Rugby in Japan is supported by three main organizations: the JRFU, the general incorporated association Japan Rugby League One (JRLO), and Japan Rugby Marketing, which handles fan engagement. As head of the JRFU’s media business division, Yutaka Muroguchi has contracts with all three organizations, and is in charge of video management and broadcasting rights.
In the Japan Rugby 2050 guidelines, the JRFU has set a goal to make Japan the most accessible country in the world to rugby, and to be a global frontrunner to host the Rugby World Cup again.
The media plays a big role to make rugby more accessible, and the trigger to formulate a media strategy was the launch of League One in 2022. The adult league, recognized as the top league, was reorganized with 26 teams and three divisions. At that time, the decision was made to produce the official match footage themselves rather than by the broadcasting station J Sports.
“Until now, we didn’t own the copyright to match footage, so we had to get it from broadcasters and others when promoting the sport,” says Muroguchi. “By having JRFU and JRLO produce the official footage, we can use it freely, creating an environment for use on social media and for promotions.”
But for broadcasting stations, the copyright to footage is an important asset, so it was proposed to J Sports to change the relationship from buying and selling broadcasting rights to joint creation. “We took the time to carefully reach an agreement between the two parties,” Muroguchi adds.
By owning the copyright, it’s easier to provide the content to other media as well as in JRFU’s own media, expanding the opportunities for media exposure. Increased commercial use could also become a new source of revenue.
Based on this new strategy, JRFU has a business co-creation partner framework with J Sports to produce official videos for League One, and since last year, it also covers the men’s 15-man national rugby union matches.
Partnering with AWS
Amazon Web Services plays an important role in Japan’s rugby media strategy, including AWS Elemental Live, which encodes live video from the matches and uploads it to the cloud, and AWS Elemental MediaLive, a live video processing service that encodes streaming video. Video content is then stored in Amazon S3, and indexing is possible to preview and search.
Agility and better economics are common incentives for organizations to move to the cloud. But the overall appeal of the ecosystem is popular, too, and the fact the services they want to use, such as the remote comment system Spalk, are provided on AWS is another unique feature. This has the advantage of making video transfer smoother. And by realizing an end-to-end system on AWS, JRFU is able to reduce development man hours, such as compatibility testing, and use managed services to reduce the management burden.
In addition, the video and photo archive system built in collaboration with AWS allows media exposure during and immediately after matches. Real-time match footage can be distributed on official SNS accounts and provided to other media. In the 2023-24 season, for example, one match was live-streamed per week on the League One official website. Although the foundation for using video was set, only a few teams used it at first and there were other promotion challenges to overcome.
Global appeal
Rugby fans have no borders so from the beginning, they partnered with Spalk, and in that 2023-24 season, two matches per round were fully remotely commented in English and uplinked to a satellite line, enabling distribution to overseas broadcasters.
Further efforts are underway, and by uploading video footage from the venue to the cloud, it’s possible for a television match official (TMO) to remotely referee the match. Last August, in fact, the JRFU successfully tested a cloud-based TMO in a match for the Japan Women’s National Team. This reduces the cost of referee travel, transporting and setting up equipment for broadcasting, and it promotes sharing of knowledge between referees. Muroguchi hopes it’ll also be possible to broadcast more matches in the future. Soon the system will be expanded to include head injury assessment (HIA), a concussion protocol, and a way to analyze patterns of concussions from video footage.
Communicate to promote success
While detailing the benefits that’ve been made so far, Muroguchi highlights improved efficiency of the cloud even when there are only a couple of people in charge of the work. “We’re thinking about how to make it more efficient and deploy it,” he says. “The cloud is what makes that possible.”
The system to manage match footage was also built in just three months and the relationship with AWS has been a driving force behind the media strategy. “Our main job is managing the sports organizations since we’re not as knowledgeable about technology,” says Muroguchi. “So we had meetings with AWS staff almost every week.” During those meetings, he adds, any questions were posed in an effort to resolve specific issues, with AWS proposing optimal solutions, and, like Spalk, they could also utilize the AWS partner network to provide comprehensive solutions.
“You don’t buy a product,” says Muroguchi. “You get help to realize what you want to do.” But it was a steep learning curve. To get the best results, he compiled materials for the meetings himself, and at the beginning of the following one, he tried to align his understanding with the vendor’s perspective to avoid any discrepancies. “It wasn’t easy to put what we discussed into words,” he says. “But clarifying what you want to do and communicating it clearly is one of the keys to success.”
Keeping tech in check
IT doesn’t necessarily make work easier, Muroguchi says, and in some cases it actually increases the burden. “We paid attention to that,” he says. “When developing on the cloud, it’s important to plan while understanding how the specific operation method works, and finding a compromise between ease of use for users and the system itself.”
The JRFU’s media strategy continues. In addition to promoting the practical use of remote TMO and HIA, the organization plans to further develop the system by using cloud production to produce and promote live broadcast footage, and machine learning and AI to analyze player performance and medical assistance.
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Source: News