SPECIAL GUIDE: Sports TV Production

June
2021
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Adapting Tech
for Live Sports
Broadcasting
How the cloud and IP are revolutionizing coverage

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 editor's note

June 2021
What a Difference
a Year Makes
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CONTENT
VP/Global Editor-In-Chief Bill Gannon,
william.gannon@futurenet.com
Content Director Tom Butts, A year ago, live sports had, for the most part, vanished from television as the
tom.butts@futurenet.com
world went into lockdown during the Coronavirus pandemic. It was a shock to
Content Manager Terry Scutt,
terry.scutt@futurenet.com the media ecosystem from which the world is just now beginning to recover.
Senior Content Producer George Winslow, Live sports is among the most lucrative “must watch” events on television
george.winslow@futurenet.com worldwide and perhaps the most famous victim of the 2020 edition of the
Contributors Gary Arlen, Susan Ashworth,
James Careless, Gary Eskow, Steve Harvey, pandemic was the Summer Olympics in Tokyo, which, for those of us who cover
Craig Johnston, Bob Kovacs and Mark R. Smith media technology, is the premier event for the genre. A number of revolutionary
Production Manager Heather Tatrow technologies have resulted from broadcasters covering the Games over the decades.
Managing Design Director Nicole Cobban
Senior Design Directors NBC Sports is among the pioneers of Olympics coverage and their development of
Lisa McIntosh and Will Shum IP-based production techniques go back 25 years to the Atlanta Games when it began
to adopt the techniques of producing live sports remotely. TV Tech has a rich history
ADVERTISING SALES
Director of Sales,
of covering the technology that covers the games so be on the lookout for our cover-
Media Entertainment & Tech age in our July issue.
Laura Lubrano, For the past year and a half, the technologies that enabled sports networks to pro-
laura.lubrano@futurenet.com
duce remotely became the crucial element in live production for everything, not just
MANAGEMENT sports. The evolution of the cloud and IP gave broadcasters the flexibility that allowed
Senior Vice President, B2B our colleagues to stay safe and connected when protocols required social distancing.
Rick Stamberger
Now that sports facilities are opening back up, broadcasters are taking many of
Head of Production US & UK
Mark Constance the lessons learned over the past 18 months and adopting and refining them for live
Head of Design coverage. Vendors have also refined their technologies to the new ways of production,
Rodney Dive helping to accelerate adoption of cloud-based workflows.
FUTURE US, INC. In these pages, we bring you the insight and experiences of how sports media com-
11 West 42nd Street, 15th Floor, panies have responded to the unique challenges of the past year as well as look to a
New York, NY 10036
future where OTT is becoming a more dominant force.

All contents © 2021 Future US, Inc. or published under licence. All
Tom Butts
rights reserved. No part of this magazine may be used, stored, Content Director

contents
transmitted or reproduced in any way without the prior written
permission of the publisher. Future Publishing Limited (company
number 2008885) is registered in England and Wales. Registered
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4 Hard Choices:
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Cloud Is Perfect for Live
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Sports Streaming

18 Is Sports Gambling a Sure
Thing for Broadcasters?

20 What Have Sports
Broadcasters Learned
Over the Past Year?
COMMENTS?
22 Remote Integrated
Production, REMI... Have a comment or suggestion about this ebook or other
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twitter.com/tvtechnology | www.tvtech.com | Special Guide: Sports TV Production | June 2021 3

streaming services
Hard
Choices:
Sports
and OTT
Streaming could squeeze the
last vestige of appointment TV
By Jon Lafayette
NEW YORK—Notwithstanding the cratering
of viewership in this year’s Super Bowl LV—
which collapsed quicker than the Kansas City
Chiefs’ offensive line—streaming services
could be poised to snatch what has been the
last vestige of appointment television: live
sports, according to at least one influential
analyst.
According to Nielsen, 96.4 million homes
watched Super Bowl LV on TV, the lowest
4 June 2021 | Special Guide: Sports TV Production | www.tvtech.com |
number since 2007. About 5.7 million homes
streamed the game, the highest level for that
metric ever.
In a research note that was issued be-
fore those ratings numbers were released,
MoffettNathanson media analyst Michael
Nathanson pointed to the growing trend of
younger viewers migrating to streaming vid-
eo, and that it would likely mean that sports
would have to follow them. Nathanson didn’t
expect big tent sporting events like the Super
Bowl or the World Series to switch exclusively
online, but he said games from various pro-
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fessional and college sports leagues, a staple
of cable networks like TBS, TNT and regional
sports networks owned by teams, could be in
danger.
“We would think that the NFL, NCAA,
‘March Madness,’ NBA and MLB Playoffs will
remain the domain of broadcast and will have
digital rights that are monetized via affiliated
services like Paramount+, Peacock or ESPN+,”
Nathanson wrote. “Fox, the odd man out
without a paid OTT service, will have a deci-
sion to make about how they move forward.”
Fox bought entertainment streaming

