When we created ScorePlay almost 2 years ago after a conversation with Toulouse FC, we realised the system was broken. The management of sports media assets was chaotic and antiquated. Many would-be solutions tried to answer certain questions but all failed to address the need for an end-to-end set of tools that would help sports organisations seamlessly classify and distribute their media.
The status quo
MAMs and DAMs of this world
Softwares like Dalet, Newsbridge and Bynder are used to centralise all the content from an organisation. Generally, these platforms have been created for broadcasters, and are then repurposed for clubs, leagues or other sports organisations. They’re fairly complex to use and are therefore quite difficult to implement internally and immediately get an improvement or ROI. They’re also fairly reluctant to develop solutions that are specific to sports - understandably as they have so many verticals they cannot focus on one industry when it comes to their product roadmap. All that being said, DAMs are crucial for sports organisations to have their content properly indexed and manage their DRM in order to control the usage of their content.
AI-driven video content software
You’ve heard of them. WSC, WildMoka etc. Incredible tools that allow clubs, leagues and broadcasters to automatically create and distribute highlights and clips. These videos can be shared on social media and automatically stored in the organisation’s DAM/MAM with correct indexation. These tools are not indispensable but they’re incredibly useful for organisations that want to produce a large amount of content quickly, and do not have the resources or capacity to create highlight clips themselves. They are also essential to broadcasters as they can access a certain set of highlights within minutes.
Distribution tools
Tools such as Greenfly or Socialie, which should not be confused with DAMs or MAMs although they are sometimes integrated with them. They were created to answer to the limits of the existing media and digital asset managers that are sometimes too complex and kept just for the media teams. They also allow clubs and athletes to push content up towards leagues in some exceptional cases. However, only the biggest organisations have the staff needed to deal with distribution tools as they still require significant manual tasks in order for athletes to receive content automatically - so for the most part Greenfly is mostly used to push behind-the-scenes footage up to the broadcaster. Simple, but effective.
Disrupting and innovating
We created a tool that answers all these requests at once. The goal was to create an end-to-end tool so that sports organisations could reduce the number of tools they used, and there was no need to deal with integration after integration. ScorePlay answers centralisation, indexation, distribution and performance analysis all in one platform.
We began with small and medium teams (such as Hearts, NMU, Sac Republic) in order to make sure we developed an interface that was simple enough, and automating as many manual tasks as possible. We then starting studying the workflows of larger European teams (West Ham, AS Monaco and 1. FC Köln) to figure out the more advanced features that were needed on a larger scale for bigger organisations. The product sits at the forefront of our strategy. Every aspect we have developed has been designed and built not just with our clients in mind, but hand-in-hand with our clients as we love to listen to our users. We want to answer the demands of every single one of our clients, and we regularly develop custom features for a specific user to make their life in the sports media landscape easier. This isn’t a slight on any of our competitors, but our concentration on the sports industry has allowed us to answer their demands better than any of them. Our client feedback guides us on our product roadmap and means we are truly for sports, by sports.
The centralisation, classification and distribution of sports media assets needs to be consolidated on a single platform for a seamless real-time experience free of manual bottlenecks. Long has the sports media landscape relied on a variety of tools that crowd creative teams and disrupt a logical efficient workflow (from PhotoShelter, Dropbox or Newsbridge for storage, and Greenfly for distribution). The new generation of sports fans demand social-media-ready content in real-time as they consume, and having an end-to-end solution allows sports organisations to be reactive, versatile and adept in their content strategy.
About ScorePlay
ScorePlay is your best-in-class media solution that provides an automated architecture to centralise, distribute, and classify your digital assets, whether photos, videos, or live broadcasts. We are transforming sports organizations, automating their creative processes and growing their brands and unlocking new revenue. We are the bridge to the future of sports storytelling, from content capture to fan consumption. Automate. Grow. Unlock.
Credits
Photo credit: The Amundi Evian Championship
