Nothing draws an audience like live sports: ITW Universe’s Bhairav Shanth

“You can wait a week to watch an episode of a show that comes out today, but with live sports, this is not the case,” says Bhairav Shanth, Co-founder of ITW Universe, which has the exclusive media rights for the India-Bangladesh tour. According to Shanth, streaming platforms are already aware of the value of sports and are pivoting towards a strategy that is “sports-leaning”, if not outright sports-heavy.
India’s tour of Bangladesh started on December 4, 2022, with three ODIs followed by two Tests and will be broadcast across six channels in English, Hindi, Tamil and Telugu on the Sony Pictures network as well as on DD Sports and will be available for streaming on SonyLIV. 

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In this interview with Adgully, Bhairav Shanth speaks about onboaring advertisers, innovative offerings such as virtual 3D ads, the changing business model of sports broadcasting, etc. Excerpts:

Will the ongoing FIFA World Cup fever mar the prospects of India’s tour of Bangladesh?

For an Indian audience, there is always an appetite for cricket. After the T20 World Cup, this series will see the top Indian players like Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, etc., coming back into the team. Yes, the football world cup does have an impact, but all the matches during this series are being played during weekend Prime Time, while the football games are telecast later in the day. I would think it is a bonanza for sports fans with so much on offer.

How has the advertiser response been? Which are the brands that you have been able to onboard for the series so far?

The response for the series has been very promising; in fact, we are close to selling out our on-air inventory. Scheduled as it is towards the end of the year, this series gives brands a great platform to finetune their marketing goals; hence, we have seen a lot of interest. We have onboarded brands like Citroen, Apple, MRF, Policy Bazaar, ITC, Karnataka Bank, Brigade Group, and perhaps the most exciting for me personally is our collaboration with the new ‘Avatar; movie – ‘The Way of Water’.

What are the innovations, such as virtual 3D ads, on offer for the brands?

The virtual ads are a unique property for brands and will be in action during the India-Bangladesh series; these will be high-impact ads and inserts seen during the live play. The longer formats of the game give way for more innovation, and we are introducing a unique showcase opportunity for our advertisers. Just imagine your brand on display just before the first ball of the match is bowled, or when there is a field change or between overs; it guarantees a high recall rate and is a hook for audiences as well as being something that cannot be skipped. We have seen a lot of interest in this unique property with brands like Infinix, Kent, Royal Stag, Avatar, Duracell, Citroen, and EBCO signing up.

The series will be shown on TV as well as streaming service. Are you expecting more eyeballs from streaming?

Yes. If you look at the IPL, the bellwether for cricket viewing trends, YouGov sport’s report for them suggests that around one in five viewers currently watches the tournament on streaming. The digital media rights for both the IPL and ICC events in the most recent bids have been valued at almost as much as the bids for linear TV. This is indicative of the bullishness about the increasing proportion of digital viewers that we will see in the next few years. While each individual series won’t see a drastic jump, we can expect a gradual shift. Moreover, the current base of digital viewers is already significant, so we will continue to see that trend in this series with 15-20% of the series’ cumulative viewership likely to come from streaming.

Will we see the gradual shifting of sports content, especially the live streaming of sports, from linear TV to streaming platforms?

We are already seeing the increasing popularity of streaming as well as the significance of second screen viewing. A case in point is the recent India tour of West Indies and India tour of New Zealand that was only available on digital platforms; so it has already happened to an extent. However, it is unlikely that sports will move completely to the digital medium in the near future. A large majority of Indian viewers (~75-80%) still prefer consuming sports on linear TV. However, we also believe that the digital medium will give viewers the chance to experience live sports in a more engaging manner. A great example of this is Hype Mode as seen on JioCinema during the ongoing FIFA World Cup. It allows fans to explore different cameras in the stadium, find particular highlights (available for some time on all OTT platforms), see different statistics – all while still watching the game. It is very likely we will see something similar at the coming IPL, too, and perhaps in all future cricket series.

Do you think sports will be the next big growth driver for streaming platforms?

Fans are far more loyal to their sports teams (and by extension sports leagues) than they are to any platform. Shows can end, sport does not. There’s nothing to draw an audience like live sports, because it has value in the here and now. You can wait a week to watch an episode of a show that comes out today, but with live sports, this is not the case. Earlier this year, Netflix had stated that they would not consider streaming live sports, as their fundamental product is on-demand and ad-free, and sports tends to be live and packed with advertising. However, in November, they said they were considering live sports now. Amazon Prime has adopted a sports-led strategy, too. In order to grow their Prime subscriber base, they have taken up live sports broadcasts of the most popular sports around the world – NFL in the USA, Cricket in India (New Zealand tours), and Premier League in the UK. Even Apple TV+ recently bought the rights to the MLB in the US. This shows that streaming platforms are already aware of the value of sports and are pivoting towards a strategy that is sports-leaning, if not outright sports-heavy.

How has the business model evolved for sports programming? What are the trends in the field?

I think the greatest change in sports programming is that earlier with linear TV, ad spaces were sold as slots. However, with the growth of digital there has been a shift to selling ads based on impressions, so you can target particular geographies and demographics, making it a much more powerful tool for brands to capitalise on. The focus is on creating hyper individual programming that caters to every user's unique personality with viewers choosing the approach. I think that second screen viewing will be gaining more and more importance and the emphasis will be on maximum impact in short spurts to keep the short attention span of the modern viewer in mind.

From an advertising perspective, the focus has to be on increasing engagement and the shift to a hybrid approach. A third key aspect is virtual and hybrid advertising that can feature both during the live event as well as the programming surrounding it; a lot of the audience sticks around for analysis and highlights shows, and those, if packaged well with brand integrations, can have great value as well. So, hyper-personalised ad serving, and a move towards virtual and hybrid ads baked into the live play as tech improves are two trends I would say are key.

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