Participant Observations 23/2/17 - Preliminary Observations During Research

Here is an early preliminary list of Participant Observations during the early stages of the research:

• Getting AFL via the AFL Global app, which effectively allowed me to bypass the subscription model of getting games (See earlier blog posts)
• I want to see if I can get the VPN to access the SlingTV app, which I could then cast directly to the television. This might be another alternative to the subscription model. What interests me is that this technology is not available in Australia, and that is almost certainly a result of the TV Now case a few years ago.
• I want to see if the quality of the picture of say NFL is different via the Watch ESPN app vs the Foxtel GO app vs the Twitter stream of Thursday night games. If Foxtel are streaming games at less than HD quality, they are obviously still trying to force people onto their primary subscription platform to maximise their current business model and content rights. But people can authenticate the Watch ESPN app using their Foxtel login, so are Foxtel relying on people not knowing about the Watch ESPN app? Otherwise, why would you watch the game in lower quality when the option is there to watch it in HD?
• Are rights divided along quality lines? I.e., HD vs SD? Foxtel cannot otherwise own the EXCLUSIVE rights to stream NFL in Australia on mobile platforms if Twitter and ESPN are also able to stream the games at the same time in as-good if not better quality
• Purchasing a Smart TV opens up an understanding of IPTV, how easy it is to stream, how international in flavour it is, and the quality of the picture.
• How often I consume sport as a 2-screen experience, especially given the number of replays in the broadcast that allow you to keep track of play, while browsing social media and fantasy sports on the second screen
• How I have produced live streaming for sports production: SEABL TV and Bar TV Sports. This gives an understanding of the nature of streaming production, the ease and affordability of it, but the low numbers of consumption as well.
• How I have watched illegal streaming sites in the past, such as the superbowl in 2012 when San Francisco were playing against Baltimore. 
• Is Watch ESPN on delay/near live deliberately, due to Foxtel holding the exclusive rights to content on that platform in Australia, or is that just a technical consideration?
• Hutchins and Rowe refer to their dealings with organisations at grassroots level that exploit the Democratic and participatory nature of new ICT's - my own experiences with Sporting Pulse reflects a first-hand experience of this observation.
• I was able to watch games of NFL simultaneously on Foxtel, Foxtel GO, Watch ESPN, and Twitter. There main difference was not so much the quality of the vision, although this did vary a bit across the platforms, but it was the amount of delay across the platforms. I think the order of 'liveness' was Foxtel, Foxtel Go, Watch ESPN app, and then Twitter. Is this delay in coverage a deliberate strategy? I.e., are games sold on their liveness across the platforms, with the 'livest' being the most premium rights? Or is it just a condition of the technology? I.e., the streaming apps just can't relay the signal as quickly as the cable/satellite signal? Overall, the delay in some instances was substantial - I think the twitter delivery was about 90-120 seconds behind the Foxtel delivery.
• The NBA tries to facilitate people watching the game on mobile devices through NBA League Pass by including a "Mobile Cam" option, where a camrea follows the ball in a mid shot (instead of a longer shot) so that the viewing expereince is better on mobile devices, as the play is 'closer' to the action.
• Cricket coverage, especially in India for example, have ackoledged and anticipated the global nature of their audiences, by incorpoarting features into the broadcast to acommodate this, such as 'Local Time' displays on scoreboards:

• Produser content is being incorporated into mainstream television broadcasts, and being commercialised, such as the promotion of the "Backyard cricket heroes" in the Big Bash coverage over the summer, that is sponsored by KFC.
• Audience interaction is facilitated via live synced fantasy sports apps, such as the NBA InPlay app, that syncs up a mobile device to a broadcast game, so that fantasy games can be played in real time in sync with the broadcast.
• NBN News has aligned its website reporting with Neilsen. This allows the website traffic to be counted towards the Nine Digital Operation. The NBN News website performance will be reported by Neilsen on a daily basis, this helps to "gain valuable understanding on what really works for us across content, publishing and platforms day by day. Our 2017 goal is to continue to create great content, but deliver it in ways that really drives traffic." (Laurence Schuberth, NBN Digital Manager). Social media isn't included in this figure however. 
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Confirmation Paper

Project Title:
Exploiting the entrepreneurial opportunities presented by a changing AFL television environment: Adopting a creative and innovative approach to television broadcasting.

