How To Successfully Live Stream Sports Events During A Pandemic [2021 Update]

COVID-19 vaccines and loosening of social measures has made attending sports events a greater possibility. But the pandemic is not over yet. With many countries’ borders still closed to travelers, the need for live stream sports events has never been greater. With the UEFA EURO 2020 coming to a close and Tokyo Olympics 2021 approaching, here are some tips on live streaming your next sports event.

Live streaming sports events allow fans across the globe to catch the action in real-time from wherever they are. Having a live stream isn’t as easy as turning on the camera on Facebook Live. There are factors to consider such as monetization, video latency and engaging features.

How To Live Stream Sports Events During A Pandemic

Live streaming is not a new idea in the world of sports, but it’s taking a new shape — and priority — as leagues and broadcasters brainstorm new revenue options. According to Neureiter, this is one area his sports customers are looking to grow their tech investments in 2020.

For smaller-scaled games like in colleges and high schools, live streaming can still help the schools stay connected with the students and enliven the school spirit with their live stream sports events.

To stream your own sports events you will have to consider the following recommendations:

Plan To Deliver Quality Streams

Live streaming sports is different from live streaming other events. One of the most important things to consider getting the right equipment and that can capture the action in real-time.

Things you will need to deliver quality online sports live streams:
– Choose the right equipment
– Quality video resolution
– Auto-focus and zoom features
– Multi-cameras
– The right frame rate

Software for Mixing and Encoding

The live streaming encoder software that you should choose greatly depends on the features that you need to help you reach your goals. That being said, no single video encoder software will be the perfect match for every broadcaster.

There are several questions that you need to ask yourself to pick the right software: How big is your target audience? How many camera feeds do you need to incorporate into your videos and which camera will you use? What are the top requirements of your live streaming platform service?

Overall, it’s important to ensure that any encoder streaming software you choose helps you to meet all of your goals for producing and broadcasting your video content.

Promote Your Stream

After you have invested time and resources to creating a quality live stream, you will need to focus on gathering viewers.

If you want your audience to tune in, you need to build anticipation, get them excited, and develop a strategy that will get the word out. These days people are not just part of one platform. It is best to promote your upcoming event on as many platforms as possible so that it is always in your audience’s eyes and minds.

Here are some channels you can use to spread the news and inform the right audience: newsletter articles, print publications, websites, advert banners and social media channels to spread the word. You can also consider using social media influencers or KOLs to help you reach a wider audience, as this can help increase your viewership for your live sports events.

Monetize Your Sports Live Stream

With live sports event, ticketing is an important feature that you can’t get with mainstream platforms like Facebook and Instagram. Custom live streaming technology providers such as BeLive Technology is one of the best when it comes to building a fully monetizable and white-label platform for you.

This means that they can build your live streaming platform according to how you would like it to be; from its design to its features and you are able to retrieve user data. The monetization features include advertising, pay-per-view (such as ticketing), as well as periodical subscriptions.

Conclusion

Like it or not, the pandemic shows no signs of letting up with different variants appearing. That means sports seasons may be shorter, games will inevitably be postponed or cancelled and content quantity—the bread and butter of the sports industry—will continue getting reduced.

Except, it doesn’t have to. From e-sports adaptations to live streams left and right, the sports industry has already shown its prowess when it comes to content creation. Now, it’s time to monetize as the rest of the pandemic shakes out. For more information on how you can leverage live video streaming, contact us for your free consultation.