When fans become directors

Sports Business International

Video and data streamed direct to consumers is revolutionising live sports presentation and monetization. A look at the changes that are allowing fans to personalise sports content and which are disrupting the traditional sports media model.

p24 http://www.sportbusiness.com/system/files/sbi_226_sept_opt.pdf

http://www.sportbusiness.com/sportbusiness-international/when-fans-become-directors-disruption-traditional-media-model

As the convergence of digital and broadcast coverage of live sports reaches its zenith, the outcome promises to be transformative, not just for how fans experience sport, but how rights holders reach and monetize audiences.

“Changing consumer behaviour is disrupting everything,” says Sam Yardley, Associate Director, Client Services of marketing agency Two Circles. “Consumers don't differentiate between TV or iPad... they are channel agnostic. Sports organisations need to see TV and digital as the same thing, not run them as separate businesses.”

Simply put, the classic broadcast experience of live sound and picture is dovetailing with what the internet does best – data and personalization.

“They are moving in the same direction,” says Richard Ayers, CEO & founder of digital consultancy Seven League. “The broadcast feed carries significantly more data while social platforms - which have always been first with data - are fast becoming viable live sports video destinations.”

A decade ago, when the first live sports video arrived online, the broadcast or host produced feed from an event was simply streamed in parallel to TV. Buffering and poor resolution, caused by bandwidth constraints, meant the internet lagged behind. These technical issues have largely been overcome to the extent that broadcasters like NBCU and the BBC streamed 4000 hours and all 24 Olympic events from Rio.

What's more, over the top (OTT) coverage arguably exceeds broadcast by giving viewers a more immersive experience. Successive major events since London 2012 have seen sports augment the linear, universal, directed feed with additional camera angles, statistics and on-demand highlights all served as viewer choice during an event, plus the ability to pause a live game to replay and restart at any point.

Going direct to consumer

“This type of production has been produced for sports federations for sale to rightsholding broadcasters wanting to augment their TV transmissions with an online offer,” explains Carlo De Marchis, Chief Product & Marketing Officer, at deltatre, which produces and packages online content for FIFA, UEFA, BT Sport and ATP Media. “This is continuing but federations are starting to use the same content repackaged differently for distribution direct to consumers.”

Examples include the NBA, which provides fans with NBA League Pass to access live games and library content and ATP Media which is relaunching TennisTV, its direct to consumer live streaming service from January. 

As younger (millennial) viewers increasingly migrate to digital, traditional rights models - which prioritised TV and saw bids skyrocket (the £5.1bn paid by BT and Sky for the 2016-2019 EPL package one example) - are being remoulded.

“The traditional route by which a league got content to fans was broadcast,” explains James Stellpflug, vp product marketing, EVS which developed second screen C-Cast used by Sky Sports. “Now leagues are carving out new forms of delivery by going direct to the consumer.”

Bypassing conventional network TV opens up new markets for rights holders, says Antony Marcou, CEO, digital marketing agency Sports Revolution. “Instead of regional audiences, they can potentially tap a global audience. OTT offers owners the potential to have direct relationships with viewers/fans, and get instant feedback on what audiences like and don’t like through richer analytics than traditional broadcast provides. In addition, they can better tap social media, since internet connectivity makes it simple to tie that into the viewing experience.”

While rights holders have an opportunity to exploit this seismic shift, “many are lumbering organisations not geared up to iterate as quickly they need to,” warns Ayers. 

Two Circles' Yardley suggests we're seeing hybrid models emerge “where core rights remain ringfenced for a broadcast partner but other content, perhaps for tier 2 and 3 sports, or live rights outside of a broadcaster's territory are distributed as a bespoke streaming offers to fans.”

An example is DAZN, the new online only service launched by Perform Group in Germany Switzerland and Austria with a ten year rights deal from Japan's J-League.

Marcou says he is fielding dozens of calls from leagues interested in going direct to consumers but thinks that niche sports federations will be the first to test the water.

Rights remodelling

“We are at ground zero on this. Rights holders are scared to [endanger] their broadcast partners, or they've already outsourced the rights to an agency like IMG or Pitch. But if technology allows you to cut out the middle man you might as well do it.”

