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Monumental Sports Network (MNMT) is wholly–owned and operated by Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE, “Monumental”), based in downtown Washington D.C. in the USA. The Network operation holds exclusive local television media rights for the NHL’s (National Hockey League) Washington Capitals, the NBA’s (National Basketball Association) Washington Wizards, and the WNBA’s (Women’s National Basketball Association) Washington Mystics games.

Since its founding in 2010, Monumental has always tried to be a first mover. They introduced the first brick-and-mortar sportsbook at any US professional sports venue, when they launched the Caesars sportsbook at the 20-thousand seater Capital One Arena, the home of the Wizards and the Capitals.

Today, MNMT is leading the way in delivering a new, interactive sports fan experience which is opening additional revenue streams for the business. The interactive experience provides a new way to monetize MNMT’s sports rights and continue offering engaging fan experiences that complement the sport itself. It is a new fan experience in professional sports in the USA, giving fans more data about the sport they follow and a deeper way to engage in it, while offering rights owners and content providers the potential to bring many new types of information, plus social, gaming, and e-commerce experiences to the viewers.

Fan Experience Drives The Business

As Chris Thorman, SVP of Digital Media at MNMT highlights, “Our business perspective is essentially the fan perspective. If the fan experience is enhanced, then business results are enhanced. We introduced new forms of interactivity including trivia and betting into our live game productions in February 2025 because we thought it would be great for fans, and so far, we have been pleasantly surprised by the level of interactions we have seen. Now we are looking at the data, testing ideas, and learning what people really want to experience.”

Whether the sports event is being watched on the standard linear broadcast channel or via a streaming App, most people watching live sports want to simply watch the game without distractions. However, an increasing percentage are interested in the interactivity options being presented on their screens.

For MNMT, who are in the very early days of implementing interactivity features, the goal is to provide a new way to more deeply engage current fans and learn how best to serve them, while also creating a powerful marketing tool to attract new viewers to MNMT’s content.

The Implementation Experience

The MNMT interactive fan experience is built on technology provided by two vendors – one supporting on-screen graphics and one providing back end data and commerce functionality. As Chris Thorman explained, “We do not have a big Product team at MNMT and so we work closely with our technology suppliers for design and deployment phases. The Interactivity implementation has been very quick and easy. The first implementation was completed in less than a month, which has been critical for us given we have 3 sports teams and seasons to manage that leave us very few windows to implement significant operational changes.”

On MNMT’s linear channel, the interactivity set up has been focused on promoting a QR code that brings the viewer into the Game Center microsite. In this microsite, graphics overlay technology is used for interactivity during live streaming events. This implementation used standard vendor supplied templates and has been a seamless implementation.

While launching interactivity, MNMT also introduced its first side-by-side multi-video viewing experience with audio source switching. The Washington Wizards and Washington Capitals have 17 games each season that are played simultaneously and with this new functionality, fans can now easily watch both games simultaneously. This new feature also means that MNMT’s long-held philosophy of flexible production capabilities, including wide shot cameras and cameras that follow individual players, can be fully realized through the multi-video viewing experience.

A Myriad Of Future Opportunities

The initial launch of the new interactivity technologies has been a success. As viewers interact with trivia, in-game predictions, and betting, the plan is to learn and develop the offering appropriately. Each development will be aimed at incremental improvements in fan engagement and revenue growth. But there are already a range of areas which MNMT is planning or considering.

The initial slate of interactivity elements on MNMT and M+ includes statistics, trivia, polls, and betting. Building on the trivia questions, MNMT’s goal is to create a community leaderboard feature to show where the viewer ranks against other fans. This provides gamification options for in-game and in-season leaderboards, and opportunities to add in prize-giving and other promotions, which the MNMT team intends to explore. Through the M+ logged-in experience, it is hoped that people will access a higher level of community interaction, augmenting the overall experience of being a fan of any of the Monumental teams. How to bring this community interaction to life has not yet been defined but is being deeply considered in order to increase the sense of community without distracting from the game.

Personalizing the fan experience is high on the list of areas to tackle. With the data gathered through a person’s interaction, the goal is to serve up the content that really appeals to the fan. Guided by the clear principle that fan experience drives the business, deeper personalization will be implemented with sensitivity to a fan’s sense of privacy and focus on the game, while encouraging a strong sense of engagement with their team. Creating the opportunity for fans to interact with the players on the Capitals, Mystics, or Wizards teams is something that could be considered. But for now everything is focused on live in-game interactivity. This is heavily driven by real-time and automated sports data inputs during a game, delivering latest game statistics and in-game moments that set the context for the trivia, polls, and betting interactions presented to viewers. For now, player interaction is an idea to consider at a later stage.

One of the interactivity challenges to address is how groups of viewers are engaged (e.g., in bars or at home) and how the in-stadium experience can tie in with the interactivity options presented on the mobile or TV screen. At a group-engagement level, there is potential for group watch-parties with group-level interactivity and gaming. This is to be considered in a subsequent phase in MNMT’s interactivity roll-out. The in-stadium interactivity experience is likely to be rolled out earlier, leveraging the opportunity to engage people while they are a captive audience with personalized rewards and promotions, leading to the most memorable fan experiences.

E-commerce is always front-of-mind when thinking about engaging viewers during live sports events. It is a natural integration for the MNMT viewing experience, but currently there are no immediate plans. The experience is envisaged as a pop-up for an appropriate promotion, linking with e-commerce partners who support a seamless and fan-centric experience.

Betting is a distinct area that is integrated to the overall experience, but standalone for those wishing to engage. Monumental Sports & Entertainment have offered betting services to fans at the arena for many years, having opened a physical sportsbook facility at Capital One Arena in 2021. For their new interactivity offering, the business of betting is well-known to MNMT, but now they have a different way to offer it. BET MGM are MNMT’s partner in the Interactivity domain, with viewers currently taken to the BET MGM page if they click on a pop-up. The betting experience is driven by the guidelines set by the NHL and NBA (plus the WNBA, planned for rollout in the upcoming season), and while there are some differences between the leagues the primary differences are between the US States. Their technology suppliers pre-implementation of multiple Sportsbooks was a major reason why Monumental could include betting in its 1-month launch timetable.

The Future Of Sports Fan Interaction

Interactivity is expected to deliver important growth over the long-term to MNMT’s business. It is not seen as something that will deliver a big-bang step-change in revenue, but is instead being considered as an evolution, rather than a revolution, of the fan experience. Success will be linked to how large the MNMT audience is and how deeply engaged they are. Therefore, the MNMT team is taking very considered steps forward in bringing more interactive experiences to more viewers, clearly focused on not crossing the line into a distracting experience for viewers and staying only in the realm of augmenting the fan experience, interaction by interaction.