LaLiga transforms its marketing strategy with Microsoft and hundreds of terabytes of data

MADRID, May 23. (EUROPE PRESS) –

LaLiga, through its technological subsidiary LaLiga Tech, has transformed its marketing strategy thanks to Microsoft Power BI, which allows it to manage hundreds of terabytes of information and order, classify and extract value from said stored information through a single platform with interactive graphs that exponentially expand the value of data and amplify the capacity of analysis.

The employers were looking for a tool that could support massive workloads, provide flexible environments to allow adaptation and, at the same time, achieve operational cost savings. In this context, and in order to take advantage of its data, LaLiga has used the Power BI Business Intelligence tool, supported by Microsoft Azure cloud services.

Thanks to this, you can now order, classify and extract value from your stored information, as well as visualize and create strategic reports in a precise and totally personalized way: it is easily scalable, secure and dynamic, and allows you to handle hundreds of terabytes of information, such as, for example, the nearly 75 million pieces of performance and game data that are processed through Mediacoach each day during the 21 matches of LaLiga Santander and LaLiga SmartBank, in addition to hundreds of millions of data in the pre and post match related to the mobile apps, access to stadiums, ticketing, OTT or audiovisual piracy.

LaLiga’s agreement with Microsoft, reinforced in 2021, has been key throughout the migration process: in addition to helping the organization assess which products would be the most suitable, it also offered extensive support, allowing the platform to be deployed in reduced time and developing a clear vision for how Microsoft tools could help deliver a more personalized experience for fans.

The implementation was orchestrated through the Azure Data Factory, where information is divided into small and big data. The former run on the Kubernetes platform and are kept in Azure SQL Database. And the latter are run through Azure Databricks and maintained through Parquet format in Azure Data Lake. The data is processed through Azure Blob Storage and then inserted into Power BI, finally presented in more than 140 different dashboards that show the information in an intuitive and dynamic way.

The combination of Microsoft Azure and Power BI services has made it possible to interconnect and analyze all of LaLiga’s data sources in a simple way and from a unified and scalable environment. In this way, the company now has all its information integrated into a single platform and interactive graphics that exponentially expand the value of the data and amplify its own analysis capacity.

LaLiga has used Power BI for different applications, one of them Fan Activation, which combines multiple disparate data sources to generate a 360° view of users and to optimize digital marketing campaigns. Fan 360 data is fed into a Power BI dashboard that displays detailed information about users. The LaLiga Tech team uses this panel to optimize analysis and decision-making: fan habits are studied to simulate how a user might interact with LaLiga content and the interest they show. Thanks to Power BI, LaLiga can better understand consumer behavior and offer content specifically selected for users.

It is also used in LaLiga SportsTV, which provides users with a place to consume live content on football, basketball, handball, futsal and more. To manage LaLiga SportsTV data and improve digital strategy initiatives, the LaLiga OTT panel was created: it provides a visualization of aggregate user registration data that makes it easier to study their behavior, as well as reporting on what type of sports are the most popular. consumed. This helps LaLiga make user-centric decisions and improve recommendations so that LaLiga Sports TV users can quickly find the matches and content of the teams they follow.

In addition, it is used in Fantasy Football, the game where fans’ player management skills are put to the test by creating virtual football teams. With the official LaLiga Fantasy app, users can select players from across the league and create teams to compete against their friends. This generates a large amount of data, for reference and constant tracking of player and match statistics. To better understand this data, the LaLiga Tech team consolidated a view of all the data extracted through a Power BI panel with which they access analyzes related to the demographics of the users, the type of leagues in which they participate, favorite teams, player usage and tactical schemes, and more. In addition to user demographics, information about downloads, competitor metrics, devices, and user feedback is also collected.

With the introduction of this new reporting tool, LaLiga has implemented adoption plans to train its employees. Through this center, Power BI workshops are held internally every time a new dashboard is created, easing the learning curve and allowing users to feel more comfortable with the new dashboards and reports.

“The implementation of Azure and Power BI has allowed us to organize huge amounts of data and improve our decision making. We are now more productive and have streamlined our processes at all levels, as well as being able to share our information quickly. With Power dashboards BI manages our time more effectively, thanks to its dynamic visualizations, which allow us to identify data very quickly,” said Minerva Santana, Director of Innovation at LaLiga.

“Since the solution is built through the Azure infrastructure, Microsoft guarantees that all LaLiga data is contained in a secure environment that meets all the necessary compliance and confidentiality requirements. And with the advantage that the administration, general expenses and the high price of physical servers when working in the cloud,” said Rebeca Marciel, director of Large Companies at Microsoft Spain.