AWS, ViewLift, & Altman Solon on the State of Sports Media 2024
Live sports is the last appointment viewing left in the media world, but meanwhile, chaos reigns in the realms of licensing and rights and the ability of streaming consumers to access the games they want to see. Matt Del Percio, Partner, Altman Solon, Julie Neenan Souza, Head of Sports, Global Professional Services, AWS, and Chance Mason, VP Global GTM Strategy, ViewLift, discuss the current state of sports media in this clip from Streaming Media Connect 2024.
Del Percio asks Souza, “From where you sit on the AWS side, what's your take on the current state of sports and sports media?”
Souza remarks that “everything old is new again.” In the pre-streaming TV days, sports were primarily watched on “bundles,” AKA cable TV, and then it all largely shifted to standalone platforms. Now, the pendulum is swinging back to aggregated content. She cites figures showing that in 2022, sporting events were 92 of the top 100 watched programs. “So that just shows the power of sports to bring eyeballs to a platform,” she says. “And I don't think that's necessarily going to change, but I do think that making it easier for consumers to find the content is certainly something we're seeing folks [focus on] right now.”
She also says that sports rights fees are crucial to consider. “We saw the implosion of regional sports networks in the United States, and they've got to figure out how to size that so it's sustainable. I think what you're going to see is with this inflection point, leagues that have local distribution rights parlayed or offered to their teams, the NHL, NBA, and Major League Baseball, those teams are starting to think, ‘If I don't have that big money RSN paycheck anymore, is there value in going direct and owning that direct relationship?’ When I was at ESPN, [people] used to ask me, ‘Are you scared of Amazon getting into the mix? Are you scared of Apple getting into the mix?’ And my answer then was, no, I'm more scared of the teams and leagues deciding to go direct. So that's a question that [lingers]. Given the volume of dollars we're talking about, I don't foresee that happening immediately, but I think we've already started seeing folks treading into that space a little bit.”
Del Percio says to Mason, “I know one thing that you and I spoke about during our pre-session meeting was some of the challenges around accessibility of live sports—knowing where to watch the game. ‘Which platform? Do I have access to it? Do I have to pay for it incrementally? Is it already included in a service or not? From where you sit on the ViewLift side, what's your take on the current state of sports and sports media?”
Mason agrees that figuring all of these factors out with sports viewing can be chaotic and confusing for viewers. Ultimately, he says, “I believe the teams will go direct. They're realizing their value for the consumer, and they want to build a direct relationship with them. And when I say consumer, it's not just the consumer on the digital side; it's the consumer also participating in the venue. Those consumers are starting to blend. The end-venue consumer and the OTT consumer now have ways via technology to blend that in-venue experience and that out-venue experience. And there are many different ways in technology to do that.”
He cites a personal example of being directly impacted by today’s chaotic nature of live sports viewing. “I'm a big women's basketball fan,” he says. “My daughter plays basketball. Caitlin Clark, an amazing player from Iowa, just broke the all-time scoring record. She's just an amazing lady. And we didn't get to watch the game. Why? We didn't have access to the game's specific platform. She does not travel through Atlanta for the second half of the season, so we don't get to see her after she breaks the record. Do you sign up, and do you churn out? Well, we had already done that, unfortunately, at the Kansas City game. And so we weren't going to use the same mail addresses.”
Overall, he says that some clients, such as the Vegas Golden Knights, are going direct to consumers because they “See the value of having a direct relationship and don't want to be dependent on those minimum guarantees. There may be other ways to monetize that…This is just another maturity curve. We've seen this before. We saw it with cable, and we saw it in the early 2000s with OTT. The most important thing, though, is the consumer and making sure that the consumer can access the content they want and need at a pricing threshold that they can afford.”
See videos of the full program from Streaming Media Connect February 2024 here.
We'll be back in person for Streaming Media NYC May 20-22, 2024. More details here.
Related Articles
The first measure of sports streaming success is replicating the cable/broadcast experience, but AWS' Julie Neenan Souza insists that sports streamers should be aiming higher when it comes to leveraging streaming's core strengths, from interactivity to betting to personalization to live ecommerce. Meanwhile ViewLift's Chance Mason contends that the key to next-level sports streaming delivery is streaming infrastructure companies like AWS embracing their emerging role as D2C media companies and partnering with sports leagues and sports rights holders at that level. Souza, Mason, and Altman Solon's Matt del Percio discuss these and other emerging opportunities for sports streaming in this clip from Streaming Media Connect 2024.
22 Apr 2024
Most of the essential elements of streaming workflows and architecture are moving toward the cloud, but the fundamental question driving streaming workflow development should always be not how do we migrate this or that process to the cloud, but what will serve the production and the viewer best, according to CBS Sports Senior Director, Advanced Production Technology Corey Smith, who breaks down these questions in this discussion with Eyevinn Technology's Magnus Svensson from Streaming Media Connect 2024.
12 Apr 2024
As the prices paid for top-tier sports streaming rights continue to reach astronomical levels, and the potential disruption created by the blockbuster ESPN/Fox/Warner Bros. joint venture (popularly termed "Spulu") teased in February, what sports licensing will look like as 2024 rolls on and who will be able to afford it is anybody's guess. Will it play out differently in the U.S. and Europe? And as costs are passed on to users, why wouldn't sports fans just stick with cable? Find out what top analysts like ESHAP's Evan Shapiro, Erickson's Paul Erickson, Dataxis' Ophelie Boucaud, and TVREV's Alan Wolk, say in this clip from Streaming Media Connect 2024.
25 Mar 2024
Chris Packard, Global Live Operations Lead at LinkedIn, discusses the role of interactivity in enterprise streaming, what the essential elements are of a successful user experience, and striking a realistic balance between ultra-low latency and synchronization, in this discussion with nanocosmos' Oliver Lietz and Help Me Stream's Tim Siglin from Streaming Media Connect 2024.
04 Mar 2024
Are there tectonic shifts afoot in the ultra-competitive and lucrative world of sports streaming licensing and rights, particularly in Europe, and how long can early entrants continue to lose money and still stay relevant? Ophelie Boucaud of Dataxis and Evan Shapiro of ESHAP discuss in this clip from Streaming Media Connect in November.
08 Dec 2023
Five-Nines uptime in streaming went from a pipe dream to mainstream expectation in a relatively short time, but how realistic is that seamless user experience in the high-stakes, large-scale world of sports betting and iGaming where ultra-low latency is the sine qua non of success? Chris Pfaff of Chris Pfaff Tech Media, Joshua Johnson of EdgeNext, and Sean Gardner of AMD discuss in this clip from their panel at Streaming Media East 2023.
18 Aug 2023
Companies and Suppliers Mentioned