The Next Battle in Sport Isn't Content. It's Context

The next battle in sports won't be fought over content libraries, streaming platforms or production workflows. Most organizations already have more content than they know what to do with. The real challenge is helping audiences navigate it. Helping them understand why a moment matters. Helping them discover stories worth following. Helping them connect with athletes, teams, and competitions in a meaningful way.

The Match Is No Longer the Beginning of the Journey

The sports industry spends a lot of time discussing how to attract younger audiences. Every conference seems to feature a panel on Gen Z viewing habits. Every strategy document contains a section on fan acquisition. Every rights holder, broadcaster, and streaming platform is searching for the next generation of supporters. Yet despite all this attention, I often feel we are asking the wrong question.

QC’ing Live Streams at Scale in the Age of AI: A Q&A with Interra Systems' Anupama Anantharaman

In this Q&A, I had the opportunity to discuss the fast-evolving requirements and best practices for live streaming QC at scale with Anupama Anantharaman, VP Product Management at Interra Systems, developers of the ORION-OTT comprehensive monitoring solution for live and OTT. The 2025 Streaming Media All-Star offers insights into how AI is changing live stream monitoring, how performing "deep QC" impacts streaming workflows, the best KPIs for predictive monitoring, and the continuing role of humans in an increasingly AI-supported QC world.

Vote in the 2026 Streaming Media Readers' Choice Awards

The Streaming Media Readers' Choice Awards are ready to roll. The polls are open! Let the voting begin!

FIFA World Cup 2026: The '104 Super Bowls' Broadcast Machine

On the eve of kickoff, the scale of FIFA World Cup 2026 still staggers. FIFA president Gianni Infantino has compared the undertaking to "104 Super Bowls," with a global audience of six billion predicted to watch some of the 104 matches packed into 39 days from 16 venues across the United States, Canada, and Mexico. For 2026, FIFA is deploying 16 dedicated venue crews — one per stadium — rather than rotating a smaller pool. They will be supported by seven centralized replay teams based in Dallas.

Powering Interactive Streaming for DDG's Blame the Chat Tour: A Q&A With MemeHouse Head of Marketing Sandra Aderibigbe

Earlier this year, cloud streaming and live production company MemeHouse powered the full backend interactive live streaming infrastructure for DDG's 'Blame the Chat' Tour, constructing and managing a complete real-time production environment. In this Q&A, MemeHouse's Sandra Aderibigbe discusses the logistical resources needed to pull off these massive livestreaming feats including a successful Coachella event, and what these accomplishments signal for the future of ambitious creator-driven livestreaming events.

Generative AI Got the Hype, Agentic AI Will Do the Heavy Lifting for Live Sports

The most important AI systems in sports may end up being the ones fans never see. Agentic AI is not flashy. Fans are unlikely to notice it directly. There will not be endless social posts about orchestration layers dynamically rerouting workflows or prioritizing distribution paths.

ICYMI: Streaming Media Connect May 2026

Streaming Media Connect May 2026 was all about delivering and monetizing sports streaming featured exclusive keynote fireside chats with Matt Graham of the Tennis Channel and Maria Malinowitsch of Verimatrix and a slate of expert panels packed with speakers from DAZN, Globo, Fubo, OneFootball, FloSports, NESN, IAB Tech Lab, Telestream, Zixi, BuyDRM, ViewLift, CacheFly, Servers.com, Tiledmedia, Norsk, and more. Check out a playlist with Streaming Media Connect sessions on Streaming Media's YouTube channel to catch the sessions you missed and revel in the ones you want to relive through the magic of VOD.

Nominate Now for the 2026 Streaming Media Readers' Choice Awards

What's your favorite streaming tool, tech, or service? What is the most important new innovation in the business in 2026? It's time to make your nominations for Streaming Media's 2026 Readers' Choice Awards, our annual industry awards program chosen by end users.

Sneak Preview: Programming and Monetizing Sports on FAST

How do you fill a 24/7 channel with compelling sports programming without breaking the bank? On Thursday, May 14, Chris Pfaff will moderate the Streaming Media Connect panel "Alpha Channel: Programming and Monetizing Sports on FAST" alongside experts from Fubo, FloSports, FreeLiveSports, and TeleGraff Media. This panel explores creative scheduling and content mixes, licensing strategies, fresh angles on balancing mass appeal and niche differentiation, and tips for identifying and serving passionate communities of fans. Learn what turns on FAST sports channel viewers and keeps them tuning in.

