The Future of Watching Sports May Not Be About Watching At All

For approximately fifty years, the sports media industry has been complacent in focusing only on the televisual. As more and more fans move to mobile to experience sports, it’s time to rethink what “watching sports” even means. Our live web video on September 2nd, “The Future of Watching Sports” plans to unpack the opportunity for more experiences than just watching with sports media.

The touchscreen changed everything. The name alone makes clear the breakthrough—it’s a “screen” that can register your “touch.” The touchscreen, and specifically its application on a smartphone, has in less than a decade, upended our understanding of how televisual media can and should work. The passive activity of watching are being cast aside for experiences that are interactive, in our hands, up-close, and deeply personal.

And yet, the sports industry has been slow to transition to this shifting landscape. Even as more sports content makes the move to the smartphone, the emphasis is on OTT, which boils down to just a different form of transmission of the same old broadcast that has been the bedrock of the sports industry for decades. Fans are empowered to simply just watch sports on their smartphone, despite the powerful interactive potential of the device in their hands. Monetization of mobile sports video hasn’t been much more innovative either. Ad-tech focused on targeting rather than form, and the 15-, or 30-second ad spot persisted, this time in the form of pre- and mid-roll videos that most fans feel are disruptive and a nuisance.

But the opportunity for so much more is on the horizon—and that is the topic of conversation at the upcoming Future of Watching Sports web video, hosted by us at Sports Innovation Lab. On September 2nd, at 11AM EST, our President Josh Walker will be talking with Lora Dennis, Digital and Television Media Executive at NBC Universal and Matthew Kogan, Senior Manager, Strategy & Corporate Development at Cox Enterprises about the opportunities and the challenges that come with the evolution to more participatory media that allows fans to do so much more than just watch sports. The panel will talk about how OTT is developing, about what technologies are on the horizon for providing interactivity along with video, and about how the business model of sports media will adapt as the formats change.

Here’s the full conversation from our event: