Soccer, aka football, has established a significant presence on FAST in recent years, making its first major splash with the launch of FIFA+ on Samsung TV in 2023, according to TeleGraff Media president William "Bill" Graff. But the sport's growth on FAST and streaming in general, where it is growing significantly faster than it is on broadcast, has come as the result of improvements in ad-stitching technology and sponsors' growing recognition that streaming is where the audience is and the data value of streaming viewers. Graff provides a capsule history of the sport's ascendancy on ad-supported and subscription-based streaming and a snapshot of where it stands now (including Apple's recently extended MLS broadcast deal) in this discussion with Chris Pfaff Tech Media's Chris Pfaff at Streaming Media Connect 2026.
08 Jun 2026
Even as more big league sports events become tentpole streaming events like Christmas Day NFL games on Netflix, NBA playoffs on Prime, or the Olympics on Peacock, these big-ticket matches are happening on premium platforms paying ultra-premium prices to license them. But can streaming also provide a launching pad for niche events and middle- and lower-tier leagues with passionate pockets of fans clustered by location or affinity? FAST is proving the perfect platform for heightening access, awareness, and profitability for lower-tier leagues like college athletics and grassroots motor sports. Niche doesn't always mean small, attests FloSports' VP of business development Dave Stelnik to Chris Pfaff Tech Media's Chris Pfaff at Streaming Media Connect 2026.
04 Jun 2026
Driving viewership and attention for new and niche sports streaming requires deploying alternative strategies for building buzz, visibility, and must-see excitement. Bulldog DM founder & CEO John Petrocelli explains how the recently launched Beach Football League achieved liftoff for the sport and its live-streamed experiences, leveraging social and celebrity involvement and choosing the right platforms for delivery and distribution, as he describes in conversation with Chris Pfaff of Chris Pfaff Tech Media in this clip from Streaming Media Connect 2026.
03 Jun 2026
Cloud and remote production workflows have changed the game for live streaming, enabling significant CapEx and OpEx reductions, making it possible to achieve the same results with smaller and more efficiently deployed and largely off-site crews and reducing hardware footprints. But do all of the gains in operational efficiency that remote and distributed production provide come at the expense of real-time observability? It definitely brought new challenges on that end, according to Telestream director of product management Ken Haren, who explores these challenges and changes in best practices for software-defined observability and live-stream diagnostics that have come with the shift to remote production in this discussion with Zixi SVP of business development Emeka Okoli and Eyevinn Technology media solution specialist and VP of sales and business development Magnus Svensson at Streaming Media Connect 2026.
01 Jun 2026
Opening our blog to a never-ending stream of guest contributors yields some of the coolest stuff we publish, with topics that would never occur to me. Though I rarely know when these pieces will arrive or where they'll come from, it is often heady, provocative stuff that I'm proud to publish.
16 Mar 2026
While advertising has long been a unidirectional experience, there have been forays into making it bidirectional for a long time. The value proposition is pretty clear. If people are watching a show and an advertisement comes on showcasing a product that interests them, wouldn't it be great if they could grab the remote, push a couple of buttons, and have it delivered to their doorstep?
26 Feb 2026
There are a few tools that many streaming pros have used through the years, from WeTransfer to Brightcove to Vimeo. Some are essential to content creation, OTT delivery, and live streaming. All of these tools have one important thing in common now: their recent acquisition by the Italian company Bending Spoons.
15 Dec 2025
One of the overarching themes of Streaming Media 2025, which took place October 6-8 in Santa Monica, Calif., was the rise of the creator economy. Discussions centered around the changing economics of content creation, delivery, distribution, and curation (with AI playing an ever-larger role in leveling the playing field to varying degrees at all stages); evolving business models for creators looking to leverage and grow their brands and survive and thrive; and the ongoing, unignorable convergence of creator channels and "traditional" streaming platforms. The last topic seems like a particularly noteworthy sign of the times—how many conversations carried on just down the 405 in Huntington Beach in the heyday of Streaming Media West concerned the convergence (or divergence) of streaming upstarts and traditional linear broadcast?
15 Dec 2025
Sponsored By: Signiant
09 Jun 2022
Sponsored By: Bitmovin
24 Aug 2021
Sponsored By: Zixi
24 Nov 2020
Sponsored By: Amazon Web Services (AWS), an Amazon.com company
18 May 2020