Report: Busy Live Sports Streaming Execs Have ‘Low-hanging Fruit’ in Front of Them

Among more than 300 executives from around the world involved in the business of streaming live sports who were polled in a Dolby-sponsored survey earlier this summer, 70% said they had too little time available to them to innovate their workflows and take of “low-hanging fruit” that would let them improve their bottom lines.

These executives conceded that they could improve user engagement through interactive features, as well as personalized ads and content, resulting in significant viewer and revenue growth. However, they’re just too dang busy right now to take advantage of these opportunities.

These findings come from Dolby’s “Reimagining the game: Capitalizing on innovation in live sports streaming,” a research report based on a study conducted by analyst Dan Rayburn and StreamTV Insider Research on behalf of sponsor Dolby. (Disclosure: The author of this story actually wrote the report.)

What we found interesting: Sports streaming pros ranked developing personalized ads and content and enhancing engagement as among the easiest objectives to achieve. And if delivered, these objectives would result in the most impact to their bottom lines.

However, a large preponderance of those execs polled currently prioritize austere technical challenges like minimizing latency, which they simultaneously rank as being among the most difficult of goals to achieve.

This chart featured in the report illustrates this dichotomy nicely:

In fact, when asked which features they plan to add in the next three years, 54% of survey respondents listed low latency streaming, while 51% mentioned enhanced audio, such as surround sound and AI-driven commentary tracks, which mimic the in-stadium audio experience.

Thinking of it in another way, latency is deceptively foundational. Interactive features, not to mention ancillary activities like live sports betting that are driving the live sports streaming market, rely on improvements in latency — the time it takes from image capture to delivery. The same could also be said about latency synchronization — making sure all viewers see the same image at roughly the same time.

Of the 308 executives surveyed, 190 of them (62%) said they’re striving for latency of no more than five seconds, while 68% aim for latency synchronization of 5-15 seconds.

Latency was also listed as one of the biggest video quality challenges, tied at 42% of respondents with device compatibility, trying to make sure all the apps tied to all the various connected TV platforms perform in a somewhat consistent and coherent way.

Finally, 70% of respondents cite advertising as their No. 1 monetization strategy. And not surprisingly, there is an increased focus among sports streaming pros on the importance of AI-driven ad placement to optimize the viewer experience and monetization outcomes.

And while client-side ad insertion (CSAI) and server-side ad insertion (SSAI) remain the two most common ad insertion techniques among companies represented in the survey, more advanced server-guided ad insertion (SGAI) is growing fast.

You can see analyst Rayburn’s recorded video presentation of the report here.