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This case study is originally published in TVB Europe UK magazine - September 2025. See the full issue here.
No longer the sole domain of broadcast and pay-TV, live sport is now increasingly being watched on streaming services. A recent study found fans are now as likely to watch sport on streaming services as they are on broadcast networks. These shifting viewing habits are driving huge changes in how live sport is broadcast and experienced by viewers. Streaming services are reimagining and enhancing the viewing experience by offering a whole host of features, as well as improved discoverability and personalised elements that were not achievable with traditional sports broadcasting.
Recognising the growing demand for streamed live sport, earlier this year UK free-to-air network 5, owned by Paramount Global, secured a sublicensing deal with DAZN, the global rights holder for the FIFA Club World Cup, to show 23 games from the tournament, which features 32 teams from around the world and takes place every four years. This year, the tournament took place in the United States between over four weeks in June and July. Anticipating increased traffic during this time, 5 scaled its infrastructure to ensure a high-quality viewing experience for fans that felt just as dynamic and immediate as traditional TV, but with an enhanced user experience.
Indeed, coverage of the final match, which saw Chelsea triumph over Paris Saint-Germain, saw 459,000 viewers watching the live stream on 5, alongside 2.4 million on linear, according to overnight figures from UK ratings company Barb.
To achieve these results, 5 partnered with Accedo, a global provider of video streaming software and services, to enhance its streaming service with a robust set of new features designed specifically to improve live events. “To support the broadcast of the FIFA Club World Cup across the 5 platform, we collaborated closely with Accedo to deliver the best possible experience for our audience,” explains Heaney, VP product, tech and ops at 5 Streaming.
From smarter scheduling tools to refreshed UI elements and new content rails, every update had a clear goal: to make the action easier to find, and even easier to watch.
5 rolled out upgraded support for live and simulcast content, ensuring matches were surfaced prominently and streamed seamlessly across every platform where 5 is available, including traditional pay-TV, connected TVs from Samsung, LG, and Google, as well as Fire TV, Roku, tvOS, and both iOS and Android devices.
A standout addition was the introduction of live-tagged titles in the Featured section. These sat alongside popular on-demand shows but were designed to spotlight live events, letting viewers jump straight into a match with a single click.
Real-time progress bars and countdown timers gave users instant visibility into what was live, what was next, and how far along each broadcast was. As matches moved from “Upcoming” to “Live”, the UI shifted dynamically, offering subtle, helpful cues that kept fans engaged throughout the tournament.
Under the hood, Accedo delivered a series of front-end upgrades to sharpen performance, including code refactoring, a more-efficient homepage architecture for faster data fetching, and the introduction of pagination for smoother content loading. Channel switching, a notorious pain point in streaming, was also tuned to reduce lag. While still not quite as instantaneous as linear TV, the experience is now notably quicker and more responsive than many comparable streaming services.
Another major win came from a newly introduced flexible scheduling system. This gave 5’s editorial team the ability to manually adjust match windows, critical for games that ran into overtime, and allowed them to auto-refresh art key transitions to stay aligned with live broadcasts.
“Accedo enhanced our UI capabilities by promoting live events alongside our premium VOD content on the homepage,” explains Heaney. “They also worked with other key vendors to improve app performance and optimise backend integrations, resulting in faster load times for both live and on-demand content.”
To enhance the live viewing experience, 5 rolled out a series of UI updates designed to make content discovery feel seamless and intuitive. One of the key changes was the introduction of mixed-content rails, where live streams, FAST channels, and on-demand episodes sit side by side. This approach removes the sense of jumping between different parts of the service, letting viewers explore across formats as if they were browsing a single, unified catalogue.
5 also added portrait-format rails, creating a more visually-led browsing experience that feels tailor-made for mobile users. Striking imagery and vertical scrolling enable quick and effortless discovery on smaller screens.
On top of that, a new “Top 10” trending rail gives audiences a pulse on what’s hot right now, whether it’s live matches, highlight reels, or fan-favourite shows. Updated in real time, it captures the energy of the tournament and helps surface content that’s generating buzz in the moment.
Sport broadcasting is in the middle of a revolution and video providers are on the front line, enhancing the viewing experience to make live sporting events even more engaging and enjoyable. Streaming services are constantly refining and enhancing how live sport is discovered and experienced, which is set to reshape what it means to watch sport.
In the coming years, streaming is going to become millions of fans’ first choice for watching live sport, and this presents huge opportunities for video services that can capitalise on that shift. Having proven the service’s ability to manage something as popular as the FIFA Club World Cup, 5 is now in a great position to scale for future high-profile events across sports, entertainment, and beyond.
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