Amid the Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak, sports organisations worldwide are experiencing an immense wave of games and events cancellations. This situation causes rights holders financial losses of media coverage, sponsorship deals, tickets & merchandise revenues, and more. In the midst of this unprecedented situation, we should ponder once again the ways fans are experiencing sports events remotely. Improved viewing experience for sports viewers could not only help rights holders increase their Reach, Engagement, and Monetisation in normal days, but may even aid them in alleviating their losses in unusual situations like now.
Looking at the different technologies that aim to enhance the viewing experience, the Infront Lab team puts them into three main categories. The first is an enhanced traditional experience. This is where the second screen, data layover, and other technologies are implemented to increase engagement for the home viewers. The second area is the VR/AR technologies, all trying to create an immersive experience, trying to make the event much more realistic. The third category is slightly different from the previous two but is as much relevant to Infront and to the sudden jolt the world is experiencing. It is the interactive fitness space, allowing people at home in isolation or quarantine, or simply avoiding crowded spaces, to stay fit and connected to fitness coaches.
Enhanced Experience
LiveLike - LiveLike offers various ways of engaging the fans during games. Its mobile product allows for live view with various data layovers, games, and other engagement tools. LiveLike also supports the VR environment for not only the game but also the entire venue facility so fans will get the feeling of the holistic game-day experience.
OnRewind - A French company that seeks to provide an immersive second-screen viewing experience. The company’s platform consolidates various data and activations onto the viewing page, and in addition, allows for easy rewind to watch key actions once again.
Genvid - An eSports-focused company that provides the infrastructure for creating immersive, compelling streams. The company provides the tools for streamers and mainly organisations to broadcast their events while implementing various add-ons into the streams to increase viewership and engagement.
Mingl Vision - Mingl Vision offers its users to toggle between the various feeds of the stream thus allowing for unmatched freedom for the fan in selecting what they would like to focus on.
VR Streaming
YBVR - A company that develops a solution for VR streaming, both live and VOD. The solution includes several technology advancements that enhance stream quality while also reducing bandwidth requirements.
Virtually Live - Virtually Live aspire to make fans feel a part of the event by getting them as close as possible to the scene of action. Currently focused on motorsport events, their product grants users access to various viewing points across the race tracks and circuits, all in VR environment to make it feel as if you are right there.
Texel - Texel is providing live events organisations the ability to offer their fans a remote viewing experience in VR. The company allows for at-scale VR streaming of both sports events and live concerts and also gives the option of a multi-cast - watching the game together with other friends, all connected in the VR environment.
AR-51 - An early-stage company that focuses on the AR rather than VR area. The company seeks to offer fans the ability to watch games happening in front of them on a holographic projection. That way, instead of taking the fans to the game’s environment, the game lands on your chosen environment - your living room, office or wherever you choose.
Fitness
LiveKick - A platform that allows its users to access premium yoga, pilates, and meditation classes. The platform accommodates two-way streaming so fitness coaches could communicate and provide feedback to the trainees.
Forte - Forte streams live and on-demand classes from premium fitness studios classes to your home screen. It allows users to train with top-notch trainers and connect to the atmosphere of the studio to increase their motivation.
Fiit - Fiit is a platform for intense, remote, data-enhanced training. The platform allows its users to connect their wearables so the trainers can monitor their metrics in real-time. In addition, it creates a sense of competition between trainers as they strive to be the best in calories burn and other metrics.
