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.” One fan wants advanced analytics or tactical analysis; another wants enhanced commentary; another wants live interaction and shoppability; yet another wants player-specific highlights. All want to see these elements at the point they are in the game. 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. Learn about the production and technical hurdles of creating individualized and interactive experiences from a single live event and how platforms are making personalization feel natural rather than overwhelming.
Confirmed panelists include:
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Chris Pfaff was the first to use IRC for an interactive corporate webcast; he produced one of the first DVDs, the first HD animated logo, and some of the first mobile short films; he led numerous multipoint broadband events; and he produced the first Twitter Wall. His company, Chris Pfaff Tech Media, has provided strategy and marketing services for leading technology service providers, technology firms, and new media companies worldwide since 2002. Pfaff was also one of the founders of the Producers Guild of America (PGA) New Media Council East and a founder of the New York chapter of the VR/AR Association.
“AI personalization of the sports streaming experience enables contextual overlays tailored to a viewer’s specific interests, favorite players, or statistical analyses,” Pfaff explains. “This could lead to personalized highlights packages and narratives that align with an individual’s interests, including real-time scenarios based on player actions and stats. We could see analysis of viewer eye movement or gestures, anticipating what viewers want to see based on game flow or personal history. The new levels of sports personalization enable real-time producer elements that create what is, in effect, an enhanced reality.”
Rob Koenen is a founder of Tiledmedia, the leading Multiview and VR streaming company, where he is responsible for business development as Tiledmedia’s chief business officer. Koenen has been a researcher in the field of advanced media technologies for 3 decades, with many leading roles in media standards and initiatives. He served on the board of HbbTV and the Open IPTV Forum and chaired MPEG’s Requirements Group for 10 years. He also initiated the MPEG Industry Forum and VR Industry Forum, serving as the first president of those initiatives. Koenen holds several patents in media processing, visual quality metrics, and VR streaming.
“I look forward to discussing how multiview can be used to make streaming services more engaging and sticky and how to combine the most responsive and interactive user experience with scalable multiview delivery,” Koenen says.
Joe Caporoso is president of Team Whistle, which was acquired by DAZN in 2022. Caporoso describes Team Whistle as a global sports media and entertainment company that creates, curates, and distributes positive, brand-safe, and relatable content. He has been with the company for 12 years, previously serving as the company’s head of content and social monetization. Caporoso now sets and manages Team Whistle’s overall growth strategy and leads on TW’s integration into DAZN as their internal global social agency.
“The biggest opportunity is going to be the speed at which sports media companies and rights holders can move to optimize, adapt, and enhance their consumer viewing experience,” Caporoso believes. “Feedback can be received and acted on in real time, and the optionality of the different angles, audio, and interactivity can move concurrently with the game occurring instead of being addressed between games or seasons. The range of ways to watch or participate should continue to expand, and improvements should be far more expedited than they have been previously.”
John Petrocelli is the founder and CEO of leading livestream studio Bulldog DM. He has built a career on connecting digitally engaged consumers to the world’s best live content. Following the acquisition of his company Incited Media by AEG Digital Media, Petrocelli served as VP of sales and business development. Since 2012, Bulldog DM has been a key partner for Madison Avenue advertising juggernauts and top brands across the world that are seeking Petrocelli’s livestreaming expertise, and Bulldog DM-powered projects have been recognized with multiple awards. Petrocelli is very active in adult baseball, playing in leagues for 20 years. Additionally, he supports the Southern California Bulldog Rescue.
Petrocelli shares the following:
The market for livestreaming of emerging sports and sports in general is at an all-time high in my opinion, largely fueled by the portfolio being curated by Netflix. We at Bulldog DM believe that it is triggering a market reaction across many of the other streaming platforms to offer more live programming with sports as a priority.
As subscriptions plateau live sports programming can offer these operators numerous advantages:
- Behind the paywall exclusivity and reward/retention content for subscribers
- Ad-supported content that unlocks incremental revenue streams
- Marketing their slate of originals throughout the live broadcasts
- Appealing to hyper-engaged niche fandoms and audiences
Incorporating collaborative and participatory real-time tools into this content genre will create engaged audiences that drive significant viewing dwell times. We see this is an exciting and developing market and with the emerging sports vertical combining these tools with unique camera perspectives like drones and ref cams, etc. should continue to drive the market.
Pete Scott is currently the chief strategy advisor for Play Anywhere, an interactive monetization platform that is helping sports leagues and IP holders create new revenue streams across gaming, ecommerce, and interactive ads. As an Emmy-award-winning digital strategist and operator, Scott has helped the company evolve and embrace a digital and direct-to-consumer mindset. Prior to his current role, Scott served as the VP of emerging media for Turner Studios, where he was responsible for working with colleagues at TNT, TBS, and Adult Swim to onboard and operationalize new technology across production, post-production, visual effects, and content generation.
Scott asserts, “With Play Anywhere, we’re layering interactive, personalized overlays directly into the live moment. With Skreens, we’re letting fans curate their own multiview experience. And with HyperMindZ, we’re feeding real-time agentic AI into sponsorship and advertising so every impression is contextually relevant to that specific viewer. Put those three together and you have a future where your TV knows you’re a 34-year-old Knicks fan who just searched for sneakers—and the experience, the sponsorship, and the commerce all respond to that in real time. The broadcast becomes a personalized storefront. That’s not five years away. That’s now.”
He adds, “The secret to making personalization feel natural is invisibility. The moment a fan thinks ‘this thing is targeting me,’ you’ve lost them. The moment they think ‘this broadcast just gets me,’ you’ve won. And the way you get there is by embedding the AI agent at the OEM level—directly in the TV itself or in the native application. Think of it like having Claude sitting inside your television, quietly learning who you are. Not in a creepy way—in the way a great bartender knows your order. All of it bends toward you naturally, in the flow of the game. No interruption. No friction. The personalization becomes indistinguishable from the experience itself. That’s the threshold we’re crossing—from AI as a feature to AI as the fabric of how sports is consumed.”
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