Longtime World Cup sponsor McDonald’s is streaming matches to all of its 207 restaurants in Sweden during this summer’s tournament. Diners at the fast food chain will now be able to order up fan favorites Emil Forsberg and Marcus Berg with their fries, and see nutmegs with their McNuggets.
McDonald’s contracted Red Bee Media to stream matches to restaurants in the country. The over-the-top (OTT) service was up and running within hours of final approval.
“We needed someone who could deliver the World Cup to our restaurants on a tight deadline and without any glitches,” said Rickard Berthold, digital lead for McDonald’s Sweden, in a press release. “Red Bee Media managed to do just that and enabled us to give our customers access to world class football while enjoying our burgers.”
Sweden beat South Korea 1-0 on Monday, which no doubt made for a lot of happy meals. The Blueyellow has a chance to go through to the knockout stages and eliminate the defending champion when it plays Germany on Saturday.
Red Bee Media, a spinoff from Swedish telecom Ericsson, is providing Dutch national broadcasters with an ultra high-definition feed of the World Cup and has been the provider for BT Sport for years, including delivery of the English Premier League.
“We are proud to be able to deliver a high-quality stream of one of the biggest live sports events in the world, in so many locations at the same time,” Anders Wassén, the head of online video development at Red Bee Media, said in the release. “Our solution is built to manage any type of content and be displayed on any available device, and we are glad that McDonalds chose us to deliver the World Cup to their restaurants.”
SportTechie Takeaway
Before the World Cup, the Interactive Advertising Bureau made a rosy forecast for streaming to nearly match linear TV consumption of the tournament. Telemundo already set several streaming records in the Cup’s first week. (Red Bee Creative, a sister of Red Bee Media, led a rebrand of Telemundo timed for the start of the World Cup.) Among the other major players in OTT for this World Cup is Youku, a Chinese company owned by e-commerce titan Alibaba.
While Optus Sports’ streaming in Australia has suffered technical difficulties, the momentum for streaming continues in a super sized-way, with this unique McDonald’s partnership demonstrating how accessible the content can be.