
On the right track: Sportall goes global with UEC and FFF By Jo Ruddock
Monday, October 25, 2021 - 09:00
Print This Story
Sportall works with the French Athletics Federation on events such as the Diamond League
Sportall is an exciting French start up that works with smaller rights holders such as clubs and federations, offering a way for them to capture, produce and stream events directly to fans, while keeping control of their content.
The unique aspect of the Sportall offering is that it provides an opportunity for those more petite rights holders to get to the fans that want to see them, claims Sportall's chief technology officer, Arnaud Caron.
Every fan deserves to have their own platform and their own experience for getting access to content, says Caron. We have seen that the TV market is really not keen on buying additional rights beyond the top rights, such as football and rugby.
Rights holders like the federations and the clubs have found it very difficult to get an opening on the broadcast networks, cable TV, and get that paid as well. So now they pay for being displayed on national TV, which is a very non-efficient way for them to spend their budget.
Direct to the fan
The Sportall platform is a low-cost, cloud-based application that helps rights holders to reach fans directly with the content they want to see. It works on a revenue share model, with both parties co-operating to expand their visibility and promote their offering.
Caron explains: We don't produce for broadcast TV, but we produce for web TV, in full HD. We produce for sports as well and we are able to stream from the over the top (OTT) platforms that we build up direct to consumer to the fans. So the rights holder can go direct to consumer through the Sportall multi-sport application, both Sportall iOS and Android and Sportall.tv.
The company also offers white label solutions whereby the bigger rights holders can build their own platform and deliver DTC to fans via the Sportall technology.
In this case, they can offer some freemium offers with some free content, highlights, some lower events they organise, to get them known to the market, he adds. But, at the same time, they get some direct revenues from subscribers by selling pay-per-view events or by selling monthly or yearly subscriptions for some of the specific events they produce. In addition they can get revenues through sponsorship for the platform.
The platform has proved popular across France, with rights holders including the French Athletics Federation, UEC, the French Football Federation, and the French Ski Federation all coming on board. Sportall's subscriber count currently totals more than 100,000.
Caron says: We've been on a road trip to all the French federations in the past two years, learning the market because we don't really come from a sports background. We got some investors and partners that come from sport specifically and we understand well the issues facing rights holders today, which is they are not able to build up to capture events easily, or they have to pay for a very high broadcast quality even though they play only one event a year.
Expansion further afield
As the platform has proved a success in France, so the opportunity for expansion further afield became clear. This opportunity works in two ways, as Caron explains: The first way is to bring some international rights to the offers we have today. So, for instance, we work with the French Football Federation, it's our biggest customer probably, we deliver all the first league of futsal in France and we are trying to bring some international contests to the offer so that French fans - or other fans - can get access to other futsal competitions and expand that offer. On the opposite side, we can bring French futsal to other markets, because we have the rights together with the French Football Federation.
Sportall delivers all the first league of futsal in France and is eyeing opportunities for global expansion
One example of this expansion in action is Sportall's work with Union Europ enne de Cyclisme (UEC), the European arm of the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI). He says: We built up this free platform for them as an expansion outside of France, and now it's a global distribution for UEC. Anyone in the world can get access to the stream from a dedicated platform on tv.uec.ch.
This led to a number of changes to the offering, for example delivering content in multiple languages in multiple countries. The content is localised, there's always localisation of the content, he adds. So we will have some partners that are able to localise the content or to do some French commentary or English commentary or Spanish or whatever commentary on top of the content. And then it's just a question of the matrix of the rights distribution and the countries and then we can target the country with the offers.
So Sportall is still a bit of French brand today. But UCI is not a French brand, Fight Nation will not be a French brand for a long time - they are trying to expand into North Africa and French-speaking countries. So yeah, we are looking to expand further internationally.
And demand for this offering appears to be high. We are extending because we see that there are a lot of rights holders that would like to deliver their content to multiple markets and simply cannot because it's technically complicated, explains Caron. I know some rights holders have delivered or sold the rights in specific countries, but not in other countries and would still like to have this global DTC for the part of the rights they did not sell. We can offer them a platform globally that can reach that market.
We can also geoblock content, so if you don't have the rights to display your content outside of France, then we g
Most recent headlines
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
01/06/2026
January 6 2026, 05:30 (PST) Dolby Sets the New Standard for Premium Entertainment at CES 2026
Throughout the week, Dolby brings to life the latest innovatio...
02/05/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...
01/05/2026
January 5 2026, 18:30 (PST) NBCUniversal's Peacock to Be First Streamer to ...
01/04/2026
January 4 2026, 18:00 (PST) DOLBY AND DOUYIN EMPOWER THE NEXT GENERATON OF CREATORS WITH DOLBY VISION
Douyin Users Can Now Create And Share Videos With Stun...
13/03/2026
Recently named CEO Andreas Eriksson has taken the helm at Net Insight at a pivot...
13/03/2026
Scripps Sports and Ally Financial are partnering with the Professional Women's Hockey League (PWHL) to broadcast its first game on national linear televisio...
13/03/2026
Disney+ has launched Verts, a vertical video feed on its U.S. mobile app, markin...
13/03/2026
LTN, a managed IP video transport company, and Appear, a live production technol...
