This article was originally published in French in MediaKwest #68 (September–October 2026) and is reproduced here in English translation with permission. Words by Bernard Poiseuil. Read the original at MediaKwest.
The increasingly dominant tension between globalization and localization is profoundly reshaping the ecosystem of televised sports. While the former still prevails for "premium" events, the latter is only accelerating — driven in particular by AI-based multilingual commentary solutions. As a result, the two are expected to coexist in a hybrid model over the long term.
"Glocalization"? Behind this portmanteau word lies the future of sports broadcasting, which today is evolving at the crossroads of two apparently opposing dynamics.
On one side, large-scale distribution remains the pillar of the current televised sports ecosystem. The FIFA World Cup or the Olympic Games naturally fall into the category of events capable of bringing together global economic partners and uniting vast simultaneous audiences spread across multiple continents, thanks to the centralization of rights and production. "This guarantees consistent quality and brand coherence across all markets," notes Yaya Selva, CMO of Net Insight.
On the other side, localization is asserting itself as an increasingly decisive strategic lever for broadcasters and rights holders. To better resonate with local cultures, sports organizations such as the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) are now seeking to offer viewing experiences that are as close as possible to their audiences — adapting real-time commentary, language, graphics, data overlays and storytelling, including through feeds centered on specific competition figures, as well as advertising creatives.
Virtual advertising, also known as electronic sponsorship, employs technology combining shape recognition, tracking and obstacle segmentation across different categories (human, object), enabling the modification — by substitution and/or addition — of the entire advertising environment of a sporting event according to the country or reception zone. Among other examples, European football competitions often provide an opportunity to display betting companies in one region and consumer electronics brands in another. "This system considerably increases advertising inventory without fragmenting the main feed and strengthens the economic model of localization," emphasizes Nav Khangura, Vice President of Sales and Business Development for the UK and EMEA at TMT Insights.
A More Agile Production and Distribution Model
Among streaming giants as well, "platforms like DAZN and ESPN+ illustrate this approach by combining globally marketed events with region-specific feeds and programs," the expert continues.
In the same vein, "the development of FAST channels is becoming a powerful lever for localization, allowing operators to select highlights, archives and live events to offer tailored feeds," observes André Rosado, Head of Product at Agile TV.
And who could overlook the role played by social networks, standalone channels — such as the Catalan TV3, whose programs center on FC Barcelona — and other less institutional channels in distributing content tailored to local audiences or specific markets?
In this regard, a noteworthy example is the international broadcast model promoted by the German Football League (Bundesliga), in which Mark Goldbridge — an influential YouTuber whose online channels, The United Stand and That's Football, totaling 3.7 million subscribers, were acquired last spring by The Overlap, Gary Neville's company — provides live personalized commentary targeting different demographic segments.
In various forms, "this model reflects a broader shift toward modular production, maintaining a global main feed while adding layers of localized content to strengthen fan interactions without significantly increasing production costs," Nav Khangura explains.
In parallel, the reclaiming of broadcast rights by content owners is profoundly reshaping the balance between globalization and localization. The rise in particular of direct-to-consumer (DTC) platforms — such as streaming services operated by leagues (Ligue 1+ in France, NBA League Pass in the United States...) — is transforming the relationship with audiences at an unprecedented scale. "Sports organizations can thus design offers, propose experiences and set pricing levels tailored to specific territories or fan segments, rather than accepting a uniform strategy imposed by a broadcaster," analyzes André Rosado.
But this evolution has a downside. With the fragmentation of rights across proprietary apps, DTC platforms and other niche OTT services, content mechanically acquires a more global reach in theory, but the viewing experience becomes increasingly individualized in practice. "This control can partially weaken the old globalization model, in which a few major broadcasters once united vast national or regional audiences," concedes the Agile TV representative.
Technological Arsenal
A whole arsenal of technology is shaping the balance between the two trends.
Advanced compression technologies such as SMPTE ST 2110 and JPEG XS make it possible to transport video, audio and data with very low latency over very high-capacity IP networks — which, alongside satellite, are now emerging as one of the main vehicles of globalization in televised sport. "Large international sporting events clearly illustrate this model," evokes Yaya Selva. "Here, production often relies on centralized hubs capable of simultaneously feeding dozens or even hundreds of broadcasters around the world."
Remote production is also establishing itself as a driver of this dual trend, making the global distribution of content more easily scalable and more cost-efficient.
At the same time, cloud environments and hybrid architectures facilitate the adaptation of content based on targeted markets.
Localization is also evolving with multi-CDN streaming, which encourages the creation of specific regional feeds. However, "multi-CDN orchestration becomes particularly critical during major live events, where traffic peaks put networks under severe strain," warns André Rosado.
Meanwhile, 5G and edge computing are paving the way for low-latency localized experiences — such as highlights or camera angles that fans can choose in near real time during a competition — and other interactive features that generate deeper engagement.
