Inside LaLiga: Digital transformation triggers new era with global outlook

LaLiga has launched a plethora of technical innovations for the TV broadcast of the 23/24 season

A ‘LaLiga & Innovation’ media briefing was presented by Miguel Ángel Leal Góngora, chief technology and innovation officer of LaLiga, on Saturday 30 September 2023 at the league’s headquarters in Madrid.

The briefing positioned the Spanish football federation as a digital and data-driven organisation, with a unified data platform centred around three core principles: fan engagement (smart venues, fan activation platform, OTT platform, apps, fantasy and games, and websites/landings); content enhancement (content protection, MediaCoach and Tyche fighting against match-fixing); and competition management (BI & analytics platform, plus software/apps including calendar selector and kit selector).

All told, this is the LaLiga digital ecosystem. Looking at fan engagement, Leal Gongora revealed that the official LaLiga app has been downloaded over 20 million times, with a No. 17 in Sports rating on Apple and No.11 in free Top Apps on Android.

“What we are trying to do is leverage data and development from LaLiga and recreate products that can be positioned in the market and applied to other sports and in other regions of the world”

With regard to content protection, LaLiga uses natural language processing AI technology to monitor keywords and identify suspicious websites in messaging applications and social networks. LaLiga deploys Computer Vision AI technology to monitor the video content in the suspicious websites and detects the illegal content, automatically generating reports sent in real time to carriers, hosting providers, messaging apps and social networks requesting content removal.

In the 2022/2023 season, for example, LaLiga removed over 700,000 YouTube videos, 468,000 social media videos and over 32,000 Google URLs. For media and broadcast partners around the world, LaLiga estimates its content protection has preserved assets to the value of over Euro 9 billion.

“Using artificial intelligence, machine learning, and semantic and image searches, content protection carries out real time monitoring to detect piracy and counterfeiting, with further analysis to identify the key sources that are distributing the content most widely. Having identified the source, the content protection team of analysts quickly remove the offending content,” said Leal Góngora.

“All technical details regarding the content are recorded, allowing the system to identify future incidents, and stay one step ahead of the criminals. For us, this is very important. If we were not able to protect our content it would be a disaster.”

Sportian looks to lead in leisure and entertainment

On Monday 2 October 2023 LaLiga’s technical arm, LaLiga Tech, unveiled Sportian as its new identity. Sportian was unveiled at an event for industry players at the Civitas Metopolitano Stadium in Madrid on 1 October 2023, before the Atlético Madrid v Cádiz LaLiga fixture.

In 2021, LaLiga Tech was founded by LaLiga. It became a joint venture the following year when Globant acquired a 51% majority stake in the company. Today, LaLiga Tech has evolved into Sportian, combining Globant’s extensive track record in technology-driven business and industry transformation with LaLiga’s expertise as a leader in the leisure and entertainment sector.

“With football, you sell many different things and you get money from different channels. There are at least four or five businesses inside any football club”

Sportian combines tech innovation and sports leadership across technology development, AI, business transformation, fan engagement, sports governance and stadium management.

“Basically what we are trying to do is leverage data and development from LaLiga and recreate products that can be positioned in the market and applied to other sports, not only football, and in other regions of the world,” said Sportian head of customer success, José Luís Quintero. “We can help with anything related to fan engagement, sport performance, gaming, competition apps, the future of venues and venue experience, business intelligence, and content creation.

“The fan is a very special customer, and we believe we can help to really put the fan in the middle of your business, with everything connected to offer the best experience to the fan and the possibility to better monetise this interaction,” he told the media briefing.

Inside LaLiga: (L/R) Miguel Ángel Leal Góngora, chief technology & innovation officer, LaLiga; Elías Zamora Sillero, chief data officer, Sevilla FC; and José Luís Quintero, head of customer success, Sportian

What is the business model of a football club?

Elías Zamora Sillero, chief data officer, Sevilla FC, informed the gathering that club revenue comes in the form of TV rights, player transfers, competitions, ticketing, and merchandising/sponsorship. For its ongoing club digitalisation programme, the goal is generation of economic resources through the increment of the team value and engagement with the fan base. This points to value extraction from social and sport data, with a pathway to design intelligent monetisation actions powered by artificial intelligence.

“What is the business model of a football club? It’s very complex. With Coca-Cola, you sell one thing. With football, you sell many different things and you get money from different channels. There are at least four or five businesses inside any football club,” he said.

“At the end of the day, it’s about how many fans to you have? How much are they engaged? And how profitable is the club? Our data department is fundamental to the club’s innovation ecosystem. From algorithms in data-intensive web applications it provides the club with key information for decision making on and off the pitch.

