LaLiga expands Microsoft partnership for digital transformation

LaLiga, Spain’s leading football league, and Microsoft Corporation which originally became a LaLiga partner in 2016, announced an extension of their relationship on Wednesday, intending to digitally alter overall sports experience globally.

LaLiga and Microsoft will concentrate on co-innovation and cloud optimization, leveraging Microsoft Azure and its AI capabilities as part of the expanded agreement. The relationship will strive to provide LaLiga with fresh development and business prospects via LaLiga Tech assets by using the greatest ideas developing throughout the sports industry, entertainment firms, and other commercial firms throughout the world.

Microsoft, as La Liga’s worldwide Technology and Innovation Partner, will assist in the development of new and leveraging current technologies that will promote innovation throughout the sports sector, including:

For sports fans: Azure Event Hubs, Azure Data Lake, Azure Databricks, and Azure Machine Learning will provide data-enhanced event coverage, customised OTT streaming choices, and camera angle choices during matches. LaLiga will include innovative experiences including virtual reality, augmented worlds, and three-dimensional replays.

For rights holders, broadcasters and commercial partners: Azure Machine learning would also allow an expanded OTT streaming service with customised predictions and improved experiences with the appropriate information, gaming, and solutions using Azure, Dynamics 365, Power BI, SQL Database, and Azure Cosmos DB.

For venue administration: Power BI and Azure will expedite field management via security advancements, and 5G will be used to provide uniform in-stadium operations.

Commenting on the association, Javier Tebas, President of LaLiga, said: “We value Microsoft as our technology and innovation partner and appreciate how they collaborate deeply to build innovative solutions aimed at solving business challenges specific to our industry. 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.”

Jean-Philippe Courtois, EVP and President Global Sales, Marketing & Operations, Microsoft Corp, said: “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 while bringing new business models to the market with Microsoft cloud and AI capabilities. Microsoft is proud to help accelerate LaLiga’s digital innovation and empower exciting new business opportunities in the sports and entertainment industries through LaLiga’s technology portfolio.”

LaLiga has a strong record of funding in and concentrating on the introduction of new technologies directed at boosting the audience engagement, such as a powerful app ecosystem built on top of Microsoft Azure services. LaLiga’s official applications have been downloaded over 113 million times throughout the world. Over 1.5 million people have signed up for LaLigaSportsTV, which offers a free OTT video streaming service for a variety of sports other than football.