Finally, on the monetization side, "blockchain-based rights and royalty systems can also streamline regional licensing and micro-payments, while advanced analytics and identity resolution tools improve the targeting of global audiences," advances Nav Khangura.
Together, these technologies add a new dimension to an ecosystem in which efficient global distribution aligns without contradiction with layers of local engagement — whether in graphics, commentary or post-production.
When AI Gets Involved
In this context, artificial intelligence — especially in its generative form — is acting as a transformational technology that significantly accelerates both globalization and localization dynamics.
It enables metadata enrichment and tagging, content indexing, highlights identification from a competition, and — according to local cultures — tailored experiences designed no longer just for communities, but for individuals. This new standard is illustrated notably by ESPN and its platforms. It also enables real-time subtitling and dubbing, or even the generation of synthetic commentary in multiple languages, as well as the automated creation of summaries and social media clips, or playlists of key moments in an application like Peacock.
For example, during the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, NBCUniversal's streaming service used AI for this purpose by cloning the voice of Al Michaels, a famous American sports commentator, based on a "learning set" of 5,000 hours of live recordings.
All these technological building blocks "offer broadcasters and rights holders the ability to adapt a single global feed to many markets, without mobilizing large production teams in each region," highlights Yaya Selva.
Some platforms are already integrating advanced AI-powered transcription and automatic speech recognition (ASR) engines to support multilingual real-time distribution at marginal cost — with a latency of two to six seconds.
On January 8, for example, on the occasion of the Trophée des Champions between Olympique de Marseille and Paris Saint-Germain, held in Kuwait, Ligue 1+, the streaming service of the Ligue de Football Professionnel (LFP), offered its Italian subscribers a live Italian-language translation of the original French commentary — complete with the tone of the original commentators — thanks to an artificial intelligence solution developed by CAMB.AI. This experience followed others already carried out in the United States for Major League Soccer (football) and NASCAR (motorsport), as well as at the Australian Open tennis tournament, by this Dubai-based start-up, which is also a partner of Eurovision Sport for the provision of live and on-demand subtitles during the Milan-Cortina 2026 Paralympic Games.
Moreover, "AI-driven audience segmentation and predictive analytics help rights holders identify new fan communities worldwide and refine their distribution and pricing strategies," adds Nav Khangura.
Ultimately, "AI has the potential to amplify both trends: it enables large-scale global distribution and makes the production of localized — even personalized — content economically viable," summarizes Yaya Selva.
The Monetization Constraint
"In many cases, the economic model dictates technological choices, not the other way around," insists André Rosado. In this instance, the localization — if not the personalization — of sports content will only expand if personalized experiences or multilingual commentary feeds — one of whose world specialists is American company SyncWords (see below) — make it possible to create new advertising opportunities or offer new subscription tiers.
"Each additional version of a feed adds strategic and operational complexity; it is therefore only relevant if it generates additional revenue," agrees André Rosado. "This is why many experiments around personalization are closely tied to dynamic ad insertion, geolocated sponsorships and 'premium' offerings."
Often these experiments are first conducted in markets or demographic segments with high potential, before being extended only if monetization indicators prove sustainable.
Fundamentally, Nav Khangura continues, "the question is whether the localization — in particular the personalization — of clips and other content significantly increases fan engagement or conversion, and whether the increase in average revenue per user, the premium from local advertisers, or the reduction in churn compensates for the additional complexity and investment in content, workflow and rights."
"Mass programming will certainly not disappear but will evolve toward a more granular monetization ecosystem." — Nav Khangura, TMT Insights
As for mass programming, predicts the TMT Insights representative, these will certainly not disappear but will evolve toward a more granular monetization ecosystem, aggregating localized and even personalized revenue streams.
Hybridization
Even today, live "premium" sport remains one of the rare programming genres capable of supporting cross-market monetization, primarily due to its event-driven nature — which localization and personalization can extend but cannot fully replace.
Events such as the FIFA World Cup (nearly 1.5 billion viewers for the 2022 final), the Olympic Games and others, like the Super Bowl (186.2 million viewers worldwide in 2024) or a Premier League fixture (more than 370 million viewers worldwide for a recent Liverpool–Manchester United, for example), continue to attract audiences of such scale "that a single broadcast window is more than sufficient to justify global feeds and rights deals," judges André Rosado.
Certainly, the phenomenal popularity of such events leaves little doubt about the longevity of mass programming — all the more so as these events become increasingly rare, and therefore increasingly powerful, in the era of on-demand streaming explosion. Indeed, the number of individuals aged four and older who followed the last two editions of the Summer Olympic Games worldwide jumped from 3.05 billion for Tokyo 2020 to nearly 5 billion for Paris 2024.
"Hyper-localization and personalization will ultimately come to dominate the ecosystem before and after the event, but the live event itself will remain a shared mass experience." — André Rosado, Agile TV
However, whatever the event, the trend is increasingly toward hybridization or "glocalization," as neither the fully global model nor the entirely local one is sufficient on its own to guarantee the profitability of rights or audience engagement. It is precisely the combination of both — a "world feed" or single international signal augmented by local variations, thereby expanding the event's reach and revenues without prohibitive costs — that is asserting itself as the new standard. A long-term hybrid model in which technology serves above all one objective: to bring content ever closer to its audience.
