On target: World Archery on learning about its audience and introducing new graphics with streaming service Archery+
With Korean archers taking the limelight once again at the 2024 Summer Olympics, budding archers everywhere are glued to the coverage from their rights holding broadcasters, as well as on the new streaming platform from governing federation for the sport, World Archery.
World Archery got on the streaming bandwagon at the beginning of 2024 with the launch of Archery+, which is giving it a centralised outlet for non-rights holder content, as well as a one-stop-shop subscription-based platform for archery fans looking for not only live content, but highlights, documentaries and educational content.
On the over the top (OTT) platform, head of communications at World Archery, Chris Wells says: “Archery+ is the way the world is going. Broadcast is obviously really important, and broadcast partnerships are really important. I think there is a level of the high end of our audience that wants just to consume archery. I don’t believe that’s purely events, I think additional content as well, I think learning content – critically in a participation sport – and I think it’s analysis.”
World Archery has realised that as something of a niche sport, rights holders are unlikely to be able to find the people or budget necessary to editorially expand on what they are provided with by the federation. The new OTT platform is the solution to that issue, Wells believes.
He elaborates: “There are very few broadcasters in the world that have the budget or the capacity to put a huge investment in the analysis of archery and the editorial building of archery.
“That’s fine,” states Wells. “We’re grateful for the coverage we get, and I’m grateful for the cooperation we do have, which has been really good. We’ll continue to grow that, but we’re not going to wait for those people or those countries – those rights holders – to suddenly decide to put on a pre-show for archery, a post-show for archery, or do lots of analysis videos, because in a large way the editorial expertise doesn’t exist either.
“I think it’s our responsibility to invest in that and do a platform for that, so we’ve just begun and it’s going to be a long journey, multi-year journey. But the idea is that it’s to really build out that editorial analysis side of it, the assets for the high end, the very niche archery audience.”
Segmenting the fans
Part of the OTT platform’s development for Wells has been about segmenting the fans, understanding them, and providing content for them all. Says Wells: “We have super fan, we have recreational fan, and we have casual awareness, and then we have people that don’t know about the sport. The casual and don’t know about the sport, and the recreational fans to an extent, we reach through our broadcast partners.
“The lower end is really [being reached] through our news distribution strategy, which I think has been really key to helping us spread the news. I think it’s very similar to social media distribution, and I think we’ve done a good job of reaching the audiences through our news and social. A lot of doing that was through centralising everything through the MCR at QTV [World Archery’s technical services provider], because it allowed us to be flexible in how we produce content,” continues Wells.
Prior to the creation of Archery+, Wells says the federation’s social media outlets had become confusing for users, and hard to control for World Archery with the addition of more rights holders. However, creating the OTT platform has provided a centralised place for communication with audiences and partners.
Reimaging graphics
World Archery recently announced it was working with Dizplai for graphics on its broadcasts and Archey+, after a tender to modernise what it was doing in that area.
Dizplai is providing World Archery with a newly designed, full suite of real time broadcast graphics for its live output, including competition information and scoring to be operated via a specially designed producer interface.
Also included are graphics for watchalongs and direct audience engagement such as real time comments and polling coming from YouTube, X and World Archery’s own platform, Archery+.
The new graphics will allow the broadcast to be more accessible to new fans, as well as those that are already engaged but that have less knowledge about the scoring system, for instance.
Previously, the federation used CasparCG, an opensource graphics offering from broadcaster SVT in Sweden. While that solution – which has been used since around 2017 – enabled World Archery to, “do a lot of cool things, and make things a lot more flexible,” according to Wells, the federation felt it was time to move on.
He says: “[What we’ve been doing is] great for the people who know about the sport, but actually archery is a sport of maths, and there’s so many numbers… If you’re watching it, you are doing maths in your head to work out what’s ahead. You have people shooting alternately. Some people shoot more hours than less, and while it’s not difficult too understand – you can get it quite quickly – I’m a big fan of removing barriers to entrance.
“This whole process that we’re going through with Dizplai, the idea is to remove some barriers to entry. But we’re doing it in a way that’s quite cool and quite sustainable I think for us, because by looking at these audience segments – you’ve got the super fan in with the watchalongs, and then we’ve got the casual fan later on – we’re able to develop the system for the watchalongs, for the super fan, by doing quite simple stuff. In the back end we’re developing a process to analyse how we deliver the front end graphics, which won’t look the same; it won’t be how they were done before, and we’re doing it the way that’s quite sustainable, and user feedback is quite a large part of that.”
The graphics will be rolled out over the coming months across World Archery’s broadcast output, and will be mostly complete by the end of the year.
Says Wells: “The Dizplai stuff is one part of it as a whole learning approach, which is going to come into play later this year. Then we’re readjusting our social strategy to [spread] our delivery method for all our video content because we now have a digital platform that we can use.”
Good relationships
As for how World Archery is going to continue moving forwards in its broadcast for both linear and on Archery+, Wells says there is a lot on the cards. He comments: “I think in terms of event distribution, I’m really happy with approach we have now, which is very news focused, with good relationships with key broadcasters.
“In terms of the OTT platform, it’s really adding additional value. We have started to build a studio in our archery centre in Lausanne, very close to our office. We’re really looking to focus on additional high end learning content [on the OTT channel] so those that want to access something [educational] are able to do so in a manner that helps us grow the core audience of the sport, no matter where they are geographically.
“We’ve started to put some equipment into the studio already. We’ve started to film still some quick low end stuff there, and then it’ll be really project-based growth. The idea is that we’ll start doing podcasts in there by the end of the year. We have an event in November which will use an opportunity to produce some learning content. It’s really going to be driven by the value that it generates for everyone,” he adds.
World Archery is on the ground at Paris 2024 producing content during for Archery+