SPORTS ARE WINNING WITH CAPTIONS
How Captioning Builds Audiences, from Streaming to Stadiums
SALES@AI-MEDIA.TV AI-MEDIA.TV
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HOW CAPTIONING BUILDS AUDIENCES, FROM STREAMING TO STADIUMS
With the global sports industry valued at over $500bn in 20231, the worldwide obsession with sports continues to grow. New megadeals between sports leagues & broadcast networks or streaming platforms are al-
Bigger and better stadiums are constantly under construction, thrilling fans with advanced tech that elevates every match. Whether they’re experienced via video or in person, sporting events count on captioning now more than ever. Together, sports and captions deliver superior experiences to all kinds of audiences, in addition to ensuring accessibility. In this eBook, we share six reasons why broadcasters and venues are increasingly choosing to caption sports. We explain why sports captioning is different to other forms of captioning, as well as the unique considerations for broadcasters and venues. And we share how AI-Media helps the world’s leading sports broadcasters accurately caption their content.
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TOP 6 BENEFITS OF CAPTIONING SPORTS
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Sports broadcasters and venues are increasingly realizing the many benefits of captions. They can help you:
Maximize Accessibility Captions provide an inclusive fan experience for the hearing impaired, who make up over 5% of the world’s population.2 They also help you comply with accessibility legal requirements across the globe.
Boost In-Venue Engagement Research shows that people are 31% more likely to attend a live event if they know it has captions. Among 18-25s, that figure rises to 45%.3 One of the reasons for this is that captions not only provide a more inclusive experience for the Deaf & hard of hearing, but also make live events more engaging for those without hearing loss. For example, over the roar of engines at a Formula 1 event, spectators in the stands can follow along with captions on the big screen, or on their mobile device, to catch all the latest substitutions, referee rulings, halftime show alerts, and other in-game events.
Enhance the Fan Experience People increasingly expect captions. In fact, 80% of those who use captions aren’t hearing impaired.4 And 80% of TV viewers aged 18-25 say they use captions all or part of the time.5 One of the reasons captions are so widely used is because they’re proven to increase information retention and comprehension. For example, captions allow fans watching from home to read stats quoted by commentators or analysts, making them easier to understand.
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Ensure Fans Never Miss a Word It’s not just those with hearing impairments that have trouble hearing what’s happening when watching TV or live performances. In fact, 67% of people often have this problem.6 This includes sports fans, who often have to keep up with coverage that rapidly switches from play-by-play analysis to commentary on the players and teams. Captions ensure those watching at home or at the venue never miss a word – particularly when there’s a fast talking announcer.
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Expand Global Reach Multilingual captions allow you to break down language barriers and reach untapped global audiences. They can also help you cater to non-English speakers within your own country.
Provide FLEXIbility Viewers can watch sports no matter where they are or what they’re doing – whether they’re on commute or in a noisy (or quiet) environment.
Research shows that 69% of people view video with sound off in public places, and 25% watch with sound off in private places.7
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EXPERIENCE WINS OUT AI-Media knows captions for sports. We’re the official captioning partner of some of the world’s leading sports broadcasters and organizations. From soccer and tennis, to baseball and global multi-sport events, AI-Media has the expertise and technology to caption any sport.
In 2021, AI-Media helped one of America’s leading broadcast networks live caption the ‘world’s biggest sporting event,’ which hosted 11,000+ athletes and 339 events spanning 50 sports. We delivered a highly accurate, reliable end-to-end cloud solution that simplified the many complex demands of captioning this massive global event. Our solution combined automation with human curation to caption over 2,500 hours of coverage. Accessibility compliance and an improved audience experience were simplified, leveraging cloud-based workflows that saved time and money. AI-Media is how the world’s leading sports producers accurately caption their content. Whether to caption a sports broadcast, in-venue display or over-the-top content, we have all the captioning software, hardware and human support you need in one place – a unique capability among our industry competitors.
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WHY SPORTS CAPTIONING IS DIFFERENT Live sports are exciting to watch but can be uniquely challenging to caption. It’s different from news, another prominent live captions application. The distinct traits of sports production can reduce accuracy and increase latency, two key measures of caption quality.
