Mumbai Continuing to build the Indian sports landscape, LALIGA, the world's largest football ecosystem, successfully concluded its first-ever ‘EXTRA TIME’ webinar series in India. Seeking to engage in conversations related to sports technology and culture, the first of the dual-part webinar series, explored the evolving landscape of sports technology, and its impact in transforming fan engagement in India. Directing the conversation, leaders with experience leading properties such as LALIGA, National Basketball Association (NBA), Major League Baseball (MLB), Dream Sports, and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) graced the occasion as panel members.
Delving into topics on innovation, audiovisual content, artificial intelligence, virtual reality, and gamification amongst others, the panellists spoke about how tech can help build individual sports awareness and amplify preexisting audience potentials through personalization of content.
Speaking at a LALIGA Extra Time Webinar, LALIGA head of content & programming Roger Brosel said, “At LALIGA, we have always looked at technology as a means to an end. Our final objective is to have a product with which fans can engage. Technology by itself cannot be the future, it must add something to the story we are already telling at LALIGA. We look at technology to build engagement and immersive experiences alongside the match day experience for fans who do not have the opportunity to travel. Through creativity & tech innovation we are allowing the viewer at home to get closer to the action.”
Dream Sports chief marketing officer Vikrant Mudaliar, added “Gen-AI is an interesting avenue at the moment. From a Dream11 point of view, we are looking to innovate to seamlessly and frictionlessly provide fantasy sports fans content through reduced touchpoints. This added amount of convenience to stream, chat, gamify, and be provided with tips based on your interest is what we are aiming to do explore.”
NBA India country head Rajah Chaudhry added, “For the NBA, we look at the technology space under two pillars; personalization and awareness building. We use tech, and in particular AI to build experiences for our fans. Through tech, we can personalize content, allowing fans to engage with the game based on their preferences, while providing access to the NBA like never before through immersive technology - which also allows us to build our existing fanbase in the country.”
MLB Senior Manager India Ryo Takahashi added “MLB utilizes tech to understand our audience at multiple levels. Through building fan profiles, we are better able to understand our end consumer in terms of platform usage, the behaviour of the consumer, and the changing mindset of the fans. By adapting our offerings to gain an advantage in fan experience, tech allows us to build and scale our offering to new audiences and markets.”
Aneesh Surender Madani, former - head of global digital partnerships and innovation at IOC & Former Twitter head of sports partnerships, at Asia Pacific, added “There’s a window beyond ‘LIVE’ content which is an area of growth for sports organizations. Fans are keen to learn more about the human stories in addition to the game. This demand is where tech can have a significant role to play. The big opportunity is in enabling athletes to share compelling content across multiple platforms.”
Exploring the theme of building a sporting culture in India, the second part of the LALIGA Extra Time Webinar series will take place in mid-May alongside leaders from the sports industry in India and Spain.
