Should sporting arenas ban Livestreaming?

We now live in a age where live streaming by anyone is incredibly easy and currently free. 2 new services have recently launched. Meerkat and Periscope. You can get both at the itunes App store. I have been using Periscope and have to say that it is awesome. The sound and picture quality are amazing.

So, coming round to the question. Lets imagine people can now go to sports matches and live stream them. What should sports arenas do? Live streaming is not new, the tech to do this has been around to years. but what is new is the ease and simplicity that you can now live stream to the world. Literally one click and that’s it, your live streaming for all to see.

So, should sports arenas ban people from live streaming? how would they enforce it? would they ask you to hand in your mobile device when entering the stadium? would they have people going round checking that no one is live streaming? would they have wifi and 4g jamming devices?

To me the answer is I really hope not. I would encourage sports arenas to embrace this new technology and find a way to earn revenue from it. don’t ban it, banning things rarely works. Find a way to encourage people to live stream it but ensure that somehow you can earn a revenue from it.

Live streaming in my view is not going away, it wont be a fad, its here to stay and will only increase as more and more people get smart phones and wifi and 4g / 5g improves. I understand that there are broadcasting issues, sponsorship issues, businesses may well have paid rights for images and match excerpts etc… but live streaming is here, we can’t close the box, more and more people will be doing it.

This is very much a moving landscape. I am sure that over the next few months, there may well be legal claims, issues arising from someone doing a live stream, I think that is inevitable. It certainly is an interesting space.