In the past few years, the major streaming networks (Amazon Prime, Netflix, and Apple TV) have all begun to offer live sports. Prime started with the NFL, Apple TV then followed up with their MLS Pass deal (thanks to Messi), and more recently, Prime added the NHL and Netflix a few NFL games. They weren’t the first networks to do so as dedicated companies have been doing so for much longer such as DAZN, Fubo, or F1 TV, but the reach of the streaming networks is much larger and has the potential to help grow these sports a lot. That being said, after viewing a few of those games, I feel that they are unfortunately missing the boat by providing more or less a copy cat standard TV experience instead of pushing the envelope and trying new approaches.

Current TV Approach

The format of the sports broadcasting world has been pretty stagnant for the past 5 decades. Broadcasts typically start with announcers talking about the upcoming match between team X and team Y, show some stats, analysts providing their insights and the keys to the game, interviews with coaches and players and then they relay the transmission to the play by play announcers. Typically 2 or 3 people with one person doing the play by play and the others providing commentaries. Throw in some (or many) commercials and you got your broadcast.

Of course there have been many technical improvements in the past 5 decades that have made the experiences much better such as the screen overlays (the yellow 1st down line in american football has been awesome), better replays brought by faster frame rates, and HD / 4K televisions; however, the overall format hasn’t changed much. The broadcasters provide their content and the viewers are passively consuming the content without a say into what they are seeing. Streaming networks have basically copied that format and just ran with it.

Sports Watching for the 21st Century

Now that streaming networks are providing sports broadcasts, they have the ability to improve the experience since they all provide their content via dedicated apps on browsers, smart TVs, smart phones, or streaming devices. Users can now interact with content and not just be a passive viewer. Apps would have the ability to control things such as feeds, screen, audio and even content viewed during breaks and intermissions.

Feed Control

At the moment, users are being spoon fed what to watch with no control. Imagine being able to control which feed you are watching a sports broadcast from? Don’t like the standard side view during a hockey broadcast? Switch to an end view. Want to see more of an overall feel for the field, select an upper crowd view (helpful to see patterns/strategies develop). Want to focus on one player only? Switch to player only view.

As I write this article, one network and one streaming provider actually offer such a feature. Sky Sports in the UK and F1 TV both allow you to select which driver(s) to focus on during the broadcasts of Formula 1 races. So the capability exists, why not expand it to other sports?

Screen Control

Similar to feed control, it would be nice to have info buttons (similar to when watching a movie on prime) that would allow you to view the bios and stats of the players on a team, turn on/off overlays. If the 90s NHL glowing puck was your jam, turn that back on. If you don’t need to be reminded of the score all the time, then turn that off too.

Audio Control

We are likely repeating ourselves, but like with feed and screen controls,  it would be nice to have the ability to control the audio feed. Don’t like the Toronto biased announcers for your game, turn them off or switch to a different one. In fact, one thing I would like is for the ability to turn off the announcers, enhance the crowd noise, and give me a wide angle as if I was sitting in the stands. Put that over a surround sound system and it would feel like I am at the game!

Commercials / Intermissions Content

The next one is likely a harder sell for the streaming networks but since I am paying the full premium price for Netflix and Prime, why am I being shown ads like on a normal TV broadcast? Why can’t I have the ability to view replays on demand or view stats/bio and other types of information during the commercial breaks? You just need some kind of countdown to let you know when game play is starting again. Same thing for intermissions between periods/quarters/halves. 

Betting

In the last 5 to 10 years, professional sports have done a complete 180 and embraced betting. Again that is one place where the streaming network apps could enhance the viewing experience. Actually in my particular case (I don’t like to gamble), I would turn all of that off but I can see where it could work hand in hand with the coverage provided by the networks.

Current Improvements

As I write this post, there are some improvements that the streaming networks have added to sports broadcasting. Just today I was able to use the “Quick Game Recap” for the Prime broadcast of the NHL game which had started an hour earlier to quickly get up to speed on the game. The quick game recap took about a minute and showed the goals that had been scored so far. As already mentioned, F1 TV and Sky Sports already have control on the feeds as well but I think that in 2025, there is still a lot of room for improvements. 

Perhaps as with many things, it takes time for these features to get developed but you would think since the streaming networks are trying to make a big splash and announce themselves on the sports scene, they would try to come up with a new broadcast format that would entice the next generation of viewers. I am already sold and will watch but will the next generation watch?

Sylvain Marcotte is CEO and President of 14 Oranges.

Feature Photo by Maxim Hopman on Unsplash