Digital platforms and social media have become essential for sports clubs and leagues around the world in order to engage and create new fans from a multitude of different countries.
Sports teams are now understanding the impact of digital content strategies, but there are new methods born out of AI that have substantially accelerated these processes from weeks to minutes.
At the heart of this sports marketing revolution is WSC Sports, who provides an all-in-one platform to create AI-powered sports content for digital and social media platforms.
Speaking to Insider Sport, Ben Mirvis, Business Development Team Lead, EMEA at WSC Sports, broke down the work they have done with Ligue 1, La Liga, Bundesliga and the NBA, and revealed why short form content is the leading content strategy that is capturing the imagination of younger fans.
Insider Sport: Firstly, what are some of the main objectives WSC Sports are looking to achieve in order to overhaul Ligue 1 and Ligue 2’s digital content strategy?
Ben Mirvis: We’re not deciding on Ligue de Football Professionnel’s (LFP) strategy, we’re enabling different teams in the organisation to create and distribute content in ways that were not available to them in the past.
I believe that when Kylian Mbappé left, we spoke with the LFP and they understood that they needed to reinvent themselves. And I must say that they’re doing it fantastically in terms of acknowledging it could be a challenge, but it’s also an opportunity to come and take this league and create different kinds of content and different kinds of experiences.
Basically, we’re going to power the entire VOD content creation process, whether it’s on YouTube, content for broadcasters, or content on the new app. Soon, also content on social media.
Any piece of content that they create today, including the thumbnails and the graphics, is coming directly from WSC. In the past, they had to do everything manually and this limited their output, with WSC they’ve ramped up their production dramatically. They can automate and streamline the process 100x faster than what they did in the past.
Insider Sport: When it pertains to the players in Ligue 1, will there be a focus on highlighting the emerging young talent in the league on digital platforms as the league has seen high-profile departures in recent years?
Ben Mirvis: I would say definitely, but again, we’re not deciding the strategy, we’re giving Ligue 1 the tools to do so.
But this vacuum in high-profile talent is a huge opportunity. Obviously players like Neymar Jr. and Messi were not at the very end of their careers, but not at their peak, and so this vacuum gives other players and other faces the space to grow and to shine.
At the end of the day, and not all people know this, Ligue 1 has had a lot of amazing players that came directly from this league. What the LFP is trying to do is once they give these young players and the clubs space, which is also something that we’re going to do together with them, by empowering the current assets/players on different digital platforms. This in turn will get the player and club more exposure.
I believe that the LFP would want to have another candidate for the UEFA Champions League that is not just PSG, and the only way I believe as a sports fan to do this is to create more incentives to play in Ligue 1. How can you do it? By creating more cool and engaging content.
Insider Sport: How does French football’s digital audience differ from that of other European football countries and how will WSC look to engage young people with some of its content to Ligue 1 and Ligue 2?
Ben Mirvis: I think that every league is unique, but I believe the French league wants to explore their digital content strategy. They want to really tailor the messaging and the type of content that they are creating for their fans across all digital landscapes.
What we have done up until today was mainly for broadcasters and long highlights content on YouTube. But I believe that we will start seeing, let’s say Q1 up until Q2 and Q3, many more new types of engagements and new formats on social media like TikTok, Instagram, etc.
One of the things that we’re doing generally, and I believe that Ligue 1 will be doing it as well, is creating new types of content for the new generations, like Gen Z/Alpha.
For example, a current five-year-old has access to Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, etc., and may not be inclined to watch sports like football. How do you engage this generation of young people and bring it into sports and French football specifically?
We are trying to address these challenges by creating new concepts that appeal to the young people, say for example Pokemon playing football. That may help create a gateway for young people to watch Ligue 1 football for the first time.
Insider Sport: What are some of the most engaging digital strategies WSC has overseen that has increased user engagement for leagues and clubs and what are some of the thought processes behind these strategies?
Ben Mirvis: I would definitely say this is epitomised in three words; short form content.
I won’t say that the attention span for the 90 minute football game is over as a live experience, but I don’t think that the seven-year-old child will watch a 90 minute game. Short form content is key for this, it needs to be interactive and tailor-made for a specific fan.
For example, YouTube content creators and influencers are the way in which young audiences are consuming content today. As a macro-benefit, this definitely falls under short-form content. We say it with Serie A, we say it with La Liga, what they’re doing on the new app, creating new animations of goals for the users to guess who was the player who scored.
So taking it onto the short form, and then dividing it into the ones that will be more appealing. Because at the end of the day, as I said, we give the technology and they know their market best. We’re not trying to pretend that we know the French industry better than the French league. They’re doing an amazing job.
Insider Sport: How is AI helping to transform some of these digital content strategies? What benefits does the technology provide differently to everything else and is there a ceiling on its potential?
Ben Mirvis: I believe AI gives you an extra edge first of all, to be much more efficient and more accurate. It allows people to be creative and do interesting content rather than cutting manual clips. It does the heavy lifting so creative teams can have time to be what they’re meant to be – creative!
Today, for example, content creators on Instagram, have you ever thought that the content came from a 16:9 ratio and then someone had to cut it to a 9:16 to then upload? With our technology, we can detect the best moments from a game, and then put the graphics in a 9:16 ratio, which is something that editors would take hours to do, if not weeks for those aiming to do so in scale.
With AI, you can use other leagues’ archives and experiences because there’s tons of machine learning to be used in your favour. I would say efficiency, speed, and breaking the chains from editors and the digital teams’ hands.
Insider Sport: The NBA is one of the leading, if not the leading sports league when it comes to digital engagement. What does the NBA do differently in this respect and is this replicable for European football leagues?
Ben Mirvis: I believe what the NBA did first is that they were at the front of the line when it came to trying new methods. They’ve always been pioneers for new experiences as it is a league that is broadcasting in so many different countries, not only in the world, but also in the US with a different attitude to broadcasting rights.
What they do with their archive, for example, we have a creators program with the NBA, and this allows us access to tons of NBA archives, which we also have with other football leagues.
The NBA came and said to us, okay, this creator has a lot of followers on YouTube and this creator has a lot of followers on TikTok. We then gave them access to the WSC platform to create any kind of archive content they want with a click of a button.
For example, if you search Stephen Curry shots, or assists to Kevin Durant, you can create this in 10 seconds and then monetise this together to spread out and distribute this content into multiple different countries.
This kind of content production was outside of the box and what I believe characterises the NBA the most, but we do see it more and more with other leagues as well.
Insider Sport: Finally, and thank you for your time, can you envision a future where sports leagues will consider signing deals with social media platforms for media rights and how would this change the landscape of sports broadcasting as we know it?
Ben Mirvis: I wouldn’t be surprised at all because these kinds of platforms are very good at monetising. They know the audience really well.
Once you bring such an emotional thing as sports into your realm, these social media platforms can create some really innovative methods. I don’t know what prevents Instagram or Twitter from having a smart TV app.
