Built a Scalable OTT Platform for a Sports Streaming Startup (0 to 100K Users in 6 Months)
About Client
The NineHertz worked with a sports streaming startup that is dedicated to promoting tier-2 and regional sports leagues to a digital audience. This client was a Southeast Asian startup and wanted to develop a subscription-based OTT service to stream replays, live streaming and exclusive backstage access.
The startup had acquired the rights to broadcast but the technology stack was not ready for the launch. The client required a streaming solution that could scale to the massive traffic without affecting the streaming experience and the smoothness of the broadcast.
Key Challenges
The client faced several operational and technical hurdles, with unpredictable traffic surge being one of the biggest challenges. The concurrent viewership could spike to 8–10x during prime matches, which could not be absorbed without buffering and latency. At the same time, the high streaming cost at scale was another challenge, as CDN and Bandwidth costs alone would consume 60-70% of early-stage revenue.
Also, the Premier League needs to be accessible from different devices and operating systems which meant the company needed to make sure that its OTT platform is compatible with different devices. The short timeframe for the project posed another challenge as any delay would result in missing a sports event which began in 6 months.
Our Solutions
Our team built a cloud-native OTT platform architecture with low-latency delivery, rapid feature rollouts, and elastic scale during a live sports season.
Cloud Native Streaming Architecture
We deployed the platform on AWS using a microservices architecture, multiple region CDNs and containerized services on EKS. Now, our system could scale from 1000 to 100,000+ users, seamlessly.
Adaptive Bitrate and Low-Latency HLS
The NineHertz implemented LL-HLS with adaptive bitrate encoding across 6 quality layers that could reduce the streaming to more than 6 seconds.
Native App with Unified Backend
Our team builds native iOS and Android apps, a responsive web player, and a smart TV app for Apple TV and Android TV, all powered by a single backend layer. It reduced the rollout time by more than 70%.
Personalization Engine
We implemented a personalization engine that could manage subscriptions, payments, and recommendations according to the personal preferences of the user.
Impact That Drives Results
The OTT app was launched with a spare month before the start of the coming tournament and outperformed the client’s first-year project within the first two quarters.
0 to 100K
Users in 6 Months
The new OTT app went from 0 users to 100,000 active users within the months of launch, while onboarding users from across the region and multiple devices.
99.95%
Streaming Uptime
The cloud architecture handled the peak match days with 35,000+ concurrent viewers while maintaining the 99.95% uptime across the season.
55%
Bandwidth Savings
The tech practices, such as CDN provisioning, adaptive bitrate streaming, and caching, have helped us to save 55% of the bandwidth and delivery cost compared to the original estimates of the vendor.
4.6/5
Average App Rating
Our app has achieved an average rating of 4.6/5 on Google Play Store and Apple App Store, with a smooth and easy-to-use interface, high-quality video feed, and minimum buffering.