service Tubi last year, which offers free
ad-supported movies and shows from several
networks, including Fox, but doesn’t have
a sports component. On Feb. 9, Fox said it
expects Tubi to reach $1 billion in revenue
over the next few years. In 2021, it anticipates
revenue at the service will double to about
$300 million.
WHERE THE VIEWERS ARE
Keeping tentpole sporting events on the
four major broadcasters makes sense for now
because that’s where the majority of viewers
streaming services
According to Nielsen, 96.4 million a greater number of games carried on OTT
homes watched Super Bowl LV won TV,
the lowest number since 2007. products also now including HBO Max.”
Analysts have been warning that streaming
services like Netflix, Amazon Prime Video
and the like could disrupt the televised sports
business for years, but so far they have only
dipped their toes in the sports business. But
as new services emerge, they are beginning to
pay attention to sports, and that should have
linear networks worried.
In January, Peacock, Comcast NBCUniver-
sal’s streaming offering, said it will assume
sports programming from NBCSN at the end
of the year, when that regional sports network
shuts down.
Peacock also reached a deal with WWE,
where its WWE Network streaming service will
be available exclusively to Peacock subscribers
for $4.99 per month (free to Comcast Xfinity
customers, who also get Peacock premium for
free). In addition, WWE renewed its licensing
relationship with NBCU’s USA Network, which
airs WWE’s Monday Night Raw.
Viewership on cable sports channels has
been slipping as younger viewers cut the
traditional pay-TV cord. ESPN has lost about
9% of its subscribers since 2015 because of
cord cutting, while FS1 has lost 5% and the
Golf Channel has dipped 11%, according to
MoffettNathanson.
At the same time, overall time viewed on
cable sports channels like ESPN and Fox
Sports 2 has fallen a collective 5% since 2015.
Image credit: Photo by Cliff Welch/Icon Sportswire via Getty Image
For some channels the drop is more pro-
nounced— ESPN2 dropped 12% and ESPNU
fell 11% in that time frame. Also during that
period, remaining viewers are getting older.
According to MoffettNathanson, 65% of all
cable network viewers are over the age of 50.
“Obviously, if you are a sports league trying
to build long-term connections with the next
generation of fans, this is an increasingly
terrifying outcome,” Nathanson wrote.
Nathanson pointed to both the WWE deal
and the NBCSN closing as signs of a sea
change in the industry.
“If a Comcast-owned network decides the
are. Even the worst-viewed Super Bowl in economics of a standalone national sports
14 years was watched on traditional TV by a network no longer makes sense, what does
nearly 20:1 margin over streaming. this mean for other national sports net-
But for nationally televised sports like the works?” Nathanson wrote.
NHL, NBA, golf, tennis and college sports, the
staples of sports-based cable channels, net- NOT EITHER/OR
works may have to make some hard choices Sports consultant Lee Berke, president and
soon, Nathanson continued, adding they may CEO of LHB Media & Entertainment, said that
have to adopt a hybrid approach like Peacock while the business is changing, it won’t neces-
and NBCU, putting a limited number of events sarily be an either/or scenario. Berke believes
across a smaller number of networks. That, that most sports networks won’t pick sides in
Nathanson wrote, in turn “would mean the the streaming wars, but will instead continue
end of FS2, ESPNU, CBS Sports Networks and Continued on 8
twitter.com/tvtechnology | www.tvtech.com | Special Guide: Sports TV Production | June 2021 5
streaming services
Continued from 5
on a path toward multiplatform offerings.
“I don’t see pay TV going away. I don’t see
sports going away on pay TV. I think you see
less of it,” Berke said. “I think you see a more
consolidated bundle of fewer networks, that
are general interest, sports, entertainment and
news. Even in the worst scenarios, they’re still
going to have 50–60 million TV homes that are
subscribers to these bundles. So there’s still
value there. There’s an audience there.”
Berke added that networks will continue
to beef up their direct-to-consumer services
with sports. He pointed to ESPN+, which has
added considerable content from its launch
in 2018, and which he believes will be nearly
indistinguishable from ESPN-proper in the
next few years.
“You’ll see this sag in the pay-TV universe,”
Berke said, adding that some sports will mi-
grate to streaming services, some will revert to
broadcast and some will remain on pay TV. “I
think the key is there has to be a multiplatform
strategy. The idea of a linear-only sports net-
work just is not going to work going forward.”
Content companies already have started
putting much of their linear content on their
direct-to-consumer offerings. During the
Super Bowl, ViacomCBS spent a lot of money
on ads for its upcoming Paramount + launch,
mainly showing shows that are already avail-
able on their linear channels.
Making all of a network’s linear content
available to stream on a separate app hasn’t
sat too well with distributors in the past,
especially if the streaming app is priced lower
than the rate the distributor is paying. That,
Berke said, will have to be negotiated out.
8 June 2021 | Special Guide: Sports TV Production | www.tvtech.com |
“There will have to be a reckoning,” Berke
said. Programmers will have to start making
those decisions soon. Although streaming has
obviously been a part of at least some sports
rights deals—and the major broadcasters have
already locked up Major League Baseball, PGA
Golf and SEC Football agreements recently—
there are still several left to negotiate.
“I don’t see pay
TV going away. I don’t
see sports going away
on pay TV. I think you
Moffett Nathanson media analyst Michael Nathanson
see less of it.”
According to Nathanson, ESPN’s MLB LEE BERKE, PRESIDENT AND CEO
OF LHB MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT
rights deals come due in 2022, as does NBC’s
Premier League pact. In 2023, several NFL
rights deals expire: ESPN’s Monday Night Further out, ESPN’s and Fox Sports’ Pac-12
Football, Fox’s Thursday Night Football and and ESPN’s UFC deals expire in 2024. In 2025,
Sunday NFC packages, NBC’s Sunday Night the NBA’s rights agreements with ABC/ESPN
Football and CBS’s Sunday AFC football and TNT come due; as do Fox and NBC Sports
package. Also that year, Fox and ABC/ESPN’s pacts with NASCAR.
Big Ten college football packages are set to be While streaming is expected to play a big
renegotiated. role in those negotiations, and sports has
come under fire for driving most of the rate
increases for pay TV, Berke said he still ex-
pects a robust rights market.
“Because every technology, every new
platform needs sports to drive subs, the key
properties that are out there will have healthy
increases in rights fees,” Berke said. “I think
the NFL is going to come close to doubling.
“The NBA, which has acknowledged that
the one issue they have is that they haven’t
established a strong streaming presence
in a sport that skews young, when their
deals are up in 2025 they will go much
more heavily into streaming platforms and
direct-to-consumer,” Berke added. Because
Image credit: Alan Thornton/Getty Image
these media businesses will have multiple
screens and multiple ways to make money,
and because they need to drive subscribers
across all of them, the rights fees will go up
substantially.”
This article originally appeared in Broad-
casting & Cable. l
twitter.com/tvtechnology

