Diario AS leveraged Stats Perform’s data editorial and news services to bolster its sports news content. When it came time to expand their coverage into more formats, languages and sports, they once again tapped Stats Perform to help kickstart the offering. Read on to learn more about how:
- A daily newspaper started in the 60’s modernised to become one of the world’s biggest Spanish-language football news outlets.
- Writers and editors saved between 90-95% of the work needed for publishing an article – increasing the amount they can publish and reducing the time to get it to the wire.
- Unbranded Stats Perform video makes for the perfect compliment to the news outlet’s written offering, attracting over 2 million viewers to a single video.
The Challenge
Diario AS has built a long and storied history as the premier sports news outlet for Spanish football fans since 1967. For decades, Diario AS’ writers have given fans a deeper level of insight into matches, new and old, through their staff of talented analysts and writers. With an ever-increasing demand for content, the need to reach a wider audience, and a limited staff of English journalists, how could Diario AS cater to everyone’s demands?
PRODUCTS USED
| Opta Data | Data Editorial and News | PressBox Video | ||
| The Diario AS staff used everything from simple box scores and records to advanced analytical data, such as Expected Goals (xG) and Win Probability. | Diario AS scaled their written coverage by taking articles and analyses written by the Stats Perform data editors and news writers and feeding that content directly into their CMS. | Diario AS leveraged PressBox Video to pull interview clips, highlights, and data-driven video analysis videos and posted them to their website and social media channels. |
The Solution
Opta data and Stats Perform’s Data Editorial team aided Diario AS in creating stunning infographics and data visualisations.
In a partnership with Stats Perform, Diario AS was able to instantly tap into the deep Opta database to find the most detailed information for the stories of the day. In addition to tapping into data to deepen their reports, Diario AS’ writers also used our Data Editorial staff to aid in aligning and validating the message. The pressure of finding the story, backing it up with data, and delivering an article daily was no longer on Diario AS alone. With Data Editorial, their core offering could continue to grow at the pace of the demand. When Diario AS needed help, they could tap into data experts’ knowledge as many or as few times as necessary.
“Stats Perform is at the heart of the business of AS because today, you can’t tell stories independently without them being validated or supported by data.”
-Tomas De Cos, Director of Digital Strategy, Diario AS
In 2012, Diario AS began the expansion of its core offering with news coverage in English, written by native-English-speaking journalists. During the early phases of the English language expansion, Diario AS again partnered with Stats Perform for assistance.
This time, Stats Perform’s written editorial news team worked with Diario AS to deliver a feed of data-driven analysis articles directly to their CMS system. This feed provided Diario AS with a steady stream of content that they could pick and choose from based on the needs of their outlet – helping them immediately in the short-term, but also providing them with a well to return to whenever they needed additional assistance.
“A journalist from AS English is saving 90-95% of the work that would be involved in taking a piece of news from another news service and introducing it into our CMS… that gives us a selection of quality content we can publish immediately and dedicate the resources of AS English journalists to have more original content of our own.”
-Tomas De Cos, Director of Digital Strategy, Diario AS
Of course, written content was not the only medium that Diario AS was interested in fulfilling – where the outlet was unable to send journalists to report in person, Diario AS used PressBox Video to collect the video clips and content they needed. Written articles about a game or player could be supplemented with a video clip of a post-match interview from the pressroom. Deeper data analysis videos, provided unbranded by the Stats Perform news team, gave Diario AS content to keep their content and social media pipelines filled and to give fans another reason to come back daily.
The Result
Diario AS has continued to grow its core Spanish offering and bolster its English offering, taking the outlet into a bright, new future. Today, Diario AS covers football teams and competitions in many other Spanish-speaking countries, in addition to coverage of the major American sports leagues.
Diario AS utilises PressBox Video to download and publish football news content to their Youtube channel.
Keys to Success
Diario AS not only expanded its core news offering by scaling its data analysis and storytelling efforts but also expanded into other sports and languages. What was the secret to their success?
Expand Coverage without Compromising on Quality
Diario AS’ decades of hand-crafted content had built a loyal fanbase that knew the outlet as data experts. To keep the quality and integrity of the articles as they expanded, Diario AS needed to streamline its data discovery process. Rather than manually searching for interesting metrics, box scores and records, and build a story based on a hypothesis, Diario AS was able to shortcut the early stages of content writing with facts and insights provided by the data editorial service, streamlining the entire process.
Scale with a Partner they can Trust
Diario AS’ English language content and coverage of other sports would take time to build out internally, so to kickstart the initiative, the outlet leaned on Stats Perform as a trusted partner. With thousands of articles for sports and leagues around the world each year, Stats Perform could easily provide the content Diario AS needed to grow its multi-sport offering.
Maintain a Growth Mindset to Build on Efficiencies
As Diario AS streamlined its reporting and expanded its offering to other languages, it leveraged its newly freed-up time to push the outlet to new heights. Thanks to Stats Perform, Diario AS was able to expand coverage to include more videos, deeper articles, and more sports than was ever anticipated.
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