Sydney FC TV – Live Show

The Project:

Following the return of the Hyundai A-League in Australia, the current Champions Sydney FC produced a captivating live pre-match show and range of live streamed promotional events, with fan engagement, including comments and content at the heart of it. Sydney FC supporters were treated to an entertaining 30-minute pre-match show leading into each Hyundai A-League match, hosted by the voice of football in Australia, and former Fox Sports commentator, Simon Hill. Thirty minutes before kick-off of each game, Sydney FC fans all over the world tuned in to their Facebook Page to watch the host and a former Sydney FC legend review the upcoming match and dissect past performances, all alongside engagement from fans across social.

With official club partners in mind, Sydney FC extended brand exposure with special live FIFA20 “watch-alongs” as fans were entertained with a pre-match virtual show down between the two clubs in the real upcoming fixture, including fan content and embedded sponsors. Powered by our fan engagement platform’s Real-Time Graphics and Social Moderation engines, Sydney FC and Dizplai’s team of producers created a broadcast-standard graphics masterclass streamed across Facebook.

The Challenge

With the reduced coverage of the Hyundai A-League on Fox Sports and the Covid-19 restrictions limiting the number of sports fans allowed in the stadium, Sydney FC was keen to reward their expansive fanbase with a captivating pre-match experience. Boasting an impressive combined 350k followers across social, Sydney FC needed a cloud-based platform to moderate and publish the fan interaction into their live show. The platform also had to produce a graphics interface familiar to other popular sports TV shows, that would include branding from commercial partners and a range of statistics.

How we did it

Just 17 days from initial contact to delivery of the pre-match show for the first fixture after the restart against Wellington Phoenix, Dizplai’s producers worked with Sydney FC’s marketing department to develop the graphic visuals and animation – following the club’s strict brand guidelines. In a first for the team, Dizplai managed the end-to-end fan engagement visuals, with integrated multi-layered live graphic overlays, including L3, animated ticker, full screen, poll, and side panel, featuring a range of matchday content.

Before the broadcast, the production manager was trained on the production workflow to moderate social engagement aggregated from Instagram, Facebook and Twitter, using the live social moderation engine to queue and publish varying comments and images. With player, manager, fan quotes and club partner branding queued in the playlist manager throughout the programme, Dizplai’s browser-accessed input form enabled producers to add and automate data-driven graphic overlays published directly into the feed without delay and on the fly.

The Results

Two matches into the restart and Sydney FC fans have been entertained with two fantastic pre-match shows streamed on Facebook Live. Supporters across the globe got involved via social media, using #SydneyFC and the matchday hashtag, to engage with the show, sharing images of them at the game, and responding to match analysis from Simon Hill, Luke Wilkshire and club-legend Alex Brosque in the studio. To date, the initial two shows following the restart have been seen by over 15k people on Facebook, with the second show against Newcastle Jets viewed over 7.8k times.

The special promotional “watch-along” virtual game streams extended the reach of partner branding and increased fan experience. Ultimately, Sydney FC created a live experience for fans to interact and immerse themselves into pre-match beyond anything that has been done before, featuring clear calls-to-action across their social platforms, and promoted in the feeds.