With rapidly evolving technology and consumer needs, the ways in which rights holders deliver video and engage their audiences have drastically changed throughout the past decade. Live sports has become the key driver for streaming platforms to acquire and retain subscribers simply because it is the last bastion of “destination viewing.” This is the reason sports media rights fees have seen explosive growth even though ratings for many sports have actually declined.
The experience provided by most live streaming applications, however, is lacking true real-time interaction, which significantly limits potential revenues. The end-to-end latency, or the time from when a frame of video is captured by a camera to when it is delivered to its viewers, can range from 20 seconds to several minutes for large scale sporting events. And the drift - the difference in time from the fastest viewer stream to the slowest - can be as much or more, which means fans are watching at wildly different times even if they are on the same platform. Both live streaming latency and drift create situations where the result of a play, or game, is made known to viewers before they see what happens on their device - the “spoiler effect.” This is unacceptable as proven technology exists today to solve the spoiler effect.
Live sports should be viewed AS THE ACTION ACTUALLY HAPPENS. Isn’t that what LIVE is supposed to mean?
We all know that latency comes with spoilers. It’s difficult to ignore posts from Twitter, Snapchat, and TikTok or push notifications from ESPN or theScore while you’re watching a game.
Switching from traditional “live” streaming with its significant delays to real-time makes technological sense, but does it make business sense? With Phenix, the answer is now a resounding YES! Here are a few reasons why:
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Spoilers: A 30-second delay might be okay if you're watching a game in a vacuum, but it's disruptive if you're hearing cheers from the neighboring apartment after a big play, or looking at reactions on Twitter before anything's even happened on your device. Research shows:
“Many fans are multitasking while watching live sports at home, with 77% doing a sports-related activity such as looking up player or team stats, using social media, playing fantasy sports, betting on the game or watching other games on a separate device” 1
So unless you're in real-time, you cannot have even a simple conversation with your friends without your experience being affected. -
Synchronized Viewing: Latency gets all the press but drift is just as important. A synchronized stream means everyone is watching at the same time across all devices. Synchronous streams drive interactivity between viewers which drives engagement and longer viewing times. For Cox Automotive’s Manheim auctions platform, the #1 wholesale auto auction company in the world, synchronized streams are a must or bidders would be bidding at different times for a car, giving some bidders an advantage. Manheim generates $57B each year on auto auctions and has seen their volume grow by almost 20% since they started using Phenix over six years ago.
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Interactivity: Only when you stream in real-time can fans interact with the content and with each other. As an example, for LiveMeUp, one of the leading live e-commerce platforms, real-time is mandatory. Their CEO, Guillaume Faure says:
“Real-time is the reason why live packing (viewers of the live stream place an order during the event, and the host will pack the product in real-time) stores came to us. Real-time is a must for them as they are doing live packing and they can’t suffer latency. So I would say that real-time is a real business enabler for businesses which wouldn’t exist without real-time.” -
Monetization: Historically, real-time streaming has lacked monetization options because it was too fast and too difficult to enable ad insertion. Phenix has developed the industry’s first real-time server-side ad insertion without sacrificing latency, so broadcasters and content owners can now generate ad revenue just like they have done for years with traditional “live” streaming, only now in real-time.
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Sports Betting: As sports betting continues to grow (now 38 states and Washington DC in the U.S.), the desire to integrate betting in some form - rolling odds tracker, seamless integration of a sportsbook so users can place bets in broadcast - is also growing.
“Fans are increasingly integrating betting into their fan behaviors, with approximately 50% of Gen Z and millennials over the age of 21 desiring the option to bet on different aspects of the game in real-time on their mobile device while attending live sporting events.” 1
Synchronous real-time streaming is becoming a requirement for many businesses. Having ads inserted without sacrificing latency now enables next-gen monetization for sports rights holders and broadcasters to recoup the significant investments they have paid in rights fees. Interactivity drives engagement which drives revenue.
Phenix's technology was built to help companies improve their streaming capabilities and transition from so-called "live" delivery to real-time video with less than 1/2 second of end-to-end latency. The goal is to provide consumers with a better viewing experience and to provide content owners with more revenue opportunities. To learn more about scalable real-time video streaming, visit our website at phenixrts.com or email us at info@phenixrts.com.