NEW ORLEANS—The world of alternate sports broadcasts and data-driven broadcast elements keeps expanding. And several key figures see those worlds growing significantly further soon. One important voice in the space is Genius Sports president (North America) Steve Bornstein, who envisions altcasts getting much more personalized in the next few years.
Bornstein’s comments came on a Genius-presented panel Thursday at Super Bowl media week. That panel discussed both December’s EA/Genius/Peacock EA Sports NFL Madden Cast and the future of Genius’ technology and altcasts in general.
Bornstein, the former president and CEO of ESPN, president of ABC, and CEO of NFL Network, predicted a longer-term setup with even more personalization available on altcasts (similar to some other viewer-specific personalization companies are targeting). He said it’s not imminent, but a few years down the road, he expects the ability to offer personally-customized feeds.
“[You’ll see where] we actually customize these highlights or these feeds for the individual. Right now it’s still, whether it’s a MaddenCast or any alternative cast, you’re still watching that broadcast.”
Bornstein said he sees the crucial role of altcasts as bringing in viewers who might not normally watch games or might not watch them for long.
“All of this is about serving audiences and aggregating underserved audiences. That’s what I think EA and what we did, and what Genius helped EA and NBC accomplish. And that, to me, is the future. We’re generating a single-home Genius IQ, which is basically next generation of stats, a new set of asset classes, that we would be able to manipulate and deliver to audiences in a non-traditional manner.”
NFL executive vice president of media distribution Hans Schroeder said the league had embraced various altcasts over the past few years to try and reach those different audiences.
“It’s been a journey for us,” he said. “When you talk about alternative broadcasts, there’s a wide variety of them. Some of those are just an alternative way to watch the game, like the ManningCast. Some, like [Thursday Night Football‘s] Prime Vision, are looking to innovate and sort of drive new ways new features, really building on innovation. We’re lucky that our partners are innovating every year, but what’s that next big innovation like a first and 10 line?”
Schroeder said one element might be the way Prime Video (and executive producer Fred Gaudelli, who was also on this panel) works defensive alerts, like those seen on Prime Vision, into the main broadcast.
“You’re starting to see some of that with integration of the Next Gen Stats native AI into the Amazon Thursday Night Football experience, which Fred’s helping to drive.”
Schroeder said the MaddenCast, which Gaudelli also worked on as executive producer for NBC Sports, was an innovation on a different front. It reached out to an audience focused on video games.
“Our learning has been about ‘How do you really create a dedicated experience for an audience that you can really reach, target, and market to, and have a different way to enjoy the NFL come alive?’ And that’s where I think the intersection is for us in this case. Madden is the gold standard of all video games, which for us is how a lot of our young fans are learning to watch football and engage with football.”
For the MaddenCast specifically, EA Sports vice president Evan Dexter said their audience research data shows there are a lot of young fans coming to sports through video games. He said 28% of the Gen A fans they surveyed became sports fans through video games (versus 23% from watching the sport), and 58% of those who didn’t describe themselves as fans said if they were going to engage with sports, they’d engage with the game first. And he noted that there are at least hundreds of thousands of kids who don’t regularly watch the NFL, but do play Madden.
“Participation was always the most important part of the fan funnel. With Gen A, we’re seeing gaming surpass participation.”
On the personalization front, Dexter said he envisions potential future Madden broadcasts providing information that lets viewers key in on crucial matchups before a play without needing a play-by-play voice or analyst to point that out.
“What we want to do is bring more data to the fore, so that viewers have their own storyline, so it’s not so analyst or commentator-driven,” he said. “For example, we aspire to have Madden ratings matchups at the line of scrimmage pre-snap, so that a viewer can see where a mismatch might be or where a great matchup might be.
“And they would know, ‘Okay, there’s a 98 wideout lined up against an 80 DB, that’s a storyline, and I’m going to watch that unfold. I don’t need to be drawn to it, I don’t need to be taken back to it in a replay.’ I think 12 months from now, what would be great for it to look like is if we’re powering more viewer-owned narratives based on data.”
Beyond just data-focused altcasts, there are plenty of other approaches, including animated broadcasts like Disney’s Toy Story and Simpsons. Asked for a prediction on altcasts next year, Schroeder said he’d love to see one from Super Bowl broadcaster NBC, given parent company Comcast’s range of intellectual properties.
“With that NBC Super Bowl, it would be amazing to see them bring some of the IP that sits across the NBCUniversal family. Seeing a Super Bowl with the Minions would just be awesome, right? The appeal around the world with how that could come together? So at that level, not necessarily new and innovative, but taking somebody with a really powerful set of IP and expressing our game differently in the biggest game of the year.”
Schroeder said from the league perspective, they want to keep working with their broadcasters to keep advancing altcasts, saying “Across all our partners, you’ll see us just doing more.” That might even involve real-time live audio from the field (something tried in other sports and other football leagues, but not the NFL yet).
“Audio is an incredible one. If we could ever unlock some of the live audio from the field around different experiences—probably with some form of rating system, probably rated R—but it would be amazing.”
Schroeder said that while it already exists somewhat inside the NFL, he’d love to find a way to make it available to the public.
“Some of us are fortunate and can hear that real-time in the games, and it’s incredible. You learn off the field in real-time about what’s actually happening down there. You find the right model for that, that would just, I think, be transformative for people and the real avid fan, getting a deeper and much more intimate way to engage with the game.”
Beyond really big swings with altcasts, Gaudelli said there’s room for entries like the MaddenCast that keep much of the focus on the action on the field, just with a different spin.
“One thing I loved about the MaddenCast, and I don’t know that I can say that about every altcast I’ve seen in every other sport, is that you can still watch the game. You weren’t taken away from the game, or you weren’t trying to figure out what was going on in the game.”
To that point, Bornstein said he finds it difficult to follow the actual game on some altcasts like ESPN/Omaha Productions’ ManningCast. And that’s why he thinks the future is that huge level of personalization possibilities, letting each fan get the kind of experience they want.
“On the ManningCast, it’s hard to watch the football game; it’s nice to listen to those guys shoot the sh*t, but you’re not really watching the game. Ultimately, this is coming down to one feed for every individual any way they want. That’s probably three to seven years away from truly being actualized in any kind of meaningful fashion, but that’s the direction.”
He said a key element there is enhancing traditional broadcasts while also providing new altcasts for those not currently watching the league regularly.
“If you want to watch a football game, that’s pretty well-established. It’s hard to get a lot better than what you’ll see this Sunday, what you’ll see every Sunday during the season. So this is all about serving audiences that currently aren’t getting their content from traditional linear television.
“My sons are big sports fans, but they’re not watching ESPN. They’re getting it off of TikTok. They’re getting it off of YouTube. And this is a way for us to allow IP holders at the NFL and distributors like Peacock and EA, in this case, to be able to disseminate this content in new fashions.”
