With a total of 20 divisions and 130,000 members, Eintracht Frankfurt is a founding member of the Bundesliga and is considered one of the great traditional clubs in German soccer. At many major events, especially in professional soccer, numerous photographers are on hand to capture the action on and off the pitch. Whether before the game, during the game or after the game in the dressing room, soccer photographers are on site to be close to the team and convey the emotions to the fans. Online editors ensure that the content, including the pictures taken during the match, is published on the club’s official social media profiles while the game is still in progress.
The process from image creation to distribution was heavily characterized by manual tasks before the start of the project and was very time-consuming. Images taken during a Bundesliga match were uploaded from the sidelines to the existing DAM system, online editors had to search the DAM for relevant images, download them and upload them back to other software platforms for distribution on social networks – all under enormous time pressure.
sample screenshot taken from scoreplay website (www.scoreplay.io)
Eintracht Frankfurt’s digital team set out to find a solution that would allow the images produced during the match to be distributed quickly, securely and efficiently to players, rights holders, associations, media and sponsors while the live event was still taking place.
After a test phase with the solution from the young software provider Scoreplay, which has set itself the task of solving precisely these challenges for the world of sport (Made for Sport – By Sport), the decision was made.
Scoreplay enables soccer photographers to upload their images to the platform during live events via secure access. The platform automatically analyzes and tags the images with relevant metadata using an AI algorithm developed by Scoreplay. The algorithm detects players from the current squad and sponsor logos with an almost 100% accuracy rate. Once images are ingested and tagged, the system allows editors to easily filter the library by player or sponsor to quickly find corresponding images and share them with a single mouse-click.
To prevent the creation of a second data silo alongside the established Celum DAM, dampioneers was hired to connect the Scoreplay and Celum platform. The integration allows images to be automatically synchronized from Scoreplay into the central Enterprise DAM after the live event. Exported assets are automatically ingested in the Celum structure using Scoreplay metadata, such as match day, season, players, and sponsors to provide a convenient search experience in Celum, when the live event is over.
Thanks to modern software and efficient processes, Eintracht Frankfurt can now provide fans with images of relevant match situations almost in real-time, allowing them to get even closer to the action.
