The Future of Sports Broadcasting
This week we hosted the first of two roundtables that we’ve partnered with the Sports Tech World Series to deliver. Our Chief Product Officer, Andrew Collins was joined by
- Jonas Curty — Head of Marketing, Communications and Events for Swiss Basketball
- Justin Nelson — General Manager for the Sal’s NBL
- Tim Kelly, the CEO of 5stream
The topics and subjects covered in the session ranged from the state of basketball around the world, the advantage that sports organizations have had who were prioritizing technology ahead of lockdown and the specific experiences in the Swiss and New Zealand domestic basketball leagues. The full session overview is below.
The Future of Sports Broadcast
Lockdowns, Fan Engagement, and the role of SportsTech in the return of global basketball.
Unprecedented times for sport has forced us to rethink what’s important, whilst consolidating some simple truths that we have often taken for granted. In this session we will talk about production automation and connecting with remote fans via the FIBA Connected Stadium, the incredible journey of the New Zealand Basketball League over the last 12 weeks, and how forward thinking combined with technology can drive remote engagement for fans, players, leagues and federations.
New Zealand NBL
The Sal’s NBL domestic basketball league in New Zealand has found itself in an unusual circumstance compared to most of the world. With COVID-19 almost eliminated from the country, the league has been able to not only restart live games, but actually welcome back fans to its arenas without restrictions.
This return to action has led to unprecedented interest in the competition, with the league just coming off signing an agreement with ESPN to show the games stateside. Justin Nelson spoke passionately about not only the status of basketball in New Zealand, but also the importance of investing in technology for all sporting bodies.
Swiss Basketball
The Swiss Basketball Federation became the first National Federation to introduce FIBA Connected Stadiums to its domestic mens and womens leagues. Jonas Curty went into detail about the journey the Federation has been on for a number of years in making innovation a priority.
Jonas also spoke to working as a small team with a semi-professional league why automated production in particular has provided such core value — to maximize the impact of the product and provide fans with maximum access to live and on demand content.
5Stream
5stream offers a leading live streaming platform and a variety of event streaming services. From servers, integrated video players, hardware as well as full event streaming — the business has online video covered.
Being such a comprehensive provider in such a technically demanding sector means Tim provided a key voice on both what we can expect in the future of video content, but also on what aspects of remote fan engagement may continue long after lockdown.
Final Thought
Atrium Sports’ Chief Product Officer Andrew Collins facilitated the session, but also concluded the event with a poignant reminder of how important it is during this unusual period for the industry to maintain its values.
Future Events
If you’d like to catch up and watch this full session or others from the Sports Tech World Series virtual conferences, you can watch on demand and catch future events live by registering here.
Our next session will be taking place on Thursday, 9th July focusing on the topic of “Technical Performance and Data Science”.
Atrium Sports is changing how sport is organised, played, commercialised and experienced around the world.
Atrium Sports puts best practice technologies within reach of sports at every level, to enable them to create new content, engage fans and open commercial opportunities that help grow sport.