13/03/2026
The Professional Fighters League (PFL) has announced an agreement with Sportradar for global betting data and streaming rights. Under the deal, Sportradar becom...
13/03/2026
In-venue and creative video staffers at the professional and collegiate level ha...
13/03/2026
The streamer will be the first entertainment platform to offer AI-enabled vertical video for live games, starting with the NBA...
13/03/2026
Ease Live, an Evertz company specializing in interactive graphical overlays, has deployed its platform on Red Bull TV for Premier Padel coverage. The deployment...
13/03/2026
Monday Night Football, ESPN's premiere NFL property, has continued to be improved and upgraded from a production perspective. Alternative broadcasts are aug...
13/03/2026
At NAB Show 2026, Net Insight (booth W1653) is introducing the Nimbra 520, a high-density media processing node for live contribution and distribution across ma...
13/03/2026
Harmonic (booth W2831) has announced Spectrum X Plus, the newest generation of its Spectrum X media server, offering double the channel density of previous gene...
13/03/2026
Riedel Communications has announced the expansion of its Managed Technology Divi...
13/03/2026
Telestream (booth W1503) has announced the expansion of Telestream Cloud Services with the introduction of UP, a cloud-native solution for ingest, orchestration...
13/03/2026
From awards ceremonies and sports honors shows to festivals and fan conventions,...
13/03/2026
Overtime has announced a partnership with Metro by T-Mobile, naming Metro the Of...
13/03/2026
At NAB 2026, Calrec (booth C6907) will IP Ecosystem powered by True Control 2.0, integrating the company's IP-native Argo consoles - including the U.S. debu...
13/03/2026
Ratings Roundup is a rundown of recent ratings news derived from press releases ...
13/03/2026
Spotify has always been built around your taste. More than 80% of listeners say personalization is what they love most about us. Now we're taking that even ...
13/03/2026
The new Spotify Legends Club has opened its doors. Its members: select German-sp...
13/03/2026
Pushing drum sampler technology into new territories
The latest version of Klevgrand's software drum sampler has just arrived, boasting a newly designe...
13/03/2026
Expanded headphone support & engine improvements
IK Multimedia's recently introduced ARC On-Ear system brings the power of their monitoring-correction s...
13/03/2026
Extra sound collections, more presets & new Keys category
UVI's rhythm and pattern instrument has just received a major update that introduces four new ...
13/03/2026
Over a year ago, L3Harris delivered the first missionized Bombardier Global 6500 aircraft for U.S. Indo-Pacific Command. Two ATHENA-R platforms now average 400+...
13/03/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
13/03/2026
Harmonic (NASDAQ: HLIT) today announced Spectrum X Plus, the newest generation of its Spectrum X media server, offering double the channel density of previous ...
13/03/2026
When Ewing Covenant Church made the decision to return to its original, historic building, affectionately called 1867 Sanctuary for weekly worship, the congre...
13/03/2026
Marshall Electronics introduces its first all-IP 4K POV camera, the CV574-WP, at NAB 2026 (Booth C8339). The CV574-WP supports NDI |HX, providing ultra-efficien...
13/03/2026
At NAB Show 2026, Net Insight introduces Nimbra 520, a high-density media processing node designed to simplify live contribution and distribution across both ma...
13/03/2026
Abandon Editorial Signs With Micha l Dimitri for West Coast Representation
Brie Clayton March 12, 2026
0 Comments
Abandon Editorial is excited to part...
13/03/2026
Documentary The Bulldogs Shot and Edited with Blackmagic Design
Brie Clayton March 12, 2026
0 Comments
Editorial tools helped shape film in real time,...
13/03/2026
AE Captions as Fast as CapCut - No Plugins
Graham Quince March 12, 2026
0 Comments
Stop wasting hours clicking through nested compositions and manuall...
13/03/2026
New Music USA and Berklee Institute of Jazz and Gender Justice Announce 2026 Nex...
13/03/2026
Friday 13 March 2026
Sky Adds Blood on Snow to Original Film Slate in Acquisiti...
13/03/2026
RT has announced today that Rick O'Shea is the new presenter of Arena RT Radio 1's flagship weeknight arts and culture programme. Rick has been pres...
13/03/2026
Lights! Camera! Action! The 98th Oscars set to air live as RT backs the Irish n...
12/03/2026
Staines-upon-Thames, UK, 11th March, 2026 - Yospace, the trusted leader in Dyna...
12/03/2026
Utah Scientific Expands Technology Partner Program With Integrations From Audina...
12/03/2026
Techex, a global expert in live video solutions over IP and cloud, announces the appointment of Matt McKee as Senior Director, Sales, Americas, further strength...
12/03/2026
KOKUSAI DENKI Electric America has appointed Mondae Hott as Regional Sales Manag...
12/03/2026
At the 2026 NAB Show, Interra Systems will showcase its latest advancements in a...
12/03/2026
The 15th National Games of China concluded after a two-week celebration of athletic excellence and regional collaboration. Held from Nov. 9-21 across Guangdong,...
12/03/2026
Live-production academic program Butler Sports Live produced a total of 40 fall-...
12/03/2026
The University of Nebraska's HuskerVision has completed the second phase of ...
12/03/2026
Grass Valley and integration partner Tab M Solutions have completed Phase 1 of a...
12/03/2026
The broadcaster expands its campus-production model as the university handles tw...