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EMEA digital news round up

Here are Grabyo’s favorite content production ideas from around the sports and broadcast industry over the past weeks.

The past few weeks have seen the easing of lockdowns across Europe. All major football leagues have returned, plus tennis and golf to name a few sports. But with this comes a new challenge for broadcasters. How do you keep fans engaged without them being in the stadium, and with limited access to talent?
Presenters are now allowed back in studios to present news and talk shows, albeit at a distance, and with guests joining remotely, but things aren’t as they were earlier in the year.

Embracing the cloud is happening across multiple industries. There are pre-match Premier League press conferences taking place via Zoom and we’ve even seen an athletics meet take place with athletes racing against each other in real-time from different locations across the world. Pre and post-match talk shows are being hosted by fan supporter groups and football clubs have been doing fan watchalongs, displaying fans on giant TV screens in the grounds.

The Impossible Games

Athletics has returned in a different format. Hosted in Oslo at the iconic Bislett Stadium, the Impossible Games included a selection of track and field events. Each event was completed at the stadium as well as simultaneously in other locations across the world. This created a real-time competition between athletes as they prepare to return to stadiums to compete. The events also had commentary to keep fans engaged during this unusual format.

Zoom Press Conference

The day before kick-off you would expect to see a football manager sitting at a desk with handfuls of microphones and a room full of journalists. Now you see football managers sat in front of branded club backdrop answering questions via Zoom. Embracing the cloud has been integral to the return of live sports, enabling the pre and post-game duties has allowed some form of normality for clubs, fans and players.

The Social Stable

Royal Ascot, one of the highlights of the horse-racing calendar took place in the middle of June. With more fans tuning in to the coverage, ITV Racing continued its ‘Social Stable’ to keep fans up-to-date with all the action from the races. This year, the programme was filmed from home with decorative backgrounds to create a make-shift studio. The programme included presenters from the racecourse as well as guests and celebrities who joined from home. The #ITVRacing hashtag reached over 60 million people across the globe, showing clips of the faces and interactive fan campaigns.

We’re not really here

Manchester City has created a new campaign for matches being played at home behind closed doors. ‘We’re not really here’. The campaign encourages fans to stay at home and watch matches. Providing fans with supplementary pre and post-match content to keep them engaged as they wait to return to the Etihad. The show, broadcast live to YouTube, aims to engage fans in the pre-match build-up and following each game. Without being in the stadium, the show aims to fill the time fans are completing pre-match routines, programmes, catching up with friends, and traveling to the game. There are discussions about the opposition, past matches against that team, and the team line-ups. The show includes fan tweets and comments using the #WNRH campaign hashtag, displayed live on the YouTube broadcast.

PGA Tour Multicast

The PGA tour has teamed up with Twitter for a multicast fan engagement initiative at The Charles Schwab Challenge. The cast will feature nine video streams from across the course, featured on 20 different twitter accounts. The streams will follow groups around the course and include live commentary, bringing the fans as close as possible to the action. There will be celebrity guests featuring on the streams as well as audio from the players themselves as they wear microphones whilst playing. In a first for the sport, this initiative aims to attract more than just avid golf fans to the stream.

To learn more about Grabyo and how we are helping global broadcasters, rights holders and media companies overcome these challenges with our cloud-based video production and editing platform – get in touch today.

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