With the MENA region becoming an increasingly global focus for sports, sports streaming is becoming an ever-more important play for broadcasters and operators, but there are challenges that need to be considered in delivering an excellent service for consumers.
Summary
- The MENA region is rapidly becoming a global sports hub, with significant investments in infrastructure and high-profile events following the success of the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar.
- Sports streaming services will account for a fifth of global sports rights spending in 2025, indicating a major shift in how fans consume sports content, with platforms like DAZN, TOD, Amazon, and Netflix leading the charge.
Minimal latency and maximal quality of experience (QoE) are crucial for sports streaming. - Implementing advanced systems that utilize AI to predict streaming issues before they occur can enhance QoE.
- New forms of content and interactivity are enhancing monetisation opportunities, unlocking further advertising potential and making sports content appealing to younger demographics
A global player
The Middle East finds itself increasingly at the center of the global sports calendar. Following the success of the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar, the legacy of the tournament is still felt throughout the region with funding for better facilities more common and new confidence in attracting the highest profile events with worldwide audiences. Four Formula One races are now held annually in the Middle East and Qiddiya City’s astonishing Speed Park Track (pictured above), the new home of the Saudi Arabian GP, is currently under construction; hefty investments in sports such as golf and cricket are ramping up all the time; the UAE is creating the region's first indoor velodrome and the world's largest wave pool; the region is becoming one of the main locations for hosting high-profile boxing bouts; Saudi Arabia is preparing for the 2034 FIFA World Cup with plans to develop a total of 15 environmentally friendly stadiums, and it is even somewhat surprisingly hosting the 2029 Asian Winter Games in Neom.
“The sports industry in the Middle East is transforming, boosting economic growth through strategic investments in infrastructure, commercial optimization and capacity-building” said Mushtaq Al Waeli, Senior Executive Advisor, PwC Middle East in the analyst’s recent Sports Industry Outlook report. “The region is becoming a leading sports powerhouse by focusing on participation and hosting major global events.”
As the report goes on to state, the Middle Eastern sports consumer is highly digitally engaged, with OTT services revolutionizing how fans consume sports content. Evolution in the market is rapid, with major players backed by major media companies. beIN Media’s TOD is widely considered the market leader, despite being only just over three years old. It is facing increasing competition, however, from Shahid (MBC Group) and STARZ ON (e& Group), amongst others who The Streaming Lab says “have also made strategic moves to secure rights, investing in both international sports and the growing regional sports ecosystem driven by Saudi Arabia.”
Meanwhile, SURJ Sports Investment and DAZN are working closely on establishing the DAZN MENA joint venture to “to showcase the best of Saudi sport and Saudi-based events to a global audience.”
These moves are reflected in the amount of money that is being invested in acquiring streaming rights to sports events on a worldwide basis. Globally, streaming services will account for a fifth of global sports rights spend in 2025, according to Ampere Analysis, reaching $12.5bn this year out of a $64bn total. This is up massively from only 8% of the total in 2021.
Ampere provides some additional data points highlighting the ROI:
- Netflix gained around 1.5m sign-ups in the US following the Paul/Tyson boxing match in November. 80% of these were still active one month later.
- Netflix also signed up almost 700,000 subs for its NFL Christmas Day games
- Peacock gained 2m subscriptions across the weekend of its exclusive NFL play-off game in 2024
- Paramount+ added 2.4m subs on the day of its Super Bowl coverage in 2024
Of course, sports rights are a serious investment — the top rights are estimated to be growing at 7% a year, way in advance of most revenue projections — but they can deliver both huge, loyal audiences and active and invested advertisers. The decades of success on Pay-TV platforms prove this. The question has to be how broadcasters and operators can balance both sides of the equation, the risks and the rewards, especially as they move towards a streaming-first model. We argue that one of the key elements of that is ensuring that they deliver the Quality of Experience that their customers have come to expect. And, as the high-profile problems that dogged the Paul vs Tyson bout illustrated, that is not necessarily an easy task.
The top three sports streaming requirements
What do rights holders need to consider as they look to launch their own sports streaming services? Working closely with clients around the world, and especially in the MENA region, we have identified the following top three requirements.
