The NFL updated its preseason app last week, placing its free RedZone service at the center of its NFL+ premium consumer offering. At the same time, European football leagues including France’s Ligue 1 and Italy’s Serie A have stepped up their broadcast efforts, with the first games being shown exclusively online’ in the important market of UK and Ireland.
Sports organizations know that the demand for these services is due to the complexity (and cost) that consumers face when trying to watch every televised game that their team is participating in. it. For example, NBA games are meant to be divided into four different media. providers, while English Premier League fans will have to subscribe to Sky Sports, TNT Sport and Amazon Prime Video to follow their team’s schedule in full.
“Savvy franchisees recognize that technology has allowed consumer preferences to change,” said Fred Santarpia, president of Endeavor Streaming, a company that provides streaming technology to several US clubs and organizations. and Europe.
Kenny Ager, global head of business development at games agency WePlay, agreed. “Game streaming is critical to the broader trend of consumers moving away from fixed-time video subscription services to flexible or pay-as-you-go models,” he told Digiday.
RedZone is cheaper than cable or streaming packages — $35.99 a year, compared to $59.99 for CBS and Peacock, for example — and has been available with the NFL+ subscription package as a standalone service of broadcasting from 2023. It is now the NFL’s primary digital hub. app, and a big part of the NFL’s efforts to answer that consumer need for convenience.
The service itself is simple enough – the same subscription that pulls from CBS and Fox’s live Sunday coverage, hitting between games with no breaks and no commercials (though , there is space for publishers around – DraftKings, for example, currently supports RedZone) . The result, said Lauren Manning, the NFL’s head of product design, UX and research, “is one of the best ways to watch football of any kind, on any device.”
The simulcast does not show all games, instead focusing on scoring opportunities and other highlights as they happen, thus avoiding conflicts with the NFL’s agreements with its broadcast partners. “It’s an easy way to stay out of their business,” Manning said.
Although Manning declined to disclose how much the NFL invested in developing its app, which was developed by digital agency Code & Theory, he said it has already reconsidered the use of videos. “This was a deliberate move to institutionalize and integrate NFL+ production into our premium platform,” he said.
The idea is not only to collect more subscribers but to create a bigger audience for football in general. According to Arjun Kalyanpur, senior director of product strategy at Code and Theory, having RedZone at the center of the new app along with news, analysis and football content, helps the NFL grow fan loyalty. “You want to make your own habits,” he said.
For Jeremy Carey, chief investment officer at Omnicom Media Group Optimum Sports, RedZone’s appeal to soccer fans is a key selling point. “Dream management is great. It is really a must news when your team is not playing in the window and is a public driver, which means that the viewer is always aware of the biggest games when they happen,” he said. “This is designed to attract more consumption of NFL content.”
RedZone, he suggested, “is an addition to the fan engagement model,” a tool to bring soccer fans closer to the sports universe. And higher audience engagement can translate to more valuable audiences, from the perspective of advertisers and franchise owners.
“If I’m a small-market owner with a team that might not get national exposure, I like the fact that I can get exposure to my star players in their prime, raise the value and the importance of my team or whatever the team was given,” Carey said.
In the case of Ligue 1, it moved to provide a streaming service – Ligue 1 Pass – in the UK and Ireland after the negotiations to acquire the broadcaster fell through during the summer; before its games were shown on TNT. With 140,000 French people living in the UK, there is a huge audience to reach. Although the Ligue did not respond to requests for comment at the time of publication, the press release announcing the Ligue 1 Pass noted that the UK will serve as a test market, as the country “boasts itself with a passion for football and a mature OTT offering.”
Ligue bought rather than built its service from US company Endeavor Streaming, which markets itself as an “end-to-end” consultant and technology provider in the region. Santarpia said Ligue 1 sees its Pass product as a “long-term growth business,” adding that direct-to-consumer streaming services are becoming “a core element of the owners’ portfolio and media rights.”
According to Santarpia, it is one of the many football and soccer teams that have started using streaming to bring content to fans. Endeavor works with the University of Texas football team, Real Madrid, Tottenham Hotspur and, as of this year, Newcastle United.
“It’s definitely a growth area for the business,” Santarpia said, without providing specific numbers. “We think we’re creating a great partnership with football media rights holders who trust us to help them deliver to their fans… we don’t see it slowing down in the next few years. “
Of those teams, only the University of Texas Longhorn service runs ads. Santarpia suggested that could change in the future. “I expect you’ll see a lot of subscription-oriented products that will eventually introduce advertising,” he said.
Anger agreed. “While many rights holders are still focusing on direct-to-consumer or pay-per-view models for live content, there is a growing trend to reduce the cost of on-demand content, highlights and store information about business deals, ad monetization, or recent fan engagement credit,” he wrote in an email.
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