By Published On: June 22, 2020 - Categories: Announcements OTT Press Release Sports

• Football fans followed the weekend’s action on clubs’ individual OTT services, powered by StreamAMG

Over the weekend, StreamAMG delighted thousands of football fans with live streams of matches as the EFL Championship returned behind closed doors.

StreamAMG works with football clubs which operate independently of the EFL Digital collective, providing live and on-demand services via its technology platforms MediaPlatform, CloudMatrix, CloudPay and StreamPlay.

This weekend saw the return of 13 of StreamAMG’s EFL partner clubs – Birmingham City, Bristol City, Cardiff City, Charlton Athletic, Derby County, Fulham, Hull City, Leeds United, Middlesbrough, Stoke City, Swansea City, QPR and Wigan Athletic.

Supporters were able to follow the action on their club’s video platform, powered by StreamAMG. Months of planning saw the business deliver an uninterrupted, high-quality service for the fans, resulting in praise from clubs across the league.

“Preparing for the return of football has been a key focus for a number of months and we have been cognisant of the technical challenges surrounding this,” said StreamAMG's chief operating officer, Matt McKiernan.

"The end result of all the hard work of teams across the business was record traffic across all platforms and overwhelmingly positive feedback from our clubs and their supporters. Our staff delivered under huge pressure and with the eyes of the sporting public on them."

This feedback is testament to the skill and dedication of everyone at StreamAMG, from our development and systems staff through to operations and customer service."

How the weekend played out

StreamAMG’s partner clubs collectively allocated over one hundred thousand voucher codes to season card holders, which they could redeem online to watch their team in action, free of charge. In light of the Coronavirus pandemic, media rights restrictions were lifted at 3pm for the first time.

This meant thousands more fans around the UK and internationally could also tune in on a pay-per-view basis, enabled by StreamAMG’s CloudPay subscription management platform.

Saturday began with the return of Fulham, Swansea, Middlesbrough and Derby County in the early kick-offs. The 3pm kick-offs featured Bristol City, QPR, Birmingham City, Wigan Athletic, Stoke City, Charlton Athletic and Hull City, as unprecedented numbers flocked online to celebrate the return of football.

Sunday saw two more of StreamAMG’s partner clubs go head to head, with Cardiff taking on the leaders, Leeds United.

Live feeds for all these games were coordinated via a remote MCR, with staff working from home as a result of the ongoing restrictions due to the COVID-19 pandemic. StreamAMG also fielded an extensive operations team to support clubs, and customer service staff to respond to end user queries.

This added up to a smooth experience for fans and clubs.

How one club responded

Paul Lakin, Stoke City’s chief commercial officer, said: “We offered season card holders the opportunity to stream our remaining nine games as part of our refund packages and therefore had more people than ever before logging on for Saturday’s game at Reading.

“StreamAMG had been assuring us for several weeks that their technology was ready for the return of Championship football and they were true to their word.

“Their technology worked very well and we’re extremely grateful for the support they gave us as a club in the build-up to the resumption of the season.”

The success was the culmination of months of preparation

Preparations for the weekend had begun months in advance, with a coordinated effort between StreamAMG's teams in Manchester, London and Malta.

StreamAMG’s in-house development and infrastructure team in Malta design, develop and maintain the company’s technical platforms including Media Platform, Cloud Matrix and the CloudPay subscription management platform.

Working in concert with key partner AWS (Amazon Web Services), the team worked tirelessly to carry out StreamAMG’s strategy, leveraging cutting-edge cloud native technologies to ensure the anticipated load could be easily accommodated.

StreamAMG's chief technology officer, Andrew De Bono, explained: “Our successful technical strategy was the culmination of our vast technical experience and understanding the challenges specific to the delivery of sports OTT.

“The input received from all areas of the business – including commercial and client services – contributed to this success and demonstrates the fantastic level of collaboration across the entire company.

“As partners, AWS have delivered an astonishing level of support and resources in three months to ensure success for our clients.

“The end result is a best in class tech stack using the latest technologies and architectural practices which means our platform has now enhanced its future growth capabilities.”

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