Case Study
The company behind the development of the new Sportworld App – and its owner – is Munich-based B1 SmartTV. Using innovative technologies that enable latency-free interaction between Smart TVs and mobile devices, B1 SmartTV is renowned for developing highly relevant platforms with intuitive user journeys, unique user experiences, smart interactions, and transaction possibilities. It is also the owner and developer of Brand.TV, a platform that allows brands to make their content visible and engage audiences on the big screen.
“We began developing the new Sportworld App in 2021,” says Gerd Weiner, Managing Director of B1 SmartTV. “Since then, we have been significantly pushing its capabilities and are constantly improving it, year on year.”
For the last six years, Austrian solutions provider NativeWaves has been developing and adapting cutting edge technology that delivers a personalized viewing experience across multiple screens. The high precision, low latency and synchronization streaming solution offered by NativeWaves provides instant access to alternate camera angles, graphics, audio and data feeds so that audiences can personalise their viewing experience and choose what they want to see without any lagging sequences or interruptions.
“B1 SmartTV invited NativeWaves onto its Sportworld project in 2021, making them exclusive partner/provider for Multiview events and experiences,” Gerd Weiner says. “As our main technology partner, NativeWaves has since played a key part in developing new releases of the Sportworld Smart TV and Mobile App.”
Christof Haslauer, CEO of NativeWaves, adds: “Our first task for B1 SmartTV was to build a mobile companion App for the SmartTV App. This enabled Sportworld viewers to enjoy a multiview experience by watching live events from their own perspective on a second screen, in perfect sync with their Samsung Smart TVs. The first Multiview event we delivered for Sportworld was the Concacaf Gold Cup in July 2021, which was very well received.”
From the outset, B1 SmartTV’s Sportworld App proved hugely popular with Samsung Smart TV customers and quickly gained momentum, generating a relevant reach and usage in the Samsung App eco system.
However, for B1 SmartTV, this was just the start. The company felt there was still room for improvement, and it identified four key issues it wanted to resolve. These included creating a state-of-the-art design and user experience; bringing more content to the platform; creating a ‘standalone’ mobile app, and developing the cross-device experience between the SmartTV App and the Mobile App.
“We felt we could do this by using innovative technologies developed by companies like NativeWaves,” Gerd Weiner explains. “These would allow us to end media disruption and enable users to interact smartly and latency-free between Smart TV and mobile devices.”
Christof Haslauer adds that NativeWaves was also thinking about the next step.
“The synced second screen on mobile is only one way of enhancing the viewer experience with additional content, so we were also considering how to seamlessly integrate this experience on a TV and mobile,” he says. “In our view, enhancing the App and building a platform that supports next level event viewing experiences would be a great opportunity because it could show what the future might hold in terms of how we all watch sport and other live events.”
As NativeWaves was already supporting B1 SmartTV with technological expertise, it made sense to task the company with building and hosting an improved version of the Sportworld App on Samsung Smart TV and Mobile.
The brief included creating a more intuitive user interface for the Sportworld App and making its back end stronger and more secure. There was also a requirement for the Mobile App to reflect the look and functionality of the upgraded SmartTV App – and for both Apps to have the ability to integrate NativeWavesEXP. This new solution, launched in 2022, delivers a personalised and perfectly synchronised experience across TV and mobile devices so that fan and audience engagement is enhanced across numerous types of content, programming and live events.
“The technological background of NativeWaves and the great teamwork between our two companies led to the decision to expand the partnership,” Gerd Weiner says. “Their ability to develop Smart TV and Mobile Apps, combined with the integration of NativeWavesEXP, allowed them to offer a full package that we felt would take Sportworld to a new quality level.”
With its extensive experience in the OTT and streaming business, NativeWaves was confident it could move quickly and deliver the project in the three-month timeframe B1 SmartTV had specified.
Inevitably, the project threw up a few challenges, mainly to do with subscription management and payments, as well as access management, but NativeWaves worked closely with partners Sportainment and payment provider Plenigo to resolve these.
“We had access to a lot of expertise and ready-made components that we could integrate,” Haslauer adds. “They were difficult issues to solve in a short time frame, but we succeeded, while still guaranteeing the necessary level of security.”
Although the main focus of the redesign was the Sportworld App, NativeWaves designed the Mobile App in parallel, thus ensuring that it was ready for launch a month later.
“The Sportworld App was more difficult to build because it is controlled via a remote control, so this limits what the user can do and requires a different user flow,” Haslauer says. “Also, we incorporated a lot of additional logic to ease the user flow by providing easier login and checkout processes via the mobile phone that communicates with the Smart TV. Building these features was quite complex.”
He adds that keeping the user interface on both the Sportworld and Mobile Apps as similar as possible was a key factor.
“We made some adjustments as the user input is different on a touch screen compared to a remote control,” he says. “These adjustments have resulted in similar navigation hierarchies, but optimized content display for each platform.”
NativeWaves has also ensured that the App is easy to extend so that new features can be added in the future. This, says B1 SmartTV’s Gerd Weiner, is important because Sportworld is an ongoing development process that will continue to focus on improvements to meet and solve customers’ expectations.
Samsung is currently including Sportworld in its nationwide “Made for Germany” promotional campaign, which offers new Smart TV customers the ‘Samsung Sport Paket’ for up to 12 months. This gives viewers access to content from 12 sport broadcasters including eSPORTS1, SPORT1+, SportBild+, Sportdigital FUSSBALL, European League of Football, Motorvision.TV, Sportdeutschland.TV, ClipMyHorse.TV, fight24.tv, More Than Sports TV, Fitness Nation and EDGEsport.
The new Sportworld App has been praised by many of these broadcasters who see its potential for drawing in new viewers.
Andreas Gerhardt, Chief Distribution Officer of SPORT1+ and eSPORTS1, says: “The Sportworld App brings a bundled, top sports offer directly to the end devices of the viewer with a state-of-the-art application. We believe in reaching new user groups that do not yet have a classic subscription from the existing and established platforms, where we are still included. Interaction is becoming increasingly important in order to inspire customers in the future and there is an opportunity here to offer an even more personalised user experience.”
Björn Beinhauer, CEO of DOSB New Media GmbH and responsible for Sportdeutschland.TV, adds: “The Sportworld App is simple and good, and perfect for sharing our content more widely. It is an opportunity for us to be part of something ‘big’ from the beginning and we certainly see Apps that deliver a personalised viewing experience as the future of sports broadcasting.”
Finally, Bendix Eisermann CEO, Sportdigital TV Sende- und Produktions GmbH and responsible for Sportdigital FUSSBALL, ClipMyHorse.TV and EDGEsport, says: “We see Sportworld as an ideal addition to our distribution channels and appreciate the bundling with other sports channels in a modern OTT app with state-of-the-art UX ad UI design. With NativeWavesEXP, we also see the potential to enrich our content with data or additional camera perspectives.”
