Live sports have been one of the hottest and last-few chauffeurs for conventional Pay TV, both for watchers and merchants equally. However, like every other entertainment channel, live sports content, too, is relocating over the top (OTT) to streaming services. This means that sports enthusiasts can frequently reach sports programs sans a Pay TV subscription or following them on linear TV channels. An assorted variety of platforms has led to unparalleled streaming access to sports programs.
Sports Broadcasting has been witnessing fast growth. The power ratio has been steadily slipping away from the regular satellite providers that had once consumed the industry because demand for new online channels has risen. As we traverse into the new world post the pandemic, one must wait to see this drift continue, with Over The Top (OTT), Video on Demand (VOD), and Subscription Video on Demand (SVOD) platforms backed by cloud services and advanced IT infrastructure continue to evolve.
The Significance of Live Streaming
Live streaming is said to be a $30 Billion industry in 2016, and various veterans foretell this growth to double by 2021 to reach $70 Billion. Viewer polls revealed that customers find watching live streams more updated, engaging, informational, connecting, and enjoyable. This means broadcasters have several possibilities to reconstruct their current delivery prototypes and different surfacing opportunities to gain from.
The Nature of Live Sports
The live-streaming platform is emerging into an impressive and dynamic landscape. It has hit a point where several businesses still have to benefit from video-on-demand and OTT services, apart from live streaming. Domain experts across OTT, Marketing, and Digital Analysis
Enterprises have all identified Live Streaming as the next significant thing for the tech field. The single question left is the nature of the content that will rise. Previously, we have witnessed a big wave in eSports, causing a totally new crowd of players into the digital home entertainment business.
Now, advanced Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) led solutions can recognize particular game objectives, constructs, players, matches, and activities. This helps in real-time content discovery and instantly enables sports producers build sports highlights even when the tournament is in progress. Sports enthusiasts are constantly looking for new methods to engage with sports that get them closer to real-time performance. Modern AI & ML technologies render some really immersive experiences that the followers demand.
Interesting Use Cases
Enhanced Storytelling using AI Cataloging, Discovery, and Search
AI-based tagging of the game segment-wise by leveraging automated content recognition to make the live match and the entire sports archive easily and quickly searchable.
Auto-highlight package conception
After the content is tagged instantly and comprehensively, devices can cut auto-discovered highlight packages based on pre-conceived and auto-controllable rules. Directors can also include various parameters to order distinct highlight combinations.
Fully Interactive TV Experience
Granting set-top box providers with effective match content, relatable and memorable stories, and highlight clips from the game.
OTT Platforms: Immersive experiences for Enhanced Watcher Engagement and Renewed Monetization
Video alerts
Users instantly get informed about important events of a game as soon a
s it occurs. They can access and view these videos with a single click. This draws in more users to the app, while AVOD mechanisms may monetize the video views.
Video Scoreboards
AI-churned and curated video snippets can be appended to Scoreboards or the commentary feed. This makes dull textual scorecards and live commentary come really alive.
A Highly Immersive OTT Experience
The metadata deduced using AI engines can be superimposed upon the video to present an “Amazon X-Ray” standard experience. Viewers can search complex aspects of the play in vaster detail without endangering the live viewing experience.
The use cases outlined above, if performed adequately, can produce substantial business advantages. These cover lessening Total Cost of Operations (TCO), building monetization from content and advertisements, and enhancing viewer engagement by immersive storylines. On the whole, the capacity for using AI and ML in the live sports arena is immense. To observe compelling results, one must invest in AI-based system prototypes for diverse sports, expand them at scale, and refine them over many months. These prototypes can promote the automation of everyday tasks, empowering human resources to concentrate their minds on more demanding creative chases.
