NAB
BT Sport, the sports division of UK telecommunications
company BT, is rumored to be acquired by sports streamer DAZN in another sign
of how the live sports field is being churned online.
In-game sports betting, synchronized watch parties,
in-stadium multi-angle replays, integrated player statistics and data, and
aggregated companion content are all on the live sports horizon.
There are other obvious trends too: remote production is
here to stay, processing moves to closer to video origination at the network
edge (speeding workflow issues) and more direct-to-consumer (DTC) apps will
drive more content than ever before.
And some less apparent trends, as noted in a blog post by
encoding vendor Videon Labs.
The company calculates that 30,000 live events have been
scheduled In 2022. This seems a massive underestimate, but even so the industry
“will not have enough professionals to ‘man’ all of them.” Factor in all the
companion content needed for storytelling and gamification, and we have a
dilemma.
“With a drop in hands on deck and talent to fill positions,
our industry must move in the direction of increased automation. This
automation will allow the industry to produce more content even with a decrease
in available talent.”
To keep consumers coming back for more, it’s no longer
enough to have standard live game hday presentations with shoulder programming.
In the drive for fan engagement, sports franchises need to “heighten the drama”
by bringing the lives of the players to DTC apps.
“Uncomfortable moments between quarters — like conversations
in the locker-room and during team workouts — will be captured and monetized,”
the company predicts. “We will see fascinating enhancements in community
building and storytelling for the franchises.”
At the end of 2021, Sky Deutschland made two trials using 5G
technology. One, at Bundesliga club Leipzig’s Red Bull Arena, trialed an
in-stadium app that offered spectators five different feeds to watch live via
mobile phones.
“What we’ve seen with Sky Deutschland shows that our smart
devices can make any seat in a stadium an immersive experience. Attendees can
experience live events with low latency stats, replays, angles, and more
through their mobile devices. These experiences… create new ways to enjoy
events while adding monetization to ticket sales even in substandard seating.
The biggest transformation making in-stadium experiences possible could be the
application of private high speed 5G applications.”
Videon’s own core technology is video compute platform
EdgeCaster, which the company explains can be used as part of a live workflow
“Instead of sending video to the cloud, video is sent
directly from a camera or video source to EdgeCaster. Using this on-premise
platform with Videon’s LiveEdge software, the solution has the ability to run
custom python scripts, docker containers, and a full suite of encoding and
packaging, enabling lower cloud processing costs while achieving significant
latency reduction. All of this leads to a simplified workflow.”
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