Arsenal Football Club has successfully improved its online video service after partnering with Ooyala. The club transferred to a free, subscription-based service in order to benefit from the advanced analytics it would provide, such as where its fans were located, enabling the club to make key business decisions.

Although rights to live Premier League games are held by major broadcasters, Arsenal’s partnership with Ooyala focused on providing creative and valuable content going beyond the live match experience, with historical and archive content proving popular, as well as exclusive interviews, live pre-season games, and a live stream of the team’s FA Cup victory parade.

Ooyala’s solution offers high-quality playback with the ability to scale to any device, providing HD-quality video to all iOS/Android devices, Smart TVs, and set-top boxes. The company also offers analytics covering how, when, where and for how long each piece of content is being watched, allowing Arsenal to optimise programming and operational decisions in real-time.

As an example, Sarah Kiefer, senior marketing manager at Ooyala, says a huge growth has been seen in the use of mobile devices – which led Arsenal to transition to shorter rather than longer content.

Kiefer says the sports industry is a big area of growth for Ooyala, describing it as the “crown jewels of content” because of the level of fan engagement. As well as Arsenal, the company is working with a number of Premier League and overseas clubs, ESPN, and other broadcasters around the world.