The New Era of Sports Content: Reflections from SportsPro Madrid 2025

Last week Simplestream's Head of Sales, Josh Harrington, attended SportsPro Madrid 2025. Here are his main takeaways from the event.

SportsPro was an exceptionally well-run event, packed with sharp speakers, big themes, and one of the strongest vendor ecosystems for years. Huge credit to the SportsPro team for an event that ran flawlessly.

Across multiple panels, meetings, and hallway conversations, one major narrative emerged:

Sports content is exploding in volume, distribution, formats, and global reach and the industry is finally embracing the technology that makes it possible.

Below are the biggest trends and takeaways shaping the future of sports broadcasting.

1. The Sports Content Explosion

One statistic from the Olympic Broadcasting Services summed up the entire moment:

Athens 2004: 1,210 hours of coverage on NBC
Paris 2024: Over 35,000 broadcast hours globally from the host broadcaster

A nearly 30× increase in total output — achieved with:

fewer people
lower cost
lower carbon footprint
and dramatically more efficient technology

Technology has enabled sports rights-holders to produce far more with far less.

This shift brings two realities: 1) Discovery is harder than ever. 2) Access is more democratic than ever.

Niche sports, minority sports, emerging stories, and individual athletes all now have the opportunity to be seen. If a community cares about it, it can be produced, delivered, and monetised.

2. IP-First Workflows Are Now the Default

The industry has moved decisively away from bespoke satellite and fibre connectivity. SRT is now the backbone of modern sports contribution:

Reliable over public internet
Cost-effective
Fast to deploy
Scalable globally

The modern pipeline looks like this:

On-site capture → IP contribution → remote ingest → cloud editing → multi-platform distribution

This has enabled:

More events are produced simultaneously
Lower operational costs
Reduced travel
Faster turnarounds for highlights and clips

We’ve gone from broadcast trucks to broadcast browsers.

3. AI Is Becoming the Core of Sports Production

AI was referenced in almost every session not as a buzzword, but as essential infrastructure.

AI-driven multi-format reversioning

Sports content now needs to exist in multiple output formats:

16:9 for connected TV
1:1 for feeds
9:16 for TikTok/Reels
RTMP for live clipping
HLS for OTT
SRT or MPEG-TS for broadcast

AI automation has become the only practical way to manage this complexity.

Highlights and big data processing

Sports with rich datasets (football, golf, basketball) are seeing especially fast progress, but even smaller sports are benefiting from automated event detection.

AI commentary and auto-dubbing

One of the most exciting developments was real-time automated multilingual commentary. The barrier to producing German, French, Italian, or Spanish audio feeds is now close to zero.

It’s not perfect but the alternative used to be not doing it at all. And this is the worst AI will ever be. It only improves from here.

4. Vendor Specialisation: A Maturing Ecosystem

Perhaps my biggest personal observation:

The vendor ecosystem has changed dramatically.

Five years ago, most vendors claimed to do everything. End-to-end platforms were the default pitch.

Today, vendors are choosing lanes:

Contribution
Clipping
Metadata
Data orchestration
Graphics
OTT front-end
Automation
Rights workflows
Monetisation

This shift is good for everyone.

For buyers: They can assemble a modular tech stack based on expertise, not marketing claims.

For vendors: They can specialise, refine their craft, and go deeper into the problem sets they’re best positioned to solve.

As Adam Smith wrote in The Wealth of Nations (1776): “The route to profitability is through specialisation.”

It’s refreshing to see the streaming and OTT ecosystem finally adopting classical economics.

5. Product Spotlight — Spicy Mango’s “GameDay”

One standout innovation was Spicy Mango’s new platform, GameDay, which acts as a buffer layer for:

stats APIs
betting feeds
merchandising APIs
player and competition data

APIs change constantly. Anyone who has built digital products knows the pain.

GameDay normalises and stabilises these feeds into a consistent, predictable data layer across all digital experiences. Simple, but genuinely important.

6. The Rise of Real-Time AI Commentary

The growth of speech-to-text and AI commentary tools was striking:

Instant live commentary
Real-time dubbing to new languages
Automated multi-audio feeds
Virtually zero marginal cost

For global leagues, this is transformational. If a sport doesn’t have German, French, or Italian commentary AI can now fill the gap.

This massively reduces the barrier to fanbase expansion.

7. Major Announcement: NBA Europe

One of the most exciting pieces of news: The NBA is preparing to launch a European League, with potential franchises in:

London
Paris
Rome
Milan

Given that 6 of the last 10 MVPs were European players, and that timezones have always been a challenge for European viewers, this could be a game-changer for basketball’s growth outside North America.

8. Data Explosion + The Enduring Role of Broadcasters

The DP Tour shared that they now generate over one million data points to contextualise every shot. This scale requires machine intelligence to interpret.

Meanwhile, TNT Sports / Warner Bros Discovery emphasised the continuing importance of broadcasters:

On-the-ground storytelling
Human expertise
Journalistic context
Lead-in programming to boost reach

Putting an Olympic sport directly after a football match can increase audience numbers by 30×.

Owned-and-operated platforms are essential for superfans. But syndication and broadcast distribution remain key for mass audiences.

The future is not one strategy it’s multi-window distribution.

9. The YouTube Effect

YouTube’s stats were enormous. The WSL’s audience on YouTube has grown 35×, demonstrating the platform’s unmatched free-to-air reach.

Their pitch as a “one-stop-shop” may be optimistic but the reach and growth are undeniable.

As sports becomes more global and more content-rich, YouTube remains a vital discovery engine.

10. Final Reflection: Infinite Content, Infinite Audiences

Some people still argue that “scarcity creates value.” But if you can produce nearly 30× more content for the same cost as 20 years ago…

Why wouldn’t you?

Asking broadcasters to limit output today is like telling a driver: “Don’t use sixth gear 50mph is enough.”

No thanks.

Closing Thoughts

SportsPro Madrid 2025 was inspiring, insightful, and energising. The major theme was clear:

Technology, AI, IP-first workflows, and vendor specialisation have unlocked the ability to produce more sport, in more formats, in more languages, and across more platforms than ever in history.

It’s an incredible moment for fans, for rights-holders, for broadcasters, and for the vendors building the future of sports media.

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