Amagi CEO Baskar Subramanian on revolutionising the live sports streaming experience

In this interview with Adgully, Baskar Subramanian, CEO and Co-founder, Amagi, covers various topics related to live sports streaming and the use of cloud technology to enhance the viewer experience. He talks about how video service providers are leveraging cloud technology to deliver personalised live sports streaming experiences. He also touches upon gamification and how it is being used to enhance viewer engagement with live sports. The server-side ad insertion (SSAI) technology is being used to enable individually addressable advertising for live sports streaming. Excerpts:

How are video service providers leveraging cloud technology to deliver personalised live sports streaming experiences?

Video service providers use a combination of device type, geographical location based on IP and user profile information, amongst other available information, about a fan to curate a personalised experience. For example, a fan who chooses Los Angeles Football Club (LAFC) as their favourite team on a digital medium can have a curated experience of being presented first with the LAFC-related news and games.

How is gamification being used to enhance viewer engagement with live sports?

Gamification is used to draw a fan further into a sport and get them more engaged with it. In addition to the games that are streamed, most teams offer free-to-play games, polling, live chats, augmented reality experiences and more to keep the fans engaged. For instance, Formula E launched FANBOOST during the inaugural season, which allowed fans to vote for their favourite driver and award them an extra boost during a race.

What is server-side ad insertion (SSAI) technology and how is it being used to enable individually addressable advertising for live sports streaming?

SSAI enables publishers to deliver ad-inserted streams to the devices of their choice without compromising the user experience. The advantage SSAI brings, especially in long-form content like sports, is that it allows ad load and ad decisions to happen on the server-side without the client-side player being overloaded, therefore preserving the user experience.

There are three parts to addressable advertising:

• Knowing the context
• Knowing the content
• Knowing the user

The way SSAI enables addressable advertising is by enriching ad requests with relevant data it gathers from streaming content onto a device. SSAI integrates with softwares such as Content Management System (CMS) and Electronic Programming Guide (EPG) to make things useful for advertisers when they receive the ad requests. For instance, knowing that a soccer match is in progress in itself does not add value. What helps advertisers is in knowing if it is an English Premier League game (or any other sports title) and acquiring the match data to better understand user context and target the right ads.

How can service providers use frequency capping and control to personalise ads and improve the overall streaming experience for viewers?

Frequency capping is the technique by which advertisers control the number of times an ad appears to a user at a ‘per session’ level. This helps adjust the ad load and solve the problem of ad fatigue. For example, Nike can add a frequency cap rule for its new shoes commercials to appear twice in a given hour at a per user level, even though they have a goal of reaching a certain number of impressions.

The most typical way frequency caps get deployed are:

• Limit repetition at a show level
• Limit repetition as a function of time
• Limit repetition as a function of ad schedule, and this pertains to sponsorships

What is advertising storytelling and how can it be used to increase brand recognition and deliver memorable ad impressions for live sports streaming?

Advertising storytelling typically references campaigns focused on driving awareness and engagement for a brand or product, which find consistent and compelling ways to deliver their central theme. Live sports programming has long been a powerful platform for delivering brand narratives because it combines the immersive sight, sound, and motion of TV advertising with a highly engaged audience. Streaming promises to supercharge these benefits by improving control, addressability, and creative flexibility. For example, advertisers can segment creative executions to resonate with specific audiences and better control the frequency and placement of each ad for more sequential storytelling.

Traditional spots can also be augmented with high-impact in-content units such as overlays, and even the dynamic insertion of brands and products directly into the broadcast. Overlays can also be used to highlight QR codes which invite consumers online or in-app to further engage with the brand.

How are thematic sports channels being used to reach specific audiences with exclusive content such as live games and behind-the-scenes videos?

The rise of free ad-supported streaming TV services (FAST) has given rise to channels dedicated to sports. Today, there are niche channels that cater to a specific audience such as an outdoor sports channel that caters to those who are interested in watching outdoor sports. The low cost of streaming has helped content creators with niche sports content to create, distribute, and monetize their channels with advertising opportunities.

How can streaming platforms experiment with synchronizing sports data with video at the player level to deliver a more data-driven sports streaming experience?

Data is an integral part of sports. Many leagues and teams across the globe use game and player data to drive fan engagement, and one major area of application is fantasy leagues.

Most recently, the NFL (National Football League), a major league sport in North America, streamed their Thursday Night Football games on Amazon Prime Video. A user was presented with multiple options to view a game through alternative feeds: one of which was “Prime Vision”, which was focused on stats and data.

What are some of the challenges associated with delivering watch-together services and how can they be overcome to ensure seamless communication between viewers?

Latency is probably one of the biggest challenges for the streaming industry as a whole. Watch-together experiences involve two or more people tuning into the same game at a set time. This is to emulate a live viewing experience of fans watching the game together from a couch in their living room – while they are actually tuning in from different locations. Timing is what makes these experiences successful. If the stream for one person is delayed by a few seconds, they end up missing an important event in the game and are unable to truly share the experience with the other viewers. The communal aspect and experience of the game is lost.

How can service providers leverage multi-view and watch-together features to drive viewer engagement and increase monetisation opportunities for live sports streaming?

Watching sports is generally viewed as a passive user experience. This is great on its own since the biggest challenge in today’s ecosystem is getting a fan’s attention to tune into a live game at a set time. This is competing with the fan’s attention with probably over a dozen other things they could be doing at this time. A few ways in which teams and leagues can enhance the fan experience is by providing an interactive and lean-in experience. For example, Google has a multi-view feature, which allows users to select up to four channels at a time to view simultaneously. This allows a fan to follow multiple games at once without having to fully commit to only one live event.

Similarly, fantasy leagues, online betting, watch-together, etc., are all user experiences created around live sporting events to engage the fan beyond watching a live game, while driving additional revenue streams for the teams and leagues. A Variety Intelligence Report on sports betting revealed that two-thirds of gamblers who bet on the National Football League (NFL) watch more games when they are betting – leading to more exposure to ads. It similarly discovered that 23% of Gen Z and Millennial viewers stopped watching a blowout game (a one-sided game with easy victory), where there is no scope for betting.