Live streaming is an interactive way to engage with your audience and establish your presence. For instance, live sports coverage is a big draw for cable network subscribers, but you can also get the same content or even more from a dedicated sport streaming service. After all, what is the point of watching your favorite sport if you aren’t watching it live?
Given the increased popularity of mobile technologies and the internet, it has become easier than ever to stream live sports to audience around the world.
Live Sports Streaming- An Expanding Industry
Today, sports are by far the most prominently broadcasted video programs, whether on TV networks or online. Interestingly, the number of online viewership is on the complete rise. However, it was to like this in the past. When it all started, live streaming was a complicated process, and the opportunities were quite limited. Making a great live video was a hard-hitting task. The lower video quality and poor impact results didn’t defend the big investments in such a complex process.
However, now live streaming has become more approachable and relevant, and the quality has improved exponentially. Live streaming sports content was never this easy until the modern infrastructure and steadfast sports streaming software solutions came to existence.
For over 50 years, Television dominated media. However, today, it’s losing the ground to streaming media services like Amazon and Netflix. Similarly, set-top streaming media boxes like Chromecast, Roku, Amazon Fire TV, Apple TV, etc. are replacing traditional cable subscriptions.
Sports have always been a major component of TV shows, constituting over 40% of the entire TV viewing. In the past decade, many sports organizations, and sports leagues have started streaming sports online through their own live-streaming platforms. Why? Because on-demand sports streaming is the current trend, and it offers excellent revenue opportunities. Let’s take a closer look at why live sports streaming is on the rise?
A Reach to the Global Audience
Even with widespread syndication, reaching a broad global audience with TV broadcasts is not practically possible. However, with live streaming, you can reach a worldwide audience base and access viewership more directly. It makes reaching out to a broader audience possible without hefty expenses and negotiations with multiple partners and distributors.
Lower Barriers to Getting Started
While getting a slot on television is difficult, it’s more accessible only to big organizations with big budgets. However, live streaming is a more accessible and a completely different arena. It doesn’t involve competing for limited space, and for the same reason, the prices are much lower. Other factors responsible for lower prices is the increasing ubiquity of internet connections and the declining cost of high-quality camera equipment.
Multi-Device Streaming
Smartphones, tablets, and other digital devices are becoming more widespread displacing the popularity of televisions. While there are people who don’t have televisions, it is difficult to spot people without mobile devices. Live sports streaming via the internet allows you to tap into a wide audience wherever they are on their smartphones and laptops. In fact, even televisions these days are coming with inbuilt streaming applications, enabling traditional TV sets to keep up with the changing demand for media devices.
Unlike TV broadcasts, live sports streaming offers amazing advantages in terms of broadcast. Some organizations broadcast multiple camera angles of the same game, which gives audience vantage points to choose from, giving them a greater control. With a bit of customer programming, you can bring in multiple viewing options for live streams as well. For instance, you can build an app that lets your viewers watch 2 games at the same time side by side. You can also overlay scores of other games, integrate live commentary in the middle of live broadcasts, and much more. This allows your audience to engage with the game and your live streaming service in a completely adaptable way.
Generate Revenue
With sports streaming software, you can bring a worldwide audience to your sport and club. This is an excellent way to make money while streaming entertainment. Creating amazing sports live experiences along with the ability to instantly replay, live playback, pause capabilities, are what help in generating steady revenue. There are several other revenue models for sports live streaming as well, while the subscription model is the most popular one. Pay-per-view sports is also another eminent revenue model. When executed in the right way, live streaming sports can generate significant and steady sales.
How to Live Stream Sports Successfully?
The increasing availability and less complexity have turned live sports streaming into a booming industry. While broadcasting sports content is easier than before, understanding how on-demand sport streaming works will make getting started easy.
Achieving Video and Streaming Quality
When it comes to live streaming sports, it is different compared to streaming other events. The major challenge with live sports streaming is movement and the elements. As sports events often take place in outdoors, the weather is a common concern. If you want to learn how to make a sports streaming website, taking efforts to improve the video and audio quality of your stream is eminently critical.
Some of the important factors contributing to great streaming quality are the right equipment, resolution, autofocus, zoom, multiple cameras, frame rate, etc. The camera you choose for online sports training must function well in low light, it is better to look for a 4k camera with a wide aperture.
Another important thing to consider is to check video buffering as they can totally ruin important moments in the streams. To avoid buffering, you must ensure that there is enough bandwidth to upload the video. You must also make sure that you stream the sport in multiple quality options with automatic bitrate switching so that your viewers have the best-suited version for their respective internet speed.
Mixing Software and Encoding
The master feed is delivered to a dedicated live stream encoder or an encoding device that encodes the stream to a suitable format ideal for transmission over the internet. Generally, encoding software will have the essential features as build-ins. Regardless of the encoding approach, switching between different cameras is essential and a multi-source camera encoder or a capture device helps in achieving this.
