ScorePlay is the all-in-one media hub built by, and for, sports. Where Dropbox and Google Drive meet the 21st century, with a splash of AI.
Vic and Xav were inspired to start the company as sports fans after their initial foray into the media space with their first company. They realised football clubs were still using hard-drives and wasting time looking for photos and videos, let alone sending them to athletes. “Sports teams have seen a meteoric rise over the past 20 years, but their infrastructures just haven’t been able to keep up with the digitalisation of sports fans,” Vic (CEO) says. “When we began shadowing Toulouse it was crazy. All these photos and videos that we would love to see as fans were just stuck in a dusty cupboard. That’s how we came up with ScorePlay.”
Nothing Toulouse
We adopted a design-thinking approach. Empathise. Define. Ideate. Prototype. Test. The subject? Toulouse FC. “When Vic and Xav came to ask us whether they could come see how we worked - we were surprised. At first we thought ‘Great, a few new interns’, but we couldn’t have been more wrong. They way they went about learning about our workflows was so meticulous. After about 2 weeks they came back and said: ‘We can solve your problems, all we need is your trust’. Nothing has been the same since,” says Rémi Denjean, Social Media Manager at Toulouse FC.
Their issues were numerous: wasted time, opportunities, clumsy tools like Google Drive, WeTransfer and WhatsApp, their online brand was struggling and athletes weren’t posting. We listened. We understood the pain. We’d experienced it. Together with Barbara (COO) and Dan (Full-stack Dev), the project started and we had nothing to lose.
Built for, and by, sports and sports fans
Once the prototype was built, rooted in design-thinking, we started our beta with 8 clubs worldwide from Europe, to Australia and across to Chile. Differing statures and sizes meant we could gain an overview of different workflows in different organisations to create a solution that fits them all.
“Developing a tool alongside the actual customer is something most don’t have the luxury to do. Every day we would learn something new, we’d tweak the product a bit, add a new feature, adjust to each workflow. The learnings and feedback built the foundation of how we run ScorePlay today” Xavier Green, CTO
We worked closely with the marketing directors, commercial reps, content managers, photographers and videographers - to develop a product that responded to their needs and added value to the brand. Every feature and flow was tested on sports workflows. By the time the beta ended, we knew we were building something special for sports organisations.
More than just a SaaS, customer-first
Since working with Toulouse and the close contact we had with clubs such as OGC Nice and Real Sociedad during the beta, we knew the only way to move forward, was to work closely with our clubs. For sports. By sports. The sports ecosystem is one built on relationships, and especially for tools, it’s essential to maintain close collaboration to be able to continue iterating, innovating and improving. Building bridges through media within this ecosystem was always our goal and that’s why we targeted every element, from club, to player, partner, fan, photographer, videographer, social media manager, agencies etc.
“We realised early on that our sports organisations were our biggest assets in terms of what we could do with ScorePlay. Every new club, every new sport, has been the opportunity to improve the product and develop a tool that is even more useful for all our clients. Collaboration makes them better, but it also helps us.” Barbara, COO
Along the way, we’ve received plenty of validation from our clubs, as well as global investors such as Nicolas Julia (CEO of Sorare), Omar Da Fonseca (Former player and BeIn commentator), and none other than Mario Götze, German World Cup champion and Eintracht Frankfurt.
ScorePlay, here to stay
Since Xav wrote the first line of code in January 2021, we’ve gone from a small team of 4 working out of a beach café in Lisbon, to a worldwide team of 14 spread across 6 capitals, 3 continents and 9 nationalities. From the initial beta with 8 clubs, we’ve grown to manage the media assets of over 100 sports organisations such as The Swiss Football League, Volleyball World, AS Monaco, The Amundi Evian Championship, Reading and Real Sociedad. The new kids on the block have officially opened up shop.
If this is the kind of media management solution you want for your club and team, get in touch to start your free trial. The best tool and service for sports, guaranteed.
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: San Diego Wave FC
