We all know that sport has widespread global appeal. In recent years, however, demand for sports content has seen ‘hockey stick’ growth, at a time when the playing field for distribution has shifted.

Demand for Sports Content is Skyrocketing

The way fans consume sports content is evolving. Over 95% of US sports fans now subscribe to some form of sports VOD service, documentaries like Netflix’s ‘Drive to Survive’ are generating new international audience bases and the global sports streaming market is projected to reach $133.98 billion by 2030.

This growing demand is pushing sports organizations to manage and distribute their media more efficiently. Sports brands are evolving into de facto media companies.

Content strategies are extending beyond single-channel domestic broadcasting deals, positioning organizations as global content producers in their own right. Historically, rights holders have relied on broadcasters and media partners for revenue. However, the landscape is being shaken up by new stakeholders, such as technology companies and athletes, generating innovative revenue streams and expanding IP monetization.

New Direct and Indirect Opportunities

Advances in media capture, media asset management (MAM), workflow automation, distribution and monetization are helping companies to make the most of these opportunities.

While MAM systems such as Dalet Flex have always offered unfettered access to content archives, they are evolving to provide sports organizations with the tools they need to maximize the potential of their video assets. This has generated new avenues for direct monetization (the licensing and selling of content) and indirect monetization (leveraging archives to enhance or produce new content).

So, how is this playing out in practice? Here are five ways teams, leagues, federations and even sports broadcasters are using MAM solutions to monetize their sports content:

Licensing Storefronts

Media-rich sports organizations are providing their own branded online storefront experiences, leveraging MAM systems for backend content provision and delivery. One of the primary ways storefront portal systems provide content monetization opportunities is through access-based models.

Leagues and federations typically license out the rights to live coverage, replays and highlights over a set period. Media owners can leverage storefront solutions to provide access to all the content a third-party broadcaster is entitled to, without the need to pay for specific clips.

At Dalet, we partner with Veritone, a leader in human-centered AI solutions, to provide slick, customer-facing storefronts. Dalet Flex’s media asset management and workflow ecosystem, combined with Veritone’s AI-powered Digital Media Hub, allows for frictionless curation and sale of valuable assets. Pricing can be set depending on the usage type, content and region.

Through Dalet and Veritone’s partnership, sports organizations can launch licensing storefronts for B2B transactions, providing broadcasters with access to cleared, indexed and metadata-rich video in a highly secure environment in seconds. The Dalet workflow engine then helps to power content distribution. Its robust API framework paired with cloud and hybrid deployments enables connection to all distribution channels. Content teams can therefore work with great agility to realize monetization opportunities.

Storefront Ecommerce

With storefront ecommerce models, sports organizations can create platforms akin to stock image and video sites, where media, marketing and commerce teams purchase video clips from the archive. In some instances, teams use the same functionality to provide fans with premium content access too. In-game footage, plus interviews, press conferences, and behind-the-scenes clips all suddenly become additional sources of revenue.

The MAM system easily provides the right access to controlled collections of clips, based on licensing agreements. All videos are tagged with accurate, AI-driven metadata, meaning customers can quickly find the footage they are looking for and purchase.

OTT and FAST

Streaming services are having a massive impact on sports, with live-streamed sporting events doubling in the US over the last six years. It’s no secret that streaming heavyweights like Apple TV and Netflix are keen to break into the major sports arena, while Amazon Prime’s forays into NFL in the US and Premier League Football in the UK have proved a success.

Over-the-top (OTT) distribution services and Free Ad-supported Streaming TV (FAST) platforms have opened up a whole world of new monetization avenues for rights holders.

OTT providers like ESPN+ and Dalet customer DAZN expand content delivery and reach beyond traditional broadcasting routes. Media owners are even creating subscription-powered platforms in their own right, such as the WWE and their WWE Network. MAM systems are powering many of these services, delivering content matched to user searches, with speed and accuracy.

This democratization of distribution is helping to free audiences from regional and scheduling constraints. More fresh content is being produced and broadcasted to a much wider global audience. For sports organizations, OTT is becoming a powerful tool to grow reach, influence and revenue.

FAST services, such as Tubi, XumoTM and the UK’s ITVx, offer free, ad-supported streaming. This platform format’s emergence has allowed streaming companies to create specialty networks. Broadcasters are increasingly launching channels focusing on a single sport or niche interest area.

For instance, DAZN recently launched a FAST service dedicated to women’s football. This is already generating large viewership figures and advertising revenue. Viewership of their Women’s Champions League channel grew 17% during the 2022/23 season, receiving 50 million views across 230 global territories. This led to DAZN collaborating with Visa on ‘The Visa FanZone’ for the knockout rounds of the 23/24 competition. The interactive online fan portal ran alongside video content and delivered 72m impressions for the brand.

Advertiser interest in these channels is quickly growing, particularly for live sports via OTT and FAST. Innovative picture-in-picture ads and QR code formats are driving business in the space.

As Jon Diament, head of advertising sales for Warner Bros. Discovery explained to the Hollywood Reporter: “You have a combination of live and VOD, all ad supported. So there are new elements for the sports marketplace, and advertisers love reaching new audiences on new platforms.”

Repurposing Archive Content

Existing content archives can be a goldmine for generating new material and if there’s one thing sports broadcasters have a lot of, it’s footage!

Pulling together a package of a golfer’s greatest shots or a highlight reel of the best track and field moments from the 1992 Olympic games was something that used to take a lot of time and effort. The process would usually involve dispersed team members scouring physical archives for footage across multiple locations.

Media-rich sports organizations can now use the power of AI-generated metadata to search for all clips in their archive that show a particular action or event. Say, for instance, a sports broadcaster wishes to create content around buzzer-beating 3 pointers from the NBA. With production-connected MAMs like Data Flex, producers are able to track down all last gasp, match-winning shots in seconds. This makes the formulation of clip shows, and even entire series made exclusively from archived footage, much easier to create.

This approach saves on production costs and creates new revenue opportunities through ad sales.

AI-assisted Ad Sales and Sponsorship

Not long ago, media libraries were unnavigable jungles of content, where finding a specific object or clip was a painstaking task. However, advances in MAM systems’ automated and AI-powered metadata tagging have changed things.

With Dalet Flex, it’s possible to search an entire media library in seconds using facial and object recognition. Users can track down all clips containing a specific person’s face, even if they are merely a passing by in the back of the shot.

AI capabilities are having a big impact on ad sales and sponsorship revenue in sports. For example, the NBA uses the technology to tag players, making clip-sourcing for sponsors much easier.

Football clubs are using similar methods to identify how often, and for how long, sponsor logos are shown on screen during a match. This is making it easier to sell lucrative shirt sponsorships and advertising hoarding positions, with screen time data being used to back up advertising effectiveness. Dalet Flex’s analytics and reporting functionality makes it easier than ever for our customers to run reports and relay information to their partners.

Ready to Start Monetizing Your Sports Content?

As the distribution channels continue to evolve and the opportunity to capture a global audience broadens, media-rich sports organizations must stay ahead of the curve. By leveraging advanced technologies and strategic partnerships, they can unlock new revenue streams and maximize the value of their content. With tools like Dalet Flex, the possibilities for sports content monetization are vast and continually evolving.

Want to find out more? Speak to a Dalet representative today!