Have you ever scrolled through Twitter or Facebook and come across a live stream of a sporting event? Or received a notification from a league or team announcing that one of their games is being streamed on Twitch or YouTube? Why are they doing this? 

Presumably to “get younger” by putting their content in front of a younger demographic - a worthwhile goal, certainly, but sending your customer to someone else’s place of business is not a winning long-term strategy.

As audiences have become increasingly scattered across the social media universe, there is a natural urge to follow them. Brands and publishers have tailored content strategies to engage with audiences on social media platforms such as Twitch, Snapchat and YouTube, and sports is no exception. The impetus to go “where the eyeballs are” -- and/or where potential customers are -- makes sense. There’s value in engaging on third-party platforms where conversations and content can be viewed and distributed with relative ease. 

But distributors of sports media rights must ask themselves, “what happens after that desired audience encounters their product on another platform?” Who really owns that relationship? And equally important: What is it about that alternative platform that the younger demographic likes better than your own, and how do you give them what they want in your own application(s)?

The democratization of the sports viewing experience has been interesting to watch over the past few years, but the end result is that sports leagues, teams, rights holders and sponsors have handed over their most valuable asset -- large audiences! -- for tech and social media platforms to monetize. While doing so potentially exposed their content to a larger audience, what were rights-holders and partners able to do with that audience after the games concluded?

The issue comes to the forefront as the NFL’s Thursday Night Football matchups are once again being streamed on Amazon-owned Twitch. The short-term benefits to the NFL are obvious -- they get their content in front of a large, young engaged demographic.  But what happens to that audience when the game ends? Unless the NFL and its media partners can offer an interactive viewing experience on a par with Twitch, ownership of this valuable customer relationship (and all of the related user analytics that come with it) will remain with Twitch. 

That’s why there is now a growing realization among the leagues, teams and sports media rights owners that building direct relationships with their streaming audiences is a stronger value proposition long-term than being reliant on social media and search giants. But developing Twitch-like interactivity on your own app platform to attract younger fans -- and then updating and maintaining the sophisticated infrastructure behind it -- is a herculean task for even the largest media companies to undertake, let alone individuals leagues and teams. 

StreamLayer was launched to solve this critical problem by enabling sports media rights holders to integrate a full suite of interactive features and functionality directly into their own app platforms. Through a single SDK, clients are able to offer their audiences everything from video watch parties and free-to-play games, to shoppable commerce opportunities and NFT drop activations.  In addition to the user engagement benefits, StreamLayer’s solution also opens up an entirely new way for brands and sponsors to engage with the audience in a more direct and immersive fashion. 

Having this ability to own the conversation and the data that comes from streaming games on your own app platform makes it a far more enticing play for everyone involved. For the league, teams and rights partners, you have total control over the customer relationship before, during and after the game. For brands, there is an unparalleled ability to leverage first-party data and “point of passion” moments to convert sales. And last but not least, for the fans (and especially younger fans) they’re finally able to watch games in a fun, engaging and hyper-personalized way.

So if you’re an executive in charge of mapping out your sports media rights strategy -- and want to ensure your long-term sustainability by attracting younger viewers -- don’t outsource the user experience to third-party tech and social media platforms.  Instead, create your own killer experience -- one that sets you apart from the competition and allows you to own and fully monetize the customer relationship. That will be the winning strategy going forward.