02.11.20
by Editorial Staff
How did sport entities tackle the early days of Covid-19? Industry leaders share how the MLB kept fans engaged – even launching a new season when working remotely
02.11.20
by Editorial Staff
How did sport entities tackle the early days of Covid-19? Industry leaders share how the MLB kept fans engaged – even launching a new season when working remotely
In this panel, Jason Gaedtke of MLB, Caleb Weinstein of Google Cloud, and Deltatre's Tony Page sit down with Robert Clayton from Leaders in Sport to discuss the challenge and opportunities that arose from keeping fans engaged during the Covid-19 emergency. In the fascinating panel, they share how they launched a new season when working remotely.
From the delivery of the first virtual MLB Draft to the set up for the World Series, here's the story of what 2020 looked like for one of the most popular American sports.
Highlights
- [13:18] Jason Gaedtke on the complexity of planning the launch of a new season amid Covid-19: "There were a lot of moving pieces, but also a lot of enthusiasm... We used this initiative as a pilot for a larger, strategic partnership with Google and its cloud capabilities... The remote working model that emerged was a valuable lesson learned in this case. We see this as core infrastructure within the cloud, it makes our lives easier."
- [16:09] Caleb Weinstein on the importance of having a cloud-based environment: "It helps you to expand the world. When you think about Google, first we are consumer-focused, but we also invest very heavily in a globally distributed infrastructure. We build the tools that help manage applications on a large scale around the globe... The challenge we all know in sports is, 'how do you build for peaks?' Cloud technology gives you the ability to scale up and scale down seamlessly based on traffic volume."
- [24:45] Tony Page on fan consumption habits during Covid-19: "...during the early period of the lockdown with no live sport at all, fans were still begging for live content. We saw a drift towards digital engagement, but we saw a lot of customers revisiting their archives to cut new programs from older content to give fans something new to consume. Today, with a slow return to live sport, their habits have adjusted to the new trends, and focusing on fan experiences is now paramount for any sports organization. The next steps are certainly towards higher levels of personalization."
This panel was held as part of the Deltatre pop-up channel at this year's LEADERSWEEK.direct/ on 6 October 2020.
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