Sports captioning hazards that can impair accuracy and cause delay include: • • • •
Additional background noise Sport-specific jargon Greater unpredictability of content Highly emotional expression
AI-Media simplifies captions for sports content creators and venues with LEXI, our cloud automated captioning solution that leverages the latest ASR (automatic speech recognition) technology to consistently achieve over 98% accuracy. One secret to LEXI’s high accuracy is its groundbreaking Topic Model feature. Easy to operate and automate, LEXI’s customized dictionaries allow it to recognize: • Sport-specific terms & athlete names • Commentator names • Event-specific information like venue names and locations
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SPORTS ON SCREEN OR IN THE VENUE: TWO DIFFERENT CAPTIONING WORKFLOWS
Interestingly, captioning for live sports calls for two distinct workflows, depending on who’s viewing the content and where they are. Spectators present at the venue experience captions that appear on the in-venue display, providing essential information to fans. Depending on the sport, these announcements may include: • • • • •
Safety information Anthem lyrics, halftime show alerts, and other in-game events Advertising and promotional messaging Player substitutions Referee/umpire rulings
HOW AI-MEDIA DELIVERS CAPTIONS TO IN-VENUE DISPLAYS AI-Media’s technology and expertise means we help venues achieve the best engagement possible for their unique venue. In some instances this will involve captioning on the primary screens, while others will require captioning on distinct digital signage or screens on the concourse. Whatever the scenario, AI-Media will work with the venue to develop a superior yet cost effective solution. AI-Media streamlines captioning at live sports venues using our SDI encoders, such as Encoder Pro (HD492), plus our highly accurate and cost effective LEXI AI-powered automatic captioning.
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E-Book This combination is easily integrated into AV workflows at stadiums and venues to allow captioning to be transmitted wherever desired.
HOW BROADCAST VIEWERS EXPERIENCE CAPTIONS Meanwhile, broadcast and streaming audiences who experience the same game at the exact same time benefit from closed captioning – that is, captions that they can turn on or off. Viewers are provided with the commentators’ live play-by-play with captions generated by automated solutions like LEXI or Premium Human. Fans don’t have to suffer from hearing loss to appreciate captions. They make information more readily accessible at the game, and viewers at home often want or need to mute their audio and watch with captions on.
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END-TO-END SOLUTIONS ONLY AI-MEDIA CAN OFFER Only AI-Media can provide sports broadcasters, franchises and venues with complete captioning and transcription solutions. Our end-to-end expertise powers caption workflows optimized for sports. Whether the need is for cloud solutions, hardware solutions, automatic captioning or a hybrid approach, AI-Media has it all in one place. From OTT networks to stadiums, sports content creators globally count on AI-Media to make their captioning easy, affordable and customized to their exact needs. With high quality captioning, they can grow their audience even further and drive new revenue. AI-Media’s offerings that are ideal for sports captions include:
SDI Encoders AI-Media offers a comprehensive range of SDI caption encoders empowered by state-of-the-art technology. This innovative suite caters to the diverse captioning requirements of sports captioning applications. All of AI-Media SDI encoders interface with our flagship AI-powered automatic captioning solution, LEXI. The Encoder Pro (SKU: HD492) is the broadcast standard 1RU SDI caption encoder that offers a low operational cost and low-latency caption display. It works with most common broadcast video formats and meets varying broadcast and streaming needs. The Encoder Pro hardware supports HD video standards up to 1080P on 3 Gbps SDI transport. For support for 4K and HDR signals using 12 Gbps SDI, AI-Media also offers the Encoder 4K solution.
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Alta Alta is the leading software caption encoder for live IP Video. It’s ideal for any broadcast network, OTT platform or streaming content creator that needs captioning in IP video production environments. A future-proofed solution that’s powered by cloud and APIs, Alta makes it easy for sports productions of all sizes to have fully virtualized caption capabilities. It merges intelligent captioning and translation capabilities to cloud-based video workflows, as well as MPEG-TS and SMPTE 2110. Alta offers support for Amazon Web Services’ (AWS) Cloud Digital Interface (CDI), and AWS Media Intelligence (AWS MI) solutions. No matter their market size, pairing with AWS services makes it easier and more affordable than ever for sports content creators to caption cloud-based live video production. Alta integrates seamlessly with LEXI, LEXI Translate and other AI-Media solutions.