Introduction
Television is changing. Shifting audience behaviour, new industry players, and ill-fitting government regulation complicates the landscape and threatens traditional commercial and Pay-TV business models. However, this represents an opportunity for the industry in terms of content creation, distribution, consumption, audience measurement, and revenue (Lotz, 2014, Burroughs and Rugg, 2014). Identifying and exploiting the opportunities that emerge during the transitioning to new business models may be realised by adopting an entrepreneurial mindset at both the production and consumption ends of the industry.
It is becoming widely accepted that entrepreneurialism provides the necessary skills for agents to be successful in the creative industries of the future (Davies and Sigthorsson, 2013, CIIC, 2013). Entrepreneurialism incorporates an “individual’s motivation and capacity” to be able to identify and pursue opportunities for economic gain (European Commission, 2003, p. 5). It requires the ability to adapt, and to blend innovation and creativity with sensible management, in order to add value and achieve success (Mazzarol, 2011). Television fulfils the criteria of a creative industry, and as such, research should investigate how this particular creative industry can benefit from entrepreneurialism.

Televised sport plays a dominant role in facilitating participation in a nation’s culture (Rowe, 2004), so much so that the Australian Government ensures that the broadcasting of “events of national importance and cultural significance”, such as the Melbourne Cup or the Australian Football League (AFL) Grand Final, remain “available to all Australians via free-to-air television” (Australian Government, 2010). The centrality of sport to Australian culture, and therefore to Australian citizenship and cultural inclusiveness, is difficult to overstate – in 2016, the top six most watched television programs on Free-to-Air television in Australia were sport related (Hickman, 2016). Given that the AFL is “the most powerful football code in the country” (Rowe, 2016, p. 11), making this code widely accessible to the people of our nation is evidently a necessary requirement for cultural participation.

Broadcasters that televise sport have traditionally relied on purchasing the broadcasting rights for elite sport to drive their business (Nicholson, 2007). The AFL recently sold its 2017-2022 broadcast rights for $2.5 billion – the largest amount ever paid for broadcasting rights in Australia (Mason & Stensholt, 2015). Most of this investment came from commercial and pay television operators, who generate revenue by selling advertising and subscriptions. In a context where television production, distribution and consumption is changing, this business model faces uncertainty.

Ambiguity also surrounds regulation. In Australia, the Broadcasting Act 1992 – which contains provisions that give free-to-air broadcasters a protected entitlement to purchase broadcasting rights to sports on the grounds of cultural significance – has not been adequately amended to account for social, industrial and technological developments that have punctuated the sector over the last 25 years (Hutchins and Rowe, 2012). Accordingly, adopting an entrepreneurial mindset and investigating incumbent and emerging industry players can reveal the tensions inside the sector, what the business model might look like in the future, and what any change means for cultural participation when it comes to the buying of sports rights.

We are simultaneously witnessing the rise of “collaborative, iterative, and user-led production of content by participants in a hybrid user-producer” role (Bruns, 2006, p. 1). This ‘produser’ is digitally literate, relatively affluent, better informed about industrial structures of production, and able to mobilise both resistance and promotion rapidly in a socially mediated, de-territorialized, and interconnected consumptive environment (Rowe and Hutchins, 2014). Brought into being by the forces of deregulation, commercialization, competition-driven innovation, globalisation, and conglomeration (among many others) (Curtin et al., 2014, p. 6-12, Nicholson, 2007, p. 200), the produser has shifted the power balance in their favour, as they demand more from content providers and distributors, pressuring them to improve existing content and delivery mechanisms (Hutchins, 2016). Moreover, as sport plays a significant role in the identity formation of the increasingly digitally literate fan (Rowe, 2016b), the active produser will explore unconventional ways of getting their sport content if they feel unfairly exploited by the industrial structures of production and distribution. Exploring the entrepreneurial mindset of produsers then, would appear to be the perfect way to understand the tensions and opportunities that exist in this often-neglected side of the television industry, and how those tensions and opportunities can shape the business models of the future.

An investigation into the tensions and opportunities that exist on both the consumptive and productive sides of television, and how the entrepreneurial mindset can exploit those tensions and opportunities, will be instructive for best business practices, the formation of government policy, future technological innovations and their adoption, and the meanings attached to the practice of consuming sport. Television has always been known for its innovation and responsiveness (Lotz, 2014, Rowe, 2004). An entrepreneurial mindset that is focused on exploiting contemporary tensions and opportunities is simply another iteration of this innovation and responsiveness, as it can provide us with the information needed to forge the tools of the television industry for the coming age.

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