Advance step: Gen AI, data and cloud on the radar for British Basketball League as production transformation continues By Jo Ruddock
Friday, May 24, 2024 - 08:30
Print This Story
Credit: British Basketball League
Twelve months ago, Jose Garnes, chief content office at the British Basketball League, shared his grand plans for transforming media operations at the league with SVG Europe. With plans to bring production in house, building a whole new team in the process, as well as moving to a remote production model and focusing on social media to build awareness of the league, ambitions were clearly high.
So, one year on, as the league celebrates another successful season, how have the plans progressed?
Speaking ahead of the Playoff Finals, held at the O2 in London on 19 May, Garnes says: When you fast forward a year, we have hit the biggest event of the season with a fully in-house production. When we last spoke a lot of the stuff that we mentioned was theories of what we wanted to do and how we wanted to accomplish it. 225 games later we are, one, pretty happy that we survived, but two, excited about what we have achieved in the last 10 months in terms of getting a production off the ground at the scale that we wanted to do.
The in-house team of 16 now produces all games of the Men's league, which means anywhere between six and eight games per week, one of which is broadcast on Sky linear channels. Distribution has also extended to the US, where NBC, Yes Network, Bally, NSN and Fubo have all picked it up. The remaining games are broadcast on the League's YouTube channel, but this strategy has also evolved as BBL looks to attract a wider, and younger, audience.
We started broadcasting on TikTok and Twitch to expand our reach to a younger audience, and also an audience that probably was not aware of the British Basketball League, he explains. On YouTube, we already had a good audience that were part of the heritage of the league, but we wanted to expand to those that were not aware that we have a professional basketball league in the UK.
TikTok has a stronger algorithm in short-form content and they value a lot of live content. So by going live our reach gets exposed exponentially higher, with very low cost to us. If people engage with the content and watch the live stream for more than a few seconds, then they're going to start getting served our VOD content later on when they log into the platform, so we have seen our audience growing organically.
I think in sport, when we talk about generative AI there is always almost that fear of how is it going to replace creatives, but for us it's actually giving us a tool to create something more bespoke that we were able to turn around very quickly. I think the future is about finding those tools and using them to create volume
Indeed BBL content is already registering impressive viewing and engagement figures. On TikTok, we are now at the same level of viewership as YouTube. Now, TikTok has less watch time because traditionally people are scrolling and the attention span is shorter, but we're getting the reach without having to go into a paid media strategy, Garnes reveals.
We are also exploring a partnership with Twitch where we can offer high-quality content and safe' content, so we know that our streams won't be saying something that can be damaging for the platform or for our brand. We have featured on their homepage and we are getting a high volume of views, around 120,000 per stream, and around 6 million minutes watch. Again, it's an awareness tool. As a new entity in this country, you need any partner that can help you, or any tools or strategy that can help you, with that awareness. And Twitch and Tik Tok are helping us with that.
Read more: All change: British Basketball League Playoff Finals go remote with in-house production team
TikTok and Twitch content is also clipped for Instagram where it is garnering between 10,000 and 50,000 views.
The heavy lifting of putting something out live or recording it is almost the same, but we're getting two hits live and VOD, says Garnes. And that's where we've seen our biggest engagement - fans are enjoying seeing content that is outside of your traditional sport coverage of great highlights, great commentary. Now what they want is analysis by a person that is closer to them that feels like a fan instead of a commentator or an official voice from the league.
Generative AI
Given the changes that have happened at BBL this season, it's no surprise that Garnes is already thinking about the future, and equally unsurprising is the fact that he believes generative AI has a role to play in telling the story of the league.
We have trialled generative AI, he reveals. Eight teams qualified for the Playoffs and we wanted to create a bespoke sizzle to say London made it to the playoffs' and so on. We created a bespoke song for each team using generative AI. So we went okay, London Lions, what describes them as a team', and we fed that prompt into the software and then we created a track. We did that for all eight teams. For me, that's exciting because you're not using AI to replace the craftsmanship of an editor, instead you're using generative AI to create something that feels more specific to a team, and you're allowing them to shine and to make them feel special and unique.
I think in sport, when we talk about generative AI there is always almost that fear of how is it going to replace creatives, but for us it's actually giving us a tool to create something more bespoke that we were able to turn around very quickly. I think the future is about finding those tools and using them to create volume.
Cloud and data are also on the agenda. We definitely want to explore how we can create our ga
North America Stories
29/01/2026
MELBOURNE, Fla., January 29, 2026 - L3Harris Technologies (NYSE: LHX) reports fu...
29/01/2026
Bluey' Wins Second Consecutive Top Streaming Title of the Year with 45 Billi...
29/01/2026
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/01/2026
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/01/2026
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/01/2026
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/01/2026
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/01/2026
Boston Conservatory Orchestra Presents East Coast Premiere of Peter and Leonardo...
29/01/2026
Back to All News
Love is Blind: Sweden Returns for a Third Season - Premiering ...
29/01/2026
Back to All News
Unmask Bridgerton' Season 4 With Our Complete Coverage Guide
Yerin Ha as Sophie Baek and Luke Thompson as Benedict Bridgerton in Season ...