Formula One: The Race to Remote
World’s premiere racing league adapts to new remote production protocols
By Jenny Priestley, Editor, TVB Europe
LONDON—Formula One has been working on
a remote production workflow for a number
of years, both to improve its broadcast and
be consistent with its sustainability goals.
That plan shifted into top gear during 2020
due to the pandemic and issues around the
broadcast team travelling around the world to
Grands Prix. In fact, the project was complet-
ed in just seven weeks.
The media and operations team were al-
ready working from Formula One’s Biggin Hill
(London) base, with operations such as the
sport’s social media, team radio editing and
off-site editing handled in Kent. According to
Dean Locke, director of broadcast and media
for Formula One, the sport had been going
through a slow buildup of remote operations.
“Any new initiative was looked at to see if
it could be done at Biggin Hill before it was
done at the track,” he explains.
Other workflows remotely managed at
Biggin Hill prior to the pandemic included
the onboard cameras on the cars, including
replays and racking, and Formula One’s OTT
service, F1 TV, which has all of its deliverables
and distribution processes handled at the
Media and Technology Centre.
“We were doing some distribution for
extra content channels as well as the digital
outputs from Biggin Hill. And then of course,
we had a roadmap, which was to go fully
remote in two to three years, and our head of
engineering and innovation team was looking
at that,” says Locke. “Of course, there’s things
like connectivity partners to identify, a lot of
it was liaising with our broadcast partners,
and we have over 80 in 200 territories, so we
were making sure that they can take the feeds
from Biggin Hill instead of from site. Formula
twitter.com/tvtechnology | www.tvtech.com | Special Guide: Sports TV Production | June 2021
remote production
The Formula One broadcast and media team has
adapted to a whole new way of working.
One has a huge data driven operation and
that data is very valuable as well so it was
about bolting the two together.”
A PANDEMIC PIT STOP
But everything changed in March 2020.
Hours before the first practice session for the
Australian Grand Prix, the event was can-
celled due to the pandemic. When the team
returned to Biggin Hill from Melbourne there
was a lot of frantic activity to see how they
could get the rest of the season operational.
“We had an early indication that Austria
was interested in a doubleheader,” Locke said.
“They felt they had the protocols in place to
be able to create bubbles and the country had
very low numbers at the time. Also the track
is in the middle of nowhere so it was quite
easy to isolate.
“But the premise was around 2,000 people
for the whole operation,” he added. “So that’s
9
remote production
all the teams, support race, sessions, support
paddocks and us. With that in mind we knew
there were probably only a couple of solu-
tions: a very scaled down broadcast, possibly
using the local OB, or to build a remote setup,
and we decided to build the remote setup.”
That setup was built in two parts: One
at Biggin Hill, which is the remote techni-
cal centre, and then a hired local OB with a
smaller event technical centre, which was
used while a full-blooded production setup
was built.
“There were a lot of late nights discussing
how that should look and all the things we
thought we had 18 months to chat around
the room together, all of a sudden we were
doing that on video calls,” Locke said. “We
were discussing what was going to be on site,
what was going to be off site, how that would
affect how our services were offered, not just
on the broadcast side but we are the technical
provider for the whole event.
“Once we’d decided what we were going
to do, the next step was getting engineers
working safely and effectively in our Media
and Technology Centre,” he added. “That
was done in about seven weeks, and the
event technical centre part of the production
element carried on being built while we were
using the OB.”
That OB truck travelled across most of
mainland Europe covering each Grand Prix
up to the Belgian race at Spa last August,
when the swap over to the technical centre at
Biggin Hill took place.
WHAT'S REMOTE, WHAT ISN'T
Of course, there are still many elements
of the broadcast coverage of each race that
have to take place at the event. Locke says the
most difficult questions were around which
elements went remote, and which didn’t. “We
worked around the assumption that acquisi-
tion would be done at track and curation would
be done at Biggin Hill,” he said. “We’re UHD, so
already we’re talking 80 broadcast contribution
feeds, although not all of those feeds are UHD.
“In line with our disaster recovery we do
a track mix, and then we do a main output,
and our track mix is our base product,” Locke
continued. “We decided to have our track mix
on site, and then the output from that track
mix was sent back to Biggin Hill. So we’re not
sending individual camera feeds in UHD, we
just sent the track mix back. That gave us a
really solid disaster recovery solution, and the
track director and track PA work very closely
with the cameramen. They want to see the
positions, so they felt more comfortable to be
trackside. I think that’s worked so well that
12 June 2021 | Special Guide: Sports TV Production | www.tvtech.com |
we’ll probably keep it like that for a while.”
That’s a lot of data to be sending back to
Biggin Hill. In fact Formula One now transfers
over 160 TB of data to Biggin Hill during each
race weekend. The sport works with Tata,
which is its fibre and connectivity partner.
“We knew there were
probably only a couple
of solutions: a very
scaled down broadcast,
possibly using the local
OB, or to build a
remote setup.”
DEAN LOCKE, FORMULA ONE
“Last season was such a fluid state, we had
countries that looked OK and then weren’t,”
Locke said. “We were also visiting tracks
that we haven’t visited before. Doing reccees
[reconnaissance] for infrastructure and con-
nectivity was also very hard when you weren’t
really permitted to travel.
“We went to Magello in Italy, we went back
to Istanbul where we hadn’t been to since
something like 2013,” Locke added. “So there
were issues around connectivity, and also re-
dundancy, making sure we got a primary line
and a backup line, and then even a disaster
recovery satellite solution as well.”
AKIN TO ‘UNTANGLING SPAGHETTI’
The move to the remote workflow has
meant a huge change for many in the broad-
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cast and media team, who now spend most
of their time at Biggin Hill rather than flying
around the world. Overall, there are now
around 25% fewer people at the track, and the
sport is sending approximately 25–30% less
freight. Locke describes this change as being
like “untangling spaghetti.”
“We’d spent 23 years being incredibly
economical with the numbers of people that
travelled,” he said. “We had electricians and
riggers that become cameramen, for example.
Of course, you still need your electrician on
site, but we might have moved the live posi-
tion back to Biggin Hill.
“So we ended up with a lot of ‘double ups’
and what we’re starting to do now is unpick
that, because when you’ve got people doing
dual roles at the track and you’ve taken half
of that role back to Biggin Hill, you have a bit
of an issue,” he added.
As part of the project, a new master control
room that can monitor 140 feeds was built at
Biggin Hill. Those feeds include onboard cam-
era systems, the sport uses over 90 cameras
on the car, as well as pitlane RF cameras, ultra
slow motion cameras, CAMCAT (an overhead
camera), and cameras on curbs, bollards, and
even the heli-camera. There’s also a timing
suite, and telemetry for the teams is managed
at both the race site and Biggin Hill.
As stated at the beginning, the move to
remote production had been part of Formula
One’s aims around sustainability. Prior to the
pandemic, the sport was already in discus-
sions with BAFTA’s sustainability initiative
effort, as well as a number of broadcasters.
“We’ve been talking to Sky UK quite a bit
about what they were doing,” says Locke.
“Even this year we’ve brought forward a few
things, for example, there is no single use
plastic now in any part of our production.
“Our target is net carbon races really,
without affecting the broadcast,” he added.
“The key thing when I discussed going remote
with the broadcasters was they would not see
a difference. There were elements where we
were able to have more resources because
people weren’t travelling so much, or we were
just able to get two extra producers in to look
at something.
“On the technical side we had loads of
improvements,” Locke said. “The kit is not
being bashed around on planes and trucks, all
of a sudden it’s sitting quite nicely and calmly
in the Kent countryside. Of course, you can al-
ways do more, and we’re looking at generator
fuels and that kind of thing. I guess the next
step with remote is what cloud-based tech-
nology we can use so we haven’t got actual
machinery on site.”
 remote production

