Elevating live sports broadcast for global ROI

Profitability pressures among media companies are persistent. Investor and boardroom demands for improved revenues and reduced costs are driving strategic decision-making for business, operations and engineering leaders. One topic that isn’t up for much debate is the value of live content rights for Tier 1 sports brands, media organizations, streaming platforms, and world-leading technology companies. The question on the table for all of these players is how to maximize sports broadcast revenue and increase operational efficiencies while delivering customized live experiences at a global scale.

Navigating a hybrid sports broadcast landscape

Live sports are proven to be a powerful viewer retention driver for broadcasters and streaming services, causing a surge in investment expected to hit $35B by 2027 in the US alone, according to S&P Global. Competition for those rights is reaching a boiling point, with traditional media companies vying for audience share against popular OTT services and major technology giants like Apple, Amazon, and Netflix. In a frenzied live sports landscape, rights owners have limitless opportunity to grow their brands and unlock new revenues, while broadcasters and content providers are pushing to deliver unique experiences at unprecedented quality — without increasing headcount or cost.

Live content – particularly live sports – is king. Regardless of viewing platform, high-value live content draws audiences in and keeps them engaged. In a market characterized by platform proliferation and the increasing transience of content exclusivity, retaining unique live content is critical for media companies and streaming platforms that want to grow their audience. Beyond securing rights to one-off games or holiday weekend packages, new market entrants are increasingly investing in a broader array of regular season live sports coverage to incentivize viewer retention and minimize post-event churn.

While YouTube has invested heavily in its regular NFL Sunday Ticket strategy, Netflix continues to stake its claim in live sports with its Christmas Day NFL package later this year and WWE Raw from 2025, the same year in which NASCAR is set to make its debut on Amazon Prime Video. While streaming-only providers are pushing to increase their foothold in the live sports broadcast landscape, the Venu Sports joint venture between Disney, Fox, and Warner Bros. Discovery is set to offer a comprehensive content portfolio to potentially carve huge success as an ultimate viewer convenience option for sports streaming.

Scaling operations with flexible sports broadcasting solutions

As sports rights settle into a hybrid model across traditional linear and streaming methodologies, broadcasters need to ensure flawless delivery and optimal monetization via OTT platforms. At the same time, digital-native players are starting to lean into more sophisticated production and distribution techniques to deliver high value live content via linear-like experiences. The commonalities are clear. All content providers delivering premier live sports require highly reliable, low-latency video transport mechanisms, and scalable sports broadcasting solutions that enable them to scale their operations based on fluctuating demand.

Streaming infrastructure enables rights holders to deliver multiple live event streams simultaneously, spinning up new digital channels and scaling up or down based on changing requirements. Take LTN customer TelevisaUnivision’s ViX streaming service as an example, which delivers language-tailored, culturally relevant live sports streaming coverage of thousands of live events per year, airing multiple games simultaneously. Achieving this level of scale and customization requires highly automated live event versioning technology and intelligent IP distribution mechanisms.

As the complexity of multi-platform live sports broadcasting grows, rights holders and streaming providers are asking themselves whether it really makes sense to invest in and own highly intricate technology infrastructure. Increasingly, leading organizations are opting for a more cost-efficient approach that allows them to harness gold-standard live event master control, normalization, versioning and channel playout technologies, scaling their operational teams and tapping into unique IP ecosystem capabilities via low-touch managed service partnerships.

Driving ROI with effective regionalization

Global demand for premier live sports content is growing, with major US and European leagues and federations expanding their distribution strategies across new markets. Content providers need to deliver more customized feeds to engage global audiences with localized experiences across any platform — ensuring live video is prepared with tailored graphics, local language audio, and complex formatting standards required for diverse platforms and regions. Cost efficiently delivering this level of customization at scale demands highly scalable sports broadcasting solutions and live event versioning tools that transform generic national feeds into localized experiences. Looking closer to home, live event versioning and customization are equally as important in domestic markets as major broadcasters look to differentiate streaming experiences from core linear distribution channels — attracting viewers with value-added, personalized digital experiences.

Pursuing a powerful regionalization strategy enables brands, federations and content distributors to unlock untapped revenues while elevating brand value. Top leagues like the NFL continue to widen their global footprint in non-exclusive, spiderweb fashion through multiple distribution partners and direct-to-consumer strategies, driving significant monetization gains. Alongside opening up new opportunities to monetize live events, global brand building via streaming empowers leagues and federations to accelerate wider revenue streams across merchandise, ticket sales and in-person events. Our Tier 1 sports customers tell us how important their global monetization strategies are, every day.

Increasing monetization with IP-based sports broadcasting solutions

Rising sports rights costs mean all media companies and streaming platforms need to optimize ROI. While advertisers need to see improved targeting and measurement to warrant greater ad investment, content owners are increasingly exploring alternative, interactivity-driven revenue streams to increase profitability. For example, data-centric content providers can tap into digital marketplaces to drive new e-commerce or gamification features, increasing fan engagement while powering new incomes.

Now, time for a reality check. Despite rapid sports broadcast innovation, monetization remains a shortfall for many major content providers. Legacy signaling and ad insertion systems are restricting media companies and streaming platforms from creating targeted advertising propositions that really move the needle. Unsophisticated, siloed technologies are no longer adequate to support the levels of personalization required for effective live sports monetization. Taking a more holistic approach to live event versioning helps connect disparate teams and tools from production through to playout, enabling dynamic ad insertion and intelligent downstream metadata insertion to deliver personalized, valuable ad experiences.

Preparing for a new sports broadcast era

Sports broadcasting is evolving rapidly. While new technologies and market disruption are fueling huge opportunities, broadcasters, rights owners, and streaming providers need to modernize with an IP-based technology approach to navigate change and scale globally. Taking live sports into a hotly contested digital arena is one thing; elevating ROI and growing international audiences through tailored live experiences is entirely a different challenge.

Read more about transforming sports broadcast operations with future-ready IP foundations here.