Sneak Preview: Ultra-Low-Latency Sports Streaming From Stadium to Screen at Streaming Media Connect

On Thursday, May 14, Elecard's Victoria Tuzova will moderate the Streaming Media Connect panel "Need for Speed: Ultra-Low-Latency Sports Streaming From Stadium to Screen." This panel of experts from Servers.com, Synamedia, Vindral, and Stats Perform dives into the engineering fundamentals—capture, encoding, delivery, and playback—that underpin smooth execution through the first, middle, and last miles without sacrificing quality. Learn what breaks at scale, how to prepare for and ward off disaster, and why low latency isn't just a number, but the difference between a winning broadcast and a blown opportunity.

The Post-NAB View: Live Sports Still Need Technology That Works

I recently got back from Las Vegas after a few days at NAB. And, as always, it delivered. Big ideas, big promises and a huge amount of innovation across the show floor. But walking away from it this year, one thing is clearer than ever. Live sports streaming is no longer short of ideas. It's short of things that actually work at scale.

Sneak Preview: Creating Lean-In Engagement With Personalized, Next-Gen Sports Streaming Experiences

On Wednesday, May 13, Chris Pfaff, CEO, Chris Pfaff Tech Media, will moderate the Streaming Media Connect panel "Fans Forward: Creating Lean-In Engagement With Personalized, Next-Gen Sports Streaming Experiences." This panel explores how next-gen platforms deliver individualized sports experiences: customizable commentary tracks, fan-selected camera angles, in-game ecommerce, personalized graphic overlays and statistics, and even AI-generated highlight reels tailored to individual interests.

NAB Is Full of Big Ideas—Live Sports Need Ideas That Work

As we head into another NAB, I'm less interested in what looks impressive in a booth and more interested in what is actually ready to survive in production.

Multiviews on Live Sports Streaming at NAB 2026

Perhaps the booths that cropped up on my NAB 2026 itinerary and the sessions I squeezed in between simply skewed this way, but it seems like everyone's favorite sport in streaming this year is, well, sports. Certainly, when it comes to live, the pinnacle of achievement appears to be seamless delivery of premium sports events at global scale, with an eye to "meeting fans exactly where they are"—crossing national, lingual, and cultural borders via localization, and transcending generations through autogenerated highlights and verticalized mobile delivery. And when it comes to traditional landscape sports video streamed to conventional CTV glass, multiview more than ever seems to be the name of the game in 2026.

NAB 2026, Via LA, and the Future of NDI|HX

As a longtime fan and proponent of NDI, I feel that new codec licensing fees and the response of hardware manufacturers put the entire future of HX on shaky ground.

Fubo Optimizes its Mobile Streaming Experience for Sports Fans On-the-Go

FuboTV Inc. (NYSE: FUBO) today unveiled a major upgrade to its iOS and Android apps, powered by its proprietary AI technology, to optimize the sports streaming experience for fans wherever they are. Recognizing that sports fans aren't always at home, and that they check their phones often for game updates, Fubo's enhanced mobile apps now deliver quick hits of moments that matter in addition to full video.

What Live Sports Still Do Better Than Anything Else

Over the past decade, the streaming industry has worked hard to make sports more flexible. Cloud production, remote workflows, personalized streams, highlights on demand, clips everywhere. All of this has been important and largely positive. It has expanded access and reach. It has lowered barriers and opened new audiences. But in doing so, it has sometimes overlooked the one thing sports have always done better than anything else. It creates shared moments, in real time, that pull people into the same emotional space.

Why the Future of Remote Production May Run at the Speed of Light

If immersive, real-time, and AI-driven production is the future, the underlying network must change, argue photonics advocates and members of IOWN.

H.264 Streaming Fees: What Changed, Who's Affected, and What It Means

Via's new AVC Streaming License Fee structure, which applies to new licenses beginning in 2026, replaces the old single-cap model with a tiered system that scales sharply with platform size.