Paris: the rise of remote production in broadcasts of the Games
With Paris 2024 just around the corner, I can’t help looking back on the 2010 Winter Games in Vancouver, where I had the privilege of working with one of Imagine Communications’ broadcast customers. In all the excitement, one thing that struck me the most was the sheer size and complexity of the International Broadcast Centre (IBC). Broadcasters from all around the world had packed the space with a massive amount of equipment — including multiple control rooms and dozens of full editing suites — and thousands of people were working tirelessly to produce their programs. It was a spectacle on par with the games themselves.