Western Sydney Wanderers FC Live

The Project:

Western Sydney Wanderers produced a pre-match show live from their stadium before every home match during the rescheduled A-League 2021 season. Run by their digital marketing team, their enhanced campaign featured a mix of live chat and pre-recorded interviews, match highlights and social content, powered by Dizplai . HTML-graphics – created by Dizplai’s creative services team – displayed stats, polls, comments and pictures from viewers, with brand partners and sponsors showcased throughout – streamed live on Facebook, YouTube and broadcast in the stadium.

The Challenge:

The campaign was developed to connect fans with the in-stadium experience and beyond. Rights holder’s, Fox Sports looked to scale back coverage of the A-League, so it was imperative that the Sydney-based club produced an innovative way to engage fans and extend their 140k followers on social. Promoting partners, and WSW memberships and merchandise was also on the agenda, to delivery partnership responsibilities and boost revenues.

Producers looked to reward the fanbase with exclusive content and involve them in the live content. They required a social moderation solution to source and gather viewer interaction from Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, and redisplay into the live feed, with a multi-function L-graphic recreating a broadcast-like viewing experience.

How we did it

Following tests during the 2020 season, WSW signed up for a full season. Dizplai’s cloud-based interface connected with the workflow of their in-stadium broadcast partner, with OBS at the centre of the production. The L-Graphics, including full-screen, polls, social, sidebar and lozenge for partners, were conceptualized and delivered by Dizplai’s creative team. The team were trained to manage Bee-On, and social engagement strategy developed to create interaction with fans for their inaugural live stream.

“Our sole aim is to connect with fans and reward them for their loyalty, and the Dizplai team enabled us to do exactly that. Led by two superfans, in Tatiyana and Michael, we created an extra dimension to a potentially one-way conversation, as fans in the stadium and at home had the chance to combine and influence the match-day experience.” Natalie Gatt – Marketing & Brand Manager

The Results

Hosted by WSW superfans Michael Turner and Tatiyana Shaba, each 30-minute show covered a range of topics and calls-to-action – including @wswanderersfc / #wswlive #wswanderers – for fans to share their questions, comments, and pictures of them either in the stadium or at home – getting the chance to be featured in the live show and win JD Sport vouchers.

The home-based show hit an average of 5,000 viewers on digital streams, plus the fans in the stadium. With viewers on social interacting with the live content, WSW produced a successful show, using polls aggregated by Dizplai from Twitter, Facebook and YouTube, and influencing the conversation with opinion-based content. The marketing team created a campaign that cover branding and sponsorship possibilities and extend reach beyond the usual in-stadium channels, for a captivating build-up for their home games.