ATLANTA (May 25, 2021) – Encompass Digital Media, a global managed service provider for TV networks, broadcasters, sports leagues and OTT platforms, and Next Level Sports & Entertainment, LLC have signed an agreement to deliver the Next Level Sports television channel (formerly Eleven Sports) to Next Level’s major partners in the United States. Encompass will provide sports content ingest, playout and transmission services, including IP-based distribution to PayTV affiliates utilizing LTN Wave technology.

IP distribution offers the ability to cost effectively create targeted/derivative feeds by using fully integrated SCTE decoration services, allowing feeds to be distributed with broadcast SLAs over managed IP network to headends at higher video quality. This new approach offers PayTV programmers a new, scalable way to address a wider range of affiliates, including linear OTT platforms.

“As we continue to evolve as a channel, Encompass was the perfect partner to help transition Next Level Sports to IP transport and create a hybrid PayTV/OTT solution that supports the shifting habits of our viewers,” states Andre Gudger, CEO of Next Level Sports. “Due to the thousands of hours of sports content Encompass aggregates monthly, we are able to take advantage of their fiber and IP infrastructure, giving us access to worldwide events for live sourcing for our programming.”

“We are thrilled to be growing our existing relationship with Next Level Sports, offering our cloud and physical infrastructure to create an end-to-end workflow solution for live sports acquisition, playout and distribution,” states Peter Ostapiuk, SVP, Sales, North America. “Connecting Next Level Sports to MVPDs and vMVPDs headends across North America by collaborating with LTN on an innovative, reliable, broadcast-quality, fully managed terrestrial delivery network solution is very exciting.”

About Next Level Sports

Next Level is a global sports and entertainment content platform that showcases live and original programming targeting urban communities. As the only Black-owned multi-sports network in the world, Next Level provides compelling and exciting sports and entertainment content, authentically promoting athletes, teams, sports, programs, and their communities and often untold and unrecognized stories and achievements.

About Encompass Digital Media

Encompass is a global technology services company focused on supporting television networks, broadcasters (TV and radio), sports leagues and OTT service providers with the delivery of their linear/nonlinear video content and radio across television, digital and radio platforms. Services include: channel playout, global distribution, OTT/TVE streaming, live events, disaster recovery and radio. For more information, please visit www.encompass.tv, and follow us on social media – LinkedIn and Twitter.

Encompass Press Contact:                    

Juliett Southern, Senior Director, Marketing; jsouthern@encompass.tv; +1 678.421.6762