La Liga teamed up with mobile video and advertising company Grabyo to fuel global expansion. The partnership will help La Liga connect with the next generation of football fans and activate audiences both in traditional markets such as Europe and South America, as well as new regions such as China and the U.S. The use of Grabyo's technology will allow the league and a number of its leading clubs to collaborate on the production and distribution of "in-the-moment" video content, such as instant replays and behind-the-scenes footage, to hundreds of millions of football fans around the world. La Liga will use Grabyo Studio to distribute real-time video clips in mobile-friendly formats -- including the square video format popularized by Instagram and Vine -- on Twitter and Facebook. Grabyo will also work with the league to evaluate social video opportunities on additional fast-growing platforms such as Snapchat, Instagram, Sina Weibo and Line (La Liga). Forbes' Kurt Badenhausen wrote the partnership "will further fuel expansion of the audience for Barca, Real and the rest of La Liga." The multi-year agreement will "ramp up the video offerings for La Liga fans." Grabyo CEO Gareth Capon said, "It is extending the traditional TV model into one that covers a multitude of digital experiences and platforms." The sports viewing experiencing is "changing rapidly where TV is no longer the sole way fans interact with their favorite teams and sports." Seventy-six percent of Indian sports fans "used their mobile devices to consume sports and 64% used social networks last year," according to the Global Sports Media Consumption Report. The figures "are 74% and 65% in the United Arab Emirates." At least 40% of fans consume sports on mobile and 35% on social platforms "in most of the world’s biggest countries." Fans are also "spending more time viewing sports thanks in part to the proliferation of options to consume sports content." La Liga Head of Innovation & Global Development Ignacio Martinez Trujillo said that the league "tested a number of other video software systems, but found nothing measured up to Grabyo" (FORBES, 11/5).
