Solidsport is the largest streaming service in Scandinavia for live sports and is both a content owner and distributor of live sports. By allowing clubs, leagues and tournament owners the ability to host their own broadcast channel and create their own revenue, Solidsport embarked on new way to create cost effective live content from sports grounds by utilizing the power of Artificial Intelligence (AI) for sports production.
Solidsport took the decision to partner with Mobile Viewpoint, a Dutch based company who have pedigree in developing live streaming technology and boast a large range of global broadcasters and TV production companies as customers.
Mobile Viewpoint has developed IQ-Sports Producer (IQ-SP), which is an AI based sports streaming solution that produces live sports games for TV channels, OTT platforms and social media, but without the need and expense of onsite camera people. Ideal for both indoor and outdoor sports games that don’t have the capital and resource of the major games, IQ-SP is ideal for tier 2 leagues, media rights holders, training sessions, U21, U18 and other grass roots games where they have limited budget but require professional productions.
Solidsport decided to accelerate the number of automated sport broadcasts that they cover in Sweden, Denmark, Finland and the Baltic region by adopting AI technology. With the sports market evolving to remote productions and OTT delivery, coupled with the demand for more local sports for live streamed sports, this new partnership is ideally placed to deliver on the need for low budget professional live productions. This has especially becoming more relevant as Covid-19 prevents spectators and crew being allowed to site, and offers teams and leagues a new approach to fan engagement and to make additional revenue on their subscriptions.
Solidsport is the largest streaming platform for live sports in Scandinavia and is already streaming over 50,000 games a year. During 2019, thousands of teams, clubs, tournaments and clubs chose to broadcast live over 45,000 matches and events via Solidsport. The simplicity of live streaming and the opportunity to make money is what has made many sports associations, clubs, tournaments and thousands of teams choose Solidsport. TheIQ-SP platform is being adopted at each location to live stream games complete with graphics and highlights without the need of an onsite camera crew.
Mobile Viewpoint and Solidsport have signed an agreement of a co-operation to digitize sports on all levels. Through this partnership Solidsport will be the exclusive partner to Mobile Viewpoint to install and serve the company’s AI cameras in the Nordic region.
“It started already in February this year with the first installation of IQ-Sports Producer in IFU Arena in Uppsala” says Tobias Thalbäck, CEO at Solidsport. “We had been looking into this space for quite some time now but we could not find a solution that was good enough. But after our initial testing, everything was put on hold due to the ongoing pandemic. But after some comprehensive usage during the summer of 2020. we now know that we have the absolute right partner in Mobile Viewpoint for this project. With this partnership, we are anticipating fast adoption across all of our markets. We are convinced that this is the future for any modern arena today. Thanks to this partnership we are now able to offer a complete solution to clubs and arena owners at a compelling cost for a professional delivery”.
”Ground-breaking AI will automate sport broadcasting”
Michel Bais, Managing Director of Mobile Viewpoint commented “We are absolutely delighted to start the partnership with Solidsport. By utilizing our AI driven IQ-SP platform, Solidsport will be able to create and live stream professional sports productions without the need of a cameraperson or onsite director.”
Solidsport will make 10 installations before the end of the 2020 and are already in discussions with arena owners and clubs who want to join Solidsport on this journey. As a next step, Solidsport aims to expand the partnership with more markets and over 100 installations during 2021.
Bais concludes “We continue to innovate with AI, and more recently we have added new features that Solidsport will be able to take advantage of. We continue to add new sports, not just traditional indoor and outdoor ball games, but also sports such as cycling and horse jumping. But additionally as part of any sports production, especially where there is no human intervention, viewers wish to see scoreboard overlays and highlight replays, which through the power of AI, we are able to provide making the production even more professional and compelling. We are excited to be to co-operating with Solidsport going forward allowing us to innovate our technology over time. This not only benefits their customers, but allows us to innovate for all our customers based on real-life feedback.”
