What trends are you noticing relating to the popularity of live sports streaming in the onboard sphere?
We always thought this was going to be a success. Sport is one of the very few things that people still want to watch live. They make a point of being there at that moment.
The idea came from me wanting to fly and watch live sports – and not being able to. That was where it all began. People will now ask if an airline will be showing the match and book tickets because of it. There’s definitely increased engagement in social media and increased interest from the airlines.
The main challenge we had initially was availability of global connectivity, but that’s slowly disappearing, and a lot more planes are connected. If you’re connected, then having live TV becomes a lot easier. Technical barriers are coming down.
We only hear positive feedback from passengers and airlines. I call it an appointment to view for premium content.
To what extent is tech a driving factor?
The channel is available to any airline that has the right tech. We’ve taken away any restrictions in technology. We are well known for providing sports for broadcasters worldwide: this is not a challenge for us.
What are your newest offerings?
The FIFA World Cup 2026 is happening in the US, Mexico and Canada. It’s going to be the biggest World Cup ever, with 40% more games, so we’ll be showing wall-to-wall coverage. There’s huge interest because of the location and size. We’ve seen huge engagement by passengers when it comes to football onboard, especially the FIFA World Cup in 2022 and the FIFA Women’s World Cup in 2023.
What drives decision-making regarding balanced programming?
We’re all about a global offering for global passengers. We know what sports fans are watching around the world. That’s our business. Sport 24 is a dedicated channel for the airline and cruise line business.
We start with Australia, where people are watching the NRL – the rugby – and the AFL – the Aussie Rules. Then we go to Asia, where it’s all about football – we have the rights of the AFC. In Europe, we have the Premier League, the Champions League and European-based sports. Then we go to America, where we finish off with the NFL, the NBA and the NHL. We go and get the best federations. Between that, we show all the big golf tournaments, the Grand Slam tennis, and then we’ve got the two big motor sports in F1 and Moto GP. Globally, we see what people watch and enjoy, which drives our content strategy.
We’re prime time all the time because we’re following the sun. That works really well and passengers appreciate watching the best sports and being introduced to new sports. That was an angle we hadn’t thought about at the beginning.
Are there regional sports that don’t work everywhere?
I think cricket falls into that category. Some countries love their cricket. Some countries are like, ‘What is this about?’ When we broadcast cricket, it tends to be the shorter version, so you’re watching it for a couple of hours rather than five days.
One of the areas we are looking to develop, as technology allows us to do it and we can evolve the product, is to have more regionalised content because there’ll be more bandwidth available.
College sports are massive in the US. In some cases, they’re as well attended as the professional game. We’ve had feedback from airlines that they like being introduced to new sports as it offers something new to passengers.
How important are major tournaments to Sport 24?
They are really important. The FIFA World Cup is the biggest one. Any world cup and the Olympics are really important. That’s when passengers give us the most feedback. We get great engagement that helps boost airline NPS [net promoter scores].
Tournaments are short events. They can be two weeks, three weeks or four weeks. That doesn’t cover airline needs for the year, so leagues are important. The Premier League is the most watched league in the world, but passengers can also watch the Champions League, the NFL or the whole NBA season. F1 offers 24 great races from around the world. That’s what brings passengers delight because there’s a whole year’s offering.
If an airline were looking to acquire the rights for all of those sports, they would be looking at multiple deals for multiple territories. Sport 24 makes it easy for airlines.
The major events are important, whenever they happen, but in terms of having a successful sports channel, that the airlines can market, it’s about offering prime content all year round.
What may be added over the months ahead?
I would say cricket, rugby, college sports and women’s sports are some of our big focuses going forward. The 2023 Women’s World Cup was a massive success. We’re always on the lookout for new things. We want to be the best of the best in that and so we are always looking at expanding our content offering.
Since AIX, we are working with airlines on things they really want, and how we’re going to make that possible for them as we evolve the product.
What’s the timeline or process to getting new sports onboard?
We tend to have workshops with our partners. Every year, we will go and see them at least once and ask what content they are looking for. That’s when we get the feedback.
At IMG, we have offices all around the world, we can access every rights holder within days. We’re obviously well-known in the world of sports and this channel is getting more and more well-known. So if there’s something we don’t have, we can go and get it pretty quickly. We are now looking at what we’re going to be buying in 2026 and onwards. Typically, we need at least six months to look at a sport and see if we’re going to put it onboard but we can move very fast.
We created a new right years ago – the live in-flight right didn’t exist, and that worked for the rights holders, because all their deals tend to be domestic deals. The international airspace made sense for them.
How are things likely to evolve in the near future?
There have been a few competitors in the past but it’s a quite a high cost of entry – not just in the price but also reputation. IMG have been in this business for over 30 years. We are exploring ways to be more flexible when delivering a live sports channel, bringing more opportunities to travelling fans.
I’m really proud of my team and the company as a whole for the way we support airlines, if they want to do any promotions and activations. We want to provide the best service at all times.
Is there anything else that you’d like to add?
Any airline can have live sports; we can deliver it to everyone. I think it’s going to be a really exciting time for sports fans who are flying. You’ll see a lot more live sports on airlines. We’re about to transform the business and, hopefully, we’re very well positioned to benefit from that.
