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New Media Sportscasting Summit delegation survey
reveals that broadband consumption of sports content
will increase by 25% over the next 3 years.
Key Points:
· The New Media Sportscasting Summit held
in Dublin yesterday saw leading experts from the
Sports Industry gathered together to discuss the
trends and opportunities for the delivery of sport
over broadband and 3G.
· Amongst the Keynote speakers were LiverpoolFC.TV,
Setanta Sports Nth America, leading online sports
advertising agency, Aura Sports, Google Video,
The Rugby Football League and Vodafone.
· According to the survey of the Summit
delegation, broadband consumption of sports content
will increase by 25% over the next 3 years.
· The delegation heard that best way to
minimise subscriber churn from broadband sports
subscription services is to incentivise customers
towards annual rather than monthly subscription.
· Simon Green, CEO of Setanta Sports US,
emphasised that the new phenomenon of ‘Placeshifting’
means that the desire to have sports content anytime,
any place is driving new media sportscasting.
· Reduction in time delay to ‘as
live’ will increase opportunities to incorporate
in-running betting with online sports content;
live pictures can sit alongside prices for events
and web content dictated by the broadcast.
· Creation of more web-specific content
will create opportunities to sponsor on-demand
broadcasts linked to major racing events.
· The fourth screen – the mobile
phone – is vital in the communications mix
for new media sports content. An understanding
of mobile personalization, content recommendations
and search capabilities in a wireless environment
are key to enabling the success of mobile portal
content propositions in the sports industry.
New media consumption of sports content will
increase by 25% over the next 3 years as indicated
by a survey of the delegation at the Servecast
hosted event, the New Media Sportscasting Summit
which took place yesterday in The Berkeley Court
Hotel in Dublin. The one day conference saw leading
experts from the Sports Industry gathered together
to discuss the trends and opportunities for the
delivery of sport over broadband and 3G. Amongst
the Keynote speakers were LiverpoolFC.TV, Setanta
Sports, leading online sports advertising agency,
Aura Sports, Google Video and Vodafone. The delegation
included senior representatives from all elements
of the new media value chain for Sport - Sports
organizations SportFive, Sporever, GlobalSportNet;
Premiership Soccer clubs Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool,
Everton and Southampton; the Rugby Football League,
the Canadian Football League and UK cricket clubs;
TV broadcasters the BBC, Danish broadcaster Viasat
and RTE as well as bookmakers Tote and Skybet.
Chairing the conference was Sky Sports presenter
Paul Dempsey.
The event was hosted by Servecast, the leading
supplier of advanced streaming media solutions
for the Sports Industry. Servecast has a strong
pedigree in the delivery of high quality and profitable
streaming solutions for the sports and media industry.
Many of Servecast’s high profile customers
were present at the conference and keynote speakers
consisted of customers and partners of Servecast.
Speaking at the conference regarding the best
commercial models for New Media Sportscasting,
Stephen Michael, General Manager of Liverpool
FC.TV said “Having a well presented preview
function with sample content and offering occasional
free video samples to get customer more used to
watching video online is essential for successful
subscriber recruitment. The best way to minimise
subscriber churn is to incentivise customers towards
annual rather than monthly subscriptions. Investing
heavily in customer services and technical support
is also key to keeping online subscribers.”
Simon Green, Managing Director of Setanta US
emphasised the need to understand the time-starved
individual who lives in an ‘information overload’
society. He emphasized that the sports industry
must react strongly to this “We are in the
ENTERTAINMENT BUSINESS and must compete for our
customer’s attention in a very busy market
dominated by MTV, ipods, PSPs, TV Soaps, Cinema,
Pubs and PCs.” He also emphasized the ‘Placeshifiting’
phenonmenon “Placeshifting – this means
having content anytime any place. In the US, this
is reflected in the Slingbox which enables users
to watch their TV programming from wherever they
are by turning virtually any Internet-connected
PC into a personal TV. In the US it is selling
three times as fast as TIVO did.” This phenonmenon
is reflecting the needs and demands of time starved,
busy individuals who want sports information anytime,
anywhere. According to Simon, one potential problem
for Broadcasters is that national territorial
rights deals could get eroded.
Matthew Taylor, Editor of At The Races maintained
that streaming services are now succeeding because
“…the delay on the television picture
is cut down to 7 seconds, more users now understand
the relationship between PC Spec, Connection Speed
and picture quality and broadband penetration
is growing rapidly”. Matthew sees the future
is bright for new media sportscasting with further
improvements to quality of the stream, reductions
in the delay as well as enhancements to the Free
and Archive Video services. In particular, he
stated that “Closer interaction with betting
and the reduction in time delay to ‘as live’
will increase opportunities to incorporate in-running
betting”. Matthew emphasized the huge potential
of online gambling and the opportunities to integrate
broadband video with a ‘Bet & Watch’
facility which has been pioneered by At The Races.
He also highlighted that the creation of more
web-specific content will create opportunities
to sponsor on-demand broadcasts linked to major
racing events.
The emerging role of 3G and mobile data services
was clearly articulated by Kieran Mahon, Head
of Media from Vodafone. He clearly sees sport
as the most compelling content to distribute over
mobile. He described the importance of the fourth
screen – the mobile screen. He outlined that
recent developments in mobile data delivery means
that mobile sports content can be consumed easily
“Personalisation of mobile content has improved
usability by learning about users’ mobile
content preferences, dynamically building the
user a personalised menu and reducing the time
and clicks to services.” For a sports fan
using their mobile to access sports content, this
means the link to their favourite sports content
will be top of the menu on their mobile phone.
Kieran also emphasised that an understanding of
personalisation, automatic content recommendation
and mobile search in a wireless environment is
key to enabling the success of mobile portal content
propositions.
Paul Wright, Managing Director of Online Sports
Advertising agency, Aura Sports, gave a valuable
insight into the best ways to develop an advertising
revenue stream from digital sports properties.
Paul stated that sponsorship and advertising was
equally important and beneficial online as on
TV and that the interactivity that can be achieved
through online advertising is extremely valuable.
The strong view emerging from the conference
was that New Media Sportscasting is becoming increasingly
important to the sports industry as part of the
marketing mix ensuring brand development, greater
reach and introducing new opportunities for revenue
growth. Simon Green from Setanta Sports does maintain
however that broadband subscription services and
mobile alerts compliment traditional TV broadcasting
in many ways and satisfies sport fans’ hunger
for frequent and comprehensive news updates and
features.
It is clear that there continues to be a seismic
shift in the world of broadcasting of Sports content
and that broadcasters are adapting to this. The
availability of broadband is increasing rapidly,
now exceeding cable-TV penetration in most markets.
The mobile phone has eclipsed every other consumer
product in the history of innovation. With increased
broadband access and mobile connectivity, consumers
now expect to be able to easily access sports
news and coverage via their medium of choice be
it a TV, a PC or a mobile phone, wherever they
are in the world.
About Servecast
Founded in 1998, Servecast is the leading specialist
supplier of New Media Sportscasting delivering
advanced streaming media solutions for the Sports
Industry. Servecast's Media Studio™ Platform
enables Sporting Organisations and Rights Holders
to exploit their media assets to new broadband
and mobile connected audiences.
Through the delivery of high quality audio visual
sports content over broadband and mobile applications,
Servecast's Media Studio platform greatly enhances
the global fan sporting experience and enables
the delivery of significant new revenue streams
to the rights holder. Through our focus on sports,
Servecast has developed a deep partnership network
with major broadcasters, clubs and sporting bodies,
the online betting industry, technology providers
and content syndication partners. We leverage
these partnerships to ensure optimal business
success for our customers.
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