TELLING MORE STORIES

Cloud has become a big part of the Formula
One broadcast experience in recent years,
thanks to its partnership with Amazon Web
Services on real-time race statistics. Also
known as “Insights,” these stats were first in-
troduced to viewers in 2019, with a further six
due to debut this season. The first of the new
Insights, “Braking Performance,” launched at
the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix in Italy last
month. Locke’s team has been involved in the
development of Insights from the beginning.
“We have a data team that runs quite a lot
of the operation,” he said. “They do quite a lot
of the deterministic modelling work alongside
the team from AWS,” he explains.
Locke continued, “I asked production what
are the stories that you’re not able to tell?
Formula One is a complex sport to cover. We
have 20 balls all with their own story and
a huge pitch. Strategy within a team can
change from lap to lap. And we also have a
diverse viewership, so being able to tell the
story in a tangible way for a viewer is really
important. We looked at stories that we race where we’ll have five or six laps and we HDR IS ON TRACK
weren’t able to cover, like undercut/overcut, know the race is building up to something. We Finally, earlier this year Formula One’s
which is how a lead can change, or pit stops can see that a driver’s carving away at his lap director of media rights announced the sport
that are two seconds. It’s a really complex time; he’s got fresher tires or just on a better plans to test High Dynamic Range broadcasts
story and actually we need machine learning strategy, and Battle Forecasts takes all that during the 2021 season. Locke reveals work is
because that is taking data in all the time data in, understands how difficult the over- underway on a proof of concept test for the
and remodelling.” take will be depending on the corners and the British Grand Prix at Silverstone in June.
Locke adds that one of his favorite Insights track and strategy. We had that at the Emilia “We were very slow to HD, because we had
is “Battle Forecast.” Romagna Grand Prix, where Lewis Hamilton a very good SD, and we didn’t really have a lot
“I’d describe it as ‘don’t go away, this is was chasing back and the question was how of our broadcast partners who were asking for
what’s coming up.’ It’s a bit like when you’re quickly was he going to be back on to Lando it, and we went really early to UHD, because
watching a series and it says ‘coming up next Norris. I think there’s some brilliant stories we did have broadcast partners asking for
week…’ We do get these calmer parts of the around Formula One.” it,” he adds. “We’ve been looking at HDR for
a while. We think Formula One will look in-
credibly good and engaging in HDR, and quite
a few of our broadcast partners are asking us
to look at it. We’ve talked to a lot of suppliers
and providers about what we could do and
how we could do it. I think there’s still a lot
we need to find out. We do a lot of different
flavor of feeds and there are a few unknowns
in terms of distribution.
“The plan for Silverstone is for track cam-
eras to acquire footage in UHD HDR, utilizing
the HLG format, which allows for HDR back-
wards comparability,” he continues. “There
are challenges around replays, RF cameras,
racking will be done with SDR 709 color spac-
ing. It’s gotten more complicated because of
using remote production, but actually, in the
long term it will probably be easier in the fact
that we’re doing distribution in one place.”
So watch this race… l

This article originally appeared in the May

2021 issue of TVB Europe.

twitter.com/tvtechnology | www.tvtech.com | Special Guide: Sports TV Production | June 2021 13

