If there is anything the last year has taught us, it is that the ability to adapt and evolve is absolutely essential to long-term success in the M&E landscape. With people spending more time at home, limited in-person interaction and the inability to attend live events, the way people consume content and seek out their entertainment has entered a new phase. Much of the entertainment world is now being experienced online, which means the optimal user experience must not only include great content and service quality, but also advanced engagement and interactive service capabilities to ensure consumer loyalty.
This is especially true in the sports world where the live streaming of events has brought about opportunities for sports leagues and federations to offer new direct-to-consumer services. Whether you are an operator working to make this shift, or a newer service provider looking to build out a next-generation, consumer-focused solution, deploying a fully enabled and engaging environment for fans on a pay-TV service can be challenging.
The good news is that the NAGRA OpenTV Video Platform is the proven solution to address this challenge head on. The OpenTV Video platform is a next-generation hybrid streaming solution that delivers consumer-centric pay-TV services, underpinned by a smart management console to fine-tune active content monetization for providers who want to directly address their consumers’ entertainment needs. In the sports world this capability ensures that service providers have a proven, end-to-end video solution that allows providers to reap the benefits of NAGRA’s sports-as-a service offering - the “Home of Sport".
The Home of Sport offers various ways to deliver different types of content to fans, in whatever way they wish to receive it. This would obviously include the live broadcast of an event, but also offers on-demand, catch-up or start-over capabilities to view the big game. This could also include making game highlights, interviews, player and team stats and even player gossip readily available for viewer consumption. The possibilities are endless because the platform includes a full tool set to produce, manage, deliver and secure content - from stadium to whatever screen the viewer desires. This proven solution has been successfully deployed by the International Hockey Federation and can be experienced via the watch.hockey app available for Apple or Android devices from the corresponding app stores.
What’s more, the NAGRA Home of Sport capabilities extend well beyond simply streaming content for fan consumption. An immersive sports-centric user experience is key. As such, the fully-featured solution leverages the cloud and analytics to dramatically improve deployment, operational and consumer experiences while maximizing content value and service monetization.
For the consumer this means:
- All content desired in one location with the ability to maximize engagement
- A fully immersive experience that includes live and news content, multiple camera angles, no spoiler settings, real-time notifications and extension and amplification through social media channels.
- Engagement with your favourite sports teams and players that creates an experience that encourages long-term relationships
- The same multi-layered fan experience across different devices and screens
At the same time, service providers can:
- Create and grow a definitive fan database
- Truly engage with fans at a deeper and more personal level
- Market services to fans that they truly care about
- Increase prominence of the sport and expand reach and viewership
- Grow revenue and create new monetization models by turning subscribers into fans
All these topics and more are discussed in the webinar, “Live Sports Streaming: The Ultimate Experience”, which is now available on-demand. During the event, Tim Pearson, Senior Director, Product Marketing at NAGRA, and Rob Gambino, Director, Channel Origination and Delivery Solutions at Harmonic, shared what the industry needs to know to keep pace in delivering world-class sports entertainment.
Expectations in this industry are evolving quickly. If you are not evolving to give fans what they want in this new immersive digital world, they will increasingly seek out other offerings. The truth is, delivering everything subscribers need to keep them within your environment is more essential than ever before. Once they leave to use another source, it’s much harder to entice them back. The time to take action is now!
If you want to learn more, tune in to SportsPro OTT USA, on March 4 at 2:15 pm EST, where Jean-Luc Jezouin, SVP Business Development at NAGRA, together with representatives from the National Lacrosse League and the Tennis Channel, will discuss the growth of OTT in sports and its impact of OTT on niche audiences, second-tier properties, as well as the technology that underpins successful and secure sports OTT offerings. Register for free here!
If you’d like to discuss how NAGRA can help you create your Home of Sport, visit nagra.sport or contact us here – we’d love to continue the conversation!