LaLiga Tech: Putting pedal to the metal

Article posted by Coliseum, October 5^th, 2021

Image: LaLiga

LaLiga Tech (Spain) marked its official launch on September 28^th by revealing the range of technology solutions it can offer to the global sports and entertainment industry, while also confirming new agreements with the World Padel Tour and communications specialists Millicom.

LaLiga Tech introduced its suite of technology solutions designed for the digital era of sports and entertainment.

Developed over the last six years for LaLiga, LaLiga Tech products allow organizations to develop direct relationships with fans, enhance content with data and digitize competition management.

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The ‘LaLiga’ stated that LaLiga Tech is the world’s first company to combine the experience of an international sporting organization with deep technical expertise. Through a team of over 140 specialists that have designed solutions for LaLiga over the past seven years, it is now offering these solutions commercially to help accelerate the digital transformation of the industry.

Available as managed services via the cloud, LaLiga Tech solutions are used to create new direct-to-consumer channels, enhance and protect content with real-time data and digitize key management processes. All solutions are interconnected under a single data-based ecosystem, delivering new insights that can be used to drive wider growth across the organization.

LaLiga is the men’s top professional football division of the Spanish football league system.

LaLiga Tech is the spun-off technology division of Spain’s premier football league LaLiga.

The World Padel Tour is the number one professional padel (racquet sport) circuit worldwide. It gathers the best players from all around the world and has its central headquarters in Spain, where 12 of the 16 tournaments in the calendar are developed. This young sport has lived to see a great professional outburst in the last 10 years.

Luxembourg-headquartered Millicom International Cellular SA is a telecommunications and media company which is a provider of fixed and mobile services dedicated to markets in Latin America. Millicom provides high-speed broadband and telecommunications services through its principal brand, TIGO.

The ‘LaLiga’ quoted Miguel Ángel Leal, Chief Executive Officer (CEO), LaLiga Tech, as stating, “Sports and entertainment has an enormous opportunity to build on its emotional connection with fans by taking a data-led approach to understand fan behaviors and design modern, engaging and profitable experiences. Our products have been specifically created for the sector and are supported by the human resources that have turned LaLiga into a digital leader over recent years.”

Tech bouquet

LaLiga Tech solutions are available under three principal areas:

Fan engagement

To help adjust to the digital behaviors of a global fan base, LaLiga Tech offers solutions for:

Launching a proprietary over-the-top (OTT) streaming platform, including business intelligence tools to analyze viewing patterns;
Creating and managing multichannel fan engagement campaigns, building a 360 degree picture of how fans interact with all digital properties;
Building competition apps and web platforms, including fantasy gaming to engage a global fan base; and
Enabling digital venue access with personalized in-venue experiences.

Content enhancement

Incorporating real-time data to deliver new insights, LaLiga Tech’s content enhancement offering includes:

Mediacoach: The real-time match data platform generating advanced in-play statistics for use by coaching teams and broadcast partners;
Content Protection: The LaLiga Tech subsidiary providing global monitoring software and analysis to instantly detect and remove illegal content, be it audiovisual piracy or brand counterfeiting; and
Content Integrity: The software that tracks real-time data from the world’s major betting markets and analyses patterns around sporting events to detect any irregularity.

Competition management

LaLiga Tech competition management solutions bring data analytics to the heart of any organization through the following:

Customized data dashboards that visualize performance of any platform across the digital ecosystem in real-time; and
Custom applications that digitize key competition processes, including Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools for optimized match calendars, digital platforms to upload team or kit selections and resources for centrally managing financial processes.

Connected by a single data-based ecosystem, all solutions can be interconnected and integrated into existing environments, allowing for modular and scalable deployment for customers of all sizes.

New global agreements: World Padel Tour and Millicom

As well as announcing its technology offering, LaLiga Tech also announced two new agreements with global organizations in the sports and entertainment industry.

Firstly, it confirmed an alliance with the World Padel Tour that will see LaLiga Tech become technology partner of the international padel circuit. Through the agreement, LaLiga Tech will develop a series of fan-facing technology platforms for World Padel Tour, allowing the growing sport to reach a wider global audience and for new fan experiences to be created across multiple assets.

Mario Hernando, CEO, World Padel Tour, commented, “This agreement allows us to take the next step in building a dedicated global following for padel, which has already shown strong audience growth in recent years. LaLiga Tech shows a completeness of vision when it comes to building and activating fan bases using technology platforms and data, with the added benefit of having demonstrated its success within LaLiga.”

The global communications company Millicom, meanwhile, has signed an anti-piracy agreement that will see matches in Costa Rica’s Liga de Fútbol de Primera División (Liga FDP) monitored through the Content Protection solution, with illegal content being removed from online platforms through a combination of Content Protection’s advanced software and expert analysis team. This will assist Millicom in protecting the value of rights to Liga FDP matches, which it holds in Costa Rica through its Latin American operating arm, Tigo Sports.

Julio Sosa, Director, Tigo Sports, affirmed, “The commitment of Tigo Sports in the fight against piracy, the protection of consumer rights and the well-being of the clubs is absolute and is reflected in the signing of this contract. With the support of LaLiga Content Protection and our team we are at the same professional level as the largest global sports companies.”

LaLiga Tech works with numerous additional clients across the sports and entertainment industry including Dorna Sports, Moto GP, the Jupiler Pro League, Sky Mexico, and the Royal Belgian Football Association.

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