cloud technology

Five Reasons
Why the Cloud
Is Perfect for
Live Sports
Streaming

In the future,
live sports
streaming
will become
much more
interactive

Photo credit: Photo and Co/Getty Images

16 June 2021 | Special Guide: Sports TV Production | www.tvtech.com | twitter.com/tvtechnology


By Shahar Bar
SAN JOSE, Calif.—Global
sports streaming is under-
going explosive growth,
despite initially being
hampered by the COVID-19
global health crisis. For
example, this year’s Super
Bowl was the first NFL game to
deliver more than 1 billion total
streaming minutes and was the most
live-streamed NFL game ever. Couple this
with Amazon and Hulu betting heavily on live
sports, it’s clear to see that sports now makes
up a significant proportion of live video
streams. This trend is set to accelerate.
The cloud plays a significant role and in
some ways has been instrumental in enabling
live sports streaming, providing a highly scal-
able infrastructure combined with faster time
to market. There are numerous ways cloud
technology has had an impact on streaming
and five key reasons why cloud-based live
streaming platforms are perfect for the fast-
paced world of sports.
SCALING IN REAL TIME IS ESSENTIAL
One of the challenges with live video
streaming is that it’s difficult to estimate the
viewership of any given event. There could be
10,000 or 10 million viewers during an event
depending on its popularity.
On-premises infrastructure requires a
pre-estimate peak usage. As a result, systems
would historically be over deployed, meaning
too much money would be spent on infra-
structure that would never be used; or be
under deployed, meaning the infrastructure
was not equipped to meet greater demand
than what has been planned for.
Recently, the industry has witnessed a rap-
id shift to cloud-based live sports streaming
workflows because of its inherent flexibility
and scalability. Cloud technology is built for
rapid scaling, whereas traditional infra-
structure requires time and investment to
build up. With the cloud, streaming services
can easily scale up and back down, based
on viewer peaks and lows, and since cloud-
based streaming is based on a pay-as-you-
grow business model, it ensures payments
are made only for what is used. No upfront
investment in infrastructure is required, as is
the case with on-premises deployments.
In addition, multiple CDNs connect-
ed to the cloud can be utilized to rapidly
scale during live sports events. Leveraging
these multiple delivery paths is a valuable
cloud technology
capability to have in situations
where CDNs in different
regions reach their peak and
maximum capacity.
HIGH AVAILABILITY
IS GUARANTEED
Streaming live sports
content with high reliabil-
ity is important, not only to
preserve viewer experiences but
also because there is a significant
advertising revenue tied to premium
sports events.
Over the last few years, there has been
a misconception that cloud infrastructure
isn’t as reliable as on-premises deployments.
The COVID-19 global health crisis put that
question to rest and has proven that the cloud
is an extremely resilient infrastructure and in
some perspectives more reliable than tradi-
tional broadcast. No matter how impressive
a broadcast facility is, during the pandemic,
those facilities shut down while the cloud
continued to operate and grow.
Streaming live sports
content with high
reliability is important,
not only to preserve
viewer experiences but
also because there is a
significant advertising
revenue tied to premium
sports events.
With a cloud-based streaming platform,
streaming services can utilize multiple cloud
availability zones or use different cloud
providers to ensure the highest possible level
of availability. During the event of a failover
or infrastructure upgrade, consumers can
seamlessly switch between clouds, without
any impact on the viewing experience.
QUALITY AND COSTS CAN BE OPTIMIZED
The explosive growth of streaming has led
to compression technology innovations, such
as AI-based content-aware encoding.
Using content-aware encoding in the cloud,
streaming quality can be materially improved,
resulting in an overall reduction of 50% in
twitter.com/tvtechnology | www.tvtech.com | Special Guide: Sports TV Production | June 2021
storage and delivery costs.
This AI technology imitates the
way the human eye focuses on con-
trast, color and movement within a
video frame, adapting encoding parameters
in real time to allocate bitrate where needed
and increase compression in other areas. In
addition there is inherent benefit with the
reduced traffic, which results in less buffer-
ing and a higher overall quality of service for
consumers.
LATENCY IS LOWER THAN EVER
Latency has been a long time hurdle for live
video streaming, but the industry has pivoted
rapidly and made major improvements. To-
day, specifications such as CMAF can deliver
the same latency for live streaming as broad-
cast. There is no question that the global
investment in cloud and delivery technologies
are so extensive it won’t be surprising if the
latency of streaming will soon surpass that of
traditional broadcast.
TARGETED ADVERTISING IS
A HUGE OPPORTUNITY
Advertising is a critical part of the sports
ecosystem. Major sports events can attract
up to millions of viewers, which is a huge
revenue opportunity for advertisers, sports
franchises and content owners. One of the
benefits of using a cloud-based solution for
live streaming is the ability to carry out tar-
geted advertising.
By deploying a cloud-based dynamic ad in-
sertion solution with manifest manipulation,
targeted ads can be transmitted to individual
consumers in real time to boost overall mone-
tization of the service.
CONCLUSION
It’s clear that live sports streaming is
increasing worldwide. Over the next several
years global revenues from sports digital
media rights will grow by 11.5%, according to
eMarketer.
Fan experiences are evolving, too. In the fu-
ture, live sports streaming will become much
more interactive with multiview angles, per-
sonalized content, targeted ads and real-time
features including stats, highlights and polls.
Only cloud-based video streaming platforms
can provide the flexibility and scalability to
rapidly meet growing adoption, adapt and
keep driving forward the viewing experience
and support the ever-growing personalization
trend. l
Shahar Bar is senior vice president, Video Products and
Corporate Development at Harmonic.
17
sports betting

Is Sports Gambling a Sure

Thing for Broadcasters?
Industry reaps benefits from increased viewer time, interaction

By James Careless
ONTARIO—Legalized betting has become an
increasing source of revenue for broadcasters
since the Supreme Court struck down federal
laws prohibiting it in 2018. According to Niel-
sen, online gambling ad sales increased from
$10.7 million in Q1 2019 to $154 million in
Q1 2021. Local television received just under
80% of these ad dollars, with the remaining
amount being shared between national online
sites, network TV, local radio, and outdoor
advertising.
Hand-in-hand with the growth of online
gambling ad sales is the integration of betting
information into national TV sports broad-
casts on networks such as CBS, ESPN, and
NBC.
“When it comes to the betting audience,
we know that’s growing as legalization of
sports betting expands across the country,”
said Scott Clark, ESPN senior coordinating
producer, sports betting & fantasy sports for
ESPN. “We have been aggressive in looking to
attract that audience in the
last couple years and will
continue to look to expand
what we do across TV and
other platforms.”
Here’s a look at how some
broadcasters are integrat-
ing betting information
into their sports program-
ming.
Sports has integrated William Hill’s betting
information, content, and products into its
digital platforms.
“When it comes to linear content, it is
our CBS Sports Digital streaming service
that is really benefiting from William Hill’s
betting information,” said Kieren Portley,
CBS Sports Digital’s senior vice president of
programming and production. “Through our
partnership with William Hill, we provide
the over/under and winning percentages for
each team in each game. This goes along
with the scores and standings, and other
data that signals to the fans that we offer the
most innovative gambling-centric ticker in
the business.”
To assemble the ticker, CBS Sports Digital
integrates betting information from William
Hill with live sports data provided by Sportra-
dar. All of this data is analysed and packaged
by SportsMEDIA Technology (SMT), and then
sent to CBS Sports Digital where the net-
work’s own graphics teams package it for air.
“We designed and built the entire func-
tionality of the ticker,” said Portley. “The
impact of offering all this data during our
program streams, including betting informa-
tion, has been significant. Time spent on our
program feeds per viewer is up, which means
that their involvement in the content has
increased as well.”
Worth noting, Sportradar provides turnkey
sports data solutions to media rights holders
worldwide. These solutions integrate with
the visualization tools these content creators
utilize, such as tickers, graphical overlays, as
well as research products for producers and
talent,
“For the content itself, Sportradar works
with the majority of sportsbooks, offering our
customers pre-game and live odds, as well as
player props for each league and game,” said
Per von Rosen, Sportradar’s product director
of broadcast solutions. “On top of this, we
offer betting market insights, which allow our
customers to leverage sports betting content
for deeper storytelling. Between our betting
data and media data streams, we have created
an automated solution ready for broadcasters
to take to air.”

