Digital Sport Morning Briefing: Tuesday 5th December
Welcome to our new daily series where I put together and share a list of articles I’ve been reading. Providing a filter for you so you can save time and get an overview of what’s happening in the world of ‘digital sport’. Get in touch with me at @danielmclaren if you want to get in touch or see any articles/videos/tweets that catch your eye for me to include in tomorrow’s roundup.
LATEST NEWS
NASCAR Reflects on Successful Live VR/360 Experience at Cup Series Championship (sportsvideo.org)
VR and 360 video, for those without the headsets, is still in its infancy but now and again we do see signs that people are finding ways in which it can become more than just a fancy new tool. NASCAR have long strove to offer fans access to places they don’t usually get a view to. This has included from within the cars (including drivers live tweeting!) to now being able to see in the garage and in car live during a race. This really does offer fans something extra and something they would want to see. They do admit at the end that there were challenges with connectivity in the garages and getting a work flow going, but it’s an experiment and one potentially with legs (or wheels in this case).
OPINION: The End of the Beginning for F1 (sportindustry.biz)
A really nice wrap of the 2017 F1 season and look ahead to what the future holds in this new era in the history of the sport, with owners Liberty now firmly with their feet under the table. Put together by our friends at Fifty Digital, there’s particular focus on social media/digital and fan engagement. Two areas that were certainly neglected by Bernie Ecclestone et al during his time at the helm.
Going OTT on OTT – A look at clubs streaming for free on social (LinkedIn article)
Another friend of Digital Sport, Sportego’s Trev Keane, has put his thoughts and frustrations down on the forever hot topic of OTT. For me he hits the nail on the head several times, especially about the rush to add content for free onto Facebook. A situation where the main winners are the social media platform (revenue wise) and without a strategic plan in doing so it can certainly devalue what sport has as its most valuable resource, the games and content around them. Take a read and see if you agree.
How Augmented Reality From U.K.’s Zappar Caught NFL Teams’ Attention (sporttechie.com)
It’s great to see a UK company making strides within US sport around something as future facing as augmented reality (AR). I also found it interesting that Minnesota Vikings were the ones who reached out to Zappar about working together rather than keeping things very US focussed. The area of alternate realities, whether it’s VR, AR or MR, is one that we’ll be covering in depth early next year.
Facebook reportedly wants to spend a ‘few billion dollars’ for streaming sports rights (recode.net)
A bit from the rumour mill in the US, but we know that Facebook are hiring for roles within sports live streaming and someone to lead it with media rights experience. So we know that it’s not if but when Facebook go bigger into sports. But, as the article states, a few billion whilst being a big number won’t buy you much in the way of big sports rights. But it will be buy you a good deal of digital rights for any sport, much as Amazon and Twitter have led the way in. TV rights have always been the big ticket, but could digital soon be catching them up?
DIGITAL SPORT ARTICLES
You had to be there: How AR can bring the glamour back to watching sport in person
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