The 2021 Cheltenham Festival generated a record volume of streams for a British horse racing event, according to statistics cited by the Racecourse Media Group (RMG).
Using real-time streaming technology platform Phenix, delivering synchronised streams across all devices at a broadcast scale, the premier Jumps fixture broke records on each day of the Festival, including the RMG’s highest ever race volume being broken nine times in four days to a peak of 478,000.
This year’s event, which took place between 16 and 19 March, was forecast for a decade-high viewership peak, with fans unable to attend the Festival live and instead, tune in from home.
“For the past 10 months, we have seen how Phenix’s real-time streaming technology has helped drive our relaunched streaming product,” stated Ben Dowding, Director of Betting for Racecourse Media Group.
“It has handled significantly higher volumes than normal, given retail betting shops have been closed for long periods due to coronavirus. There is no question that Phenix’s real-time streaming has been a resounding success for RMG and is the foundation from which RMG will work on for in-play racing with our sportsbook partners.”
Supported Stats Perform, RMG worked with the sports tech data and artificial intelligence firm to integrate Phenix’s proprietary and patented technology to provide industry leading streaming services for RMG.
Alex Rice, Chief Rights Officer at Stats Perform, noted: “We are proud to support RMG in their delivery of UK and Irish horse racing. Cheltenham race week provides an exceptional challenge in delivery, and we are delighted our platform, integrated with Phenix technology, delivered record breaking audiences for RMG and their betting operator clients. Phenix has been an excellent partner. The Phenix platform coped extremely well with the challenges the Cheltenham Festival brings.”
Phenix set records for scaling WebRTC streams, leveraging Oracle and Google cloud, throughout the week, helping RMG achieve concurrent streams approaching 500,000 on individual races and achieving over 60% year on year growth across the Festival.
“Our work alongside Stats Perform and Racecourse Media Group up to and including this year’s Cheltenham Festival exceeded our expectations,” said Roy Reichbach, CEO of Phenix. “As an early adopter for real-time streaming, RMG is showing the rest of the sports industry that there is significant demand for real-time video.”
The collaboration with Phenix means RMG, the UK and Ireland’s largest manager of horse racing rights, now delivers real-time live streaming experiences from its 61 racetracks to sportsbooks.
