Sports, video and the hall of a thousand start-ups at Web Summit

Last week, Team Grabyo headed to Dublin for the fifth annual Web Summit event. Bringing together experts in the technology industry from around the world, over 42,000 attendees visited Web Summit to learn, share and connect.

Arriving on Tuesday morning, we were excited to explore the twenty different stages at Web Summit. Amongst interviews and meetings, we caught a broad range of talks from ‘inspiring stories in online video’, ‘a royal couple: content and distribution’ and to conclude the day, ‘Instagram in focus’ with co-Founder Mike Kreiger.

Two themes took priority for discussion – mobile and video. Speakers discussed the phenomenal growth of both – the dominance of mobile as the primary publishing platform for media (HuffPost said that they became a “mobile media company” in 2015) and how this phenomenal growth is not expected to stop soon. The power of mobile and video is at the heart of our product capability at Grabyo and hence why we have been working hard to optimise content specifically for various mobile formats.

The real action for Grabyo started on Tuesday. We met with Alex Willis, Head of Digital at the AELTC, Wimbledon, who we have worked with for over two years to deliver a social video experience and Nacho Trujillo, Managing Director, Innovation and Global Development at LaLiga, who we entered a partnership with this month. Together we presented a panel exploring ‘Social Video in the Sport Industry’.

Backstage we discussed how Wimbledon and LaLiga are similar in their intentions to connect fans regardless of their location through great content, engaging social experiences and innovative use of video. Despite having different target audiences, fans demands are the same – social video optimised for mobile.

Darren Frehill (RTE) chaired the twenty-minute session investigating the past, present and future of social video. Nacho made some fantastic points about how LaLiga see technology as the future, and explained the need to be disruptive in this area:

“we, as an industry, need to keep moving forward whether that means that we move away from TV or not. With social video, it is now possible to have football in your pocket with you everywhere you go.”

Control and protection of rights is always a major talking point when discussing social video and Nacho described how,

“digital is an opportunity but we have to keep control of our assets. We need to reach the balance between sharing great content and business. We have the best players, the best clubs and the best league in the world and we need to protect that.”

Nacho also discussed how LaLiga are approaching digital, including social video, in the future,

“Social video is a way to share content with people globally. At LaLiga, we want to lead the way and be seen as innovative.”

Sitting to Nacho’s left, Alex Willis discussed Wimbledon’s social video strategy in depth and how the Championship has built a reputation of being one of the most digitally innovative sporting events in the world:

“One of our main challenges is reaching the millions of fans from all over the world who will never get the chance to visit the magical place of Wimbledon. You really do get an incredible sense of atmosphere when you arrive at the event, so it is important that we are able to convey that to our fan base through digital.”

Grabyo worked with Wimbledon throughout the 2014 and 2015 Championships and we are proud to have powered the most watched video clip from the two-week event: David Beckham catching a ball in the Royal Box.

 

What is fascinating for the sports industry is that the above clip would not be defined as ‘premium video content’ within a broadcast rights agreement, but it is of value to the millions of fans following Wimbledon on social media. The clip received over 8 million views… more than any on-court clip from across the event.

This diversity in social video connects new audiences to Wimbledon and provides an enhanced experience beyond traditional broadcast output. Alex explained,

‘There’s an opportunity to make sport more personable through social video. It helps us build an emotional connection between our fans and the Championship. Getting on Buzzfeed in an article titled ‘One of the 23 most ridiculously British things’ was great as it exposed us to a new audience in a similar way to the impact of social video.’

Grabyo’s CEO Gareth Capon described how social video can work alongside traditional broadcast content and the two do not have to stand alone. Rights holders and owners have an opportunity to explore the value of social video within their commercial deals – as well as the growing impact and value of their social media channels as distribution platforms.

Gareth continued to explain how the future of social video for the sports industry will see a dispersed and increasingly distributed media ecosystem, where players, clubs, teams and leagues will become directly connected through their social content and will utilise their own unique audiences across multiple social media platforms to build reach, engagement and new revenue opportunities.

Whilst a lot was discussed in the session, one thing is clear: we are at the start of the social video journey and in five years this industry will look different to what we know today. Team Grabyo are excited about being at the forefront of that journey and helping our partners to shape the future of video.

Web Summit 2015 was a fantastic event and it was wonderful to hear from fellow industry experts as well as having the opportunity to speak alongside Grabyo clients. See you next year in Lisbon!

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