Reimagining Kayo Sports
Identifying the problems and proposing solutions to Foxtel's sports streaming platform
Australian sports fans rejoiced in early 2020 when it was announced that there would be a well overdue sports streaming service that didn’t require a Foxtel subscription. Kayo Sports was billed as the Netflix of sports, and although it doesn’t have the rights to all elite sports, it has the rights to show games from the AFL, NRL, NBA, NFL, MLB and many more.
While a sports streaming platform was long overdue, there is a larger opportunity for Kayo to create its own sports media sub brand and boost engagement of their streaming service by improving the user interface, and simplifying reminders and alerts using a multi device strategy to create a unique sports streaming experience.
The Problems
Kayo is owned by Foxtel, a traditional cable TV provider. From a purely product perspective, Foxtel has made a decent effort to meet demands of consumers by releasing streaming apps Binge and Kayo that effectively remove the need for consumers to subscribe to their cable tv offering. While it may have cannibalised the demand for their cable TV offering, this was a necessary step to compete with the emergence of other streaming services and online access to content as the consumption habits and expectations of consumers rapidly changes.
Despite adding a sports streaming platform, Foxtel appears to lack ambition with Kayo. What is a modest attempt to extend the reach of their cable TV channels showing the sports they have rights to, has the potential to be a renowned sports media brand that connects traditional sports fans with the new generation of streamers. Kayo should aspire to be what ESPN is to the US sports market. It has obvious differences in that Kayo itself is not a broadcaster, but the name can become synonymous with access to live content and peak sports moments. Peak sports moments are when you watch something absurd happen in real time. Game winning shots in basketball, a last minute winner in football, a goal after the siren in AFL. This is a fundamental pillar of what live sports is built on. With Kayo’s access to the rights of a number of elite sports in Australia and overseas, it’s perfectly placed to create a beloved experience for sports fans of all ages and interests, despite it’s negative ratings and reviews.
The overall layout isn’t optimised for live sport
The platform appears to have been built by Streamotion, which is ‘home’ to Kayo and Binge. The interfaces are clearly similar and appear to be modelled after Netflix. It’s possible that Kayo and Binge are required to remain similar for simplicity's sake.
The main problem with Kayo’s overall interface is the lack of focus on live sports. When the majority of the value is in the live broadcasts, it doesn’t make sense to have a user interface similar to Netflix where consumers exclusively watch content on demand. Netflix has no live content. When a user signs up their algorithm works to understand and optimise the content a user will enjoy so that they will spend more time on the platform, watch more content and become a long term subscriber.
The users of a sport streaming app have vastly different requirements to an online streaming service with an enormous library of content. The home screen inefficiently displays a graphic of the first live event offered when users first log in. Live sports is one of the last remaining TV experiences that has a clear use case for a real time experience, as evidenced by the rapid growth of sports TV rights. I’d estimate the majority of the viewership on Kayo is consuming live content, or at least, that’s what initially leads a user to sign up.
Upon first signing in, you’re shown a graphic of either a live event or an upcoming live event (presumably a selection based on the initial preferences selected when signing up) and then around 6 other tiles with live or upcoming events. There are live events mixed between what is ‘upcoming’, sometimes forcing you to go searching for the live event you want to watch. The key issue is that it can be hard to find what you want to watch. It’s less intuitive than watching sports on a traditional broadcaster, which is a major usability issue. If part of the aim is to transition sports fans over 50 years old to streaming, many of which are still learning to use streaming, it should feel more natural than traditional TV because it’s all focused on sports. If it’s hard to find what you want to watch, then it’s unlikely you’ll find content you’re interested in that you weren’t looking for.
Your event ‘finishes’
This might be the single most frustrating issue I experience when using Kayo. It’s antithetical to what sports broadcasts are optimising for, back to back games or continuous content that keeps you engaged for long periods of time. If there is an NBA double header, the end of the first game should not end the coverage and force users to go and find the next game.
