Scaling the Game: Net Insight on flexible distribution for ambitious sports brands
Padel has seen explosive international growth, with millions of players and a rising number of tournaments spanning continents
By Jonathan Smith, Net Insight business development director, cloud.
In today’s fast-evolving sports media landscape, ambition is outpacing infrastructure. Rights holders are eyeing new frontiers, geographically and digitally, but are often held back by legacy distribution models that are prohibitively expensive to support the scale, flexibility, or efficiency modern sports demand.
This growing disconnect between global ambitions and traditional workflows is forcing a rethink. Rights fees are climbing. Fanbases are fragmenting. And live content is increasingly consumed across borders and platforms. Yet, many sports organisations are still tied to static, cost-intensive systems that limit reach and choke ROI. To justify multi million dollar investments and unlock new markets, rights holders must rethink how they deliver, not just what they deliver. A flexible, hybrid approach to distribution is no longer a ‘nice to have’; it’s a business imperative.
Economics of overreach
For decades, the broadcast playbook was relatively fixed. Rights were sold by territory. Distribution was delivered via satellite or leased fibre. Success was measured in household reach. But in an era where fans are as likely to watch a live event on TikTok as they are on television, the economics of reach have changed.
Legacy infrastructure simply doesn’t scale for the new era of sports. Traditional distribution models require heavy upfront investment, geographical rigidity, and uniform workflows that make no allowance for varying market value. For established leagues looking to test smaller markets or for emerging sports seeking global breakout, this model is both inefficient and risky.
Today’s sports organisations must deal with two contrasting realities: increasing pressure to monetise every market, and rising costs to do so. With rights fees at historic highs, even Tier 1 sports are finding themselves needing to prove value across a much broader set of KPIs. It’s no longer just about prime time viewership at home; it’s about micro audiences abroad, digital engagement, and multi-platform monetisation.
The strategic shift toward more flexible, scalable distribution is perhaps most visible in emerging sports
Lessons from emerging sports
The strategic shift toward more flexible, scalable distribution is perhaps most visible in emerging sports, those rapidly growing but without the global broadcast budget of the likes of football or tennis.
Padel, for example, has seen explosive international growth, with millions of players and a rising number of tournaments spanning continents. In its early days, coverage of the sport was often limited to select top-tier matches distributed via satellite. But this proved restrictive, both in terms of cost and reach.
The sport’s global aspirations outpaced what legacy infrastructure could economically support. To expand their footprint, organisers adopted more agile distribution models, using IP and cloud-based delivery to make their events accessible to a wider array of takers and markets. Broadcasters could opt in on an event-by-event basis, and delivery could be spun up or down depending on regional interest and demand. This means wider coverage, lower overheads, and new revenue streams, all while retaining control over costs.
Many sports properties, particularly those seeking to tap into international audiences, face similar constraints. The ability to align distribution costs with the actual value of a given event or market is essential, and emerging sports are leading the way in showing how that can be done effectively.
Big leagues, small markets
The lessons from padel apply equally to established leagues. Even sports with major domestic followings often find themselves unknown quantities abroad. A US league entering the UK or European market, for example, may not have the same built-in audience or media partnerships. The idea of replicating domestic distribution models overseas, complete with redundant infrastructure and satellite leases, simply doesn’t hold water.
That’s where hybrid strategies come in. By using robust, broadcast-grade workflows for high value domestic feeds and complementing them with IP or cloud delivery in international or digital markets, rights holders can tailor investment to audience size and expected return.
Beyond the main feed
Today’s audiences expect to interact with content across multiple platforms. The live feed might still be the hero asset, but it’s increasingly complemented by secondary content: social media highlights, behind-the-scenes footage, alternate angles, and commentary tailored to specific markets.
These additional feeds offer significant monetisation opportunities, but only if they can be produced and distributed cost effectively. Traditional workflows make this difficult. But with IP and cloud-based delivery, these secondary channels can be created, distributed, and monetised without duplicating the infrastructure and cost of the primary feed.
Looking ahead, the winners won’t be those with the most expensive rights. They’ll be those who extract the most value from the rights they hold, across platforms, across borders, and across formats. That means embracing flexibility and adopting hybrid strategies that enable reach without rigidity, and growth without runaway cost.