BT Sport COO Jamie Hindhaugh told the Broadcast Sport Tech Innovation Forum how the broadcaster aims to use esports content
The Broadcast Sport Tech Innovation Forum was held on 11-12 November, and among the speakers was BT Sport COO Jamie Hindhaugh.
Giving insight on a range of topics, Hindhaugh touched on how BT Sport aims to use its esports content – and integrate it into its wider offering.
“As soon as you drop the term esports and use sport, I think there’s more opportunity,” he said. “I think it’s how you categorise it.”
BT Sport picked up the exclusive rights to the V10 R-League tournament back in September, and Hindhaugh believes that the quality is high enough to be almost indistuingishable from traditional live sport: “Apart from when they crash and carry on again, I would defy that you would know that isn’t live sport.”
He added on how the broadcaster has used esports so far: “We used the esports platform as an opportunity to bring our talent in, the banter, and to create competition. The one thing we were all missing when there was no live sport, was that competitive element.
On the future, he continuted: “Long term I think esports is really interesting. Whether it works behind a paywall I’m not so sure, but I think there is a happy way through where we can work with that content – because it is still sport, just on a different platform.”