LaLiga transforms marketing strategy thanks to Microsoft and the potential of hundreds of terabytes of data

LaLiga applies technology in all its processes, from business decision-making to digital strategy and television broadcasting. In recent years, the organisation has developed numerous technological solutions along these lines, culminating in the creation of its own technology company, LaLiga Tech, which from 2021 has managed all these products for LaLiga and other international clients. In line with this digital culture, the organisation was looking for a tool that could handle massive workloads, provide flexible environments to allow for adaptation while achieving operational cost savings. 

In this context, and with the aim of harnessing its data for informed decision making, LaLiga has used the Business Intelligence tool Power BI, supported by Microsoft Azure cloud services. As a result, it can now sort, classify and extract value from its stored information, as well as visualising and creating strategic reports in a precise and fully customised way: is easily scalable, secure and dynamic, and allows it to handle hundreds of terabytes of information, such as the nearly 75 million pieces of performance and game data that are processed through Mediacoach every matchday across the 21 LaLiga Santander and LaLiga SmartBank matches, in addition to hundreds of millions of pre and post-match pieces of data related to mobile apps, stadium access, ticketing, OTT or audio-visual piracy.  

LaLiga's agreement with Microsoft, extended in 2021, has been key throughout the migration process: in addition to helping the organisation assess which products would be most appropriate; while also providing extensive support, in enabling the platform to be deployed in a short timeframe and the development of a clear vision of how Microsoft's tools could help deliver a more personalised experience for fans. 

The implementation was coordinated through Azure Data Factory, where information is divided into small and big data. The first run on the Kubernetes platform and are maintained in Azure SQL Database. And the second is 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 panels that display the information in an intuitive and dynamic way.  

Power BI boosts fan experience and Fantasy Football  

The combination of Microsoft Azure and Power BI services has made it possible to interconnect and analyse all LaLiga's data sources in a simple way and from a unified and scalable environment. As a result, the company now has all of its information integrated into a single platform and interactive graphics that exponentially expand the value of the data and amplify its own capacity for analysis. LaLiga has utilised Power BI for different applications: 

• Fan Activation combines multiple disparate data sources to generate a 360° view of users, helping LaLiga to provide more personalised experiences. Likewise, they are used to optimise digital marketing campaigns and provide a personalised user experience. Fan 360 data is fed into a Power BI dashboard that displays detailed user information. The LaLiga Tech team uses this panel to optimise analysis and decision-making: fan habits are studied to simulate how a user might interact with LaLiga's content and the interest they show. Thanks to Power BI, LaLiga can better understand consumer behaviour and deliver content specifically selected for users.
• LaLiga SportsTV provides users with a unique place to consume live content from football, basketball, handball, futsal and more. To manage LaLiga SportsTV data and improve digital strategy initiatives, the LaLiga OTT panel was created: This provides a visualisation of aggregated user log data that makes it easy to study user behaviour, as well as reporting on which sports are most consumed. This helps LaLiga to take user-centric decisions and improve recommendations so that LaLiga Sports TV users can quickly find the matches and content of the teams they follow.
• Fantasy Football. Many football fans enjoy testing their knowledge of player management through Fantasy Football, a game in which users act as managers of 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 wealth of data, such as reference and constant tracking of player and game statistics. To better understand this data, the LaLiga Tech team consolidated a view of all the data extracted through a Power BI dashboard to access analysis related to user demographics, the type of leagues they participate in, favourite teams, player usage and tactical plans, and more. In addition to user demographics, information on downloads, competitor metrics, devices and user feedback is also collected.

Increasing adoption of Power BI through training 

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

“The implementation of Azure and Power BI has allowed us to organise 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 more quickly. With Power BI dashboards we manage our time more efficiently, thanks to their dynamic visualisations, which allow us to identify data very quickly,” says Minerva Santana, LaLiga's Director of Innovation.  

“Given that the solution is built through the Azure infrastructure, Microsoft ensures that all LaLiga data is contained in a secure environment that meets all necessary compliance and confidentiality requirements. And with the advantage of eliminating the administration, overheads and high cost of physical servers by working in the cloud,” concludes Rebeca Marciel, Director of Large Enterprises at Microsoft Spain.