IBC2026 explored the role of sport in the technological evolution of media and entertainment. The event brought together sports organisations, broadcasters, rights holders and technology providers at RAI Amsterdam.
From the first presentation at an industry trade show of the technology used by Olympic Broadcasting Services (OBS) during the Olympic Winter Games Milano Cortina 2026, to the participation of senior executives from FIFA, UEFA, LaLiga, Liga Portugal, the Women’s Super League, SailGP and DAZN to discuss the rapid evolution of the live sports economy and the major changes affecting its production and distribution, IBC2026 examined the advances that were redefining how sports content was created, distributed, monetised and consumed.
The importance of sport for media companies continued to grow, driving both audiences and revenues in an environment increasingly focused on live and on-demand content across multiple screens. According to Nielsen, more than 90% of the most-watched broadcasts on US television the previous year were live sporting events. Research by Omdia found that sport accounted for 24% of all new global pay-TV subscriptions during a six-month period that same year. Meanwhile, Ampere Analysis forecasts that global spending on sports media rights will rise from $64 billion in 2025 to more than $78 billion by 2030.
This increase in value coincided with major changes in the way sport was produced and distributed. Remote and distributed workflows became firmly established at some of the world’s largest live sporting events, while a growing number of rights holders developed their own production capabilities.
This is the biggest sports presence we have ever had at IBC. Sport has always been one of the main drivers of technology adoption in media because live production demands both innovation and absolute reliability. We are currently witnessing fundamental changes in the way sport is produced and experienced, from the growing role of rights holders in production to the proliferation of new ways to watch and engage with content. IBC brings the sports media industry together to showcase what is possible and help it keep pace with rapid changes in production, distribution, audience engagement and business models, said Stephen Nuttall, Chairman of IBC.
OBS brought Olympic innovation to Future Tech
One of the central elements of the IBC2026 sports programme was the OBS exhibition, which was awarded the IBC International Honour for Excellence that year in recognition of its track record of innovation in live sports production and its influence on global broadcasting.
It was the first time OBS had presented its technology at an industry trade show. Visitors to Future Tech were able to discover the innovations developed for Milano Cortina 2026, including solutions created together with the Worldwide Olympic Partners.
Featured technologies
- Viewing the action from any angle: Real-Time 360° Replay technology, developed together with Alibaba, used artificial intelligence and cloud processing to create viewpoints that no physical camera had captured. This made it possible to freeze athletes such as figure skaters and snowboarders competing in big air in the middle of a spin or trick, and then move the viewpoint around them.
- Producing Olympic coverage with mobile phones: OBS worked with Samsung to enable mobile production, including coverage of the opening ceremony recorded entirely with smartphones. This allowed camera operators to move among the athletes.
- Putting Olympic information at commentators’ fingertips: the Enhanced Commentator Information System, developed together with Deloitte, used artificial intelligence to provide rapid access to Olympic data and content. For example, it made it possible to locate record-breaking performances from the Winter Games and generate relevant video content.
- Connecting athletes with their supporters: the Athlete Moment experience, developed with TCL, enabled competitors to connect face-to-face with family and friends, bringing the emotion surrounding their Olympic performances into the coverage.
- Enriching coverage with data and graphics: new metadata and augmented reality graphics features, developed with OMEGA, demonstrated further ways of adding information and context to Olympic storytelling.
Sports leaders examined the evolution of media
The IBC2026 Conference brought together senior executives from some of the world’s leading sports organisations to examine the technological, economic and audience changes transforming sports media. Highlights included:
- Live Sports at Scale: Redefining the Art of the Possible: Oscar Sanchez, Head of International Broadcast Production at FIFA, and Yiannis Exarchos, CEO of OBS, examined developments ranging from ultra-low-latency streaming and cloud production to fan engagement and AI-driven personalisation.
- The New Playbook for Sports: AI, Data, Fans and Rights: Francisco Antunez, Chief Content Officer at Liga Portugal, and Zarah Al-Kudcy, Chief Revenue Officer at the Women’s Super League, discussed the evolving relationship between technology, fans, media rights and economics.
