UK football is about to enter into an exciting new digital era, marked by the end of the long term FLi central website, video and audio delivery deal originally consisting of 86 clubs across six divisions.
Clubs are now free to exit this deal, take back control of their digital inventory and regain commercial control of websites, WebTV services, apps and more. With the lengthy lock in period over for the central digital deal, many UK football clubs have embraced this chance to break free and take control of their digital future, both commercially and technically.
Vast advancements in technology have made the process of developing a responsive, unique and powerful website/WebTV service more affordable than ever. Everything from content production, to WebTV management, to live streaming is not only now more cost effective, but simpler to deliver. This comes as a result in advancements and improvements in plug and play equipment, encoding options and service providers as a whole.
International streaming becomes an option for EFL clubs from 2017/18 and opens up a great opportunity for the leaver clubs to showcase the commercial output and simplicity of running this service alone. Whilst hampered by a somewhat unknown concept of how many games will be eligible to broadcast (making season passes somewhat of a challenge to market), clubs can still deliver a highly compelling, well produced product, placed on a unique website which is targeted specifically towards that club’s goals and not the goals of the collective.
Each football club is a unique entity with unique business and commercial goals and in a lot of cases this means that the EFL digital option doesn’t offer enough commercial or technical flexibility. Being able to manage your own digital output and commercial aims is much, much deeper than just selling content direct to consumers online.
The advancement in content monetisation options across football’s digital products, gives rise to a hybridised approach to content commercialisation. Segmenting video content and video player inventory is key to this approach. Whilst a paywall is required to deliver live content and highlights for clubs in the EFL, this doesn’t have to be the sole source of revenue. Utilising video player design tools, you can create a compelling piece of inventory for a sponsor, which can be further segmented into different sections of content, such as ‘Goal of month brought to you by xxx’/’highlights brought to you by xxx’.
Clubs outside the collective have complete control over these options, allowing for further inroads into other models such as betting syndication revenue, pre-roll advertising and micro-transaction PPV content sales. A key part of any club’s commercial strategy should always include delivery of free to air content to engage with fans directly. Though most, gather data and push other areas of the business, such as ticketing and shirt sales options.
StreamAMG is working with the vast majority of leaver clubs, utilising our market leading knowledge, video platforms, payment platforms and services to facilitate their bespoke needs, commercial goals and deliverables.
Any organisation who would like to know more about the landscape outside of the EFL Digital collective feel free to contact on: 020 7419 2081, or info@streamamg.com
Image: Action Images / Craig Brough
