2024 recap and 2025 prediction: Globecast talks sports, solutions and savoir-faire

By Steve MacMurray, Globecast digital media development manager.

It has been an incredibly eventful year for sport, with the action in Paris at the heart of 2024, accompanied by European international football hosted in Germany, Americas international football in the US, alongside the ever growing fixture lists of leagues and competitions in sports taking place seasonally across the world.

We have seen 2024 as a landmark year for women’s sports too, characterised by groundbreaking achievements, expanded possibilities, and a continued progress toward equality and representation across all levels of competition. PwC report that 85% of industry leaders forecast double-digit growth in women’s sport in next three to five years [PwC Global Sports Survey, 8th Edition, Sports Industry: On track for growth?]. For the live sports viewer, it has truly been a treasure trove of delights!

Benefits and challenges

Once you factor in the new and emerging sports looking to grow their profile, viewers and revenues, there has been a thrilling and unprecedented abundance of sporting content available, unlike any previous year.

This incredible richness of variety and choice brings with it both benefits and challenges. We have seen huge strides in advancements within our sports broadcast industry. Technology is fundamental in evolving live sports, in a multitude of areas. Perhaps most critically is the rich access to the data lake: performance data, fan data, media data and business data. But we are also witnessing the tangible applications of AI continuing to change the game, with automated highlights, content personalisation, real time stats, player tracking and analysis, multi-view and AR overlays, significantly coming into play.

What has also jumped off the page is the increased demand for interactive and gamified user experiences. As fans become more accustomed to engaging interactively with live sports, broadcasters are looking ever more closely at technologies that offer features such as live polls, real time stat updates, and in-game betting. Enhanced gamification offers the possibility of increasing fan interaction and audience retention, especially among younger viewers.

Cost efficiencies

Remote and cloud-based production activity, whilst gaining sustainability credentials in reducing travel, energy consumption and waste, also delivers cost efficiencies and offers huge possibilities to strengthen the way in which custom experiences for viewers can be created. A hybrid approach blending ground components with software-based processing in the cloud still leads in tier one sports, however a pivotal shift seems to be on the cards.

As the availability and power of compute capacity is released into cloud environments, the move towards adopting cloud production as a primary choice becomes ever more compelling. As a global network operator, we are partnering with leading production facilities and platforms to support seamless delivery from any venue to any remote production centre, for any sport.

Ultra-low latency and adaptive bitrate streaming has continued to grow in contribution and distribution, with end-viewers increasingly favouring on-demand, multi-screen experiences. Cloud and IP-based solutions are now well established as an essential tool for broadcasters and content owners seeking to build and maintain pace with the global demand for content, and to innovate and reach new viewers, in an increasingly software-based world.

In a clear parallel, much the same way as it can be challenging for viewers to not be overpowered by the sheer wealth of sporting content out there, to discover, navigate and find accurate recommendations, media rights holders and broadcasters face a similar potential overwhelm with sports media tech. With the democratisation of broadcasting tools and the rapid pace of progress amongst tech suppliers and providers, there have never been as many options and ideas available. How do you get started? What is best for us? How do I make the best choices, for quality, reliability, for my budget and my ROI? To paraphrase the godfather of telecommunications, Arthur C. Clarke, it can be like trying to get a glass of water from Niagara Falls. Information anxiety is not uncommon in an attention economy!

Customisation and personalisation

Having options is an essential component of the customisation and personalisation of sports media, and that is true from consumer all the way back to the source of the content, the broadcasting stakeholders along the delivery chain.  However, to echo the ideas of psychologist Barry Schwartz, while some choice is beneficial, an overabundance of options can lead to anxiety, decision paralysis, and dissatisfaction, as people worry about making the wrong choice. Content owners cannot afford the risk of staying static and making no choice at all.

This highlights the growing need for professional direction to cut through the myriad of tech choices, and to navigate the dynamic media landscape successfully. Empowering sports organisations to focus on how to expand their viewers, generate revenue possibilities and get the most out of their content with the guidance of proven experience and expertise. Not just technology providers, but also as trusted experts who understand the complexities and details of new services, and can convey them in clear and fluent language.

With the current explosion in advancements, and broadcast service provision, there is a pressing need to cover the broad groundwork of tech evaluation and in doing so, be able to present meaningful, tailored solutions for individual content holders.

More content and more tech choices means more possibilities for both audiences and media rights holders alike, and this shows no signs of slowing down.

Looking ahead to 2025, I am confident we will see more hyper-personalisation of sports media, and further exploration of the metaverse as an extended platform for sports event delivery. And in a surprise return swing of the pendulum, satellite technology promises to disrupt the traditional models of connectivity for live events, in the form of LEO services, if the challenges of continuous coverage can be met. Starlink, Amazon’s Project Kuiper and OneWeb offer the potential to extend the reach of sports coverage to budgets and locations not previously thought possible.

A sports-packed 2024 has set the stage for a future of more immersion, interactivity, and sustainability, in a new era for sports broadcasting. As the industry continues to evolve, it is essential to keep investing in delivering content that goes further, tailored to each customer’s needs.

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