Ably CEO, Matthew O'Riordan, recently joined sports and media veteran, Carlo De Marchis, on his podcast ("A Guy with a Scarf") to discuss the dynamic world of realtime fan engagement in sports and entertainment.
In the interview, Matt and Carlo cover the evolution of realtime applications and how the changing expectations of fans, particularly younger generations, are shaping the future of fan engagement.
Watch the full interview, including Matt’s predictions for the future of this space.
Get the key takeaways
- Fan expectations have evolved rapidly, shifting from passive consumption to active engagement. Today's audiences, especially younger age groups, crave interactive and social viewing experiences. This progression is evident in the following stages:
- Live experiences: Traditional one-way broadcasting of content, akin to video streams.
- Shared live experiences: Enabling audience interaction and engagement while consuming live content.
- Collaborative experiences: Empowering users to co-create and influence the viewing experience.
“[Fans] don't want to just consume the feed. They want to consume it with their friends and engage in it and comment on it and capture it and share it on social media.” Matthew O'Riordan
2. As concurrent user volumes grow there is an increasing data challenge in realtime fan engagement. As more users interact, the volume of data shares becomes greater, and more unpredictable - quickly overwhelming traditional infrastructure. This data explosion presents significant technical hurdles for many organizations.
“Once you get to a million fans you're going into the trillions of events and hundreds of trillions events very, very quickly and it just creates some immense technical problems because it isn't obvious until you start to reach some scale you suddenly you notice the data volumes are climbing exponentially not linearly.” Matthew O'Riordan
3. Reliability is paramount for successful fan engagement. Technical disruptions during live events can quickly erode fan loyalty and drive users to competing platforms. Robust, scalable solutions are essential to maintain a positive fan experience and foster long-term engagement.
"Don’t give people reasons not to come back, especially: ‘It didn't work!.’ " Matthew O'Riordan
4. Realtime technology enables innovation and creativity in user experience design. By entrusting the management of realtime data (infrastructure) to a specialized third party, brands can redirect their focus and resources towards core competencies: creating compelling fan experiences. This strategic shift empowers brands to innovate relentlessly, ensuring ongoing relevance and audience engagement.
“The moment you have these tools [infrastructure], in terms of ideation and creativity, you can have a lot of interaction and user experience ideas because you know that these things are doable.”
5. AI will play a pivotal role in the future of fan engagement. It holds the key to delivering highly personalized content and notifications timed to coincide with key moments during fixtures. This data-driven approach will enable brands to capture fan attention and deepen engagement through tailored content and offers.
"I see a huge opportunity in AI to keep [fans] engaged - personalised summaries of what they want to know and give them reasons to come back to their applications." Matthew O'Riordan
Delivering next-level fan experiences - at scale
When it comes to fan engagement, realtime performance is business-critical. Delivering live experiences at scale puts heavy demands on realtime infrastructure so it is essential to have a reliable platform that achieves operational efficiency and elastic scaling. This gives brands the space to think creatively about how to use realtime experiences and data to strengthen relationships with their fans.
At Ably, we've worked with sports franchises, creators, entertainers, and broadcasters globally - including NASCAR, Genius Sports, Tennis Australia, Sportsbet, and Stadion - to help deliver sustainable, scalable, realtime fan experiences that provide a healthy return on investment. Success shouldn't be costly. Speak to us about how you can work with Ably or sign up for a free account today.
