Back

Major League Pickleball & live broadcast workflows

Rafael Molina Harno

July 24, 2023

major league pickleball case study

Major League Pickleball (MLP) worked with ScorePlay during their live event in San Clemente to optimise their digital asset management. MLP were able to upload over 18,000 assets, including photos and videos to the ScorePlay platform, making it easy for players and fans to access high-quality content related to the event. In addition, ScorePlay was utilised by various Pickleball franchise clubs to receive their own content, generating buzz and excitement around the event. We also co-constructed new features such as Live Clipping and YouTube integration to help optimise the uploading and publishing process of large videos and broadcast in real-time.

San Clemente Live Event

The ScorePlay platform was instrumental in automating many tasks that would have otherwise been time-consuming and labor-intensive. One of the key benefits of ScorePlay was its ability to ingest over 18,000 assets, including photos and videos, to the platform so that the MLP team could be creative with them. This made it easy for players to receive their content, and fans to access high-quality media online. Moreover, ScorePlay was able to track the number of downloads per player, with an average of 16 asset downloads per player, which provided valuable insights into which players were most engaged with the content and allowed MLP to tailor its marketing efforts accordingly.

Watermarked Instagram posts ...

In addition to providing a seamless content distribution system, ScorePlay was also utilised by 23 MLP internal users who downloaded over 749 assets. This highlights the importance of having an efficient digital asset management system in place, particularly for large-scale events like San Clemente. Perhaps most impressively, ScorePlay was utilised by various Pickleball clubs across the country to post about the event. This helped to generate buzz and excitement around the event, and showcased the power of ScorePlay as a truly collaborative platform. By automating many of the time-consuming tasks associated with digital asset management, ScorePlay allowed MLP to focus on what really mattered – delivering a high-quality event, and content that engaged players and fans online.

And ScorePlay behind the scenes...

Live Clipping and Logs Timeline

Live clipping is a new feature developed in collaboration with Major League Pickleball (MLP) that allows users to create short-form content during their tournament directly from their live stream on YouTube (of which they had over 108 hours across 4 different courts and 5 days). The development of the feature was a collaborative effort between ScorePlay and MLP. One of the key challenges was ensuring that live clipping was fast and efficient, which we achieved using advanced video processing and optimisation of our platform to minimise latency.

At a high level, live clipping works by allowing users to select a portion of the live stream and create a short-form clip from it. Under the hood, live clipping involves several technical components, including capturing the live stream, enabling frame-accurate clipping, and optimising the platform. The feature allows users to share their clips on social media or other platforms. The feature was developed to match the ambitions of MLP, a startup league that needed to immediately foster a community of fans.

YouTube integration

The new YouTube integration provides unprecedented speed and efficiency in live video publishing. With ScorePlay's YouTube integration, sports organisations can stream their games live, clip directly from the stream, and add Logs through the Control Room for precise video clipping. The integration means the ScorePlay platform can auto-publish and auto-set title description, title, and keywords for YouTube based on ScorePlay's AI tags, saving time and effort. This feature enables sports organisations like Major League Pickleball to distribute their short-form content rapidly and effectively. Moreover, ScorePlay uses live technology by starting to upload the Video on Demand (VOD) file while the live stream is still playing. This means the video is available to publish right after the stream ends, thus providing an unprecedented level of speed and efficiency in live video publishing.

The integration supports two major workflows: Live workflow and Publish from library. The first workflow, Live to Live to VOD, allows the live broadcast to be simultaneously sent to the ScorePlay platform, re-streamed to YouTube, and saved in the ScorePlay library at the same time. Videos are stored and indexed in the ScorePlay library and added to the archive. The second workflow caters to any video uploaded into ScorePlay. Users can either click and deliver it to YouTube or set up a rules engine that automatically publishes new highlights (e.g., clips under 5 minutes + Must contain X or Z Logs). The rules engine can also be configured to publish immediately or send videos to drafts, providing a high level of customisation for users.

ScorePlay x Major League Pickleball: the numbers

  • 108 hours of broadcasts ingested
  • 27 posts
  • 1200+ player downloads
  • 18,000 photos uploaded and tagged
  • Player with the Most Downloads: Jillian Braverman (Dallas Pickleball Club)
  • Player with the Most Sessions: Olivia McMillan (Utah Black Diamonds)

Get in touch if you want to implement ScorePlay Pulse for your league or competition.

Photo credit: Major League Pickleball
  • Try for free.

  • Personalized onboarding.

  • Dedicated customer service representative.

Thank you! Your submission has been received!
Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form.