By Simon Brydon, head of sport – video network, Synamedia.

“If we want things to stay as they are, things will have to change.”

Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa’s line from The Leopard, brought to life this year in Netflix’s lavish global hit adaptation, feels written for the world of sports broadcasting. It captures a truth the industry knows all too well: to preserve what makes sport special – its shared emotion, live tension and collective experience – we must constantly reinvent how it’s delivered.

Sport still commands the biggest live audiences and drives innovation across media. Yet the pace of change in how it’s produced, distributed and monetised is accelerating. Technology, social media and changing fan viewing habits continue to reshape the fabric of sport and success now lies in adapting and evolving while preserving its immediacy and authenticity.

Looking back at what I wrote here last year, I don’t think I was too far off the mark. The three themes I predicted for 2025 – social media integration, advanced advertising and AI-driven content – remain front and centre. But the difference today is that those predictions have quickly transformed from emerging trends to becoming core to how the industry operates.

2025 in review: Predictions that played out

Social takes the spotlight

Short-form and social media are no longer a side dish – they’re the main way younger fans experience sport. AI clip generation has taken this to a new level: automated highlights are now flooding feeds within moments of the live event. Some broadcasters are selling rights to specialist clip companies; others use clips as a marketing tool, believing social reach drives fans to tune-in. Both activities extend reach but at a cost – the cannibalisation of linear viewing. Breadth is increasingly being achieved at the expense of depth.

Ad models hit prime time

Ad-supported models are now essential. With subscription fatigue biting, sports content has become a major catalyst for growth across FAST channels and hybrid AVOD tiers. Dynamic and contextual ad insertion enhances the viewing experience and boosts revenue. Fans continue to be willing to trade ads for access, provided quality and reliability hold up.

AI changes the game

AI is no longer just a buzzword, but its impact varies across the sports ecosystem. The most visible gains have come in production, localisation and automation, from real-time subtitling and commentary translation to instant highlight generation. Personalisation is advancing too, but it’s still early days for tailored viewing experiences. The challenge now is using AI to enhance creativity and accessibility without losing the human touch that gives sport its emotion.

The downside is that AI has also made it easier for pirates to automate and scale the theft and redistribution of live streams. In 2025, the speed and sophistication of illegal streaming reached new levels, with only around 11% of illegal streams successfully removed, according to Grant Thornton – a reminder that innovation must go hand in hand with protection.

So yes, my key ingredients for streaming success in 2025 held up but the pace of change around them has intensified, setting the tone for 2026.

2026: Change becomes survival

As we look ahead, the paradox from The Leopard still applies. The shared thrill of live sport endures only if the industry keeps evolving and adapting.

The World Cup resilience test

The FIFA 2026 World Cup will be the single biggest driver of technology investment next year. Every broadcaster, streamer, and rightsholder will be preparing for scale, agility and fail-safe reliability. After recent high-profile streaming outages, disaster recovery is moving from afterthought to board-level priority. With modern cloud architectures, there’s no excuse for service collapse: resilient workflows, automated switching between CDNs and seamless scaling can and must be part of every plan.

Fortunately, disaster recovery no longer means running a costly duplicate service. With on-demand SaaS and just-in-time transcoding, providers can spin up full workflows only when needed – cutting costs, reducing energy use and maintaining reliability. In the biggest moments, the audience’s patience for failure is precisely zero.

Hybrid is the new normal

The migration to the cloud is not a straight line; it’s a balancing act. We’ve reached a tipping point where certain workflows must be in the cloud and that shift will accelerate as more AI applications emerge. But full cloud isn’t always the answer. Hybrid models offer the control and predictability of on-premise systems with the scalability and efficiency of cloud. For sports broadcasters, 2026 will be the year this balance becomes standard practice. We believe that as the US government reclaims C-band spectrum, the economics of IP distribution will push workflows across the globe online. Cloud is no longer an experiment – it’s an expectation.

Immersive and personalised viewing comes of age

Immersive and personalised viewing are converging to redefine how fans experience live sport. Younger audiences expect choice, including switching camera angles, following individual players, or tracking several matches simultaneously, often across several devices. Multi-view streaming and synchronised stat overlays are becoming essential to hold attention in an era of constant distraction. At the same time, falling headset prices and AI-driven content adaptation are pushing virtual and augmented reality towards mainstream use.

The first headset-ready experiences from immersive replays and augmented stat layers to spatial audio will bring fans deeper into the action. For broadcasters, these new formats demand efficient processing, real-time data integration, and low-latency synchronisation between feeds and sensors. Scalability, cost efficiency and performance will define success as audiences fragment into millions of customised, immersive experiences.

Security and anti-piracy

Piracy continues to evolve, matching the industry’s every move with new forms of camouflage. As sports rights fragment across platforms, piracy has become both broader and smarter, impacting niche sports such as boxing, golf and cricket as much as premium leagues. Traditional takedown methods remain largely ineffective, driving a stronger focus on proactive defences such as CDN tokenisation, access control, and the growing adoption of server-side forensic watermarking. By embedding protection earlier in the chain and tightening control over CDN access, rights holders can limit theft and identify leaks faster.

Survival through change

Survival now depends on evolution. In 2026, success will hinge on the ability to adapt: staying resilient during the World Cup, embracing new immersive formats, and securing audiences in an AI-driven era. To keep the magic of sport alive, we have to evolve with the fans and keep changing.