Another important factor to consider is the speed at which action occurs. At times, it can be really fast for the human eye to follow. In such cases, slow motion and instant replay let you play important scenes again. Most high-end switching/mixing software or encoders allow for easy instant replays. Some of the additional features you can implement via an encoder software includes- titles and transition, on-screen statistics, studio commentary, simultaneous recording of live streams, prerecorded pictures, and videos.
Monetizing Live Streaming
If you are interested in how to make a sports streaming website that generates revenue, you have a number of monetization models to choose from. You can either follow an advertising model, pay per view or subscription model. While adverting model is the most common one, unless you are attracting a very large viewer base, it can be difficult to generate a good amount of income merely from Ads alone.
However, if your audience is very specific, niche business might offer you more to reach out to them, even if the number of audience is small. Pay-per-view is another monetization model to earn money from live sports streaming. When priced correctly, a game that generates a couple of hundred views can earn thousands of dollars. When you stream events that are very popular, revenue can be even greater.
The subscription model is the best-suited one for live sports streaming. This allows true fans to subscribe to your live streaming platform. More like purchasing the tickets for a whole tournament or a whole season in bulk.
Post-Game Follow-Through
The best live sports streaming events continue to interact with their audience base even after the event. Highlight videos, video analysis, polling audience, are a part of the follow-through after the live stream as it is vital to retain a loyal audience. Proper follow-through has several benefits. It not only ensures that your viewers will show up for the next match, but the loyalty will also make sure your future games are a success as well.
The Future of Sports Live Streaming?
With more and more people doing away with cable subscriptions and moving to streaming services, live streaming certainly represents a bright future. The youth of today are much less likely to choose TV programs and more likely to use on-demand services.
Increasing, live streaming businesses are catching on, too. In short, the trend is clear. Live streaming is the future of media and sports entertainment. While the trend is still in its early stages, early adopters tend to reap more benefits. So, what are you waiting for? To make the most out of your live sports broadcast endeavors, it is highly recommended to use a dedicated live streaming platform. If you need assistance in how to make a sports streaming website, you came to the right place. We will get you started and streaming live in a matter of minutes. Just drop a word, and we will be right back to you.
Sports is honored with a ceaseless furor among the fans. From club soccer, cricket, rugby, baseball to chess matches, fans dependably purchase tickets to their preferred games. It is one such circle which has never observed a decrease in the income.
Every day, new games are being added to the broadcast rundown, and TV channels are communicating live games from a variety of genres. Nowadays, the furor for games has gone up in the sky with live streaming services broadcasting games straightforwardly to mobile apps and internet browsers.
Increasingly, thelive sports streaming softwarehave also gone extremely accessible with each day new streaming app joining the league with others like Hulu, Twitch, and YouTube Live.
How profitable are sports live streaming?
In a bustling life where a large portion of the general population don’t get time to watch their preferred teams playing on the TV, live streaming applications enable them to take a look regardless of where they are.
You can figure the notoriety of online live sports streaming by the fact that a critical populace in the US inclines toward watching games on Smart TV Apps or mobile apps regardless they can still watch the same on the traditional TV channels. It has occurred because of the growing popularity of live TV apps like Hulu, which enable clients to stream TV content through the web. As a result, there has been a decline in the market of traditional TV broadcasting as Apps like Hulu are offering the same in addition to extra benefits.
Just think of it in this way. Traditional TV channels are still being broadcasted in 480P, 720 P, and 1080i. Where platforms like Netflix, Hulu and Amazon Prime are offering the content in 4K quality. Today, users take OTT streaming as a perfect alternative to cable TV. In return, they get access to all the Cable TV content bundled with extra stuff like on-demand Movies, Web series, Live Sports streaming, and Originals.
One more factor that makes live sports streaming more popular is the grown penetration of internet in the developing and developed nations. The same has also helped new business joining the league and building new live streaming platforms with easily accessible Live Sports Streaming Software solutions in the market.
What’s the best way to monetize a sports streaming service?
Tickets. They have always been an effective way to monetize any sports event. People love watching live games and for that, they purchase tickets to the events. A sports streaming software can be built with a similar monetization model, where users can purchase the streaming for a particular sports event. We call it a Pay-Per-View (PPV) model.
The idea of PPV is exactly the same as selling tickets. You can set a price and ask users to purchase the stream in the same way you ask them to purchase the stadium tickets. Many of the live sports streaming software solutions come inbuilt with the PPV monetization model. You just have to look carefully to find a sports streaming software like StreamNow, which comes inbuilt with PPV and many other monetization channels. PPV is amazingly easy to set up with StreamHash and you can bundle it with others as well, for example, PPV with Ads or PPV with Subscription packages.
