IBC 2024: 5G and Live Sports Contribution
Many have made the case for 5G-in-the-sports-arena around in-game sports betting, and lamented the less-explosive-than-expected growth in that area as a lost opportunity for 5G to demonstrate its prowess. While 5G and prop bets remain a well-matched pair, much of the 5F buzz at IBC2024 concerned the ways 5G is enabling live sports streamers doing cloud production to bring in multiple feeds and deliver more dynamic and engaging streams and quick-turn highlights.
Zixi Executive Chairman Gordon Brooks moderated a panel on “Delivering NHL Content Over 5G Networks” at IBC with NHL SVP, Technology Grant Nodine and Verizon Global Leader, Strategic Innovation, M&E Tim Stevens. Zixi works with Verizon and Amazon Web Services (AWS) to deliver broadcast-quality content for the National Hockey League (NHL).
Feeding the Cloud
Nodine sang 5G’s praises as a great boon to live contribution, particularly in non-NHL venues “where I don't control bandwidth. There are so many uses for all of these video feeds” that 5G enables NHL crews to bring into their productions, he said. “Being able to get these feeds into the cloud enables us to innovate in how we decorate [the stream] and how we package it for viewers.”
Nodine said the NHL ”started on our live production adventure in the cloud last summer,” and began exploring new ways to leverage additional video feeds to serve more exciting content to fans.
Audiences for NHL games and other premium sports are changing, he maintains, and bringing with them new expectations for viewing experiences. “We’re not just addressing the traditional linear hockey fan who passively watches one feed. People want to engage with NHL content in ways other than a lean-back experience. We want to create diverse ways of seeing the game so we can meet the audience where it is. In video, we’re always chasing the experience we get in person.”
Satisfying audiences with dynamic video experiences, Stevens concurred, is akin to knowing where the puck is going: “You have to know where the eyeballs are headed.”
Nodine says he made the case for bringing in more feeds to the NHL’s cloud production not in terms of savings up front but savings later on, and particularly in terms of the “knock-on effects” of being able to repurpose and repackage content for different platforms and monetize it in new ways. “When we go through our budget cycle on a yearly basis, it's not just what it costs us but these knock-on effects that make us better and save us money in the long term.”
He explained, “If we send 12 ISO feeds to the cloud, it's easy to have 12 channels of replay,” he said. “We can revolutionize our whole highlights system with one op. I can make highlights available in an archive in minus. The economics of spinning that many replay feeds into the cloud are very favorable.”
How 5G Props Up In-Game Betting and Real-Time Decision-Making
As for powering in-game prop betting (like on goals or assists or penalty minutes happening in real time), Stevens began with the caveat, “you’re limited to the latency in the venue.”
Nodine went on to explain that the in-venue latency was essentially in competition with the speed at which oddsmakers are relaying stats and game developments, which tends to be ultra-low. “You’ve got to beat that data with sub-500ms latency in the venue,” he said.
This also applies to viewers at home or in sports bars who are watching the video and making bets, Stevens said. “Now we’ve got this ecosystem where we can reach an audience outside the venue. If I can do that low-latency transaction overlay, now I’ve got a full toolkit I can start playing around with.”
“We were working very closely with Verizon” on these developments, Nodine said. “It’s super-important to us to home in on what our wireless toolkit was capable of,” particularly in the ways coaches and officials use the video feeds that they have access to during the game. “Coaches and officials are watching videos to make in-game decisions and make the right calls. There are a lot of use cases for this.”
5G at the Paris 2024 Olympics Opening Ceremonies
Speaking of other high-profile use cases, I learned about another exciting, less landlocked deployment of 5G in live video contribution during a visit to the Haivision booth at IBC. This summer’s Paris Olympics delivered an indelible Opening Ceremonies with a gala procession on the River Thames. Eagle-eyed viewers may have spotted smartphones mounted on the boats (see below), providing intimate, boat-level views of the athletes.
Mounted smartphone on the Armenia boat in the Paris 2024 Opening Ceremonies
Haivision VP Marketing Marcus Schioler described how Haivision’s MoJoPro camera app had been used to manage live contribution from more than 200 smartphones mounted on the boats in the Opening Ceremonies and deliver high-quality, low-latency video over 5G networks. The he free-to-download MoJoPro professional camera app--now available in the AWS Marketplace--contributes high-quality HD video to live production workflows from anywhere by bonding multiple cellular network connections.
The Opening Ceremonies footage captured shots of the athletes unavailable to drone cameras or cameras not on the river, “creating something up-close but unobtrusive,” and providing “secondary content to rights holders.”
This 5G setup with the MoJoPro was also used with helmet cams in the Surfing Competition during the summer games, and in the 2024 Sailing Competition at Marseilles. In the Sailing events, he said, Haivision set up private 5G networks on multiple catamarans, with “cameras on booms” creating “dynamic sailing shots showing small crews up close,” and enabling networks to provide “more content in actual broadcasts.”
Say Goodbye to Satellite?
Proponents of 5G and IP-based live sports event contribution argue that the flexibility and cost savings when delivering a larger number of feeds leaves satellite in the dust. When you’re talking about “multiple transponders per channel, satellite is not as cost-effective as IP contribution,” Nodine said.
What’s more, IP’s scalability to 4K and 8K may soon render satellite-based production obsolete for more demanding productions. “Satellite serves the purpose for a lot of things,” said Zixi’s Brooks, “but when you get to 4K and 8K, it’s not even an option anymore.”
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