Evertz Ease Live Takes Gamification Of The Fan Experience To New Heights

On booth N2225 at NAB, Evertz will highlight the engagement and monetization potential of its award-winning Ease Live interactive graphics overlay platform, which is already gaining strong support among top sports leagues and their streaming partners in basketball, ice hockey, baseball and football (soccer).

This exciting Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) gives live sports, live events and broadcast customers all the tools they need to create, build and distribute overlays to millions of end users on multiple platforms in real time. Leading content providers are now using Ease Live’s edge-rendered graphics to engage audiences and create new revenue streams by adding interactive experiences to existing Over-The-Top (OTT) services and streaming apps.

Alongside its support for mobile and web-based touch devices, Ease Live also offers interactive experiences developed for Connected TV devices including Apple TV, Roku and Android TV. These allow the viewer to engage with content using their television’s remote control device.

“Gamification of the viewer and ‘fan’ experience fulfils two key functions,” says Kjetil Horneland, CEO of Ease Live. “It gives audiences more enjoyment and it also gives rights holders the opportunity to offset the cost of content creation through monetization and the introduction of new ad revenues. As the only tool on the market that can deliver live stats, watch parties, free-to-play sponsored games/sports betting, polls and trivia, it is no surprise that Ease Live is rapidly expanding its partner pool and encompassing many different types of sports. We are now working closely with partners to develop new ways of incentivizing viewers and rewarding them for their participation.”

One satisfied customer is the YES Network, the regional sports network for the NY Yankees and Brooklyn Nets (and others), which has incorporated Ease Live into its YES Interactive App and its recently launched direct-to-consumer subscription streaming service. The success of this project was recognised at the 2022 SportsPro OTT Awards where Ease Live won four awards including Gold for Best in Fan Engagement, Best User Experience, and Best New Platform.

Customers using Ease Live have seen double digit growth in their audience engagements. The addition of interactive live game stats has increased the number of live stats impressions per game (i.e. the count of how many times users launch the live stats overlay) by 60% over the previous year. Response rates have also increased, with up to 60% responses achieved on factoids and up to 68% responses achieved on polls. The additional support for watch parties, where users can invite their friends to a live video chat during the game, has increased viewership by 53% in terms of unique viewers per game, with the average watch party session lasting over 30 minutes.

For NAB 2023, Ease Live will highlight additional integration with reward and loyalty services that complete the fan engagement experience. Content owners can use the first party data collected from the fan’s interaction with the graphical overlays to reward them with unique features or experiences based on their frequency of interactions. This enables the content owner to build a strong and loyal community and further opportunities for content monetization.

For more information about Ease Live, please visit NAB Booth N2225 or visit evertz.com

-ends-

About Evertz Technologies Ltd.
Evertz Technologies Limited (TSX:ET) designs, manufactures and markets video and audio infrastructure solutions for the television, telecommunications and new-media industries. The Company’s solutions are used by content creators, broadcasters, specialty channels and television service providers to support their increasingly complex multi-channel digital, high & ultra-high definition television (“HDTV” & “UHD”) and next generation high bandwidth low latency IP network environments and by telecommunications and new-media companies. Evertz products allow customers to generate additional revenue while reducing costs through efficient signal routing, distribution, monitoring and management of content, as well as the automation and orchestration of more streamlined and agile workflow processes on-premise and in the “Cloud”. For more information, please visit www.evertz.com