Tech-led innovation: Perifery on what 2025 could bring for the sports broadcasting industry
By Peter Watling, senior director EMEA at Perifery.
The past 12 months have seen the sports broadcasting industry continue to evolve at a rapid rate. Trends such as the continuing rise of streaming platforms, the growth in media rights agreements and the adoption of transformative technologies are contributing to a highly competitive and innovative landscape.
Looking at the impact of streaming on the sports broadcast ecosystem underlines its growing role, with 41% of global sports fans using OTT services to watch at least some sporting events, according to Nielsen. In the EU, 65% of individuals streamed TV or videos online in 2022 [Eurostat], with more than half of individuals aged 16-74 using the internet to watch streamed TV or videos in 24 of its 27 countries.
It’s trends like these that are contributing to the growth in sports rights agreements, and while 2024 hasn’t been a vintage year, there are some very big contracts already in place, headed by the NFL’s current deal, which is worth $111 billion over 11 years. Internationally, there are also some major rights agreements forthcoming, including the Premier League in England, which has a £6.7 billion (c.$8.5 billion) domestic television deal in place for the four years from the 2025/26 season. Agreed in 2023, it represents the largest sports media rights deal ever concluded in the UK.
Looking a little more broadly, the four major European sports rights deals – the German Bundesliga, Italy’s Serie A, France’s Ligue 1 and the English Premier League (EPL) – are currently worth about €4.5 billion ($4.81 billion) per year [S&P Global].
The biggest sports rights story for this year, however, came from the NBA, which announced a new media rights agreement in July worth $76 billion over 11 years. This represents an increase of 160% per season compared to the current contract – growth which has been fueled by factors such as the popularity of streaming and offers further evidence as to the direction of travel for sports rights deals worldwide.
Transformative tech trends
Accompanying this industry-wide growth are significant changes in the technology infrastructure and services that power the sports broadcast industry and help get the action in front of the viewers. Clearly, one of the standout tech talking points of the year has been AI, which is playing an increasingly important role in key areas such as production workflows, content searchability and monetisation.
More specifically, AI is already being used to streamline processes such as transcriptions, translations, summaries and keyword generation as broadcasters look to enhance efficiency and reduce manual workloads. By simplifying object and facial recognition, AI is also improving the ability to search and retrieve specific content, helping to deliver more efficient content management. The technology is also playing an increasingly important role for broadcasters who are using AI-generated enriched metadata to unlock new monetisation opportunities, automate distribution workflows and enhance content awareness. These capabilities are also enabling media professionals to revitalise existing content libraries and deliver on their full value.
One of the other major technology issues the industry continues to address is where to store all this content. Driven by the risk of data overload and the associated costs, using a hybrid approach of on-premises storage systems alongside cloud platforms is enabling them to balance cost, performance, scalability and accessibility when managing their sports content. This approach is being used as an alternative to traditional strategies which rely solely on on-premises solutions or those that have gone ‘all-in’ on the use of the cloud with providers such as AWS. In each case, the answer lies in identifying which platforms are best placed to house and secure the valuable content assets that continue to generate revenue — an issue which many organisations continue to find challenging.
On the horizon
Next year will be another important year for tech-led innovation, with the momentum behind AI integration continuing to gather pace. For example, we’ll see wider use of AI across media libraries, where the technology will help enhance and personalise viewer experiences. In addition, forward-thinking organisations will focus on augmenting human creativity to deliver interactive, dynamic experiences that viewers can customise in real time.
We’ll also see a bigger role for AI in automatically analysing and tagging media assets with detailed metadata. This will include the wider use of visual content, audio cues and even emotional context to make assets precisely and immediately searchable. Drawing on user behaviour, these AI-powered solutions will also adapt and improve to make even better suggestions so broadcasters can improve asset utilisation and monetisation opportunities.
With the public appetite for live sports broadcasting creating intense competition among broadcasters, those organisations that can identify and implement the most effective technologies will put themselves in an ideal position, not just for 2025, but also in the longer term. For some in the industry, next year could be sink or swim, where their ability to adapt to tech changes and opportunities will be put to the test. In this environment, evaluating the best tech ‘partner’ that understands current and future needs, is focused on problem solving and will also grow with each customer organisation will be crucial.