- Tech Leader Perspectives: How Is AI Reshaping the Business of Media?: Sotiris Salamouris, Chief Technology Officer at OBS, and Damian Cronan, Chief Information and Digital Officer at ABC, discussed how artificial intelligence and data were transforming media production, distribution and business models.
- UEFA: Unlocking Growth Through Innovation: Guy-Laurent Epstein, Executive Director of Marketing at UEFA, examined how innovation could be used to drive growth and connect with audiences without abandoning tradition.
- Security, Authenticity and Provenance: How Can We Trust the Content We Have Now and in the Future?: Jose Ignacio Carrillo de Albornoz, Head of Audiovisual Fraud Prevention at LaLiga, explored how to keep content secure, verified and traceable.
- The Winners and Losers in the Creator Economy: Who Will Be the New Media Elite?: Will Pithers, Head of Strategic Sports Partnerships at Meta, and Tim Haubeil, Head of Channels at Sidemen Entertainment, took part in a discussion on the evolution of influence, monetisation and discovery dynamics.
The partnership with Sportel expanded the debate at Content Everywhere
Content Everywhere broadened the sports debate to include multiplatform distribution, audience engagement and monetisation. Stage 1, sponsored by AWS, hosted four sports-focused sessions presented in partnership with Sportel.
The sessions were moderated by Sportel and featured speakers from the German Football Association (DFB), SailGP and Ligue de Football Professionnel (LFP):
- The New D2C Era: Why Sports Organisations Are Becoming Media Companies: examined the growth of in-house content production capabilities and direct relationships with audiences.
- Beyond the Live Event: How Sports Content Is Expanding Fan Engagement: explored how sports organisations could maintain relationships with fans throughout the year and create new commercial opportunities.
- Personalised Sports Streaming: Building the Next Viewer Experience: examined how audience data and new functionality were transforming the viewing experience.
- Where Sports Rights Go Next: Distribution, Discovery and Revenue: addressed how to protect the value of premium live content within an increasingly complex market.
Elsewhere at Content Everywhere, Stats Perform marked the 30th anniversary of its Opta data engine with a session on the creation of sports content using artificial intelligence. Several case studies also showed how S.L. Benfica launched Benfica Play, Portugal’s first football OTT platform, and how Blue Billywig helped AZ Alkmaar develop its own streaming platform.
Accelerator projects drove innovation in sports production
The IBC Accelerator Media Innovation Programme added a new dimension to sports innovation through pioneering collaborative projects that tested emerging technologies against some of the most demanding real-world challenges in live production and distribution. Three sports-focused proof-of-concept projects covered AI-driven coordination, programmable 5G connectivity and the reinvention of live streaming.
The AI Agents for Live Sports Production project brought together ITV and Astro Malaysia as Champions, with TCS, AWS, Dalet, Admongrel, Camb.ai and Shure as Participants. Its objective was to examine how multiple AI agents and technologies from different vendors could be coordinated to transform a live sports broadcast in real time.
Its multi-agent architecture coordinated processes and transferred media content and metadata between them. This enabled live sports content to be adapted and distributed to different audiences in real time through applications related to localisation, accessibility, content enhancement and monetisation, while maintaining low latency.
The Network Control: Your Connection, Your Choice project brought together BBC, EBU, DAZN, France Télévisions, GSMA, RAI Italy, RTL Germany, TV2 Denmark, Vodafone and Telefónica as Champions; Neutral Wireless, Haivision, LiveU, SliceFinity and Vonage as Participants; and the University of Strathclyde as Academic Partner.
The project investigated how open network APIs could help applications with specialised requirements interact with standardised network capabilities designed to meet defined quality levels. In this way, reliable workflows essential to audiovisual production could be maintained over 5G networks. The team developed proof-of-concept trials linked to major sporting events in Germany and Spain, which were presented and discussed at IBC2026.
The Delta Protocol: The Reinvention of Live Streaming project, championed by DAZN, EBU, IET, SBA (Saudi Broadcast Authority), SMPTE and RAI, with Google, Eluvio, NeoViews and V-Nova as Participants, explored a radically different model for live content distribution.
Instead of transmitting final pixel-based images, its long-term vision used artificial intelligence to describe an event through scene instructions, allowing the viewer’s own device to generate the experience. The system opened the door to hyper-personalisation while also addressing distribution costs, complexity and content security.
