Of course, this has sparked massive fan interest domestically and internationally, attracting new eyeballs from all over the world and presenting a unique opportunity for broadcasters to grow their audiences and explore new avenues for monetization.
As CEO and co-founder Daniel Schichman outlined earlier in 2024, the MENA region represents an important area of focus for WSC Sports. So, to discuss the region in greater detail, WSC Sports and BroadcastPro, invited top local industry executives for a roundtable forum in Dubai in May 2024.
WSC Sports’ Ross Munro, Head of Commercial, and Dror Yosef, Business Development for MENA, were joined by Amill Lone, CEO of SSC; Danny Bates, Co-Founder and CCO of StarzPlay; JP McKerlie, VP Marketing & Sales of TOD/BeIN Media Group; Peter Van Dam, COO of Saudi Pro League Media House; Sunil Joy, Head of Content at Evision/e; and Tanweer Anwar, Head of Monetization at Noon.
The discussion covered several key themes:
- The recent shifts in sports consumption,
- The significance of diversifying content to cater to different fan demographics
- Engaging with fans beyond on-field action,
- And the role AI can play in enhancing the production and distribution of content and better audience engagement.
First up for discussion was how broadcasters can meet the demands and expectations of modern sports fans regarding their content.
Meeting Modern Fan Expectations
Sports fans today have many different needs. The challenge for rights holders is providing fans with the best viewing experiences. To meet these needs, they need to experiment with new technologies that facilitate these experiences. Peter Van Dam, COO, of Saudi Pro League outlined how they tackle the challenge of serving so many different audiences on different outlets. “As we are serving platforms with completely different content requirements, the media manager must be creative with sizes, types and quality, and build responsive formats.”
Van Dam continued by outlining the importance for rights holders in adopting agile content strategy. One that enables them to create and distribute content on a diverse and large scale and deliver that content when it’s most impactful.
Keeping Fans Engaged Beyond The Game
Tanweer Anwar of Noon and JP McKerlie explained how digital media has changed the game, disrupting traditional linear sports event coverage.
Fifty percent of the engagement in sport is not linear anymore, it is somewhere else. Broadcasters are now looking at distribution strategy as part of the selection process.”
A challenge broadcasters face is how to go beyond the traditional event broadcast. How can they fully capitalize on their media rights and exploit every storyline opportunity?
“Sports is not just focused on a match itself. It’s like a multi-course meal. Like what’s the next upcoming match, the score, what happens off the field, before an actual game, during breaks and so on.” Tanweer Anwar, Head of Monetization at Noon stated.
Digital media offers so much more depth in the relationship online between the modern fan and the players and teams. Marrying traditional event coverage in the form of linear with digital content experiences results in a better overall offering and helps cater to a diverse audience—even when there’s no live action taking place.
The Role of AI in Sports Content
Rights holders in MENA and beyond are using AI technology and automated workflows to craft content at speed and scale. This tech enables them to seamlessly create content for different types of fans, without adding to their team headcount.
Sunil Joy, Head of Content at Evision/e gave insights into how AI is helping them analyze data and create and share content at scale.
It’s important to mine data which can help broadcasters decide more strategically what they need to do, and with AI allowing data crunch in real-time, it’ll help during long-duration games or when there are multiple games happening to create snippets or ‘snackable content’.”
AI, and its role in sports content, has already positively impacted the industry to the point where it’s almost impossible now to envisage modern workflows without it.
GENERATIVE AI IN SPORTS MEDIA
Whether you are in Riyadh, Dubai, New York or London, one thing is clear, the evolution of AI in sports has been on a high-speed upward trajectory for over a decade. Early pioneers like WSC Sports set the standard for content production, helping broadcasters grow their audiences, explore new monetization avenues and ultimately offer the best experiences to fans.
The session concluded by looking forward to the not-so-distant future to see what impact generative AI will have on the industry and how it can be incorporated into the products and solutions already indispensable to rights holders.
Gen AI brings with it fresh opportunities for broadcasters to explore innovative new ways to connect with their audiences. It has opened up the gates for much more than highlight distribution, it can turn fantasies into digital realities. Anything that has occurred in a sports event, and even situations that haven’t, can now be brought to life.
To ensure the best experience for sports fans worldwide, WSC Sports recently developed three new solutions for rights holders that are sure to future-proof fandom over the next decade and beyond, including the opening up of a Gen AI-specific department.
For a deeper dive into the roundtable event hosted by BroadcastPro and WSC Sports click here.