Regional stakeholders revealed their commercial and tech strategies for better audience reach through sport at the IP Studios Future of Sports Broadcasting Summit, hosted by BroadcastPro ME magazine.
One of the industries that has bounced back with renewed vigour is the sports broadcasting sector, and two years of inactivity gave stakeholders the opportunity to visualise innovative ways to entertain viewers. According to the Global Media Report from SportBusiness, the global value of sports media rights in 2021 was $52.1bn.
There has also been a huge wave of interest in sports across the MENA region. While there has traditionally been interest in football, we now see a growing love for wrestling as well as combat sports. Finally, catering to the needs of the subcontinent crowd, we also see huge investments going into cricket.
As Danny Bates pointed out at the IP Studios Future of Sports Broadcasting Summit, hosted by BroadcastPro Middle East last month, “the organic reach that sports has and the impact it has in terms of cost per acquisition” makes it so rewarding for platforms. “It can be one-third of the cost to acquire a customer to our platform on sport versus entertainment,” he said.
Stakeholders also seem to be calling for legalising betting, with Mohamed Yehya from IP Studios stating that revenues from sports betting increased by 127% over the last year in the US. Panellists agreed that engagement and interactivity were two massive elements to be exploited in sports streaming in the coming years.
There were so many more fresh insights on how new technologies are going to lead the way to enhance sports streaming, while the chat on hero building within cricket was also a huge eye-opener. BroadcastPro also hosted its first Arabic panel in association with title sponsor IP Studios. But this space is too short to do justice to the discussions at our conference. These will be summarised in the CABSAT show issue coming up next month; in the meantime, videos of the discussions are available at 2022.fsbsummit.com.