“We have developed technology that allows us to globally detect any transaction involving players who have passed through the Sevilla FC academy – transactions that could accrue economic rights through the compensation mechanism. In the last four years we have detected more than 700 transfers with players trained at Sevilla FC. And 100 of those movements were operations in which money changed hands – with 20 in which Sevilla FC had economic rights by compensation,” said Zamora Sillero.

“Sevilla FC is proud to partner with LaLiga Tech [now Sportian] to integrate its technology and experience in Transfer Tracker, a service that makes available to other clubs the ability to monetise their training efforts, through a full exploitation of the compensation mechanism.”

CVC and clubs combine to Boost LaLiga

In 2021 LaLiga announced an agreement called LaLiga Impulso (Boost LaLiga) with investment fund CVC Capital Partners, to inject Euro 2.7 billion into the competition and its clubs. The partnership, which involved the sale of 10 per cent of its commercial business to CVC, was designed to promote the global growth of LaLiga and its clubs.

LaLiga Impulso aims to accelerate the development of the clubs by 20 years in terms of investment, growth, infrastructure and professionalism. The clubs benefit from the incorporation of an experienced industrial partner and the availability of funds to support development.

The distribution of funds must comply with growth criteria, so that clubs applying for funds must adhere to a minimum of 70% allocated to club growth with a maximum of 15% for both financial debt and additional fees to register players. The project is currently focused on 11 growth levers, where LaLiga provides personalised support and advice to clubs for their evolution across technology, talent office, communication, international, digital strategy, brand strategy, marketing and commercial, infrastructure, youth teams, CSR, and brand activation.

To address the various technological challenges, LaLiga works on six different pillars: technology basics, business management, data and analytics, sport performance, fan engagement, and business development.

Elías Zamora Sillero, chief data officer of seven-time UEFA Europa League winner Sevilla FC, with José Luís Quintero and Miguel Ángel Leal Góngora

Beyond Stats, Play Anywhere and Mediapro reach Peak

The Beyond Stats portal is part of a joint LaLiga and Microsoft advanced statistics project. The metrics are obtained thanks to the Mediacoach platform, which is supported by machine learning and artificial intelligence technology from Microsoft Azure and which collects more than 3.5 million data obtained per match thanks to the 16 optical tracking cameras and three tactical cameras in each LaLiga stadium.

By the end of the 2022-2023 season, LaLiga estimated that the continuous improvement of products and services – including the introduction of Live Pro, a new live app allowing coaching staff to make instant decisions from the bench – has led to a 21% increase in the number of unique users.

In June LaLiga and Play Anywhere unveiled a new partnership designed to unlock the value of interactivity, enabling rightsholders to provide enhanced viewer interactive experiences. Consumers can now watch, play, and buy while viewing LaLiga’s content, including live games, through the partnership with Play Anywhere Holdings, a pioneer in driving real-time on-screen interactive experiences.

The collaboration seeks to transform the ways fan engage with LaLiga’s content including live games, VOD and highlight clips.  The new partnership facilitates the granting of an extension of rightsholders’ media rights through interactive rights so that they and their distribution channels can enable interactive experiences associated with LaLiga content and generate new revenue streams when they use Play Anywhere’s Clearinghouse and Interactive Panel.

In May the supervisory body for the management of LaLiga’s audiovisual rights approved the renewal of Grupo Mediapro as international audiovisual agency for a period covering the remaining year of the current contract plus a further five years.

The renewal is confirmation of the international growth plan projected by LaLiga, which will have Mediapro as an agency in all territories except MENA and North America, where LaLiga already has regional partners. With this agreement, LaLiga expects to continue to grow steadily over the next six years in the territories covered by the new international agency contract.

As a result of the internationalisation work carried out by LaLiga in recent years, it benefits from better conditions regarding international agency fees, meaning lower variable remuneration for the agency and therefore lower absolute values, which ultimately results in more favourable conditions for LaLiga.

In addition, LaLiga, through its delegate commission, agreed to set up a 50% joint venture with Ocho Sport Advisors, led by Simon Denyer, to work together on LaLiga’s audiovisual strategy, involving a transformation of the global strategy on a national and international level.

The joint venture, named Peak, draws on the expertise of Denyer, former CEO of DAZN and Perfom, as well as his experience in leading some of the biggest shifts in the commercialisation of sports rights, through innovations in digital, data-driven and OTT strategies.

LaLiga is the world’s largest football ecosystem. It is a private sports association composed of the 20 football clubs of LaLiga EA Sports and the 22 of LaLiga Hypermotion, responsible for organising professional football competitions at the national level.

It has over 200 million followers on social media globally, across 16 platforms and in 20 different languages. LaLiga boasts the widest international network of all sports properties, with a presence in 41 countries through 11 offices, headquartered in Madrid.