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The Three Pillars Of Interactive Rights

Monetization, Value Exchange, and Brand Protection. These are the three commercial pillars around which all the details of Interactive Rights are managed, with the end goal being to increase the value exchanged between the content owner and the consumer. The technology under the hood is fun and complex and can create all sorts of wonderful viewing experiences, but the primary consideration is assuring that commercial goals are achieved when the technology is implemented.

Monetization

Interactive Rights open the door to monetize content beyond today’s norms. They create new “real estate” on the screen that can transform an advertising brand’s interaction with consumers from simple brand awareness (e.g., a brand logo on the court) to more interactive brand pop-ups, pop-outs, and in-game associations. These new capabilities make digitally contextual sponsorships possible. The next ace or drop-shot winner in tennis, or dunk or assist in basketball, can become dynamic and automated sponsorship moments that are contextually coherent for the viewers, and are scalable across any sport, device-type, and personalization approach.

The sports brands moving to use Interactive Rights share the goal of wanting to keep consumers in one integrated environment in order to maximize the potential monetization of their sport. Interactivity allows brands to get closer to consumers, providing more data and helping them better understand consumer behavior. This is a big step beyond traditional advertising and simple on-screen calls to action.

ATP Media is focused on offering compelling and easy to use ways to introduce interactivity real estate that will not overwhelm or underwhelm the early broadcaster adopters. The priority in first implementations is to increase the engagement of existing fans, rather than jump into ways to attract completely new ones. ATP Media has teamed up with Play Anywhere, which brings interactive rights, compliance and clearinghouse features to the table, to ensure that the more dynamic and complex nature of monetizing Interactive Rights real estate will result in the right amounts of money flowing back to the ATP Tour and its multiple stakeholders.

Broadcasters have two options for implementing ATP Media’s new interactive rights package. Option 1 is an overlay on the main screen, which requires integration into a set top box or streaming application, with interactive content scheduled and triggered by ATP Media. Option 2 is an integrated second screen experience, signposted to viewers via a QR code on the main broadcast feed or a QR code added downstream by the broadcast partner. The QR code picks up the geographic location of the viewers and automatically directs them to a localized second-screen experience co-branded between ATP Media and the broadcaster. This second option is easier to implement and therefore expected to be the first step of Interactive Rights deployments with a higher proportion of the ATP’s 70+ broadcast partners.

Value Exchange

Modern consumers expect more short form content and more supplementary content and tend not to simply watch a whole game or match. Multi-screening for multiple different entertainment experiences in parallel is a norm. This is the value exchange that a modern sports consumer expects. 

This behavioral dynamic leads sports content owners to seek to provide additional content, to gamify the viewing experience, to make the viewing experience more social, and to do all of this with maximum convenience for the consumer inside an engaging and value-adding entertainment ecosystem. Some broadcasters that distribute sports content have referred to this as creating a content-powered Fan experience universe (see “The Future of Sports Media and Fan Engagement”). However it is described, the modern viewer sees value in a convenient and converged experience.

Recent events that have used Interactive Rights are returning some important results. The 2024 Olympic Games was one of the fore-runners, but other leading sports bodies including LaLiga, the top-tier Spanish football league, are reporting:

• A 25%-50% increase in total minutes watched when consumers interact.
• 50%-80% of the audience is engaging with interactive content such as statistics and gamifications.

One other very interesting insight related to the use of QR codes has been reported by some leagues – a substantial portion of users scanning and entering the second-screen experience have been outside the rights holding broadcaster’s region. This points to a significant opportunity to capture and monetize viewers who are not currently paying for the content, which will be explored in future articles.

Even with all this capability for interactivity, it is anticipated that some viewers will simply not want to be interrupted by such novelties and will just watch the game and listen to the commentary. That being said, the 2024 Olympic Games proved that only a very small percentage of viewers, fewer than 2%, chose to turn off the interactive capability when they were given the option. Therefore, having the ability to customize the on-screen content is an important part of the new value exchange with viewers. For Interactive Rights to succeed, it is critical that viewers feel they are getting more value from the experience than before, and obtaining more value than the effort invested.

ATP Media has decided that the first launch of Interactive Rights for the ATP Tour will focus on live official statistics, players’ rankings, in-play replays, and trivia challenges that complement the main screen. This relatively simple start is intended to drive longer viewing times and more engagement, without taking too big a leap with technology and user experience investments. ATP Media already has access to data that captures and tracks player and ball movements on-court, which could ultimately feed into more gamification opportunities such as overlaying avatar figures on top of the players and ball in a match. Interactive ideas could be taken as far as a sports brand wants!

Brand Protection

Sports content owners are very aware of the need to protect the integrity of the sports content that is shown on-screen. After all, the sport itself is the focus and not the side-show. Quality of production must therefore assure a high-quality viewer experience, and not become downgraded by a dissatisfying experience of interactivity. Interactive Rights packages therefore include specific controls for the content owners over content production and interactivity implementation. This provides controls for the content owner that are similar to the more traditional application of advertising blacklists preventing unapproved brands or subjects from being advertised alongside the sports content.

Broadcasters and commercial advertisers and sponsors also require brand protection. Broadcasters need the sports content to fit inside their overall brand presentation standards for on-screen formatting. Commercial advertisers and sponsors need their brands presented in a way that complies with their own requirements. Interactivity, if implemented poorly, can risk a viewer experience that can damage the sports brand, the broadcaster brand, and the commercial partner brands. Interactive Rights packages therefore have very specific rules for how the interactivity should be implemented, and the underlying interactivity and compliance technologies must assure the rules are properly followed.

An extra layer of complexity developing in sports rights relates to the power of the individual sportsperson. In American College Sports, which has traditionally been an amateur sporting environment, athletes have recently obtained the right to monetize their own name, image, and likeness. Interactive Rights could open the door to an individual sportsperson’s participation in commercial revenue sharing, particularly where, due to the size of their fanbase and followers, they have developed an independent market value apart from their value as a member of their team. Layering in this level of rights management and tracking of revenue sharing will lead to a new level of sophistication in business rules and technology automation, driven by the financial clearinghouses that are central to managing rights revenues.

ATP Media spends a lot of time working on the brand rules for the viewer’s in-game experience, including aligning with its advertising policies. ATP Media / ATP Tour is different to some other sports bodies in that they have full ownership of the on-screen experience. This gives them the ability to globally control the user experience and assure quality through full compliance with its brand rules. ATP Media ensures compliance in three areas: when and how interactive content appears on screen, including timing, sizing, and styles; what brands are associated with key moments, statistics, and gamification; and associating brands with a particular team or athlete.

Driven By Data & Technology

Sports are building their next-generation consumer experience and aiming to increase the long-term value of their content through the three supporting Interactive Rights pillars of monetizing content in new ways, exchanging new value with consumers, and protecting all the brands involved in this more dynamic content experience. The technologies behind Interactive Rights are enabling these advances, making use of real-time data and carefully curated content to enable new interactivity with viewers and increase insight into consumers’ interaction with the content they are watching. What, when, and how the data is used and implemented by the Interactive Rights technology stack, in order to drive the right mix of value for all the parties involved, is the subject of the next article in the series.