IBC 2025 Preview: Cloud-native production reshapes sports broadcasting workflows

As the sports broadcasting industry prepares to converge at IBC 2025 this September in Amsterdam, a fundamental transformation in production workflows is reaching maturity.

The shift from traditional on-site production trucks to cloud-based, remote workflows is no longer experimental — it’s becoming the operational standard.

However, as broadcasters embrace these new technologies at scale, persistent challenges around reliability, timing, and integration continue to surface on game day.

The migration represents more than a technological upgrade; it’s a complete reimagining of how live sports content is produced, processed, and distributed. While the benefits are clear — reduced costs, increased scalability, and global talent access — the industry is discovering that cloud-native production brings its own set of complex operational challenges.

Cloud workflows reshape production economics

The migration to cloud-based production has fundamentally altered the economics of live sports broadcasting.

Where major events once required shipping multiple aircraft loads of equipment globally, streamlined fly-packs with extensive remote workflows have become the norm.

“Cloud-based and remote workflows have transformed live sports production by enabling scalable, flexible, and cost-efficient operations, reducing the need for massive on-site crews and infrastructure,” said Paul Calleja, CEO of GlobalM. “They allow broadcasters to spin up resources on demand, centralize operations, and integrate global talent without travel.”

This transformation extends beyond cost savings to democratize high-quality sports broadcasting.

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World Archery recently invested in Appear’s X Platform to bring live production of its events in-house, demonstrating how cloud technology is making broadcast-quality production accessible to smaller organizations.

“With edge encoding and IP-native media transport, even mid-tier or regional sports can now bring production in-house without sacrificing quality,” said Ian Wagdin, VP of technology and innovation at Appear. “The sports federation now has full control of its content delivery, significantly improving the quality and consistency of its live streams.”

The environmental benefits are equally significant.

Russell Johnson, director of Hitomi Broadcast, notes the industry has “witnessed a dramatic transformation in sports production, with major events moving from shipping multiple aircraft loads of equipment globally to employing streamlined fly-packs with extensive remote workflows. This shift has reduced carbon footprints whilst allowing technical expertise to be shared across multiple events without extensive travel.”

Hybrid becomes the new standard

Rather than complete cloud migration, the industry is settling on hybrid approaches that blend on-premises infrastructure with private and public cloud environments. This model offers both the flexibility of cloud computing and the performance guarantees that live sports demand.

“Hybrid production environments have moved beyond transitional, they are fast becoming the operational standard,” Wagdin said. “Broadcasters no longer want to choose between on-prem or cloud; they expect seamless integration across both.”

Media transport, encoding, and monitoring are increasingly being containerized and orchestrated as microservices, allowing broadcasters to customize workflows based on specific event needs. This modularity enables coverage of more events at reduced overhead while maintaining the high standards that sports broadcasting requires.

“Media transport, encoding, and monitoring are now being containerized and orchestrated as microservices, allowing broadcasters to spin up tailored workflows based on event needs,” Wagdin said. “This is enabling the coverage of more events at reduced overheads.”

Game-day challenges persist

Despite the industry’s cloud migration, significant gaps remain that become critical on game day when stakes are highest. Network reliability, latency management and system integration continue to challenge even the most sophisticated operations.

“On game day, gaps remain around legacy systems still in use that cause things like long latencies, reliability under peak loads, and the dependencies on stable connectivity in stadiums where networks can be congested,” Calleja said. “Operationally, engineers still face challenges with tool fragmentation, interoperability across vendors, and maintaining the same level of control and immediacy that a traditional on-site setup once guaranteed.”

The complexity of managing timing across distributed production chains has increased significantly as workflows become more distributed. What might seem like minor timing discrepancies in traditional workflows can cascade into major issues in IP-based environments.

“The critical gap we see on game day is timing verification across these complex, multi-location setups,” Johnson said. “What might seem like minor misalignments in traditional SDI workflows can become significant issues in IP environments, where multiple buffers and network paths introduce unexpected delays.”

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These challenges are particularly acute for robotic camera systems. While remote operation capabilities have expanded dramatically, the infrastructure requirements remain demanding.

“The quality of delivery on Game Day is largely dependent on the broadcast infrastructure, requiring a low-latency, stable connection, something not all stadiums can provide,” said Paddy Taylor, head of broadcast at MRMC. “Automated tracking can struggle when the play becomes unpredictable or players are obstructed, requiring manual intervention.”

AI impacting content workflows

Artificial intelligence has become a new standard piece of many sports production workflows, particularly in content creation and real-time processing.

AI systems can now automatically detect key moments and generate clips in real time, dramatically accelerating post-production workflows.

“Editors can now cut highlights from anywhere in the world, while AI systems automatically detect key moments — goals, touchdowns, game-changing plays — and generate clips in real time,” said Kathleen Barrett, CEO of Backlight. “Content is instantly adapted for different platforms, from vertical video to traditional broadcast, enabling teams to scale output efficiently and cost effectively.”

However, human expertise remains essential for nuanced storytelling and contextual understanding that AI cannot yet replicate.

“AI still falls short when it comes to capturing nuance — emotional beats, evolving storylines, and context that experienced producers bring to the table,” Barrett said. “The next phase isn’t just about automation — it’s about closing the gap between speed and storytelling.”

The technology is also enabling new approaches to content accessibility and global distribution through advanced speech-to-text capabilities, automated translation, and voice cloning technologies.

Infrastructure demands intensify

As production workflows become more sophisticated and content requirements multiply, infrastructure performance becomes increasingly critical. The demands of handling multiple 4K or 8K feeds, real-time graphics rendering, and instant content delivery across platforms create bottlenecks in unexpected places.

“Sports broadcasting represents some of the most demanding workflows we encounter,” said Duncan Beattie, market development manager at Tuxera. “When you’re dealing with multiple 4K or 8K feeds, real-time graphics rendering, and the need for instant content delivery across multiple platforms, every component of your infrastructure stack needs to perform flawlessly.”

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Even small performance gaps at the protocol level can become critical failure points during peak production moments when multiple teams need simultaneous access to high-resolution assets.

“During peak production moments, when multiple teams need simultaneous access to the same high-resolution assets, these protocol bottlenecks become critical failure points,” Beattie said. “In live sports production, you can’t ask the match to pause while your files transfer.”

As cloud-based workflows proliferate and content becomes more distributed, protecting valuable sports content requires increasingly sophisticated approaches. Anti-piracy measures must evolve to address the challenges of cloud-native distribution.

“Fighting piracy continues to be an uphill battle for live sports streaming; however, sophisticated anti-piracy measures such as forensic and dynamic watermarking, geo-blocking, and CDN-level authentication and access control services can help content providers to quickly identify piracy sources and stop content restreaming,” said Eric Gallier, vice president of video solutions at Harmonic.

As industry professionals prepare for IBC 2025, the focus will likely be on bridging the remaining operational gaps in cloud production workflows.

While the technology has proven capable of handling live sports at scale, the industry continues to refine reliability, timing, and integration challenges.

The conversations in Amsterdam will center on practical solutions for game-day reliability, improved interoperability between vendor systems and the development of more resilient hybrid workflows. 

The transformation is well underway, but the industry’s most critical work — ensuring that cloud-based sports production performs flawlessly when millions of fans are watching — continues to drive innovation and investment across the entire ecosystem.