Why Live Streaming Sports is on the Rise: A Detailed Guide

In the last few years, live streaming sports events were a rare scene on OTT platforms as major sports leagues held viewers tethered to their cable connections. For years, live sports could only be accessed through cable packages. However, the scenario is now changing at a rapid pace as more than 1.3 million homes dropped their traditional cable or satellite TV service in the second quarter of 2020.

While social isolation has restricted fans to cheer for their sports icons in outdoor stadiums, one can get the same content or even derive more excitement from a dedicated live sports streaming platform. Live streaming allows the sports industry to sustain revenue in a time when ticket sales to stadiums and this is the reason why OTT platforms have soared in popularity during the last few months.

Live Streaming Sports and OTT

As the world continues to evolve beyond traditional viewing of sports, major sports teams and organizations are using live streaming/OTT platforms to broadcast live events and remain accessible to their audiences. A few ways live streaming sports channels are providing content to their audiences are player Q&As, user-generated content, and esports streaming.

The past few years have been busy for live OTT sports streaming. Be it the World Cup or Winter Olympics, viewers have been flocking to live streaming platforms. In fact, the 2020 Super Bowl streaming audience is predicted to increase by 23%, up to 7.4 million.

Did you know that By 2024, live sports viewership is projected to rise to over 160 million in the US.?

Why Is Live Streaming Sports so Popular?

Live streaming sports has now become a necessity. Here’s why it has become so popular:

• Although live sporting events are a matter of a few hours, OTT extends the fan experience, offering content that keeps eager fans engaged.

• viewers get more time to stay connected with their favorite sports personalities and teams as content is available before, during and after the game.

• Live sports streaming offers extra content to viewers with athlete interviews, behind-the-scenes footage, analysis, and pre-recorded extras. It boosts fan engagement as they keep watching between games and even seasons.

• OTT gives teams and organizations a whole new opportunity to create original content. Archival footage, for example, can be refreshed and reformatted to appeal to new audiences.

• High-speed 5G internet coupled with HD or 4K resolution videos makes live sports streaming an exciting experience. It also reduces the expense and legal  complexity of negotiating contracts with numerous distributors and partners.

Shift to Scalable Live Sports Streaming

The sports industry has embraced OTT as a new source of increased revenue and viewership. With audience numbers fluctuating at different moments throughout a match or game, it’s crucial that an OTT solution remains scalable. Also, live sports doesn’t allow room for error or downtime as millions of fans are watching the event closely in real-time. This is especially true when it comes to high-profile playoffs and championships. 

Most live tournaments generally get a large share of the audience. However, it often becomes difficult to estimate how many people will tune into each broadcast for how long. Opting for a scalable live cloud streaming server like Muvi Live definitely serves the purpose as cloud streaming provides the flexibility to scale audiences on demand. Muvi Live encodes your live streams on the cloud at different bitrates to serve viewers with varying internet speeds. In this way, even during peak traffic, a cloud server capable of adaptive multi-bitrate streaming lets your users unlock a lag-free viewing experience, irrespective of the number of concurrent viewers.

A clear example of the shift to live streaming sports is the renewal of the $130 million deal Amazon made with the NFL in April 2018 to stream 11 season games to their Prime Video service. In 2020, that deal is worth more than the previously negotiated $130 million.

Also Read: Why Should you Go for Live Sports Streaming?

How do Sports OTT Platforms Make Money?

With sports live streaming, the most popular method of monetization for OTT platforms is through subscription models.

The other common video monetization models are ad-supported video on demand (AVOD), and transactional video on demand (TVOD) or PPV. 

Muvi Live offers both pay per view streaming as well as subscription service to host live events and earn revenue.

Wrapping Up,

And as we slowly emerge from this pandemic, the energy and excitement for live sports will remain and OTT will play a major role in meeting that demand. However, with proper equipment, live streaming settings, promotion, and monetization, live sports streaming can be a huge success!

Start live streaming sports today by using a dedicated, professional live streaming platform like Muvi Live. 

Take a 14-Day Free Trial, now!