Resources Webinar

2020-21 A season like no other - engaging football fans during the pandemic

About this webinar

The inside story of how during lockdown, English Football League (EFL) successfully pivoted their business model. In this webinar we talk to Russell Byrne, Head of Digital for EFL, who will discuss why fan engagement has been so important over the past 12 months. It’s also a chance to see how technology has played a crucial role for EFL in keeping the connection between fans and clubs and how they managed to successfully pivot from in-person football games to livestream on iFollow generating £42million revenue - all of which goes back to clubs and has been a lifeline for many this season.

In just 30 minutes you will learn:

Why streaming has been so important for fans and clubs over the past 12 months
Ahead of the delayed 2020 season start in mid-September, how Kin + Carta worked with EFL and their suppliers to replatform their VOD and live streaming offering onto a new platform, and reintegrate with Optimizely (Episerver) DXP, from the ground up
How preseason planning and modelling, coupled with the scalability of the Optimizely DXP Platform helped cope with the increase in site traffic and live streams
How Kin +Carta extended their managed service offering to provide additional pro-active real-time support and monitoring on match days, working closely with Endeavour and Optimizely’s Managed Service team to ensure all elements of the solution performed well under increased demand.

Topics:

Content Management Episerver Customers

Speakers

Jon Tonberg

Director of Technical Solutions and Delivery

Kin + Carta Europe

Jon Tonberg is Director of Technical Solutions and Delivery at Kin + Carta Europe. He’s been working with organisations for over 20 years to help them realise their digital vision through multiple solutions. This includes leading the team on the largest Optimizely DXP multi-site implementation for EFL. The project was delivered in a record time of 9 months for 69 clubs all hosted on one site. Jon continues to work closely with the EFL and their partners to ensure that clubs can harness the full potential of Episerver DXP.

Russell Byrne

Head of Digital

English Football League (EFL)

EFL Digital commercialises the digital rights of the EFL through provision of a collective publishing platform, the primary focus of which is a Direct-to-Consumer streaming service, ‘iFollow’. Russ oversees EFL Digital's strategic development, ensuring the platform continually evolves to meet the needs of the EFL business, its clubs and, importantly, the fans. Driving revenue growth to ensure targets are hit and that distributable revenue is passed to clubs is key to his role - in doing so, establishing iFollow as a multi-million pound property. This involves management of all aspects of iFollow from pricing and packaging, to UX optimisation and marketing.

Joey Moore

Senior Director, Product Marketing

Optimizely

Joey has spent the last decade working with organizations from all around the globe to advance their digital maturity. With particular specialisms in platforms, personalization and user experience Joey understands what it takes for organizations to be successful in this rapidly evolving landscape.

Claire Robinson

Customer Experience Director

Kin + Carta

Claire a design thinker who brings 16 years of digital marketing and consultancy experience to the table. She leads human-centered transformation programs across sport & leisure, financial services, automotive, energy, healthcare & not-for-profit clients and is focused on insight and strategy across the full spectrum of digital transformation services - tech, data, comms, people and organizational structure.

Will Rowley

Apps & Infra Azure Lead

Microsoft

Will is a Microsoft Cloud fanatic, evangelist of disruptive technologies and promoter of digital transformation. He has a passion for helping transform the Microsoft partner ecosystem and unlocking the potential within UK Plc to thrive in this 4th industrial revolution.