Technology helps to lower costs of producing sporting events

The pandemic accelerated the common use of remote production technologies. “In addition to producing events, our companies are holders of rights, which are increasing more and more. Technology is helping us lower the cost of production,” said Alfredo Arosemena Ruiz-Huidobro, CEO of Telefónica-Media Networks Latin America in the framework of the debate The New Era of Sports TV Production, during the second and last day of NEXTV Sports Latin America Series by Dataxis.

“The technologies were already there, only that before we did not take the risk of using it, but the pandemic forced us to do so. It has been an opportunity to make the leap in a crazy way,” said Mario Sousa, Head of Sales and Marketing at Mediapro Américas.

For Olek Loewenstein, Univision’s EVP of Sports Strategy and Planning, far from having fewer sporting events, there will be more in the future. “And these events will be new sports or minor league events, and parents will want to watch their children’s amateur sports, but there will be a differentiation between major league sports rights and minor league sports rights. Everything that is not Triple-A is going to change,” he said. He added that for non-Triple A productions, the more automated the better. “Make them remote, automatic TV with robotic cameras.”

César Zúñiga, Head of Transmission of TNT Sports, highlighted innovations recovering the stadiums’ audio in the absence of the public to be included in the broadcasts of matches, and the insertion of fans via communication tools such as Zoom.

Another topic discussed was sports betting. “Gambling is going to be a very big issue in the US and it will allow more graphics to be placed on the screen,” he mentioned, adding that this is a business model that they will exploit in the future.