Given the unpredictable nature of when a broadcast finishes, often the next game will start on the current stream because it’s showing the ESPN coverage of the game which, if I was watching the channel on a traditional Foxtel cable subscription, would continuously play. However, each time you’re inevitably hit with the dreaded “event ended” screen, or more recently the coverage starts glitching. This is incredibly frustrating due to the frequency of interruptions it causes. For the typical Saturday NBA broadcast, there is a pre-game show followed by two consecutive games. Kayo sports requires you to start watching each broadcast separately before it ends the coverage and forces you to return to the home screen and find the next stream to watch. This isn’t always easy. Sometimes I’m browsing around trying to get the right game. This would be even harder for first time users who might not assume that the game is actually available, or people who lack the tech proficiency to spend time browsing to find what they’re looking for. It sounds like a small problem, but when you expand this to a wide range of users and multiply it by the frequency with which it occurs, you’re unnecessarily building resentment toward your product because it is a problem that didn’t previously occur with the traditional cable option. It needs to be more clear and obvious where the live events are.
Recently there has been an addition of an auto play option rather than leaving the screen dormant when the coverage ends. This is what Netflix and other streaming platforms do well, show you similar content you might enjoy or even auto play new content once your current episode or movie finishes. For me, this started auto playing the last dance rather than continuing the coverage of the channel that I was watching. It could be improved by providing multiple options on the screen with both live and archived content options. Perhaps this will be coming shortly?
It’s reprehensible to have a live experience cut for no seemingly good reason. Too many times pre-shows would run into the game coverage and 2 minutes into the game the event would ‘end’ and force you to go back to the home screen and find the live coverage.
Lack of scheduling and reminders
Kayo has a massive amount of live content on their platform, making it overwhelming when trying to remember what is scheduled to be televised. A simpler scheduling system would help fans understand what’s up next or later on in the day. Right now it lets you view the fixtures sorted by each sport which might work for some, but I prefer to view everything that is on at a given time to decide what to watch. More flexibility would give viewers the opportunity to plan their viewing experience around what games are available.
I understand that this is a typical challenge with a streaming app as opposed to a cable service which you would always be using. For example, when using Foxtel you could set a reminder to watch something and then while you were watching something else on the service you’d be able to see the reminder appear because you remained using Foxtel. This is where Kayo needs to shed the content streaming app identity and understand that scheduling and easy access to live broadcasts is it’s core value proposition to sports fans. Netflix recently introduced this for upcoming content. They’d show a preview for an upcoming show or stand up special that enabled users to set a reminder when it would be available so the next time that opened the service it was available for them to easily access it.
No watchlist
Despite many issues with the live sports experience, there’s an enormous opportunity for Kayo to be the Netflix of ‘non-live’ or archived sports content. There is a plethora of ancillary sports content that can be watched anytime, including documentaries and replays of classic matches. Having a simple way to add shows, documentaries or classic games to your watchlist would keep users on the platform on the occasion when there aren’t any live events of interest to watch.
Obsolete scores and broadcasts
One of the challenges of an online streaming platform is that the scores and live games constantly change, making events and scores quickly become obsolete on the home screen when the page hasn’t refreshed. Rather than using the workaround of browsing the other options on the header and returning the home screen to see what’s available, a simple refresh option would let users quickly see what’s readily available. Having unintuitive workarounds that users need to figure out alienates regular users who want simplicity, and prevents new and less tech savvy users from seeing what’s available to watch.
The Solutions
Here are the proposed improvements, paired with (very) basic mock-ups to show the layout changes.
Redesigning the home screen
Re-organise the categories at the top of the page to show:
LIVE
Schedule
Highlights & Replays
Shows
My Kayo
Search
Refresh
Users should immediately be able to see the live coverage options across all channels within the first screen when logging in. Making this the first screen will enable users to browse their live options when they are selecting content but don’t know what to watch. This is crucial to build a habit of checking in with the platform when browsing multiple streaming services to see what’s on. The tile size can be adjusted depending on how many live events are on at once. It should show the duration remaining in the coverage, and the scores unless you have ‘spoiler’ mode enabled. It could also enable viewers to see what is currently on every channel available on the streaming platform with the option to filter out all of the non-live events.
Centralising the platform around live events would change viewers' habits by elevating Kayo higher on their list of content browsing rather than only going to the platform to watch something that they have already decided to watch at the time it’s scheduled to start.
Linking scheduling, multiple devices and alerts
Scheduling, multi device management and alerts can be utilised as a strategy to increase engagement and convert early users to habitually peruse the live content available.
