Tech Focus: Local-Sports Streaming - Efforts by Schools, Minor Leagues Accelerate During Pandemic Production values rise as online presence becomes a must-have' By Dan Daley, Audio Editor
Wednesday, August 18, 2021 - 7:00 am
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While major networks have been building their own sports-streaming infrastructures, the DIY side of the business has also been busy, with entrepreneurs establishing one-stop workflow solutions that take feeds from high schools, small colleges, and (very) minor leagues to create professional-looking online sports presences. And, as with many other aspects of sports media (and life in general), the pandemic has accelerated that trend.
The pandemic seems to have shifted customer behavior towards streaming from something that's nice to have to something that they have to have, says Meridix CEO Tyler Feret. We had been expecting that to happen but not until 2022 or '23, but it really picked up over the last year, and there's still growth to be had.
Meridix's Tyler Feret: Now that streaming is expected by audiences, there is a high bar for good productions that will engage them.
The company picks up internet streams from a range of clients - local sports through area aggregators like Texas scholastic streamer SportsGram, junior leagues, the Westmoreland Sports Network, and other regional radio and television broadcasters - and basically becomes their backend workflow. Services include streaming optimization for various types of mobile devices, broadband environments, apps such as Twitch, and proprietary apps (which Meridix can build for clients). Other features include library services that let sports clients archive games for on-demand retrieval, along with social-media integration, including chats, alerts, and highlight reels.
Feret expects growth to continue but with revenue increasingly coming from improved workflows and other enhancements that the company can offer this class of customer. Among those enhancements are increased use of the Secure Reliable Transport (SRT) open-source streaming protocol, which is designed to optimize streaming performance across less predictable networks, and cellular bonding, a process whereby two or more cellular modems are combined in a way that allows use of the combined bandwidth. Cellular bonding transmits live streams via multiplexed cellular signals when Ethernet or Wi-Fi isn't available. Instead of expensive satellite transmission, multiple cellular modems are deployed to combine 3G, 4G, LTE, and other cellular signals to boost connectivity.
We can also use a hybrid of both approaches, says Feret. The goal is to make [streaming] as seamless as possible - no matter where you're originating from, from the biggest event in a major urban center to using an iPhone in a rural area - and to make it reliable enough that it's mostly a matter of pressing a button to make it happen.
Audio also has become a larger part of the picture for local-sports streaming.
People are paying a lot more attention to sound for their sports streams, he contends, suggesting that the recent explosive growth of podcasts and audiobooks, as well as hi-res audio music-streaming services like Tidal, has put new emphasis on quality audio for streaming. We have a number of clients, such as internet radio stations, that just publish audio.
Challenges Streaming sports at this level has its own hurdles, particularly in academic environments, where turnover of parents and students, as well as coaches, means that the institutional memory for the technical side of sports media might disappear in the course of a semester.
No one ever has a 25-year broadcast career at one school, Feret points out, so the process has to become as easy, simple, and reliable as possible, because the people running it can change every few months.
In addition, as local-sports streaming moves from nice to have to must have, it needs to become more financially self-supporting. He says this usually involves ads and sponsorships, tools for which are increasingly offered by streaming platforms, but production values have to increase to attract those dollars.
Now that streaming is expected by audiences, Feret says, there is a high bar for good productions that will engage them. Monetization is more important than ever now.
Fortunately, while Moore's Law continues to decrease the cost of the technology needed to stream, production values are increasing. For what a school used to spend just for the streaming elements, he explains, they'll get multi-camera shoots and graphics.
Indeed, the technology around streaming sports - a sector increasingly closely watched by venture capital - can routinely offer many options that would have been considered futuristic only a few years ago: for example, PlaySight's connected cameras, which automatically follow and capture play action on a court, field, or rink; access to an entire streaming sports network; and even a video-assisted review that serves as a virtual referee. The company's marketing maxim - Turn your league or team into a content machine - suggests what the future might hold for DIY sports streaming.
Things that were once considered somewhat exotic are now a regular part of the process, notes Feret. We're in the golden age of the prosumer video and audio experience.
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Tech Focus: Local-Sports Streaming - Efforts by Schools, Minor Leagues Accelerate During Pandemic Production values rise as online presence becomes a must-have' By Dan Daley, Audio Editor 