CBS SPORTS
In February 2020, CBS
Sports and sports book
operator William Hill US
(now rebranded as Caesars
Sports by new owner
Caesars Entertainment)
announced a strategic
partnership that made this
sports betting firm the
Official Sports Book and
Wagering Data Provider
across all CBS Sports plat- Daily Wager, ESPN’s sports betting news and information show is basically everything a sports bettor would need to get ready for
forms. Since that time, CBS the night in sports, with odds discussion, picks, bigger picture sports discussion and reaction to the biggest news of the day.

18 June 2021 | Special Guide: Sports TV Production | www.tvtech.com | twitter.com/tvtechnology


In February, NBC Sports and PointsBet broadcast the first-ever betting companion show during the Waste Management Phoenix
Open PGA TOUR event. This live second-screen experience also included “NBC Sports Edge BetCast,” which was shown on the
network’s Peacock Premium streaming service.
ESPN
ESPN is a big believer in the power of
sports betting information to attract and
retain loyal viewers, which is why the network
has a deal with Sportradar to ingest odds from
its official partner, Caesars Sports, among
other sportsbooks. Sportradar receives those
odds via API from the sportsbooks, and this
data is then received by ESPN for formatting
into its on-air tickers and graphics, as well as
for use in a range of its programs, according
to Michael Protos, ESPN Associate Director,
Stats & Information Group.
“Sports betting content is part of the ma-
jority of shows on ESPN, with the amount and
type of content varying from show to show,”
said ESPN’s Clark. “It differs from a standard
sports broadcast in terms of the types of con-
versations being had throughout the game,
with the focus being on tracking pregame
odds, discussing live odds and providing
context around all sports betting storylines. It
also has a unique look, with odds integrated
into graphics throughout the game.”
The use of sports betting content varies
on ESPN programs. Shows such as “Get Up”
and “First Take” regularly use odds to frame
discussions, while SportsCenter features odds
in every episode.
“Then there’s Daily Wager, ESPN’s sports
betting news and information show,” said
Clark. “It’s basically everything a sports
bettor would need to get ready for the night
in sports, with odds discussion, picks, bigger
picture sports discussion and reaction to the
biggest news of the day.” This daily show is
reinforced on an occasional basis by occasion-
al shows such as ESPN’s ‘Daily Wager Special,’
which was the first linear broadcast of an
event focussed solely on sports betting.
ESPN sees betting information as funda-
mental to its future success.
“We know that our fans engage with sports
through betting,” Clark said. “The reaction
has been very good and has led to growth. For
example, in the time since we launched ‘Daily
Wager,’ we moved it from its original home on
ESPNEWS to ESPN2.
“We also have expanded our sports betting
content with a thrice-weekly digital show ‘Bet’
and most recently a ‘Daily Wager podcast,’”
Clark added. “We also have ‘Daily Wager’ radio
specials connected to big events like the NCAA
Tournament and the NFL Draft.”
NBC SPORTS
Last year, NBC Sports announced a partner-
ship with online sportsbook operator PointsBet,
in which the network provides PointsBet with
multiplatform media and marketing opportu-
nities across its many platforms, including the
‘NBC Sports Edge BetCast.’ In return, PointsBet
content is used in linear/streaming content
produced by the eight NBC Sports Regional
Networks, and in the NBC Sports Predictor app,
among others. This data is fed from PointsBet
for integration into NBC Sports content by the
network’s graphics department.
“Our original ‘NBC Sports Edge BetCast’
presentation focused on basketball,” said
twitter.com/tvtechnology | www.tvtech.com | Special Guide: Sports TV Production | June 2021
sports betting
Nicolina O’Rorke, senior
vice president, NBC Sports
Enterprises and GM, Sports
Betting & Gaming. “It was in
April 2019 on our regional
sports network NBC Sports
Philadelphia with a 76ers reg-
ular-season game, followed by
a playoff game.”
The experience, which in-
cluded audio from sports-bet-
ting analysts, was enhanced
for the 2019-20 season to
feature expanded sports-bet-
ting data and other informa-
tion during a 10-game 76ers
schedule on NBC Sports Phil-
adelphia+ (formerly Comcast
Network).
In February, NBC Sports
and PointsBet broadcast the
first-ever betting compan-
ion show during the Waste
Management Phoenix Open
PGA TOUR event. This live
second-screen experience also included “NBC
Sports Edge BetCast,” which was shown on the
Peacock Premium streaming service.
“It was a fully betting-focused alternate
viewing experience where fans watched along
with an engaging group of analysts as the
drama of the tournament played out,” said
O’Rorke. “The production uniquely present-
ed golf entirely from a bettor’s perspective,
integrating PointsBet odds, with the head
oddsmaker at the PointsBet trading desk in
Denver providing regular updates as out-
comes unfolded and odds shifted.”
The results from this event are worth
noting. Working together, NBC Sports and
PointsBet were able to create over 1,000
unique markets for the “Waste Management
Phoenix Open” betting show, which NBC says
was four times as many as the next sports-
book for that event. NBC Sports also launched
a pick tracker with PointsBet (EDGE Tracker)
where bettors can track their bets and auto
sync their betslips from PointsBet.
As well, PointsBet has a “Name-a-Bet”
feature where people can suggest betting for
events not yet covered by PointsBet, which has
been used in some NBC Sports productions.
Based on viewership and feedback from fans,
NBC Sports plans to extend this second-screen
experience into broadcasts/streams. “We
learned from the golf BetCast, and will add
that knowledge to the takeaways from our
prior BetCast experiences,” O’Rorke said. “We
expect that there will be potential for BetCast
presentations across other sports.” l
19
covid recovery plans

