Streaming's Importance Growing Among Sports Organizations, Event Told

Discovery and monetization are among challenges streaming sports services face in the post-pandemic world, a Brightcove webinar heard Thursday. Even as fans worldwide turned to watching shows about sports in the absence of live sports during the pandemic, streamers, too, saw a decline in time spent watching sports content, said Brightcove analyst Jim O’Neill.

As live sports re-emerged in second half 2020, more viewers turned to streaming, while traditional sports TV ratings flagged. Super Bowl viewership declined, for instance, O’Neill said, while streaming had a 66% viewing bump in the NFL finale. “Traditional delivery of content, including sports, is being challenged" by consumers’ desire to cut pay-TV costs and the rise in adoption of over-the-top video services, he said.

OTT adoption is increasingly broad-based, extending beyond millennials and early adopters: A majority of Generation X, baby boomers and over 65 viewers now subscribe to or watch multiple OTT services, said O’Neill. He called sports the “final frontier” for OTT video, the “final bastion, and an eroding one, for pay- and appointment TV.”

The pandemic forced the U.S. Open from its familiar June slot to September, where it competed with MLB, NFL, college football and NBA playoff games. “Nobody wants to go up against the NFL,” said Amanda Weiner, U.S. Golf Association senior director-digital media and ticketing. The USGA's biggest challenge last year was losing the “at-work audience” that would sneak a second screen at work to watch segments of the championship, Weiner said.

USGA launched its streaming app on Roku and Apple TV, adding Amazon Fire TV last year, to reach people "where they were," said Weiner. It's working on an iOS and Android mobile app that’s scheduled to be ready for this year’s U.S. Open in June, hoping to regain that “second-screen” customer who used to stream from the office, she said. It plans to reach new viewers by directing golf enthusiasts to the app “direct from social,” including Twitter and Instagram, which it can't do from a set-top, Weiner said. After mobile, USGA’s biggest opportunity is on Xbox and PlayStation game consoles to reach a younger demographic, she said.

Kristopher Knief, Vegas Golden Knights director-business intelligence, hopes the new seven-year TV deal between Disney and the NHL will expand the reach for the Las Vegas hockey franchise in North America and globally: “Having 75 regular season games stream across ESPN+ and Hulu is a new addition for us because that’s going to ultimately reach a younger audience,” Knief said. The franchise partnered with AT&T SportsNet to use its app for local market streaming, Knief said. The AT&T agreement lets the team show livestreamed games along with “shoulder programming.” O’Neill noted the importance of shoulder programming to fill in around the few hours of live events available. The Golden Knights’ “aha moment” was getting its app ingested into the AT&T SportsNet app, a "blessing” for the 4-year-old franchise’s growth, he said.

Livestreaming has become a critical way for USA Volleyball to reach its fans and members at a time of spectator restrictions at events, said Chief Marketing Officer Kassidi Gilgenast. The governing body for USA volleyball worked with the international volleyball federation and other rights holders to try to maximize surging OTT viewership, making it a “major call to action.” It’s a big change “to get our fans to the small screen,” said Gilgenast, as the group looks to drum up support for the Olympics.

USA Volleyball tried its hand at in-house streaming a few years ago but realized it needed partners to create a higher quality and reliable product the organization could monetize, Gilgenast said. Having access to recorded content allows for monetization and a way to bring in fans during non-play time, she said. Outdoor events present a lot of challenges: “People expect it to be seamless” with zero interruptions, she said. That introduced “a whole new level of customer service that we have to be attuned to anytime that we have matches that are live.”

With discovery becoming more important as the streaming video content field enlarges, providing metadata is part of sports organizations’ role to ensure viewers can find their content. In addition to key match information, USA Volleyball adds searchable information on individual players, particularly Olympians, said Gilgenast. It’s important to have both library and biographical content searchable, she said.

To reach younger audiences, USA Volleyball wants to shorten the time from “call to action” to watching its app. By providing a link that takes people directly to a live match stream, "we’re much more likely to convert that user, especially on the social side, to a viewer.”