- Both organizations will focus on creating innovative technological solutions for the sports industry, focused on improving the fan experience.
- These include data-enriched match broadcasts, services over-the-top (OTT) streaming next-generation, advanced content protection services and venue management systems.
LaLiga and Microsoft have today announced an expansion of their alliance focused on the digital transformation of the sports experience worldwide. Both organizations will also collaborate on the development of technological solutions for the media and entertainment industry through the association's technological offering, LaLiga Tech.
As Tech and Innovation Partner global LaLiga, Microsoft will help develop new solutions and enhance existing ones, which will drive innovation throughout the sports industry in different areas:
- For sports fans : Azure Event Hubs, Azure Data Lake, Azure Databricks and Azure Machine Learning will enrich match broadcasts with data and streaming options. streaming personalized over-the-top (OTT), such as the selection of camera angles in matches. LaLiga will also offer new experiences including augmented reality, virtual reality and 3D replays.
- For rights holders, broadcasters and commercial partners : Azure, Dynamics 365, Power BI, SQL Database, Azure Cosmos DB and Azure Machine Learning will offer a platform for streaming Optimized OTT, which will make personalized recommendations and reinforce the experience with additional content, games and relevant services.
- For venue managers : Power BI and Azure will optimize stadium operations through security innovations, as well as the use of 5G for unified stadium experiences.
As part of the collaboration, LaLiga will use the Microsoft Azure cloud, including its AI tools and machine learning to reinvent interactive audiovisual experiences and formats on its LaLigaSportsTV (OTT) platform and on Mediacoach (statistics and match viewing).
“We consider Microsoft our technology and innovation partner, and appreciate how they collaborate to the maximum to build innovative solutions to solve the specific business challenges of our industry,” said Javier Tebas, president of LaLiga. “We are moving into a new era where technology will become the center of the fan experience and data-driven insights will drive the next stage of global growth.”
“We are delighted to continue our partnership with LaLiga as it boldly moves forward to deepen engagement with its hundreds of millions of fans, while bringing new business opportunities and models to the market with Microsoft cloud and AI capabilities.” said Jean-Philippe Courtois, EVP and global president of Sales, Operations and Marketing at Microsoft . “Microsoft will help accelerate LaLiga's digital innovation, in addition to supporting new and interesting business opportunities in the sports and entertainment industries through LaLiga's technological portfolio.”
The collaboration is key to the growth and development of LaLiga Tech, through which LaLiga will bring together its entire range of existing technologies into a commercial offering for the sports industry, from match day statistics and analysis to the next generation of services of streaming OTT, through the most advanced content protection services and stadium access management systems. This will help LaLiga expand into a new era in sport and beyond, and improve the fan experience by creating new data-driven technology solutions, powered by Microsoft Azure, Power BI, Dynamics 365 and Microsoft 365, and to provide a customized technology platform, services and solutions to third parties.
The proposal is based on LaLiga's strong investment commitment, focused on the development of innovative technology aimed at improving the fan experience, including a broad ecosystem of applications on Microsoft Azure services. The family of official LaLiga applications has had more than 113 million downloads worldwide. LaLigaSportsTV, a free platform streaming OTT video platform, which offers multiple sports beyond football, has more than 1.5 million registered users.
The solutions harness the power of AI and data to deliver personalized content based on fan preferences, as well as games and videos, engaging both casual and hardcore fans on and after game day.
In addition, LaLiga uses Microsoft Power BI dashboards to provide a unified visualization of data such as TV audience, fan360, social networks, brand favorability and engagement, and app and website performance by country, helping to LaLiga and its clubs to create more attractive and personalized experiences.
With the expansion of the alliance announced today, LaLiga and Microsoft will focus on joint innovation and acceleration in the cloud with Microsoft Azure and its Artificial Intelligence capabilities. The collaboration will continue to allow LaLiga, through LaLiga Tech assets, to obtain new growth and business opportunities by taking advantage of the best innovations emerging throughout the sports market, entertainment companies and other commercial entities around the world.
About LaLiga
LaLiga is a global, innovative and socially responsible organization, a leader in the leisure and entertainment sector. It is a private sports association made up of the 20 teams of LaLiga Santander and 22 of LaLiga SmartBank, responsible for the organization of these national professional football competitions. In the 2018/2019 season, LaLiga reached more than 2.7 billion people around the world. Headquartered in Madrid (Spain), it is present in 55 countries through 9 offices and 46 delegates. The association carries out its social action through its Foundation and is the first professional football league in the world with a league for footballers with intellectual problems: LaLiga Genuine Santander.
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