Part 2: The essentials of building a sports streaming business at scale

It is important for streaming services to ensure a seamless live sports experience without latency/ video quality issues. Brightcove streams high-scale international renowned sporting events and leagues weekly. Bright cove Video Cloud solution is an all-in-one video hosting and publishing platform. It enables live and on-demand video across multiple screens while providing an exceptional viewer experience. Sports leaders prioritise OTT streaming to boost fan engagement and business growth. Unique elements such as a customised video player showing more content than just a simple leaderboard, adding player scorecards, highlights, live polling and live trivia can strengthen and amplify the connection with the team and the players.

Sports streaming is the next big growth driver for streaming platforms. India is passionate about sports, particularly cricket. The opening of the 2020 season of IPL on Hotstar is believed to have been watched by 8.1 million people. SonyLIV has witnessed tremendous growth in viewership by offering consumers premium content. Prime Video and JioTV are also entering the fray.

Experts feel that we will see the gradual shift of sports content, especially the live streaming of sport, from linear TV to streaming platforms. The proliferation of internet penetration, compatible devices, declining data charges, personalisation of content and pricing are some of the factors driving this growth in India. Smartphones are the most preferred device in developing markets like India, and cricket is the critical differentiator in the OTT space. e-sports is further influencing the development of OT platforms and their popularity.

Sports programming is evolving fast. Business model is heavily ad-supported. Mainstream gaming is still in its infancy in India. It is possible that gaming could be the starting point for other forms of entertainment. OTT providers are experimenting with different types of content to understand the market segments. They are trying to find out what works best for them. Cricket is the mainstream sport in the country.

Greg Armshaw is an expert on the monetisation opportunities in the OTT space. He suggests four ways to monetise sports content. The ad-supported approach generates revenue by running ads before, during, or after the live or on-demand video. Sponsorship models can boost the bottom line while providing broad exposure for marquee brands. Subscription-based models offer a direct-to-consumer streaming product with different subscription plans. Some organisations are experimenting with microtransactions, allowing fans to purchase part of an event.

The ad-supported approach generates revenue by running ads before, during or after the live or on-demand video. Sponsorship models are another way to monetise sports content. Subscription-based models offer a direct-to-consumer streaming product with different subscription plans. Some organisations are experimenting with microtransactions.