Microsoft, LaLiga expand partnership to digitally transform football experience

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Spain’s premier football association LaLiga and Microsoft, are expanding their partnership to digitally transform the football experience globally, and to develop new technology solutions for the sports industry.

The collaboration will focus on enhancing fan engagement with data-enhanced match coverage, next-generation over-the-top (OTT) streaming services, advanced content protection services and venue management systems, according to their joint statement.

“We are moving into a new era in which technology will become the centre of the fan experience and data insights will power the next stage of global growth,” Javier Tebas, President of LaLiga, said in a statement.

LaLiga will use Microsoft’s products to create new technology solutions. This will include personalised OTT streaming options like camera angle selection in matches, augmented reality, virtual reality and 3-D replays for sports fans.

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The duo will work to build a streaming platform that features personalised recommendations and experiences with relevant content, games and services. Further, they plan to streamline stadium operations and leverage 5G for unified in-stadium experiences.

The partnership also intends to reinvent interactive audio-visual experiences and formats on LaLiga’s OTT platform, LaLigaSportsTV, as well as its match statistics and visualisation platform, Mediacoach.

LaLigaSportsTV has over 1.5 million registered users, and LaLiga’s family of official apps have more than 113 million downloads globally, according to the Spanish football association.

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The solutions will be developed to provide tailored content based on fan preferences as well as games and video to engage casual and hardcore fans on match day.

“We are thrilled to expand our partnership with LaLiga as it makes further bold moves to deepen engagement with its hundreds of millions of fans,” Jean-Philippe Courtois, President Global Sales, Marketing & Operations at Microsoft, said in a statement.