29/01/2026
Back to All News
Extraordinary Crime Mysteries, Mythical Worlds and High-Stakes...
29/01/2026
Editor's note: This post is part of Into the Omniverse, a series focused on ...
29/01/2026
Get ready to game - the native GeForce NOW app for Linux PCs is now available in beta, letting Linux desktops tap directly into GeForce RTX performance from the...
28/01/2026
Top L-R: The Liars, Jazz Infernal, Living with a Visionary
Second Row L-R: Paper Trail, The Baddest Speechwriter of All, Crisis Actor
Third Row: The Boys and ...
28/01/2026
Airlines, cruise and tour operators double down on ad spend as Australians' prioritise travel
Sydney January 28, 2026 - New Nielsen Ad Intel data shows a...
28/01/2026
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
28/01/2026
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
28/01/2026
Marshall Electronics launches the CV420-27X, its next-generation ultra-high-definition (UHD) IP camera, at ISE 2026 (Stand 4N900). Engineered for modern IP-base...
28/01/2026
Grass Valley has announced that Television Mobiles Ltd. (TVM), one of Europe's leading independent outside broadcast providers, has carried out a major refu...
28/01/2026
AI, graphics and virtual software power new production capabilities
FOR-A is bringing remarkable new technologies to FOMEX, the Future of Media Exhibition (ex...
28/01/2026
Continuing a longstanding collaboration, Riedel Communications and Nordic media technology company Media Tailor have once again joined forces to deliver a state...
28/01/2026
Pebble has appointed Paul Nagle-Smith as vice president for customer fulfilment, strengthening its senior leadership focus on customer delivery and operational ...
28/01/2026
Cloud playout solutions provider, Veset has announced that leading Mexican broadcaster, TV Azteca is using Veset Nimbus on AWS as a disaster recovery (DR) playo...
28/01/2026
Ensuring it can keep pace with a rapidly evolving live sports market, Balkan broadcast facility provider MVP Most Valuable Production has upgraded its flags...
28/01/2026
Akamai Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ: AKAM), the cloud solutions provider that powers and protects life online, and Yospace, the leader in dynamic ad insertion tec...
28/01/2026
The renowned Reykjavik City Theatre (RCT) recently underwent a major intercom system upgrade using Clear-Com solutions. This milestone project utilizes Clear-C...
28/01/2026
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
28/01/2026
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
28/01/2026
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
28/01/2026
Boston Conservatory Orchestra Premieres a New Piano Concerto by Peter and Leonar...
28/01/2026
Back to All News
Netflix's Kohrra Season 2 Unveils A Thrilling Whodunnit Tr...
28/01/2026
Back to All News
What Next? Netflix Presents the Latest German-Speaking Series,...
28/01/2026
Quantum technologies are rapidly emerging as foundational capabilities for economic competitiveness, national security and scientific leadership in the 21st cen...
28/01/2026
Back to All News
The Wait Is Over: Teaser Trailer Drops for Jo Nesbo's Dete...
28/01/2026
Back to All News
Netflix Announces a Fictional Miniseries Inspired by the Marta del Castillo Case
Entertainment
28 January 2026
GlobalSpain
Link copied to ...
28/01/2026
Back to All News
Netflix Announces Santiago Mitres New Film Starring Ver nica L...
28/01/2026
Back to All News
Netflix Unveils the Teaser Trailer for Berlin and the Lady wit...
27/01/2026
L-R: Jonathan Cuchacovich, Sonia Kennebeck, Alan Fischer, Daeil Kim, Andrew Sta...
27/01/2026
Nielsen will continue to drive growth and provide local audience measurement
in...
27/01/2026
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Pinterest
Bluesky
Email...
27/01/2026
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Pinterest
Bluesky
Email...
27/01/2026
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Pinterest
Bluesky
Email...
27/01/2026
Amagi Media Labs Limited, the only cloud-native SaaS provider offering end-to-end solutions across live production, content preparation, distribution, and monet...
27/01/2026
Miri Technologies Inc. today unveiled its V410 live 4K video encoder/decoder for streaming, IP-based production workflows and AV-over-IP distribution. Designed ...
27/01/2026
The Paul E. Tsongas Center at UMass Lowell in Massachusetts has chosen Ikegami cameras for incorporation into its broadcast-quality television production facili...
27/01/2026
SipRadius, specialists in secure, low latency media transport, will show the pro AV community its end-to-end solution for high quality content distribution and ...
27/01/2026
Hiltron will highlight the fruits of its 45-plus years of experience in satellite communications system integration and product development at the annual GovSat...
27/01/2026
Klvr will demonstrate how its Charger Pro solution is delivering cost reduction and performance benefits for live entertainment and pro AV markets at ISE 2026 (...
27/01/2026
Amino, a global media technology leader in enterprise video and digital signage, today announced that its Integrated Systems Europe (ISE) 2026 booth (4N700) wil...
Advance step: Gen AI, data and cloud on the radar for British Basketball League as production transformation continues By Jo Ruddock 