Minimal latency and maximal QoE: Latency is one of the most complained about issues affecting sports streaming. In an interconnected world, viewers are also following sporting events on social media, via data-specific services, and more. For example, during Super Bowl LIX, it is estimated that under a third of the audience followed using a single content source. Everyone else was using a second screen, additional media, or both!
When the stream of a sporting event starts to lag significantly behind a) the event itself and b) the linear broadcast signal, this creates inevitable issues. These range from inconvenience and annoyance for consumers (and the inevitable churn that results), to being unable to capitalise on new technologies for engagement and revenue generation such as live sports betting. When assessing a sports streaming solution, the less latency the better.
New systems that can use AI to predict issues with a stream before they happen are also increasingly important. Micro-events such as bit-rate shifts, frame drops, and rising decode times can provide an early warning of issues that might cause buffering or otherwise negatively impact QoE. These can be acted upon before any impact on the viewer experience occurs.
Content security: The popularity of sports has meant that the genre has become one of the main targets of a new generation of video pirates accustomed to live streaming rather than using P2P technologies such as bittorrenting. Research in 2021 suggested sports video piracy was costing the industry over $28 billion a year, and it is likely to have risen since then.
With rights holders increasingly demanding effective anti-piracy strategies as a condition of carriage, the onus is on the streamers to ensure that content is protected. This requires a holistic strategy that bridges both discouragement and remediation. The goal is to make piracy more difficult in the first place and then to make detection and take-down swift enough to have an impact if a leak does occur.
It is estimated that service providers have only a 15 minute window to take down a live stream in order to discourage an illegal audience. That requires a combination of dynamic watermarking, multi-DRM, constant 24/7 monitoring, AI analysis coupled with human expertise, and more to make it happen. And it’s not a static process. The emergence of new threats such as CDN Leeching shows that fighting against piracy is not so much a battle as a constant war. Pirates are endlessly inventive, but a holistic anti-piracy strategy enables companies to reduce its impact and limit losses, even if it is unlikely to be ever stopped entirely.
Monetization and interactivity: Delivering premium content is only part of the story. The ability to make that content work for you and boost revenue streams even further is a key battleground when it comes to measuring success. Advertisers like sports because of the large audiences it delivers, and these can be further activated with new forms of content and new advertising technologies.
As well as more data in the shape of win-probability gauges, player heat-maps, and more, viewers are increasingly looking for interactive components to sports broadcasts that allow them to decide what they want to watch. Multicam selection allows them to follow the action they want to watch, whether that is a particular angle of a soccer match or an individual driver cam in a Formula One car. Interactive timelines help them navigate to key points in a game and effectively build their own highlights reels.
Polls, trivia, live betting odds and more add further traction to events. This is helping to unlock younger demographics that were long considered ‘lost’ to sports content. As many as 55% of Gen Z respondents expect to see and interact with live statistics during play.
New forms of advertising also help further boost monetization. L-band advertising, for instance, uses L-shaped ads displayed alongside the main content to provide viewers with less intrusive ad experiences. The action can continue seamlessly in a resized window while the advertisement is served on the edge around two sides of the screen (J, U, and O shapes are also possible). This is perfect for natural breaks or resets within a game where continuity remains important but ads can be served without alienating the viewer.
Sports growth continues
Sports continues to grow, in MENA and elsewhere. Revenue for the Top 17 leagues across all sports globally is projected to rise to $96.3 billion by 2035, more than four times its 2015 total. That represents an astounding sustained CAGR of over 7% over the course of two entire decades. That is just the top leagues as well; that high-profile growth is underpinned by a huge expansion in sports content in all shapes and forms. Women’s sports have moved firmly into the mainstream, lower-tier leagues and divisions are growing in popularity, the democratisation of production technology has enabled niche sports to engage global audiences, and more.
There are huge opportunities for service providers as a result, especially as the sports broadcasting and streaming landscape continues to evolve and technology allows the fans to be further engaged with the action.
The Middle East is not only hosting more sport, its audiences are watching more too. And streaming is going to play a part in connecting sporting content to waiting audiences and active fanbases like never before. To paraphrase the start of the Le Mans 24-hour race: Streamers, start your engines.