Manufacturers Step Up
The example of EVS shows that the broadcast industry is striving to support the localization movement that is driving sports broadcasting toward its future. Interview with Laurent Petit, SVP Markets and Commercialisation.
As a manufacturer, how do you perceive the current market trend toward the localization — or even personalization — of sports content?
This trend is driving a profound transformation in sports consumption and, with the rise of digital platforms that mechanically amplifies the demand for personalized content, it is only accelerating. Local and international audiences do not expect the same angles or the same storytelling. Rights holders are therefore seeking to maximize the value of every produced sequence. We see this with the English Premier League: the integration of international players has amplified the multicultural dimension and multiplied the storytelling possibilities.
Another example is Major League Baseball (MLB) in the United States: this sport is also very popular in Japan, and many Japanese players are part of American teams. This encourages American production to ensure that Japanese players receive more coverage in order to engage local fan communities.
For EVS, this evolution is a real opportunity: it allows content to have a longer life and to reach more diverse audiences. It fits directly within our mission "We create return on emotion": creating content that generates connection, emotion and engagement across multiple audiences. To do this, we maintain a watch, participate in conferences on the subject, and the question of "how to maximize audience impact" comes up as a leitmotif among our clients.
Among your product range, which ones typically serve this trend?
Our MediaCeption solution, designed to extend the media lifecycle, perfectly supports this trend. It enables a global piece of content to be transformed into a multitude of variations, thanks to a complete asset management ecosystem (precise indexing, fast editing, real-time or near-real-time production and distribution across different channels), and facilitates content creation (personalized highlights, short formats for social networks, etc.) by market, by language or by platform.
VIA MAP, our multimedia asset management platform, is designed to enable seamless real-time collaboration between operators, editors and journalists — including remotely — to optimize the use of resources and content, and to facilitate downstream distribution and monetization. On major events, VIA MAP is among our solutions that allow every rights holder to immediately access large volumes of footage and produce their own version of the event, selecting the angles, sequences or competition figures that best resonate with their market. We should add that this solution incorporates AI to optimize live workflows and — something new — to significantly improve asset search and content navigation.
Finally, LSM-VIA Zoom is a new component we launched in 2025 that also uses AI to automatically track a player, or a player and the ball, and generate automatic reframing in vertical 9:16 format for social media.
As a principle, current trends — typically the large-scale personalization of content here — directly influence the features, including AI functions (facial recognition, speech-to-text, automatic indexing...) that we integrate into our solutions, with the aim of helping teams produce more versions of the same event, faster and with greater consistency.
SyncWords Speaks to the World
The technology developed by the New York City company — ranging from subtitle generation to multilingual dubbing and sign language — is designed to serve live and on-demand localization.
Within the sports ecosystem, SyncWords positions itself as an engine of global accessibility, fan engagement and international growth.
The company has developed AI models as well as a fully customizable all-in-one platform specifically designed for live sport. Compatible with different broadcast protocols, it integrates seamlessly into existing workflows, making it practically agnostic to them.
The American technology ingests any live or pre-recorded stream, generates ASR subtitles in more than one hundred languages and enables live audio translation into more than sixty languages via a hybrid process combining human expertise and advanced AI models specifically trained for spor
"All of this drastically reduces production costs and time-to-market, enabling rights holders and distributors to deploy globally without complex logistics or additional editorial teams," says Ashish Shah, co-founder and CEO. "It also addresses the shortage of qualified commentators in certain languages, while preserving the narrative style, content integrity, original timing and the strategic brand image."
To this are added a network of certified subtitlers and a post-production quality control service, accessible exclusively via SaaS.
Live video dubbing represents one of the most complex technological challenges in the audiovisual industry: real-time constraints, lip synchronization, preservation of emotions and intonations, management of silences and speech rhythm — all requirements that explain why this field still has very few players capable of operating at global scale. "Our technology, the fruit of several years of intensive R&D, stands clearly apart from the competition, which explains the growing influx of clients — broadcasters, sports rights holders and streaming platforms — who trust us for their most demanding localization needs," the executive says with evident satisfaction.
Among other examples, during the four Grand Slam tennis tournaments as well as throughout the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games, one user of this technology recorded a 30% increase in its worldwide audience, thanks to multilingual commentary and subtitles translated into four languages.
In 2026, SyncWords is targeting real-time multilingual commentary production with more languages and accents, further reduced latency for AI dubbing, an expanded deployment of its Vocalics brand (live AI dubbing), full support for DVB-TTML and CMAF formats for all live workflows and use cases, as well as the implementation of new fully automated localization pipelines for live sport and FAST channels — and finally, a new client base of sports and esports organizations at global scale.
Source: MediaKwest #68, September–October 2026. Article by Bernard Poiseuil. Translated and republished with permission.