Increased scheduling views
The current scheduling structure is decent. However, with the optimisation of live events in mind, this would require users to plan around the upcoming events. Users should be able to view both the entire schedule of all the channels, while being able to easily see what the live events are. Once they’re able to see everything coming up, users can then set reminders for what’s happening. The scheduling can also be helpful for users to see what is not available to avoid disappointment. As a college football fan it’s been frustrating to see the lack of big games that have been shown. Whether it’s due to the rights available or lack of national interest I’m not sure. But there’s nothing as devastating as logging in on a Sunday morning when two top ten ranked teams are playing each other and we’re getting coverage of two unranked teams in a game that appears to lack interest from the fans at the game.
Reminders
Allowing users to set reminders will make it easier to see what is upcoming on all of the channels. If there is an NBA double header on and the current game is a 3rd quarter blowout, enable users to set a reminder for the start of the next game. Kayo has a massive amount of live content on their platform. It can be overwhelming to try and remember what is going to be televised. They have a unique opportunity to leverage the mobile app for notification reminders of games that users can then watch from anywhere, an advantage that it has over a traditional broadcaster.
Notifications and alerts
The signup process collects information about the sports and teams that users are interested in. The enormous opportunity here (currently done on ESPN and possibly elsewhere) is to alert subscribers when there is a crunch time event about to occur on the platform. I’d personally be interested to watch the coverage of any basketball game is close heading into the final minute. Similarly for football games headed to penalty shootouts or AFL games within a goal heading into the last 10 minutes or the 4th quarter of an NFL game where the scores are close. The value of live sport is being able to be a part of these moments in real time. This would maximise the value that only a sports streaming platform can provide and offers an enormous engagement opportunity by increasing the chances that fans will witness a peak sports moment in real time.
Multi device strategy
With improved scheduling, reminder and notification options, Kayo can implement a multi-device strategy to create a dependency on their platform for users to access peak sports moments. Most people are either at home (access to tv and mobile), at work (access to mobile and/or PC), or out (access to mobile). By collecting some basic data (which Kayo already does) to identify the sports of interest for each user, they can then create a simple notification for users to facilitate game starting, periodic scores and close game alerts. ESPN has offered this for a number of years. Due to the volume of sports and leagues, there aren’t many apps well designed enough to enable even the most proactive users to closely follow the live games in different leagues and sports simultaneously to track what games are being broadcast. Kayo can simply notify users when there are close games on at crucial stages and increase the likelihood of users hitting inevitable peak sports moments.
Despite viewers vacillating between streaming apps, Kayo users are able to use the app on smart TV’s, their mobile phone and PC. Currently, the options only exist in isolation for the convenience of choice for individual users. However, this could provide the link to a round the clock dependency on Kayo because there is always a live game being broadcast. Kayo could even optimise their entire user experience around maximising the number of people watching peak sports moments. Great highlights are one thing, but iconic moments are immortalised because of the mass of user engagement while it’s happening in real time. Everyone watching feels like part of the moment, and sports fans never forget watching iconic sports moments as they occur.
Summary
My dad is in his early 60’s. He’s an avid sports fan and will watch nearly any sport that is broadcast live. He has an average tech proficiency with the Apple TV, but it’s too confusing for him to navigate around Kayo unless it's his last resort option to watch a Collingwood or Celtics games. This product should be perfect for him, it should be perfect for all sports fans whose live sports needs have been historically neglected. It wasn’t too long ago that Better Homes and Gardens caused a delay to Friday night Footy.
If Kayo is able to simplify the process to acquire, engage and retain a critical mass of sports fans, it could become the destination for all sports at all levels. Why can’t all basketball fans get notified when the under 18 national championship game goes into overtime, and a huge mass of users tune in to watch a future NBA prospect hit the game winner? These moments are addictive and the novelty never wears off to sports fans.
Kayo should be the first streaming option sports fans browse when they have idle time. Right now it’s mostly used only when you know a game is on rather than when you turn the TV on to browse for content. There is an urgently prescient opportunity for Kayo to create a legion of superfans who live on the platform and organically spread the word about what they were recently watching, particularly if it led to an unplanned or surprising peak sports moment. It shouldn’t just be a marginal improvement to the life of a sports fan, it should fundamentally alter their viewing habits.
There are an infinite number of sports scoring apps, but none offer the same access to view the live content from those scores. Scores tell stories, but live broadcasts create moments that even those watching alone can experience being part of those special moments. Maximising the chance that the most amount sports fans experience as many peak sports moments as they can will elevate Kayo from a lowly rated streaming extension of Foxtel to an indispensable leader in sports media.