Photo credit: rolfo/Getty Images

What Have Sports Broadcasters
Learned Over the Past Year?
It’s time to develop a recovery plan

THE BROADCASTING SHIFT had the same experience of the pandemic.

By Luke Gaydon The last 12 months have
seen seismic changes within
LONDON—The pandemic the broadcasting sector,
has had a huge impact on and content consumption
all aspects of life, shift- has altered significant-
ed the global economy ly. Many providers had
and caused fundamental already seen a huge uptick
changes in the way that in subscriptions to OTT ser-
many industries operate. vices prior to COVID-19, but
Facing billions in lost revenue restrictions on daily life have
has meant that all sectors within accelerated demand. Reports
the sports industry urgently need to indicate that users are signing up to
assess budgets and implement long-term multiple services beyond the big three.
changes. However, the pandemic has also This opens up a more diverse OTT land-
taught us valuable lessons, so how can sports scape, with plenty of content opportunities.
broadcasters develop a recovery plan that But despite the potential for growth, not all
takes these into account? broadcasters and media organizations have
Some have been better placed than others
to adapt gradually, by continuing to work
on projects that were already in the pipeline
or make use of rerun content. With this buf-
fer in place, companies could plan business
continuity measures to manage the lack of
production.
Those relying on live sports saw sched-
ules cleared overnight and have had to pivot
extremely quickly. Many sports organizations
have turned to their archives to develop con-
tent, and fans starved of sporting action have
embraced a wide variety of formats, including
athlete and team-generated content. It seems
likely that the consumers who adopted new
viewing behaviors and explored alternative
ways to engage with sport during lockdowns,

