In February, I attended Mile High Video, which was packed with interesting talks. And then two weeks ago, I went to SportsPro New York. One theme stood out across both events: “hyper-personalisation”.
At Mile High Video, Caroline Ewerton, SVP Content Operations & Technology at DAZN, painted a picture in which no two users would have the same sports viewing experience. She described it as “Hyper-personalisation at scale. Every Fan a different experience”. Every aspect of the viewing experience would be personalised in real-time: what you see, how you see it, how it is formatted, and presented, etc.
Personalisation slide from Caroline Ewerton’s Keynote at Mile High Video 2026
Then at SportsPro, ESPN’s Brian Marshall (VP is Sports Products and Strategy) said, according to my real-time notes: “Instead of one SportsCenter, we want to create millions of shows, each personalised to the individual fan. AI makes that possible.” He went on to quote industry veteran Peter Scott as saying that we are in a transition from one-to-many (the broadcast model) to a world in which viewing will be many-to-one.
The hyper-personalisation applies to literally every aspect of the viewing experience: what content a user sees and in which order, what data (overlays) are displayed, what the UI looks like, what commentary is played, which betting options are presented, and much more. It could also determine camera selection.
Even when there is still a director for, say, a live motorsport race, a fan could get their own personalised multiview with their favourite drivers always in view – automatically curated for them. Fascinating!
But sports are also the last bastion of live viewing. And live viewing has always been something that people enjoy together: in the stands where the action happens, at home with the family, in a bar with friends.
In this age of ultimate personalisation, a company like Cosm has understood that fans still want watch sports together, even when they are not at the venue. Calling it Shared Reality™, Cosm enables fans to enjoy live sports in their amazing, high-resolution immersive LED domes.
I would argue that, in some cases, Cosm’s domes even surpass being at the venue. Take for instance hockey. You get to watch the action from up close from amazing angles, never losing track of the puck.
Fans in the dome participate as they are at the game itself, with all the excitement and shared celebration. They wear the jerseys, hats and scarves of their team. They clap, cheer, yell and sometimes commiserate together.
Even in a personal streaming experience, there can be shared elements and individual elements. Take F1TV, Formula 1’s direct-to-consumer streaming app: fans can add views of their favourite driver(s) next to the director feed in a slick multiview experience. They keep track of the common story while being able to add their personal narrative: the best of both worlds.
Will the future of streaming indeed be infinite personalisation? With every fan their own sports watching experience, and their own “truth”? Or will there be a limit, where at least a part of the experience is still a shared reality? Our “social” media” are already hyper-personalised, with every user their own feed, their own bubble, their own reality. Will sports viewing go that way too?
We humans are social animals, and I believe shared experiences are still those that bring out the best emotions. As our industry starts using AI at mass scale, it will be fascinating to see the how hyper-personalisation evolves.
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Stay tuned!