Solely based on the amount of discussion any topic related to „Over-The-Top“ currently generates in the sports media market, it would be reasonable to assume that OTT distribution is already dominating the sports media landscape and representing the default way of consuming live sports. 🔥
However, contrary to other media genres, including 🎶 music or 🎞 on-demand streaming content, over-the-top distribution remains a niche channel that rather serves as complementary instead of being a substitute for traditional linear television. 📺
The list of reasons for the continued reservation regarding OTT in live sports is long and includes:
⏺ the lack of technical reliability (z.B. streaming issues, buffering),
⏺ streaming performance (e.g. latency compared to linear cable and satellite TV), and
⏺ numerous examples of unmitigated disasters whenever digital-only players were met with their first increased traffic bump.
As a result, OTT has not hit mainstream adaption just yet - with adaption rates collapsing beyond the Generation Y. 📉
Nonetheless, digital technology already has major implications on how the future sports media landscape will look like and every market participant is forced to prepare for what is coming next:
1️⃣ Original rights owners are dreaming about going direct to consumer with their own streaming services, 2️⃣ traditional rights holders try to keep up with changing and increasingly diverse consumer habits, while lowered market entry barriers have resulted in 3️⃣ digital-only bidders popping up left and right intrigued by the promise of leveraging data to a superior customer experience and, ultimately, monetization.
4️⃣ Consumers, for their part, seem to be obvious winners in times, in which rights holders are competing aggressively for their share of the consumer’s limited time and budget: hyper-competitive pricing, unheard-of flexibility, and unprecedented access have been the result. However, the increasing content fragmentation, an overload of streaming offerings, the lack of guidance compared to the linear ecosystem are among the many factors which already started to build up frustration of consumers with the status quo.
The other big question is how the ongoing transformation from a linear into a digital ecosystem will impact fees paid for sports media rights: After years of skyrocketing growth, there are first developments indicating a market plateau or even correction.
What can market participants do to further grow media revenues? 🚀
If that is not possible and media rights revenue actually starts to decline, when is the tipping point reached at which original rights holders would really consider distributing and monetizing their premium live content via owned and operated streaming services? 🤷🏽♂️
With the media rights tenders for the ⚽️ UEFA Champions League and ⚽️ Bundesliga coming up soon in 🇩🇪 Germany, I took a closer.
Whether original rights owners or traditional rights holders are the consumer-facing brands of the future when it comes to live sports content, OTT will be a fundamental part of any distribution and monetization strategy in a multi-platform world. ☝🏼