20 June 2021 | Special Guide: Sports TV Production | www.tvtech.com | twitter.com/tvtechnology


will have different expectations of content
post-COVID.
DIVERSIFYING SPORTS
CONTENT OFFERINGS
During the initial outbreak, many consum-
ers were offered a subscription holiday from
services. This allowed them to keep their
account active and watch past clips and classic
matches without paying subscription fees. In
the first instance, providers urgently needed
to maintain loyalty and avoid customer churn,
but over time it became clear that there were
new opportunities for these secondary formats.
Necessity is the mother of invention, and
the pandemic has demonstrated that sports
broadcasters can develop a host of creative
programming in the absence of live games.
Content providers have explored documentary
formats, player highlight reels and compila-
tions of historical footage, as well as in-depth
match analysis to offer fans their sporting fix.
This in-turn has led to audiences consum-
ing sports content differently, delving into
player stats and reflecting on the legacy of
their favorite teams. Sports organizations have
been reminded of the importance of extracting
valuable footage from their archives. Many
editing teams are now leveraging AI search
functionality within asset libraries to collate
and/or repurpose specific themed clips.
While the appetite for supplementary
content is clear, broadcasters must continue
to utilize their archives and experiment with
reusing old assets in new ways. OTT platforms
can provide a home for this wealth of addi-
tional content as its role continues to evolve
post-COVID.
Consumers who
adopted new viewing
behaviors and explored
alternative ways to
engage with sport during
lockdowns, will have
different expectations of
content post-COVID.
IMPLEMENTING NEW TECHNOLOGIES
It’s not only archive content and supple-
mentary formats that broadcasters must
continue to leverage. After a lack of real-world
experiences during the pandemic, fans want
to watch sports in an immersive way, with
increasing value being placed on interactivity
and novelty. By keeping audiences engaged,
technologies such as Augmented Reality (AR)
and Virtual Reality (VR) can help providers
manage the risk of post-pandemic churn.
Sports fans will be eager to return to
stadiums after this hiatus and looking to
recapture some of the time they’ve lost by
watching their favorite teams in-person.
But the demand for premium seats will be
higher than ever. VR integrations can offer
subscribers a chance to feel part of the
action while sitting on their couch. This
will also allow providers to carve out new
experience-based content packages, adding
twitter.com/tvtechnology | www.tvtech.com | Special Guide: Sports TV Production | June 2021
covid recovery plans
additional value to OTT offerings.
Sports content naturally lends itself to the
exploration of statistics and background in-
formation while viewing the main event. With
many sports fans using a digital device to
look up related information on their favorite
player or team while watching the game. The
more feature-rich OTT sports services have
included stats and team details as part of the
on-screen action for a while. AR takes this to
the next level, with interactive elements to
engage the viewer and graphic overlays bring-
ing statistics to life in real-time.
MAXIMIZING SOCIAL ENGAGEMENT
Now that matches have returned, the sports
industry is dealing with stacked schedules and
conflicting games between all four major U.S.
sporting leagues. The backlog of live content
means that fixtures are overlapping and in the
uncertainty of the current climate, shifts in the
schedule are a frequent occurrence.
This isn’t the only time that audiences
have struggled to know what to watch. With
so much sports content available to them,
fans are often torn between different leagues
or simply don’t have the time to catch up.
That’s why short format content is becoming
increasingly valuable and should be a key part
of the broadcasting strategy.
Bite-sized content appeals to newer
generations of sports viewers, with shorter at-
tention spans and more of a focus on mobile
platforms. It allows providers to engage with
fans at multiple moments throughout the
day and maximize shareability across social
media. Viewers are keen to discuss sports
with friends and engage in social watching, so
broadcasters need to facilitate these conver-
sations around content, by moving clips into
a messaging forum.
After a year of upheaval, the sport sector
has started seeing light at the end of the
tunnel. The cancellation of matches and sub-
sequent overlapping schedules has left many
broadcasters struggling to plan ahead, until
now. But even with a solution to the problem
at hand, it seems unlikely we will return to
operating with a business-as-usual mindset.
Throughout the pandemic we have seen
how individuals can make significant changes
to their behavior to create a collective impact.
Now broadcasters need to take these behav-
ioral trends into account, adapt accordingly
and thereby ensure that they have new content
strategies in place for the consumer habits that
will shape the post-COVID future. l
Luke Gaydon is head of Business Development Sports at
Accedo.
21
intercom solutions
Remote Integrated Production,
REMI... Then and Now
What has changed with the pandemic and how it inspired virtual intercom
By Martin Dyster
CLEVELAND, Ohio—REMI has changed
dramatically since pre-pandemic days. We
take a look at what has changed and how
the evolution inspired new virtual intercom
platforms.
REMI workflows in sports production
have been around for more than a decade.
Broadcasters such as NBC Sports began by
trialling elements of their Olympics cover-
age remotely, and ESPN experimented that
way, too, around the turn of the previous
decade.
And to obvious benefits: Some of the crew
members who would have travelled to the
venues were left at headquarters, eliminating
travel expenses and reducing onsite expenses,
but using equipment that was already paid
for and installed back at headquarters. At the
time, cost efficiency was the biggest motiva-
tor for REMI productions.
Since those early days, much of the tech-
nology has adapted and matured. We now
have the ability (and the bandwidth) to make
connections between the remote location
and headquarters and don’t think twice
about it, even from one side of the world to
another.
On March 13, 2020, the English Premier
22 June 2021 | Special Guide: Sports TV Production | www.tvtech.com |
League stopped and, around the world, almost
all sports followed suit. Optimistically, the
EPL said they would come back within a
month. They did come back, but three months
later in June 2020—minus the crowd and with
a dramatically altered production workflow.
After the pandemic, almost all sports produc-
tion was forced to adjust to a REMI model, but
unlike before, the production teams were not
split between venue and HQ.
Intercom is one area
of broadcast technology
that came under the
microscope very quickly
as the new REMI
model emerged.
Many team members, whether they be
anchors, A1s, producers, editors or directors,
were not centralized in control rooms at
headquarters. Now they were camped out
at their dining room tables, squeezed into
spare bedrooms and garages, broadcasting
twitter.com/tvtechnology
remotely using cobbled together systems,
often via the domestic internet and cross-
ing their fingers that the show would go on
uninterrupted.
READY OR NOT
Everything had changed so rapidly, but
broadcast technology was not necessarily
ready or optimized for this new workflow.
REMI systems used for the at-home model
had to evolve quickly, often with an element
of compromise, which was sometimes felt by
the viewer.
Broadcasters bent the technology to
assuage the viewers’ need for normality,
bringing live sports back into our homes
during an exceedingly difficult time for us all.
As the situation dragged on, content provid-
ers started to look more closely at cloud and
virtual solutions and asked vendors: “What is
the state of the market?” “How can you help
me with this?”
Intercom is one area of broadcast tech-
nology that came under the microscope very
quickly as the new REMI model emerged.
Most broadcast Comms is matrix-based, and
although the existing technology supports
remote connectivity using VoIP between pan-
els and the central matrix, or software panels
that connect back to the core, there are very
few products on the market that break this

model and support a distributed and de-
centralized workflow. The Telos Infinity IP
intercom system is one that does, comprising
a network of distributed panels and beltpacks
that can be interconnected locally or remotely
over WAN and VPN.
MEETING BROADCASTERS' NEEDS
IP intercom goes a long way toward
meeting the needs of the emerging REMI
production model. But broadcasters want
more with a virtualized intercom platform
that is scalable and agile, deployable from
multiple locations: at home, at the venue and
at headquarters.
Furthermore, users need a means to
integrate communications seamlessly with
their on-premises hardware and cloud-de-
ployed software production subsystems using
a solution that was non-proprietary and
standards-based. A number of vendors have
developed products to meet these needs,
including Telos with its Infinity VIP Virtual
Intercom panel (pictured).
The beauty of a virtual intercom platform
is that it enables an SaaS model that is
suitable for event-based broadcasting like
sports productions and allows content pro-
ducers to pay for only what they need when
they need it. Opex versus capex. It gives
production teams the flexibility of having
an intercom panel instantly deployed on
any device with a compatible browser and
with the option to use a tactile hardware
controller.
Fully featured cloud-based intercoms de-
liver features such as limitless external four
wires, IFBs, groups and partylines. Broadcast-
ers who still use matrix-based systems can
extend their existing systems into the cloud
by adding a virtual intercom platform’s dis-
tributed decentralized technology using AoIP
or VoIP gateway connections.
When COVID hit, it changed the industry's
outlook. In a short time, resilient broadcast-
ers have managed to adapt to it, building
twitter.com/tvtechnology | www.tvtech.com | Special Guide: Sports TV Production | June 2021
intercom solutions
hybrid models of our familiar workflows by
repurposing equipment from headquarters,
altering how we work at the venue and em-
bracing remote operations.
Before the world changed in March 2020,
even broadcasters in control of their own
destinies, such as ESPN, produced thousands
of events a year covering everything from
marquee sporting events to local college and
even fringe high school sports. Each pro-
duction had its own specific set of technical
challenges.
New REMI solutions that combine cloud and
virtualization will make it so much easier. With
virtualized intercom, instead of being tied
to matrix-based comms, you can now deploy
individual software intercom panels that are
an integrated part of the production system,
wherever and whenever you need them.
As the world opens up and goes back to an
even better “normal,” intercom manufactur-
ers will continue to adapt to fit broadcasters'
needs. l
23
9000