Major franchises like the EPL will follow suit in time. “When OTT revenues start to make more money for a club than the twentieth they receive as part of the EPL from a broadcast contract is when you will see the collective model start to fall apart.'

Video, however, is not the primary agent for change. It is data and this emanates from multiple sources. Production metadata, like camera timecode, is essential for the compilation of highlights clips, enabling producers to rapidly search for key content and for synchronising video on-demand. 

“Data is the context for every piece of content,” says Stellpflug. “It is the backbone of digital production.”

Data culled from the sports field is both automated – such as racecar telemetry – and curated, where teams at the venue log contextual information, such as a description of a player's emotion after a shot. 

The value of data 

The central idea is to exploit more of the content already captured from a live event and make it available over digital channels. A typical UEFA Champions League match, for example, is recorded by 15 cameras, while a final features more than double the number. 

“Techncially all content is available but editorially we have people selecting the clips that make sense,” says De Marchis. “If 25 cameras are trained on a game, maybe only six angles are meaningful at any time. Flooding the consumer with non-meaningful content risks diluting the content's value.”

James Abraham, Digital Strategy Director/Executive Producer at Sunset+Vine agrees: “We have access to a wealth of statistics but the key is presenting that in a meaningful way to an audience that doesn't impact their enjoyment of the actual event.”

The sport itself makes a difference. The regular in-game pauses of NFL, baseball or cricket provide ideal windows to disseminate content to stats-hungry fans, unlike the more concentrated action of soccer.

Nonetheless, a December 2015 survey conducted by EVS (of US and European football, tennis, baseball and hockey fans) found that nearly half of season ticket holders (48%) were willing to pay extra to access replays and data on their mobile device. 

“The more data that federations can create, the more they will own and the more opportunities it presents to package to consumers and sell to sponsors,” says Stellpflug.

This holds true for the mass of behavioural and demographic data which can be gleaned from customers in exchange for digital content.

“Staying still and only using one source of data from customers is  really risky way of building a digital strategy,” says Ayers. “More sensible to partner with a number of services and platform and capture as many data points as possible.

It's one reason why rights holders are distributing live games over social media channels. The four major pro leagues in the U.S. have signed contracts with Twitter and Sky will share in-game clips from its EPL games on the platform. BT simulcast the 2016 Champions League final on YouTube. The Wall Street Journal reports [http://www.wsj.com/articles/facebook-signs-deals-with-media-companies-celebrities-for-facebook-live-1466533472] that Facebook is paying teams including Barcelona to post video content on its platform.  

Arabham describes Twitter as “like a big sofa” where fans and friends find it easy to share the sports experience. “Audiences won't be dragged away [from Twitter] and leagues try to do so at their peril. The smart play is to be part of a conversation by providing relevant content and capitalising on that engagement by offering targeted opportunities to a sponsor.”

The next stage is the incorporation of wearable cameras and sensors onto equipment and athletes. There are issues of privacy and data protection to be worked through, as well as sensitivity to using technology that interferes with performance but these developments are already in train.

Velon, owned by UCI WorldTour cycling teams, produced live data from tracking devices fitted to the bikes of 12 riders competing in the London-Surrey Classic race last month.  Power, speed, heart rate, cadence and acceleration/deceleration performance were made available via Velon's website and app.

IFAB (FIFA's rules governing body) has trialled electronic performance and tracking systems though is yet to introduce it commercially.  Biometric data such as a player's heartbeat or oxygenation levels could help fans measure the player's performances and understand the physiological impact on them. 

“Associating with a sports brand is no longer enough for sponsors,” says De Marchis. “Sports need to try harder to create additional value for sponsors by  creating and repackaging data.”

The creation of data culture within a club’s operating model is a prerequisite for effective change, advises PwC [in its report Football's Digital Transformation]. Eventually, some future sponsorship-rights structures may no longer be based solely on a territorial view, but linked instead to individual fan-profiles.  

“In this disruptive stage you need to be in the game,” says Ayers. “Sports which do not experiment with their data and distribution models will lose.”

ends