What’s driving streaming engagement, and where is interactivity for sports fans watching live streams and using streaming apps? And what are the current challenges to delivering interactive sports streaming experiences?
Rick Allen, CEO, ViewLift, starts the discussion by questioning how various streaming experiences can be “substantiated and extended” based on single-screen and second-screen setups for live sporting events, free-to-play games, and gambling. He asks Jennifer Kent, VP, Research, Parks Associates, “What does your research suggest that sports fans and other consumers of streamed content are most looking for?”
Kent says that interactivity in streaming is still heavily centered on the second screen. “Most single-screen streams aren’t delivering much,” she says. “Smartphone adoption is extremely high, so the companion apps are where we’re seeing most familiarity and engagement, especially if there’s anything with a revenue opportunity to click through or a buy at the end. There are experiences that are too complicated today from a user interface perspective to happen on the primary screen.”
However, Kent notes that there are some useful interactive elements already happening on the primary screen, especially in live sports streaming. “The top activity that we’re seeing…on the primary screen is jumping to an interactive timeline right in the stream,” she says. “So a highlight of a goal that happened or a touchdown, and you can move yourself to that place in the timeline. It sounds pretty simple but that’s kind of where training the consumer to engage in these more interactive elements starts. So I think we’re [in the] very early days, [but] there’s appetite for it.”
Kent emphasizes that there have been positive experiences for first-screen interactive offerings compared to other interactive tech such as VR, which can widely vary in terms of usage difficulty and subjective user experience. But interactive timelines have led to positive word of mouth online, encouraging more users to try it out. “One good thing we’re seeing is…people who have tried the interactive timeline and then say that they’re very likely to use it in the future if their favorite video service offers it,” she says. “People who have tried it say, ‘yeah, I think I’d like to use that in the future.’ So that’s a good indicator from a consumer demand point.”
Learn more about interactive live streaming at Streaming Media East 2023.
Related Articles
How to do Interactive Streaming at Scale
What are some of the biggest issues encountered when handling interactive streaming at scale? The widespread increase of highly interactive streaming such as auctions, sports betting, and gaming has put pressure on networks while increasing the need to integrate interactivity into more traditional methods of OTT content delivery.
01 Nov 2022
How Enterprise Streaming Is Leveraging Interactivity
How is enterprise streaming effectively leveraging interactivity? Erdal Kilinc discusses the ways his company Deal Room Events has discovered that interactivity has benefited its clients in dynamic and unexpected forms that incorporate marketing, media, and customer engagement.
21 Oct 2022
Does “If You Dream It, You Can Stream It” Apply to Interactive Media?
What are the newest engagement and interactive opportunities for both live in-person and virtual event audiences? Finding ways to bridge the gap between in-person and virtual audiences and create experiences that cater to their specific needs is now essential, according to Beth Norber of Mainstream Media, as audiences have grown more sophisticated and expect high-quality interactive presentations.
13 Oct 2022
Low-Latency Streaming for Interactive Video
Interactive streaming is the future for high-quality ultra-low latency applications that will unlock unique and unprecedented experiences for users
19 Aug 2022
Next-Gen TV Sports and the Hybrid Experience
Evoca TV CEO Todd Achilles discusses how Evoca combines OTA and OTT in a seamless experience for sports viewers in this clip from Streaming Media Connect 2022.
10 May 2022
.jpg)
