MWC Barcelona Sports and Entertainment Summit 2024 Highlights

 

 

The Sports and Entertainment summit made it’s first appearance at MWC Barcelona at the Connected Industries stage in February 2024. Our sessions spanned the entire week, and we heard from experts across the Sports and Entertainment sector, where we shone the spotlight on how technology is improving the fan experience,  how the industry is embracing new technologies, amongst other things. This is going to be an insightful and ‘entertaining’ summit; you don’t want to miss it!

 

Our Sessions:

Sports and Entertainment Summit: How Mobile tech is transforming the Sports and Entertainment Vertical

Date and Time: 17:00 – 18:00 (CET), Tuesday 27th February

Fans and guests’ increasing demand to use data to immediately share special moments at events, has meant that wireless connectivity has become central to delivering a world class experience.

Decisions on DAS (Distributed Antenna Systems) deployed in venue have become critical to meet this increased demand and provide the quality of signal to match expectations. With mobile ticketing becoming the norm, deployments of small cells near the gates to enable fans to access the ticket are now part of this technology decision. Mobile edge computing is enabling faster processing, C-band is bringing higher performance and 5g. Mobile technologies are game changers in transforming the Sports and Entertainment vertical.

 

 

Sports and Entertainment Summit: Creating a World Class fan and Guest Experience

Date and Time: 17:00 – 18:00 (CET), Wednesday 28th February

Technology will continue to infuse every aspect of sports, creating a more immersive experience for fans at live events and at home. Across the globe, stadia are investing in connectivity solutions to enhance the fan/guest experience, from driveway to driveway. Mobile apps providing travelling and parking info, as well in stadia queueing times, are common and frictionless payments to enable speedier purchase of refreshments are growing. At home, the use of on-screen graphics and insights provides a better UX for the armchair fan.

This session will explore how technology is enabling the delivery of a more immersive and better fan/guest experience.

 

 

Sports and Entertainment Summit: The Evolving role of audience cultivators in the attention economy

Date and Time: 10:00 – 10:30 (CET), Thursday 29th February

Audience cultivators will create and efficiently monetize entertainment in one or multiple forms (e.g., video streaming, music or gaming). These companies must know their core audience, focus ruthlessly on balancing content differentiation with cost efficiency and make sure that their services are included in audience aggregator platforms and bundles. Today’s economics show that pure-plays in a single category will struggle, particularly against deep-pocketed new entrants, so diverse revenue streams are vital.

Mobile is the first mode of access to entertainment for consumers. From social media to watching long form content, all forms of entertainment is via their mobile/communication devices. For the comms industry, a constant struggle is around increasing the ARPU and retention. In an attention economy, how do you sustain and engage your consumers. How advancements in technology is enabling comms industry to cater to rising and ever evolving consumer demand?

 

 

Sports and Entertainment Summit: How the Entertainment vertical is embracing new technologies to enhance performance and experience

Date and Time: 10:45 – 12:45 (CET), Thursday 29th February

Digital gaming has grown in recent years, with 58% of adults playing games on any device at least once per week. All of which is driven by the shift to mobile, and cloud gaming, which is forecast to grow from USD 2.4 billion at the end of 2022 to USD 8.2 billion by 2025, reducing barriers to entry.
Cross platform play and a huge growth in competitive gaming, including esports,are accelerating engagement. Gaming subscriptions are on the rise, supporting gaming economics and attracting new players and merger and acquisition activity.
We will explore key trends and showcase partners leading in this ecosystem.

Emerging technologies are pushing the frontiers for gaming with XR, generative AI, the metaverse and blockchain all expected to bring new growth to gaming by attracting new players, increasing engagement from existing players, and opening up new revenue streams.
The market for XR headsets is forecast to grow from $40m in 2021 to $400m with Apple, Meta and Pico featuring strongly. Gaming is currently the key use case. Haptic feedback is making gaming more immersive and realistic than ever before. Mobile technologies continue to develop to create brilliant experiences in the entertainment vertical.

 

 

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