As football clubs look at new ways to improve the fan experience across digital and social media, English Premier League team Southampton FC continues to demonstrate its innovation credentials. The Saints have reinvented the way the club uses social video to connect with fans this year, growing its digital audience in the process.

Southampton has excelled at maximizing the club’s broadcast and media rights – The Saints have been nominated for a ‘cutting edge sport award’ for ‘reinventing digital rights’ in 2017 – making use of all possible opportunities to use video, bringing fans closer to the team than before. With content available from the First Team, the U23’s, the Academy and archived footage, Saints fans can get more unique content than ever before across a range of digital and social platforms.

Ahead of this season’s marquee game against Manchester United, the Saints digital team produced a fan-first, pre-match show, exclusively for Facebook Live and Periscope. The broadcast used Grabyo Producer and featured live inputs from around the St Mary’s Stadium and was hosted by Kenzie Benali who used Grabyo to moderate, display and answer fan questions. The production team published questions in real-time on the broadcast, in addition to a new graphics package designed for mobile, social video, such as the Southampton team announcement. The live stream also featured VOD assets and highlights from previous games, interviews with staff and players and clips from the best Southampton moments against Manchester United.

The production replicated that of a pre-match TV-show and despite limited promotion in the run-up to the game the show was incredibly well received by Saints fans, with roughly one in five viewers leaving a comment across Facebook Live and Periscope. The level of engagement is a testament to the fan-first, interactive structure of the show and highlights the potential for digital first broadcasts.

A number of Grabyo partners have increased audience engagement for live social video using comment moderation and publishing. Ahead of the 2017 AELTC Wimbledon Championships, a live Q&A with Roger Federer generated nearly 7,000 comments.

With Grabyo, Southampton FC produces and shares over 100 videos a month to multiple social and digital platforms using both live and real-time video to give fans more access to the team than ever before.

Southampton utilizes Twitter, Periscope and Facebook to provide flexible viewing experiences for fans. On Twitter, the Southampton team share key moments – including all the goals – from U23 and Academy matches, with Grabyo, The Saints can clip, edit, add a thumbnail and comment and publish the goal to twitter in minutes.

Grabyo is delighted to continue to support the digital growth of Southampton FC and looks forward to providing new solutions to help build on the digital audience The Saints have created.