Earlier this month there was a great New York Times piece on how music artists were embracing and allowing content creators to livestream concerts to a global audience. The piece went in great detail to point out that because of limited touring dates, high demand for tickets in marketplaces and an unquenchable desire for shared content, mega stars like Taylor Swift and Beyonce were allowing content to go way beyond the venue for fans to enjoy and use as a rallying point for fandom.
It is a far cry from the days of hidden microphones and bootleg tapes that fans took their lives in their hands of doing for decades, all with the same idea…sharing content from a show that they enjoyed but few could. Music after all is not sports…there are not games in multiple cities on multiple nights. Tours come and go, and few shows are ever the same.
Now the sharing of music in this form isn’t new for all. There are a host of companies also doing professional livestreams into theaters and on other platforms looking to capture that audience as well, fr a feee. It’s the old pay per view closed circuit model. This is a bit different. Also don;t forget that The Grateful Dead, Phish and others shave encouraged fans to share and record for quite some time. Other artists would have security with night vision goggles and camera patrolling the arena shutting off recorders of any kind after a few seconds, and there were signs going into venues that recording and distributing was prohibited. Now, no more for most artists. Turn on the phone, hold it up and apparently, share away on the platform of your choices.
The mindset has many levels in the idea of music audience sharing. First, fandom and volume in getting audience growth is much more key to success now that exclusivity. Also, the quality of the share, despite the level of camera and the availability of 5G, isn’t great. Most of the streams we looked at still seem very much “bootleggish,” so the streams actually set the artist up, as we have seen with Swift and others, for high quality video compilations that can sell to thousands. The livestreaming actually helps build audience and enhance community for those who are watching around the world…it gives those viewing a bit of a gritty “insiders look” from the POV of a fan. It also sends a message to fans that we want you to be part of our event, even though you can’t get here.
The videos are still closely monitored, and by the way they are mostly on free social sharing channels. Unlike bootlegs of the past that were sold, these livestreams are put out for the world, and the creators, as the story points out, build followings as super fans that the artists can then figure out how best to work with over time. The snippets are good for the music game, the current narrative goes, and if there are dollar issues, or copyright issues, they can be addressed in the right fashion by legal teams. However for the most part, it’s a case of we can’t beat the phone sharing, so let’s literally join them as a community.
That works for music, but what about for sports?
Those we have asked were quick to point out the differences in the two industries. First, anyone who has watched a broadcast, or gotten a ticket to a sporting event, has seen or heard the language of retransmitting and reproduction without consent. The rights to games, live games, are a massive point of income for leagues and teams, and anyone sending a full live broadcast out to the world is usually shut down…for now. That’s not to say there aren’t hundreds, if not thousands, of fan sites and YouTube pages that have people sharing content off of a live broadcast from their home or a bar, or recording some part of a game while in a venue. Those clips and streams are gritty, without context and don’t seem to have the virality of the concert live streams…the market does not seem to be there yet.
Now clips, and phone captures of video for key moments, is a different story. The NBA more than any other league rarely if every cracked down on highlight sharing. The NFL was a slow mover to the idea, frequently stopping highlight sharing, live or postgame, but they have even changed stance and encourage the sharing of the moments to build fandom. None of those highlights however, are live full broadcasts of games from the POV of a fan at say, Madison Square Garden or Staples Center while watching the Knicks or the Lakers for example. Those sitting there constantly holding up a phone from a bad angle watching jump shots or snapshots will probably still be stopped, be outed by fans around them they are annoying, or frankly, may lose the interest of a large audience who doesn’t find the quality or the quantity that interesting until “the moment” happens. In that case, those moments are probably being shared by thousands holding their own phones anyway.
Now all of this doesn’t mean that there can be a livestreaming fan moment where sports can learn from music. Youth sports are now creating livestreams with any host of companies, but again, not the same as being in the seats at SoFi Stadium. Who is to say soon we don’t have “sharing lounges” or “select content areas” where there is a carve out for a fans perspective. Twitch has done this for gamers for years, and Amazon has tried, with various degrees of success and interest, to do this during their early NFL engagement areas. Isn’t The Manningcast” a version of the music sharing idea?
It all comes done to audience, and also rights, and probably right now the mega rights live sports at the highest level are getting for events makes this very much still a toe dip. The advent of AR and VR is also lending itself more to brining fans into the venue in a controlled manner and at an effective cost, so those technologies will also factor in.
Regardless of where it goes, music and sports, the crème de la crème of live event content, always seem to learn and borrow from each other in terms of best practices. Maybe it’s a niche sport or second tier property or college that is larger first mover in this space for sports. Maybe there is a carve out in a media deal for fan streaming. Right now it’s limited, but as fandom expands more globally, and technology ramps up, lets see if the limits ride, and sports takes a best practice from music. The ancillary benefits may keep growing, just ask Beyonce’s team.
