Concacaf: OTT has taken soccer worldwide

OTT has been an opportunity for soccer to reach the whole world. This is the opinion of Fredda Rodríguez, Director of Digital and Emerging Technologies at Concacaf in the context of the panel “Sports, OTT and Social Networks for Rights Holders,” of Sportv Series Latin America. The executive said that social networks are used to serve fans, advertisers, and for promotion. For live broadcasts they use Facebook and YouTube, always protecting rights buyers. “Monetization in social networks is still in an early stage,” she expressed.

Rodríguez was accompanied by Guillermo Santa Cruz, VP for LatAm, Mexico and US Hispanic at IMG Media; Felipe Osorio, Operations VP at Digital Editorial Univision Communications Inc. and Mike Kelley, President of the Americas at Grabyo.

Osorio from Univision mentioned the company´s new sports platform, TUDNxtra that was launched on September 17 as part of TUDN. The package offers soccer fans a great amount of additional first-rate competitions throughout the entire year, with hundreds of exclusive matches of the UEFA Champions League, the UEFA Europe League, and the UEFA European Qualifiers. It also includes productions in English of games from the MX League. Osorio said that the intention is to broaden the audience, but always within the platform´s and distributors´ context. Social networks are used only for branded content and generating conversations.

Santa Cruz from IMG feels that the sports OTT market will be consolidated.

Kelley from Grabyo mentioned that they offer tools for IP and the cloud that distinguish the experience of watching sports. He mentioned they have worked with Univision and others.