Over the past 25 years, the journey has been defined by collaborations with top broadcasters, a dynamic most clearly seen in the MENA region.
By Ali Amazouz, VP Business Development, MENA, Viaccess-Orca
The Middle East finds itself increasingly at the epicentre of global sport. It now hosts four Formula One races a year, with a state-of-the-art circuit being built in Quiddiya, while it is also rapidly becoming the home of high-profile boxing matches, and investment in other sports such as golf and cricket is ramping up.
Live sport is the ultimate test for any video platform. Viewers might forgive latency in a drama, but will not forgive seeing celebrations on social media before the ball crosses the line on their phone, or missing out on the action entirely. Netflix’s boxing match between Logan Paul and Mike Tyson in September 2024 might have broken many live streaming records, but it also created multiple headlines as viewers complained of poor picture quality and various issues.
Meeting viewer expectations, though, is less about adding isolated features and more about aligning complementary strategies and technologies that let service providers deliver broadcast-grade entertainment on any screen—securely and at scale. Here are the main elements for winning viewers’ hearts – and loyalty:
- From Watching to Playing: Interactivity Goes Pro
Today’s sports fans want more from the game; they want real-time stats, polls, chats, fantasy points, and even in-play shopping. Sports coverage is not only extending dramatically, with hours of pre- and post-event build-up and analysis, but is also being complimented by cloud-based data analysis—player heat-maps, shot charts, win-probability gauges, and more, which boost engagement before, during, and after the whistle.
Beyond more information, fans are also transitioning from passive consumers to interactive viewers. They are becoming increasingly interested in choosing multiple camera angles to capture every nuance of the action, as well as being able to access their own replays of highlights of ongoing events and jumping to points of significant action.
- Unlocking Advertising Potential
Sports consistently deliver large audiences and high returns on advertising investment, as demonstrated by decades of brand sponsorship of soccer clubs, F1 teams, and more. Hence, new technology is increasingly being adopted to maximise advertising monetisation in sports streaming. More and more ad inventory can now be served during play, not just during gaps in the action. Targeted, context-driven L-band ads, squeeze-backs or banner overlays can all run without interrupting play. These also tend to yield higher CPMs through less-intrusive, increasingly relevant advertising, further highlighting sport’s ability to deliver impressive ROI.
- Securing Every Stream—Moving Beyond DRM
Premium rights attract premium pirates, and while Multi-DRM encryption is the first line of defence, the advanced attacks we are seeing from highly organised pirate outfits call for deeper protection. This can encompass:
- Session-level forensic watermarking that pinpoints leaks in minutes.
- Code protection and anti-debugging that shield the player from reverse-engineering.
- TV-output control that restricts unauthorised screen-recording or casting to non-subscribers.
The key here is to be both proactive and reactive; to deploy a hybrid model that ensures that pirates have both limited and difficult access to content and that takedown measures can be swiftly applied if the worst happens. By layering these security measures, a new generation of anti-piracy systems ensures takedowns happen while the match is still live, not when it is finished.
- Quality of Experience: Less Latency, Fewer Issues
Low-latency technologies like CMAF-based HLS/DASH have already improved delay from 30–40 seconds to low single digits. The last seconds are achieved on the viewer’s device: adaptive buffer technology expands on congested 4G and contracts on fiber, keeping action effectively live without risking stalls. Evidence shows that operators that stay below the critical five-second latency mark report longer session times, lower churn and fewer complaints
Reliability is also mission-critical. Rebuffering and playback errors during a power-play can flood call centres and social channels with complaints. Using analytics, however, operators can turn micro-events—bit-rate shifts, frame drops, rising decode times—into early warnings 20–30 seconds before a viewer sees a freeze. Dashboards correlate those alerts with CDN metrics so operations teams can reroute traffic or adjust ladders in real time, thus reducing potential intrusions to the viewer experience to a minimum.
- Apps That Flex with the Fixture
One of the benefits of using a customizable app framework is that it allows operators to reskin layouts on the fly—from Olympic-style medals one week to Euro league boards the next—without needing code changes nor another new App update to download by the end-user. This work can even be done in-house using a new generation of no-code drag-and-drop interfaces. Designers can swiftly move and reposition onscreen components, preview them in a sandbox, and then push updates instantly across STBs, smart TVS, PCs and mobiles. All this can be done in minutes rather than days, allowing operators to strike while the iron is hot and maximise marketing opportunities as they arise.
Where it all comes together
Sport will always be unpredictable on the pitch, in the arena, or on the racetrack. The drama and the excitement it brings is a large part of its attraction for the huge audiences it commands. Service providers, however, want the exact opposite when it comes to streaming sports content. With sports rights costs continually rising, they want as much predictability as possible to help them maximise ROI.
Providing a high-quality, future-proofed streaming experience to millions of viewers is never a trivial task, but it is definitely possible. Whether operators prefer a unified end-to-end solution or wish to build upon their existing backend platforms with integrated add-ons, a clear strategy which fuses these elements is an important step along this path. From here, viewing experiences can be iterated as viewer demands evolve and new technologies are introduced. This way, service providers can continually and consistently provide world-class sports experiences that scale smoothly and keep fans happy — whatever the game’s result.
