MVPs and What Product Managers Can Learn from a Sports Telecast

How starting simple, delivering value, and learning along the way can create game-changing products.

Image Courtesy: Star Sports

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is surely making its mark in media broadcasts, bringing a new dimension to how live telecasts are produced and experienced. A recent screen grab from the India vs. Australia Test match illustrates just how far AI has come in creating immersive viewing experiences. The person in the center of the frame, positioned by AI, gives the impression of standing right on the field, blending seamlessly into the action around him. It’s subtle but effective, drawing the viewer’s attention and making the presentation feel more dynamic and connected to the event.

From a viewer's perspective, this AI-driven positioning creates a sense of closeness to the game, almost as if the presenter is part of the field rather than simply standing in front of a static background. It enhances engagement and ties the commentary to the match in a visually compelling way. However, while this feature is undoubtedly impressive, it’s not without its shortcomings.

One glaring issue is the lighting. The open stadium creates a mix of bright and shaded areas, and the AI struggles to balance them. This results in uneven lighting across the frame, with certain parts appearing overly exposed while others remain in shadow. It’s a small detail, but one that subtly detracts from the overall viewing experience. These imperfections highlight the limitations of current AI systems in understanding and adapting to complex environments like outdoor stadiums.

For product managers, this example provides an important lesson: launching a product or feature that’s "good enough" to deliver value is often more impactful than waiting indefinitely for perfection. The telecast, while not perfect, was live and immediately started adding value by engaging viewers. This decision allowed the team to collect real-world feedback—an invaluable tool for improvement. Waiting for everything to be perfect could have delayed the launch and missed the chance to understand how users interact with the feature. This demonstrates how progress comes from action, not hesitation, and how valuable insights can be gained when a product is out in the world.

This approach captures the essence of a Minimum Viable Product (MVP):

Minimum Viable Product (MVP) refers to a product or feature that is functionally complete and addresses a core problem for its target audience. While it is ready for real-world use, it deliberately focuses on the essentials and invites user feedback to refine and polish the experience. An MVP is not the rawest version of a product but one that balances usability and readiness, ensuring it can deliver value while revealing areas for improvement through user insights.

Early releases are not just about speed to market—they’re opportunities to learn, iterate, and improve. In this case, the AI-driven framing and positioning feature is already improving the user experience, even though there’s still room to make it better. By putting the feature out there, broadcasters have been able to see how it performs, identify what works, and understand where adjustments are needed. Without taking this step, progress would have been stalled, and the full potential of the feature might have remained untapped. Each iteration builds on the last, turning feedback into concrete improvements and moving the product closer to its ideal state.

This brings us to an important question: how should product managers think about MVPs?

When you’re building a product or feature, it’s tempting to chase perfection. We want everything polished and seamless before releasing it to the world. But here’s the thing: if you wait too long, you miss the chance to learn. The cricket telecast example is a perfect reminder. Was it flawless? No. But it was live, functional, and valuable. It made the broadcast better, even with its imperfections. That’s the spirit of an MVP—getting out there, solving a problem, and using real-world feedback to improve.

As a product manager, your MVP doesn’t have to be groundbreaking—it just has to start moving the needle. Here are a few ways to approach it:

Find the Heart of the Problem

Think of your MVP as a way to answer one key question: What’s the most important thing your user needs? Everything else can wait. For the cricket telecast, the goal was to make the presenter feel like part of the game. Did they nail the lighting? No, but they got the framing right, and that mattered more in the moment.

💡 Try this: Picture your feature as a tree. The trunk is the core problem your users face, and the branches are all the extra things you could add. Build the trunk first. Your MVP should stand tall even without the branches.

Make It Valuable, Even If It’s Simple

Your MVP shouldn’t feel like a prototype; it should still provide value. Users should be able to say, “This helps me.” It doesn’t need all the bells and whistles—it just needs to work. In the broadcast example, the AI framing created a sense of connection for viewers, even though the lighting wasn’t perfect.

💡 Ask yourself: What’s the one thing your feature must do well to make users feel like it’s worth their time?

Don’t Be Afraid of Feedback

The beauty of an MVP is that it’s a conversation starter. Once it’s out in the world, users will tell you what works and what doesn’t. Feedback is your map to the next version. Think about the AI broadcast team—they now know they need to improve lighting adjustments. Without going live, they wouldn’t have seen this issue in action.

💡 Remember: Feedback isn’t criticism—it’s free advice from the people who matter most: your users. Build a system to collect it, whether it’s through surveys, analytics, or even casual chats with early adopters.

Done Is Better Than Perfect

Perfection is a moving target, and chasing it can paralyze progress. Imagine if the broadcasters had waited until the lighting was flawless—they might have missed the chance to showcase the AI framing entirely. Instead, they launched, learned, and improved. That’s the game plan for MVPs: act, observe, refine, repeat.

💡 Think this way: Your MVP is like planting a seed. It won’t grow into a tree overnight, but it needs to get into the ground to start growing at all.

This is what makes MVPs and AI in broadcasting—and many other industries—so exciting. It’s not just about the technology itself but also about how these small, incremental improvements drive meaningful progress. Each release, even with its imperfections, takes the product one step further. With every cycle of feedback and improvement, the user experience becomes better, and the product gets closer to delivering its full potential. It’s a reminder that sometimes, the most important thing is simply to take that first step, knowing that perfection isn’t required to start creating value and learning for the future.