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Get in touchMatchroom is one of the world’s largest suppliers of sports programming. Well known for its successful portfolio of events in snooker, boxing, and darts, Matchroom has grown into one of the world’s largest suppliers of sports programming over the past four decades, also promoting other competitions across a diverse range of sports including pool, golf, basketball and others.
By combining its vast archive of on demand programming and its roster of live events across multiple sports, Matchroom saw an opportunity to create a new OTT offering. Matchroom.Live would provide a single destination for fans to access Matchroom content, and a platform to take its live events to new audiences outside of existing broadcast agreements.
Matchroom needed an OTT service that would give them the ability to tailor content and monetisation strategies to each sport and territory. They needed a platform that could deliver live events in dark market territories, without presenting users in broadcast markets with geo-blocked content or requiring multiple platforms. The new service also needed to handle Matchroom’s huge selection of existing content, and present fans with an intuitive and fast experience, live and on demand.
Solution
For an OTT service that would provide the flexibility required, Matchroom turned to StreamAMG. Building on our longstanding relationship developing the successful PDCTV, we worked closely with their team to develop the Matchroom.Live proposition and a go-to-market strategy.
We deployed our end-to-end OTT solution, built on our suite of video technology to create a globalised, multi-sport OTT platform tailored to Matchroom’s objectives. Designed to be flexible and futureproof, the platform gives their team everything they need to take their live and on demand content to sports fans worldwide.
To make full use of Matchroom’s video archive assembled over 40 years, we deployed CloudMatrix, our automated content population system which creates feeds of content based on customisable rulesets, leveraging metadata to easily build auto-populating playlists. This meant a fast and pain-free migration ahead of launch, and as new videos are instantly pushed to every relevant playlist, collection and boxsets, their team can focus on creating new content rather than curating their archive.
CloudPay, our subscription management system, provides an all in one platform to manage users and take payments. Matchroom benefits from full visibility of its users to quickly and effectively deal with customer enquiries and content protection tools. Alongside an integrated ad solution and tools to support sponsor branding, this allows Matchroom to monetise flexibly across competitions and markets with subscription, pay-per-view and free-to-air strategies.
Matchroom.Live is delivered via a best-in-class OTT website, built on our StreamPlay front end framework, customised to take full advantage of Matchroom’s multi-sport offering. The website also serves content and imagery based on the viewer’s location, so viewers never encounter content they cannot watch without the need to maintain multiple sites.
Results
Matchroom.Live launched on schedule in May 2020, exceeding launch targets despite a disrupted live schedule due to coronavirus restrictions. The platform hosted Championship League Snooker to kick off its live offering across Asia, Africa, and North and South America, bringing the sport to new territories for the first time.
Fans are presented with a slick web interface that mirrors premium streaming services, with each sport colour coded for clarity, with on demand content organised into auto playing playlists, box sets and collections. All content is easily searchable and key personalities, teams and competitions are showcased.
The service has been well received by sports fans around the world, with Matchroom seeing consistently strong viewing figures in key territories such as India and the USA. Matchroom has been able to introduce competitions such as the Mosconi Cup, the Ryder Cup of Pool, to territories for the first time and uncovered enthusiastic new audiences, opening new opportunities for development and growth.
In April 2021, Matchroom rolled out a new pricing subscription for live content across the service, giving viewers access to all live content in their territory for a single monthly fee. StreamAMG also rolled out dedicated native apps for iOS and Android to complement the web experience, making it even easier for users to access Matchroom content on the device of their choice.
The platform gives Matchroom the flexibility and tools to maximise the value of live rights and on demand content. By providing a capable, flexible end-to-end OTT solution, built on proven technology, StreamAMG enables Matchroom to focus on producing great sporting content and take advantage of growth opportunities in any market worldwide.
Enquire now"StreamAMG have been crucial partners in launching Matchroom.Live, our global multi-sport OTT service. The platform gives us the flexibility to market and monetise our programming according to what's best for each sport, competition and territory, while giving fans a top-quality experience wherever they are in the world. Their team's expertise and industry knowledge has helped us establish the service in key markets, and we're confident our partnership will see more success into 2021 and beyond."
Jamie Banks, Head of Broadcast Development, Matchroom