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LEXI AI-Media’s LEXI is the industry-leading automated captioning solution. It’s cost-effective and capable of consistently achieving over 98% accuracy with machine learning workflows that achieve far greater precision than “out-of-the box” automated captions. Its low latency means that captions keep up with live sports action. LEXI’s Topic Models, or customized dictionaries, are ideal for sports. This AI-driven feature enables LEXI to recognize topics, immerse itself in distinctive vocabulary, and observe context, so it can perform in real time with high accuracy. Its Core Models system is an expansion of Topic Models that accurately displays custom vocabulary & phrases for sports and several other fields including news & weather. If required, broadcasters can also layer human curation of expanded topic models for up to the minute accuracy.
LEXI Translate Sports broadcasters and streaming networks score even more flexibility with LEXI Translate. AI-Media’s cloud automated multilingual captioning solution builds on LEXI’s advanced machine learning to translate from and into over 100 languages. With LEXI Translate, sports OTT platforms can quickly expand into international markets. Caption translation in IP-based workflows enables easy localization of sports programming, vastly simplifying global distribution for fresh revenue streams.
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WORLD LEADER IN SPORTS CAPTIONING Experience makes a difference in sports captions. AI-Media understands the distinct demands that closed captioning and open captioning make on sports production. We know, because we’ve been chosen as the captioning partner for many of the world’s biggest athletic events and sports franchises. Some of the major sports productions we’ve captioned include:
Soccer and Tennis for Global Streaming Platform AI-Media helped one of the world’s largest streaming services add multilingual captions to its coverage of Europe’s leading soccer leagues and tennis event. We continue to provide 45 hours of German and Italian captions per week for both French and European-wide soccer leagues. Over the past few years, we’ve provided 120+ hours of French captions for a major annual tennis event held in France.
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Leading US Sports Broadcaster One of America’s most established sports networks boosts viewer engagement and ensures accessibility compliance with AI-Media captions, which are seamlessly added to its live and OTT content.
US Baseball Franchise A leading American baseball franchise previously didn’t live caption any of its 150 second division games that were broadcast during a season. Live human captioning was simply too expensive.
But in 2022, Alta & LEXI enabled the franchise to caption 30,000 hours of second division games. AI-Media helps the franchise reduce costs with an end-to-end IP solution that streamlines captioning workflows. 14
Premium human captioners are used for high profile events, while LEXI is often used for smaller events shown on OTT. The broadcaster has over 200 Alta channels installed, which are controlled almost entirely through API integrations. This creates a highly scalable and efficient workflow for captioning hundreds of sports events every day.
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Soccer and Tennis for Global Streaming Platform A leading Australian sports broadcaster accurately captions its live and OTT coverage of the UK’s largest soccer competition thanks to AI-Media. Since 2019, we’ve provided a highly efficient solution that helps ensure compliance with Australian accessibility requirements. AI-Media has also captioned this broadcaster’s coverage of soccer leagues in Japan and Spain on an ad hoc basis.
BECOME A CAPTIONS CHAMPION Fans have a passion for sports. At AI-Media, our passion is sports captions. From live streaming to inside the stadium, AI-Media is the answer for captions that are easy, affordable, and energize audiences everywhere. Only AI-Media has the end-to-end captioning technology and teams to create fully customized solutions. Powered by APIs, the cloud and IP video, our captioning solutions provide everything you need to maximize accessibility, engagement and global reach.
We’re Trusted by the Best The world’s leading sports broadcasters and franchises choose us as their captioning partner.
We Can Caption Any Sport From soccer and tennis, to baseball and global multi-sport events, AI-Media has deep experience captioning the world’s leading sports.
We Provide Global Support AI-Media’s team of captioning experts spans the globe, providing in depth advice & dedicated support wherever you are. 15
AI-MEDIA SIMPLIFIES CAPTIONING AI-Media is the perfect partner to deliver highly accurate, reliable and cost-effective captions for your sports content.
SOURCES 1. Statista 2023, Researchandmarkets.com 2. World Health Organization 3. Stagetext/Sapio Research 4. Verizon Media 5. Stagetext/Sapio Research 6. Sapio Research 7. Verizon Media
CONTACT US Contact us at sales@AI-Media.tv to discover how we can help you simplify sports captioning in the cloud.