The next era for sports broadcasting
Change is constant. If you are a football fan, you already know that Amazon obtained the rights to broadcast 80% of the French Ligue 1 matches until 2024. Amazon’s decision to start streaming live games is not only happening in France.
In Brazil, Amazon Prime will broadcast more than a thousand games, including the Brazilian Championship, the Brazilian National Cup and others. These changes raise a question: what can we expect in the coming years in terms of live sports coverage?
The changing behavior of new generations has forced the industry to create new forms of engagement for sports fans. According to a Facebook survey, 86% of sports fans use their mobile phones while watching TV. It is therefore necessary to create a multiplatform content strategy.
This scenario enables the entry of different companies as sports broadcasting tools. Today, there are the league’s own television, such as Conmebol TV, large companies that already had streaming services (Amazon, DAZN), and social media that also already have the expertise to broadcast live content to millions of users (Facebook, TikTok, Twitch).
Another example happened in Spain. Kosmos, the company of the FC Barcelona football player, Gerard Piqué, bought the rights to broadcast French Ligue 1 in Spain. The corporation had already bought the TV rights of the last Copa América to broadcast the competition on Twitch.
Change in the way sports content is consumed increases the commercial possibilities for sports marketers. The possibilities are countless. Just as television revolutionized the way of watching football – many even believed it would be the end of the audience in the stadiums – the same happens with these new streaming channels.
