SVG Sports OTT Forum: Inaugural Event Preaches Collaboration to Tackle Industry-Wide Challenges

SVG Sports OTT Forum: Inaugural Event Preaches Collaboration to Tackle Industry-Wide Challenges Major media brands and tech giants contribute to day of conversation, networking By Brandon Costa, Director of Digital

Monday, July 30, 2018 - 1:36 pm

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The inaugural SVG Sports OTT Forum brought in-depth conversation and networking to the live sports streaming industry last week in New York City. More than 200 attendees came together to discuss everything from OTT product offerings to direct-to-consumer business strategies, latency, security, and much more.

Last week's inaugural SVG Sports OTT Forum featured an all-star panel that included streaming sports execs like (from left) NBC Sports' Eric Black, fuboTV's Sung Ho Choi, YouTube TV's Skip Desjardin, Monumental Sports' Zach Leonsis, and NeuLion's Chris Wagner. The session was moderated by SVG's Brandon Costa (far right).

The event kicked off with a broad look at the current state of the financial and technological challenges and opportunities that face the live sports streaming space in the United States with streaming media expert and widely-respected industry consultant Dan Rayburn. From there, a panel of marquee executives in the space shared their plans, hopes, and dreams for the present and future of sports media in an OTT environment. The session included Eric Black, CTO for NBC Sports Digital and Playmaker Media, Sung Ho Choi, Co-Founder of fuboTV, Skip Desjardin, Head of Sports and Local Content at YouTube TV, Zach Leonsis, SVP of Strategic Initiatives for Monumental Sports and Entertainment, and Chris Wagner, EVP for NeuLion.

Attendees were also treated to a look at some of innovative and mind-opening ideas coming down from some of the nation's most successful sports leagues as representatives from NASCAR, the NBA, and WWE discussed their current offerings, future plans, and challenges in the marketplace. Brian Herbst, VP, Global Media Strategy and Distribution at NASCAR, Christine Pantoya, SVP, Direct to Consumer and Mobile Strategy at the NBA, and Jared Smith, SVP, Digital Products at the WWE all shared ideas for new successes in the mobile and streaming worls both domestically and internationally.

At the SVG Sports Ott Forun, a panel of league experts incluced (from left) NASCAR's Brian Herbst, NBA's Christine Pantoya, and WWE's Jared Smith. The session was moderated by SVG's Jason Dachman (far right).

The event also featured a series of in-depth case studies offering updates on some industry-altering services and platforms that are looking to push the content envelope in new ways. Hania Poole, GM of Bleacher Report (B/R) Live and SVP of NCAA Digital gave an look at the strategy and build-out process of of the newest OTT sports services, B/R Live. David Bailey, Senior Digital Research Manager at Formula 1 presented data findings that helped shape the creation of one of the newest OTT products: F1 TV. Melissa Lawton, an expert in Live Sports Production Strategy for Facebook caught up attendees on the latest in best practices on live streaming events to the social media platform. Also, Eric Black, CTO of NBC Sports Digital and Playmaker Media and Darryl Jefferson, VP, Post Operations and Digital Workflow for NBC Sports and Olympics gave an inside look at how they work digital and streaming offerings into the day-to-day life of a traditional broadcast giant.

Technology and the companies creating the tools that are moving sports video viewing into its next generation also got their chances to take center stage. Latency and quality of service of live sports streams were addressed in a panel conversation between Aditya Ganjam, Chief Product Officer at Conviva, Jason Hofmann, VP, Architecture for Limelight Networks, and Kiran Patel, Solutions Marketing Manager for AWS Elemental. Naturally, security and combating piracy was also dissected in a talk with Prenil Kottayankandy, Principal Solutions Engineer at Akamai, Mark Thames, Americas Security Partner Leader at Juniper Networks, Harrie Tholen, VP of Sales Anti-Piracy and General Manager, NexGuard for Nagra, and Jason Thibeault, Executive Director of Streaming Video Alliance.

Attendees were also presented with a few in-depth technology dives from them likes of Ben Bloom, Director of Professional Services, Media and Entertainment at Akamai, Karan Singh, Director of Product Management for Sony New Media Solutions, and Wagner at NeuLion.

The SVG Sports OTT Forum is made possible through the support of this year's event sponsors: Title Sponsor AWS Elemental; Diamond Sponsors Dolby and Limelight Networks; and Event Sponsors Akamai, Aspera (an IBM Company), Juniper Networks, NeuLion, Sony, and Verizon Digital Media Services.

The SVG Sports OTT Forum was a closed-door event and there will be no additional reports or coverage from the forum's programming. If you are interested in learning more about the event or the wider efforts of SVG Digital, please email SVG's Director of Digital Brandon Costa at brandon@sportsvideo.org.

LINK:	https://www.sportsvideo.org/2018/07/30/svg-sports-ott-forum-inaugural-...
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