Rising production costs and the need for technological differentiation are driving significant changes in broadcast technology strategies. Sports broadcasters and leagues are actively seeking more efficient solutions, according to Appear CEO Thomas Bostrøm Jørgensen. During a recent interview at the 2025 NAB Show, Jørgensen pinpointed two major trends: the demand for cost-effective solutions amidst increasing production costs and the requirement for differentiated services from connectivity providers. “As production value goes up, production costs go up,” Jørgensen said. “Much more technology needs to be deployed to create that value… At least in the broadcast rights holder side of the market, I see a need for cost-efficient solutions.”
The evolving landscape of sports broadcasting, with leagues increasingly adopting direct-to-consumer strategies, has significantly expanded the market for technology providers like Appear. “They produce their own content and they deliver it,” Jørgensen noted. “They acquire the signals, they produce the content and they deliver it in addition to selling rights to broadcasters and cutting up the cake in the normal way.” This shift has broadened Appear’s customer base beyond traditional broadcasters. “It expands the market for technology because you don’t just have the traditional broadcasters investing in infrastructure, but also the rights holders,” said Jørgensen.
Virtualization is facilitating what Jørgensen terms the “democratization of production capabilities,” empowering smaller sports leagues and properties to produce professional broadcasts. “A lot of the new virtualized production workflows are pay-per-use, and the vendors and suppliers provide the workflow support and user interface that will simplify the entire production value chain,” he explained. “That democratization of production and workflows is helping drive lower costs into Tier 2 or Tier 3 sports.” This impact is evident at the grassroots level; Jørgensen cited an example in Norway where a company has installed cameras at various sports venues nationwide, enabling subscribers to access streams of diverse competitions.
Appear has solidified its position with Tier 1 players in sports broadcasting, according to Jørgensen. Their X Platform, described as “by far the market leader in providing low latency, high density,” delivers the efficiency larger broadcasters require for live streaming. “Our platform scales extremely well with volume,” Jørgensen said. “The bigger productions you have, the cost goes down.” The company is expanding its offerings with a new solution targeting Tier 2 broadcasters, a product that has already garnered industry awards.
Appear's future strategy centers on VX, a software component described as a “pure compute, fully virtualized, containerized software solution.” Jørgensen envisions a 3-5 year plan to develop “a fully virtualized suite of production applications,” acknowledging that some specialized functions, such as graphics, might remain outside their development focus. “Hopefully we can democratize the use of our technology into the Tier 2s and the full virtualized sources,” he said. Jørgensen considers Appear to be “the fastest-growing company in this industry by far,” pointing to substantial market share gains, particularly in North America, where they’ve earned the trust of “most of the big players in sports production and sports broadcasting.” Their client base also includes streaming giants such as Amazon and Netflix.