Microsoft Azure Media Services Handles Record Streaming for Major Sports Events

The Sports Video Group is pleased to welcome Microsoft as a corporate sponsor. Microsoft Azure Media Services is a scalable platform for building media workflows and distributing content to any screen on any network. A solid and proven media platform, it enables users to encode, protect, and stream media to PCs, iOS, Android, Windows, TVs, game consoles, and other devices, all with Olympic scale.

“[An] end-to-end live-streaming platform, powerful encoding, and global distribution [position Azure Media Services] to serve the needs of the sports-media industry,” says Julianne Carroll, product marketing manager, Azure Media Services. “We look forward to dynamic conversations with the members of SVG to help monetize and distribute premium sports content.”

A dozen leading international broadcasters used Azure Media Services to seamlessly deliver the 2014 Winter Games and 2014 FIFA World Cup to tens of millions of customers globally.

Building off the success of its 2014 Olympic Winter Games live-streaming partnership, Microsoft Azure Media Services supported NBC Sports Digital as a technology partner in the record-breaking streaming of more than 11 hours of content to 2.5 million unique users with a peak 1.3 million concurrent viewers as part of Super Bowl LXIX. With 800,000 average viewers per minute, NBC Sports Live Extra broke the previous streaming record by 52%, greatly surpassing the record 528,000 average viewers per minute for Super Bowl LVIII.

Azure Media Services’ powerful cloud-based media capabilities — including Cloud DVR, sub-clipping for highlights, and seamless Live-to-VOD transition — continue to help make live sports events a success, and, as the demand for live-streaming sports events and content on connected devices continues to grow, the unmatched hyperscale of the Microsoft Cloud will continue to deliver rich and interactive live media to millions of viewers quickly, easily, and cost-effectively.