IBC
Next week, Warner
Bros. Discovery Sports promises to harness Web3 technology to preview what it
calls a “metaverse experience” around the London leg of the UCI Track Champions
League.
article here
Meanwhile, Web3
implementations using video are opening new revenues for sports rights holders
such as the WWE.
“We have now
shifted to a place where the media experience is forefront,” said Michelle
Munson, co-founder & CEO of blockchain application developer Eluvio. “The
adoption of Web3 by the sports mainstream has only just begun and more and more
people are going to participate.”
IBC365 talks
to Warner Bros. Discovery Sports (WBDS) and to Eluvio about the emergence of
these concepts and technologies in live sports broadcast.
WBDS connect
audiences in the metaverse
During the London
final of the UCI Track Champions League on 2-3 December, WBDS plans to ‘deliver
a full immersive broadcast experience in the metaverse.’
We asked them what
this meant.
“The biggest
difference is what [we] can create in that digital environment,” explained
François Ribeiro, Head of Discovery Sports Events. “Fans will have a direct
interaction with riders in private podcasts and sessions. Fans will have the
possibility to question riders as if they were accredited media. That type of
interaction is the biggest difference to a standard web stream.”
Also available
through this new channel will be video profiles of riders, archive footage and
complete documentary series about the sport on-demand. There will be more live
feeds available too including all onboard feeds, a referee-cam, a camera on the
floor manager and a couple feeds following athletes. Another live view will be
from a camera in the OB van giving an over the shoulder shot of the live
director.
“These are views
you’d never see in the World Feed but I guarantee fans will find it an
interesting experience to share. We are trying to think how rich and large we
can go in terms of access to the content.”
All of this will be
“complementary to the linear TV product” and intended to attract a different
target audience group. Discovery think interest will be dominated by fans who
are more likely to want to engage interactively “as opposed to lean back big
screen viewing,” said Scott Young, SVP Content and Production, WBD Sports.
“The metaverse is a
bit of a confusing reference at the moment but as soon as people start to see
what we’ve developed for the UCI CL you will see it allows a very different
touch point for the sport,” Young explained. “It’s saying, you can create own
avatar and that we will deliver you all the content and give you the ability to
navigate and access it as you wish.”
More innovative
than conventional streaming
By contrast, he
said, conventional streaming is “very two dimensional. Fans stay longer with
[interactivity] and tend to return more often to it than to a dot com platform
with 15 small screens on it.”
The initiative is
also about positioning WBDS “as a live event producer which is bold on
innovation and taking risk,” said Ribeiro.
This event was
chosen because of the control that WBDS has over it. “Since we are the rights
holder, the promoter, broadcaster, and distributor we control the full chain so
we can define the specs of the user experience in the metaverse without asking
permission of a third party,” Ribeiro expounded.
It will act as a
test run for activating similar metaversian engagements on other sports
properties it holds.
Young commented:
“We are learning how we can engage the audience and how we position it
differently to other types of content. The metaverse is an extension of us
being a fan-first broadcaster and is for fans who tell us they want to be
immersed in the product.”
Throughout the
track cycling series WBDS will also capture realtime performance data (power,
heartbeat, cadence) from all the riders and display it as TV graphics and
around the LED perimeter of the velodrome enabling spectators and viewers to
watch live data.
“Nobody has done
this in terms of in-stadium experience before,” claimed Ribeiro. “Not just in
cycling – I’ve never seen in any sports broadcast.”
Web3 in sport moves
beyond NFTs
What fan wouldn’t
want to buy an unforgettable sports moment? Even the most shoulder shrugging of
sports lovers has heard of Nonfungible tokens (NFTs) which likely their own
club or favourite athlete is offering for sale.
FIFA is among the
latest offering digital collectibles of the World Cup via FIFA+ Collect. Sorare has
deals with the top five major soccer leagues including the Bundesliga to market
video-based tokens. Separately, analysts Deloitte predict that all sports are
likely to have some form of NFT activation.
But relatively
simple digital image tokens are just the starting point when it comes to the
potential of Web3 tech in sports. WWE Moonsault is a potential model
for NFT video implementation, an NFT marketplace enabling sports rights holders
to monetise their video archives around a live event.
Content for this is
created by Blockchain Creative Labs (the NFT business and creative studio
formed by FOX Entertainment and Bento Box Entertainment) and it runs on Eluvio
Content Blockchain.
WWE Moonsault
provides specially minted NFTs costing $30 for a pack of three “that transform
from digital images into exclusive video of specific highlights,” explained
Eluvio’s Michelle Munson.
NFT holders can
also unlock VIP access to other perks, such as being able to partake in
exclusive live Q&As with WWE Superstars, access to which is managed via the
NFT or blockchain token. This is similar to the activation that WBDS is
planning around the UCI CL.
From a technology
standpoint, Eluvio claims Moonsault is the first broadcast TV NFT that
transforms into a new digital asset for fans tied to major televised events.
This transformation occurs within the Eluvio Wallet as an on-chain operation
that updates the media using the video archive from WWE.
Metaverse: New
revenue streams
A new revenue
stream is handy but Web3 is more than NFT merch. “It taps into the core of
people’s identity,” Munson said. “Blockchain enables personalised ownership.
The diehard fans of WWE absolutely love to participate in community drops of
highlights of their favourite stars.”
Web3 media
activations for WWE are currently based on its archive but distributing the
live event itself on the blockchain is “not out of the realm of possibility,”
Munson confirmed.
In fact, Eluvio is
partnering with an (unnamed) sport in Australia in a live streamed pilot. This
would potentially cut traditional third-party licensees like broadcasters and
streaming service providers out of the content and from the value chain. Munson
is keen to emphasise the wider value of this:
Looking further
ahead, Web3 might also fundamentally upend the corporate structures of
professional sports ownership. Clubs could be reconstituted as DAOs
(distributed autonomous organisations) in which fans vote to take meaningful
decisions that many have long craved. Potentially that includes investing in
players and even picking the team.
“Yes, that’s a
possibility in the future,” said Munson. “Is that where the current focus is?
No. We’re are just getting to the point where major brands and people trust
this technology enough to invest in it but we’re not yet rethinking the
ownership structures with on-chain DAOs.”
Munson also
emphasises the security of streams on the blockchain, piracy being rampant in
current sports distribution models.
“We’ve worked hard
to get robust security models with standard DRM through these Web3 experiences.
Everyone knows this is essential. If you have a set of licencing terms coupled
to tokens on the chain then you know exactly who has what. Web3 enables secure
monetisation.”
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