This past weekend saw the launch of 2021’s summer of sport. Pivotal sporting events took place all around the world, everything from football to tennis to cricket to basketball.
This abundance of sport content brings with it all new levels of competition. With dozens of matches occurring internationally and simultaneously, the industry turns to OTT.
Online platforms with live and on-demand coverage of the most sought-after events is how to give fans what they want.
Not only do OTT platforms make content accessible (particularly for more niche sports), but they also allow fans to go more in depth and watch all the related content in their preferred area.
3 of our clients have been doing exactly that: delivering their premium content using OTT platforms, in a weekend of sports galore.
Optus Sport - UEFA Euro 2020
After a year’s delay, Euro 2020 is the biggest event of the year for the biggest sport in the world. Global viewership numbers of the final often outperform even the Super Bowl.
With the great popularity of football in general and the Euro 2020 in particular, combined with the large user base of Optus, reliability of the subscriber management software is essential.
Historically, large number of viewers activated and purchased subscriptions in the final minutes before kick-off. Cleeng has been able to accommodate for this, utilizing our state-of-the-art Subscriber Retention Management solutions. We have been working closely with Optus Sport throughout the past year to build the best possible subscription management infrastructure. (Source) . These efforts were made very worth it when hundreds of thousands of fans tuned in without a hitch on Sunday for the England-Croatia match.
Optus Sport is covering the full event, offering subscribers free access to programmes for select Mobile, NBN, Home Internet and Data SIM plans. Alternatively other viewers can access content with a paid monthly ($14.99) or yearly ($139) fee.
Tennis Channel - Roland-Garros
Last weekend was also a time of excitement and high emotions for tennis fans. With the third and fourth rounds of the Roland-Garros taking place in France, Tennis Channel shared the live content with US-based fans, as they have done since 2007.
Cleeng has been working with Tennis Channel for several years now, to power the subscription and monetization services of their digital offering. With the worldwide excitement for this iconic event, offering elite customer service was what mattered most for Tennis Channel. It is for that reason that they rely on Cleeng’s Hi5 service, with 24/7 support and real time analytics to meet the channel’s needs.
MXGP - 2021 Series
Alongside mainstream sports, this weekend also saw high excitement in a more niche area: motorsports racing. The highly anticipated first round of the 2021 series took place in Russia, with the live content being streamed from MXGP’s all new OTT platform: MXGP-TV.
MXGP has been working with Cleeng to create an OTT platform that will give fans the content they seek. The new platform leverages Cleeng’s e-commerce tools and customer support service. After a highly successful launch for the new channel earlier this year, motorsport fans used the new platform to access the exciting content this weekend, and will continue to do so for the rest of the season.
Upcoming live sports coverage
But it doesn’t stop there when it comes to sports. In 2021 we are looking forward to supporting the Premier League, Champions League, IPL (cricket), NSW Rugby, WHL, OHL, QMJHL, CHL, USL, Lucas Oil Racing Series, ATP, WTA, Wimbledon, US Open, PPV Boxing, and much more through our clients.
That is thousands of hours of exciting live sports coverage at the fingertips of millions of people worldwide. We are ready for it, are you?