kicker deploys the Bitmovin Player to power a winning sports streaming experience

Vienna, Austria – January 16, 2024 — Bitmovin, a leading provider of video streaming solutions, announces that kicker, a leading German digital sports publisher, has chosen the Bitmovin Player for Web to elevate its video streaming capabilities and drive revenue growth. The collaboration will support kicker’s aim of enhancing the audience’s viewing experience and maximizing ad revenue.

kicker is one of Germany’s most popular sports websites, attracting millions of daily users. Video is central to kicker’s digital offering. Following the growth of its content library, kicker decided to deploy a new video player to help it monetize its content more effectively and provide seamless playback on the web. kicker required a scalable and reliable video player that could handle high viewer traffic, especially during major football events, while ensuring seamless ad integration across target countries. kicker chose the Bitmovin Player because it is a renowned industry-leading player that has proven its ability to reliably deliver streams in the highest quality.

“kicker is on an impressive growth trajectory, and it’s essential that we have robust video streaming infrastructures in place to ensure we fulfill our strategic goals,” said Tobias Buhl, Product Manager at kicker. “Bitmovin is known for its high-performance Player and proven ability to handle high traffic volumes, deliver high-quality streams, and support revenue growth. Since deploying the Bitmovin Player, we have seen improved quality of experience and increased ad revenue. I highly recommend the Bitmovin Player to anyone who wants to deliver an exceptional viewing experience to their audience and grow their brand.”

By deploying Bitmovin’s Player, kicker can guarantee flawless playback quality on the web, including low latency and configurable adaptive bitrate streaming, which ensures a smooth and seamless viewing experience for audiences, regardless of their location. The Bitmovin Player also provides robust ad-insertion capabilities such as a dedicated and customizable ad module, a fully customizable viewer experience, and an extensible user interface, allowing kicker to tailor the viewing experience to align with their branding while enhancing user engagement. Additionally, the Bitmovin Player provides broad browser coverage and is compatible with all major desktop and mobile browsers, empowering kicker to cover many features, including adaptive bitrate, picture-in-picture, multi-language, subtitles, and more.

“kicker is the go-to publisher for the very latest sports news and content among German-speaking audiences. As it continues to scale its digital content, it needed a robust player that guarantees flawless playback and the ability to monetize,” said Stefan Lederer, CEO and co-founder of Bitmovin. “We are proud and excited that the Bitmovin Player for Web will deliver a world-class experience to millions of sports fans.”

About Bitmovin

Bitmovin is a leading provider of video streaming solutions for global digital media companies and service providers. The company has been at the forefront of industry innovation and all major developments in the digital video streaming industry.

Bitmovin built the world’s first commercial adaptive streaming player and deployed the first software-defined encoding service that runs on any cloud platform. Its cloud-native technology offers the most flexible and scalable media encoding, playback, and analytics solutions available with unparalleled device reach, ease of integration, and world-class customer support.

Bitmovin customers benefit from optimized operations, reduced time-to-market, and the best viewer experience possible. Bitmovin is headquartered in San Francisco, California and has major offices in Vienna, Klagenfurt, Austria as well as London, Berlin and Denver. The company has over 400 customers across the globe including ClassPass, BBC, fuboTV, Hulu, and Discovery. For more information, visit www.bitmovin.com.