A New Twist on the Sofa vs. Venue Front

We brought up the issue of live-streaming apps a couple of weeks ago here on the blog, and now we have a real-work example of them being used to broadcast a sporting event—the Floyd Mayweather-Manny Pacquiao fight on May 2, 2015.

“Rather than pay the $100 pay-per-view fee to watch the fight at home, many people watched streams of the fight on video-sharing apps such as Periscope and other technology,” Stuart Pfeifer reported for the Los Angeles Times. “Some boasted on social media that they were using Periscope to watch the fight for free.”

Pfeifer wrote that Top Rank, co-promoter of the fight, plans to pursue legal action against the streaming companies and individuals who broadcast the fight. Many of the streams came from people pointing their phones at their TVs.

“The number of streams was almost overwhelming,” Christina Warren reported for Mashable. “Some Periscopers were shooting in portrait mode (as is standard for Periscope), while others were shooting in landscape to capture more of a TV screen.”

Warren wrote that the stream she ended up watching the fight on had more than 10,000 people tuned in at the same time. And that’s what made it exciting.

“The experience of watching the fight on Periscope was inherently more social—and frankly, more interactive—than watching via one of the many pirate PPV or HBO streams available on the Internet,” Warren wrote.

Yes, an event is a much better experience in person, but we’re seeing now that live-streaming apps can create a new version of sociability. It’s a new twist in the sofa vs. venue front, and one venue managers, promoters, organizations…basically anyone that has a finger in this industry should be paying attention to.

(Image: Marketingland.com)