The future of live sports streaming is already bright. Check out this infographic to learn more amazing facts about sports streaming as a business that you perhaps didn’t know:
With the rise of video over the past few years, a wide spectrum of video content has become available to marketers to leverage. A growing number of marketers are choosing to include video in their marketing plans to capitalise on the format’s reach, value and proclivity to proliferate the farthest corners of the world wide web. Video is powered tremendously by social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, which have collectively employed a clever quiver of tools to optimise the video viewing experience in recent years. From auto-play to live video streaming features, a veritable framework for video content has been built across virtual communication sites. Live video streaming has been the latest entrant in the video marketing arena. With a slew of live video streaming frameworks having made their way to the market, the adoption of live video by organisations has only been fuelled for the better. StreamNow, a turnkey live streaming software developed by Streamhash is emblematic of this colossal shift to live video. It has been implemented by myriad technology companies across the world as simply an additional layer to their existing technology stack. Its plug-and-play model is versatile, easy to use and intimate enough to lend every organisation a unique flavour.
If you’ve been scrambling for live streaming ideas, here’s a list that will get you going.
Idea 1. Live Event
A business event streamed live is an ideal way to bind your stakeholders, even the ones who aren’t there in person. A conference, an exhibition, a seminar; any corporate event is worth streaming as long as you have a sizeable following. Event live streaming can be tailored to the tastes of your audience. If you favour a more formal approach, perhaps a stationary camera could be adequate to cover the goings-on of your event. For more personalised, hands-on coverage, you could wire up an on-the-go live stream that can capture interviews, opinions and thoughts of visitors on the floor. Once you’re seasoned in the live video streaming space, you’ll know what your audience responds to best, and you’ll organically start creating your live video feeds to mesh with their interests.
Idea 2. Keynote Influencer
While you may have influencers and speakers scattered through special events like the ones mentioned above, this idea is more rooted in the projection of the influencer themselves. There could be various ways to select a significant influencer for your live video stream. You could pick someone from your domain or someone who commands authority amongst your followers, not necessarily from your industry at all. A celebrity, invited as a guest speaker, for instance could be a fantastic way to showcase your brand through a live stream. The great thing about a live broadcast is that you can interact with viewers in real-time, making them feel like they are a part of the event. Coverage of a keynote influencer can be a wonderful keyhole to never-seen-before content, in turn, drawing potential users to your brand. Live video streaming software like StreamNow are device-agnostic, which means that you can broadcast to users across a spectrum of devices, making sure that your stream does not get lost somewhere down the road.
Idea 3. Interesting Tête-à-Tête
Interesting interactions in the form of interviews and conversations can serve as engaging content for users. Plus, they’re much easier to plan than other formats of content. Tête-à-têtes can generate traction especially when the person you’re interacting with already has a considerable foothold in the digital realm. Of course, if your guest is a coveted invitee, it may be wiser to record, edit and stitch your interview together to highlight the bits that went well. However, for a more authentic approach, a live stream may make more sense. A live broadcast may entail significant planning in advance, so be prepared to put in the extra hours to make sure that everything is laid out for D-day. Interviews needn’t always be in person. They can even be over video conferencing, in which case your viewers will see both parties framed in two separate windows on the screen.
Idea 4. Skill Sharing
A live stream where you’re talking to your audience can be valuable if you have insights to offer. Perhaps you have a skill that you’d like to share or are well-versed in a specific topic. Whatever it is that you want to talk about, a live stream is perfect because it dispenses information in a more engaging way than text. It’s important to be prepared when you share a skill. Make notes in advance about the key topics that you’d like to cover and flesh out the content under each topic. The beauty of a live stream is that you don’t need a script in order to talk. You can speak as you go along, using your notes as a guide.
Idea 5. Interaction Forum
The only form of video that allows real-time interactions is live video streaming. StreamNow facilitates comments during live feeds, making your broadcast a fitting means to host questions. While you can take questions in real-time, it’s worth inviting questions in advance so as to save time scrolling through a live feed.
Idea 6. Live Tour
Whether your offerings are tangible or intangible, a tour of your office or factory is always a fabulous way to share a little bit of your brand with the world. During the feed, you can feature key elements of your office, the best-known faces in your organisation and possibly, the banter that takes place over lunch break. By humanising your brand, you can strike a chord with your users.
Idea 7. Product Demonstrations
If you’ve got a product that requires instruction, a live demonstration can work wonders. A live broadcast can facilitate question-and-answer sessions and allow people to feel more involved in the unveiling of your product. Plus, it can make your product look more genuine as users follow you through the beats of your demo. It’s worthwhile to do a practice demo before you jump into the real thing because you may want to iron out challenges before opening your broadcast to the world. Make your product demo lighthearted, interesting and fun and keep it as natural as possible.
You can use live video streaming for any of the ideas mentioned above and as you dig deeper into its potential, you’ll find specific ways that fit well with your audience. Explore and innovate along the way and unlock a whole world of live streaming opportunities.
