Sneak Preview: Ultra-Low-Latency Sports Streaming From Stadium to Screen at Streaming Media Connect
On Thursday, May 14, Victoria Tuzova, head of strategic partnerships and market outreach for Elecard, will moderate the Streaming Media Connect panel “Need for Speed: Ultra-Low-Latency Sports Streaming From Stadium to Screen.” Sports fans expect instantaneous action—and between the explosion of betting culture and shared second-screen experiences, sports streaming demands not only low-latency delivery, but also seamless sync. This panel 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.
Confirmed panelists include:
- Lukas Navickas, Senior Global Sales Executive, Streaming, Servers.com
- Daniel Alinder, CEO, Vindral
- Martin Popov, Product Director, Stats Perform
- Simon Brydon, Head of Sport, Video Network, Synamedia
Register now for Streaming Media Connect!
Victoria Tuzova is head of strategic partnerships and market outreach at Elecard, where she leads sales, partnerships, and strategic initiatives across the U.S. and global markets. With deep expertise in OTT, IPTV, and live-streaming technologies, she has worked with industry leaders including NBCUniversal, Comcast, Netflix, and Paramount. Tuzova is a co-chair of the Mile High Video conference and is a frequent speaker and moderator at NAB Show Streaming Summit, Demuxed, and other conferences focusing on live sports, low-latency streaming, and video quality monitoring. She actively supports Women in Streaming Media and other initiatives to bring more diverse voices into the video technology space.
“Latency in streaming isn’t caused by just one thing—it’s the cumulative effect of every stage in the pipeline, from encoding decisions and buffering to packaging, transmission, and playback. That’s why solving it requires a system-level approach rather than focusing on a single component,” Tuzova says. “What’s really changed the conversation in recent years is sports betting and real-time interactivity. When even a few seconds of delay can impact user trust or outcomes, the definition of ‘live’ has shifted dramatically, and expectations are higher than ever.”
She continues, “At the same time, one of the biggest challenges is scaling low-latency streams without sacrificing stability. It’s relatively easy to reduce latency in controlled environments, but delivering consistent, reliable performance to millions of viewers across different networks and devices is much harder. The last mile, in particular, remains a major variable that can introduce unpredictable delays.”
On the relevance of this panel discussion, Tuzova shares, “Looking ahead, I’m excited about advancements in low-latency delivery technologies like low-delay DASH and improvements in encoding strategies that better balance quality, efficiency, and speed. Ultimately, the goal isn’t just to be faster—it’s to deliver a truly synchronized, high-quality experience at scale. That’s what makes this space so dynamic, and why this discussion is so important right now.”
Lukas Navickas, senior global sales executive for streaming at Servers.com, is a streaming infrastructure expert who works in trusted partnership with platforms from across the streaming ecosystem to deliver custom infrastructure solutions. Through a process of close consultation, Navickas helps platforms optimize their infrastructure using a hybrid architecture approach to solve their unique challenges and enable low-latency video delivery at scale.
“Rising demand for AI compute is driving up CapEx across the industry, which will inevitably increase the costs of media processing and delivery. Major cloud vendors are already raising prices across the board,” Navickas says. “I’m looking forward to discussing hybrid deployment models—a topic that’s often overlooked, yet foundational to any streaming event, both from a performance perspective and in its impact on overall P&L. Attendees will gain valuable insight into different infrastructure deployment models that support low-latency streaming at scale, while keeping costs under control.”
Daniel Alinder, a leader in the world of ultra-low latency streaming, serves as the CEO of Vindral. With a deep passion for innovation and a keen understanding of the industry, Alinder has pioneered the growth of Vindral’s product offering, serving across a multitude of verticals, including igaming, live sports, horse racing, live events, interactive entertainment, and auctions. Under his leadership, Vindral has become a driving force in the industry, introducing the world’s first Media over QUIC-powered live streaming engine available globally.
“We’ve seen a rise of D2C sports clients—some with a requirement on ultra-low latency and others where it is an added bonus that greatly improves the experience. D2C or not, the reasons why latency matters vary greatly—from interactivity or betting requiring ULL and sync to giving viewers a coherent experience and in other cases as an aspect of quality in video delivery,” Alinder says. “Media over QUIC is also worth discussing. A standard still a ways out but with rapidly increasing industry backing and with a promise of interoperability between platforms—something that ultra-low latency delivery has been struggling with for a long time. A lot to discuss; looking forward to it!”
Martin Popov is a product director at Stats Perform, leading the strategy and commercial roadmap for a major product vertical that serves sportsbooks, igaming operators, and broadcasters globally. Bringing over a decade of experience driving product commercialization for heavyweights like Bally’s Interactive, Genius Sports, and Betway, Popov’s product philosophy is firmly rooted in measurable commercial outcomes rather than standard feature output.
“Real-time streaming is reshaping the betting user experience and opening up commercial formats that simply weren't viable a few years ago,” Popov asserts. He’s looking forward to discussing the following topics on the panel:
- Why in-play betting only really works at sub-second latency. Anything slower means odds are pulled mid-bet, courtsiders get the edge, and the user ends up frustrated rather than engaged.
- The shift from latency as a technical KPI to latency as a commercial driver, with measurable impact on betting handle, round velocity in live casino, and overall session length.
- New monetization formats that low latency unlocks, including micro-markets on the next point, pitch or play, interactive overlays, and shared viewing experiences where every user sees the same frame at the same moment.
- The user experience problem of social spoilers, where viewers see a goal celebrated on a feed before their own stream catches up, and how synchronization across viewers is now as important as raw glass-to-glass speed.
- Where the remaining latency actually lives in 2026, namely the venue, the encoder and the last mile, and what that means for operators trying to scale.
Simon Brydon has worked as a senior executive in the sports industry for 20 years. He joined Synamedia in 2020 from Pitch International, a leading global sports marketing agency. From 2008 to 2014, he ran the media and digital business of Racing UK. Brydon pioneered several ground-breaking digital media innovations, including the first launch of a live subscription service on iPhone. In 2003, he created Cycling Television, the live OTT sports TV channel broadcasting the best professional cycling globally. In 2007, Brydon sold the business to a Canadian media company.
Brydon wants to clear up some misconceptions about latency. He says, “Latency is quite simply a trade-off between the quality and breadth of the product offering and speed of delivery against live. The first thing is, What is low latency? For some people it’s 12 seconds; others it’s 8; for some it is 4; and others it is 2—and for some it is sub 1 second. Low latency to one man is not low latency to another. I can deliver them all … but what’s the tradeoff? The streaming service provider needs to ask themselves what is the product they need to deliver and in doing so, what needs to be done; what latency is acceptable? And what will they invest at all the stages of the delivery pipeline?”
Brydon continues, “Sports betting is on specific networks where latency is more important than quality. The two worlds of live, top-quality HDTV/smart TV delivery and betting haven’t merged yet and probably never will. I should know: I delivered sub 2 second latency over 20 years ago on betting. The main provider of low latency, WebRTC betting streams, went bust last year, which tells you something about demand for super low latency.”
He concludes, “The biggest challenge to latency is on the player: You need to work on all of them and then the network, because CDN must be low latency, and, finally, targeted advertising, which is not 100% low-latency-compatible yet. MOQ will impact primary distribution low latency, sub 1 second to reduce latency at the distribution end and therefore help latency at the consumer end. MOQ is much quicker than SRT. Network owners will be the ones that can impact low latency, as they also own the CDN and most in-home players. They will invest in appropriate private CDN if value is there.”
Register now for Streaming Media Connect!
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