RMG, Stats Perform and Phenix are setting the bar for scalable, real-time streaming

Last week’s Cheltenham Festival, the world’s premier Jumps racing fixture, enjoyed a record number of streams for a British horseracing event.

The record numbers were achieved using Phenix, the real-time streaming technology platform that delivers synchronized streams across all devices at broadcast scale.

Stats Perform, the sports tech leader in data and artificial intelligence, has worked with Racecourse Media Group (RMG) to integrate Phenix’s proprietary and patented technology to provide industry leading streaming services for RMG.

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% YoY growth across the Festival. The biggest week in British Jumps racing saw multiple streaming records broken each day, including RMG’s highest ever race volume being broken nine times in four days to a peak of 478,000.

Ben Dowding, Director of Betting for Racecourse Media Group, states: “For the past 10 months, we have seen how Phenix’s real-time streaming technology has helped drive our relaunched streaming product. 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.”

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. It was previously at circa eight seconds latency on bookmakers’ platforms when viewed on mobile devices.

Roy Reichbach, CEO of Phenix, said: “Our work alongside Stats Perform and Racecourse Media Group up to and including this year’s Cheltenham Festival exceeded our expectations. 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.”

Alex Rice, Chief Rights Officer at Stats Perform, said: “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.”