IBC 2025: Sports set to fast-track innovation for media and tech in Amsterdam this year

By Heather McLean Tuesday, June 3, 2025 - 15:13 Print This Story

As media and tech companies worldwide gear up for IBC2025 in September, entries are pouring in for its Innovation Awards – dominated in 2024 by four out of five winners being sports-related – with a 6 June deadline.

At the same time, the IBC Accelerator Media Innovation Programme is already developing groundbreaking sports-driven projects as part of a wider slate of fast-track media collaborations addressing practical industry challenges that will be showcased at the event. Additionally, IBC’s Technical Papers, another programme that frequently highlights sports applications, are already undergoing rigorous peer review by leading industry experts.

With both the world’s leading M&E tech providers and end users preparing to converge on Amsterdam in just a few short months, pioneering initiatives will be on display both through these IBC programmes and on the show floor, with sports once again destined lead the charge in incubating and fostering collaboration from idea to successful execution.

The intersection of sports, technology, and media innovation has never been more dynamic. From ultra-low latency streaming and high-resolution video to AI-powered production tools and immersive viewing experiences, sports has consistently led the way in the trialling and adoption of pioneering media technology.

The reason is straightforward, says Fergal Ringrose, chair of the IBC Innovation Awards Jury, whose programme honours the industry’s most critical advances each year. He says live sports remains uniquely positioned to retain audiences and drive technological progress.

“As audiences continue to fragment across all other areas of consumption, live sport is the one linear area retaining viewership and driving revenues,” Ringrose notes. “The pandemic forced the sports industry into innovations that they weren’t widely adopting before, moving beyond the traditional model of everyone going to a venue and producing out of trucks. Connectivity and cloud have become key to new remote and distributed workflows, with SMPTE 2110 and SRT enabling ultra-low latency while reducing the need for equipment and personnel – and the carbon footprints as well.”

This technological momentum has been seen most notably in major global sporting events. Mark Smith, co-lead for the IBC Accelerator Programme, highlights the evolution of sports production: “We saw some real leaps forward in Olympic coverage last year, with groundbreaking use of mobile cameras and 5G networks delivering high-definition content from the opening ceremony along the Seine,” Smith says. “Sailing and windsurfing events demonstrated how 5G can bring fans closer to the action, offering unique perspectives and immersive experiences, including real-time audio from athletes on the water.”

Sports also provides the financial backing to fuel this wave of transformative solutions. Paul Entwistle, chair of IBC’s Technical Papers Committee, emphasises the economic forces behind sports technology.

“Where you have competition for money, you see technological leadership. Pay TV has been built on the foundation of live sports, and it has driven the adoption of HD, 4K, HDR, VR, and more,” Entwistle explains. “The industry is always looking for ways to enhance the fan experience while optimising production workflows.”

IBC’s unique ecosystem of research, experimentation, and collaboration – through the Technical Papers, Accelerator Programme, and Innovation Awards – is at the heart of sports-driven technological breakthroughs. These three preprogrammes work in concert to introduce and advance ideas from the theoretical to the practical stages of development.

“The interplay between these programmes is crucial,” notes Entwistle. “Technical Papers document innovations, the Accelerators provide the framework to experiment with them, and the Awards recognise the most impactful solutions. It’s a cycle that continuously drives industry transformation.”

One example of this in action is the evolution of private 5G networks for live sports production. Originally conceptualised as an academic research project, a standalone 5G network developed by Strathclyde University and Neutral Wireless transitioned from technical paper research into a full-fledged Accelerator project. The initiative later won an IBC Innovation Award after being deployed in live sports environments, including the Paris Olympics sailing events.

Muki Kulhan, co-lead for the IBC Accelerator Programme, notes that, as the newest of the three IBC programmes, the Accelerators filled a gap by providing a live proving ground for both tech innovators and the media companies using the resulting advances. “The Accelerator Programme is a unique initiative, allowing cross-industry collaboration to develop new solutions and test them in real-world environments,” she says. “It’s a hands-on sandbox where ideas can be rapidly prototyped and refined in a way that benefits the entire industry.”

As IBC2025 approaches, key themes are already emerging. AI continues to be a dominant force, but IBC experts anticipate a shift toward practical applications. “The AI conversation is moving beyond hype to real, tangible integrations,” says Smith. “Expect to see AI playing a larger role in production automation, personalisation, and predictive analytics in sports.”

Advancements in connectivity will also be a major focus. With 5G adoption increasing, mobile and cloud-based production workflows are becoming more viable than ever. Private 5G networks and mobile edge computing are already making an impact – and are now paving the way for more AR- and VR-enhanced fan experiences.

“Compute power and mobile-first consumption are reshaping how content is produced and delivered,” notes Kulhan. “Fans expect more personalised, interactive, and immersive content, whether they’re in the stadium or watching remotely. This in turn, is driving innovations in areas like biometrics, player performance tracking, and real time audience engagement.”

Many of these innovations have found their way into the IBC Accelerators. And the fact that sports is a central driver in M&E tech innovation is evident in the selected projects – four of which underscore the rapid transformation happening in sports media:

• Conquering the Air(waves): Private 5G from Land to Sea to Sky project, led by Olympic Broadcasting Services (OBS), the University of Strathclyde, and Haivision, aims to revolutionise how live sports are captured and distributed. By leveraging private 5G, this initiative seeks to bring unprecedented mobility and real-time connectivity to sports coverage – whether on land, at sea, or even in the air.

• Ultra-Low Latency Live Streaming at Scale, a project spearheaded by BT Media & Broadcast and Comcast, builds on previous Accelerator research into reducing streaming delays. Last year, this initiative demonstrated an impressive 1.8-second glass-to-glass latency, proving that premium sports content can be delivered online at broadcast-grade speeds. This year, the focus is on scaling that innovation across public networks and consumer devices, further bridging the gap between traditional TV and digital streaming.

• Multi-Vendor Software Live Media Exchange is focused on improving how live video feeds are shared and processed. With the BBC, EBU, and Appear leading the charge, this project builds on previous work with Formula E racing to create more efficient ways to manage high-performance, real-time media workflows. The goal is to remove bottlenecks in live sports production, making it easier to distribute and process content in cloud-based environments.

• IBC Incubator 2025: Changing the Game… Again project, led by Verizon Business, Xansr Media, and AMD, with supporting Champions, Institute of Cultural and Creative industries [University of Kent] and Channel 4, and Participants, Spectral Compute Ltd, Monks, Chyron, Tesla Technologies & Software S.L. is exploring how AI can create personalised highlight reels, real-time sports statistics, and dynamic camera angles tailored to each viewer. This initiative builds on previous success of AI-driven production Accelerator experiments, this year, aiming to deliver fully customisable, AI-assisted curated sports experiences for fans.

Sports continues to be a major catalyst for innovation that translates into advances across the wider media world. With sports driving many of the advancements showcased at IBC, the show is cementing its role as the world’s premier platform for industry-wide collaboration and technological evolution.

Observes Ringrose: “IBC is a place where the best minds in the business come together to share knowledge, experiment, and build the future of media and entertainment – and, more often than not, sports is at the centre of that innovation.”

As IBC2025 approaches, all eyes will be on Amsterdam once again, where the next wave of game-changing sports media technology will take centre stage.