A club broadcasts a match. Fans watch, comment and share.
When the stream ends, what has the club learned about those people? Can it connect them to its members, ticket buyers or merchandise customers? What would bring them back?
These questions shaped my Building SportsTech conversation with Ricardo Presa, CEO at Watch Labs, who brings around 12 years of experience in sports streaming.
We explored how video can help sports organisations build stronger relationships with their audiences and where founders might find opportunities to serve them.
Watch the conversation below, then use these five questions to examine your own opportunity.
1. What role should each platform play?
Ricardo sees social platforms as essential for discovery, distribution and amplification. They give sports organisations access to audiences that already spend time there.
An organisation’s own digital environment can serve a different purpose: building a direct relationship with registered viewers and shaping their experience during and after a match.
The practical question is how those channels work together. What should a fan discover on social media, and what would give them a reason to visit your platform?
2. Why would a fan register?
Ricardo shared the example of the Portuguese Basketball Federation, which made its streaming platform available for free while asking viewers to register.
It illustrates a useful choice: access can remain free while registration creates an opportunity to understand and serve the audience more directly.
For a club or founder, the challenge is giving people sufficient value to take that step. A registration form needs a compelling experience behind it—and a reason to return.
3. What will you do with the data?
Ricardo described a recurring difficulty in his conversations with sports organisations: information from ticketing, merchandise, memberships and video often sits in separate systems.
A club might know that someone bought a shirt without connecting that purchase to their match attendance or viewing habits.
My takeaway is to start with a decision. Would connecting this information help improve a membership offer, recommend relevant content or design a more useful sponsor activation?
That gives a data project a concrete purpose.
4. Who pays for the experience?
Free viewing still needs a business model behind it.
We discussed advertising, sponsorship and the different degrees of control organisations have over their commercial relationships and the fan journey.
I brought up one practical example: a sponsor activation designed to generate test-drive enquiries for a car brand. That requires thinking about the action you want a viewer to take and how you will measure it.
For founders, this means identifying both the audience receiving value and the customer funding the service.
5. What could the same footage help someone accomplish?
Ricardo sees opportunities in the long tail of sport: smaller clubs, competitions and athletes with limited budgets and less access to technology.
One example was connecting match footage, clips and player profiles. The video can support analysis, help an athlete demonstrate their abilities and give their community something to follow.
The constraints matter. Smaller audiences and limited resources make affordability and delivery costs central to the product.
For a founder, the opportunity starts with a specific task someone needs to complete—and evidence that they will pay for help.
A question to take away
Choose one audience and one customer.
What would make the audience return? What outcome would make the customer pay?
Those answers give you a starting point for deciding what to build around sports video.
Thank you, Ricardo, for sharing your perspective and practical examples.
Where do you see the most useful opportunity: fan relationships, club operations or athlete visibility?