365Scores: Bringing sports fans together with powerful data insights
About 365Scores
365Scores' cross-media platform has been serving 40 million sports fans around the world since 2012, and offers its loyal users fast, accurate live scores updates online, 24/7.
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About Commit
Commit is a global tech services company that has led more than 1,200 projects for 1,000 organizations, manufacturers, startups and government institutions in Israel and abroad.
365Scores worked with Google Cloud partner Commit to implement Looker, empowering business departments to make timely data-driven decisions, and freeing up the data team to focus on analytical projects.
Google Cloud results
- Business Intelligence team's workload reduced by 80%, as growth department is able to access data themselves
- 365Scores is becoming a data-driven company as other departments make use of dashboards and reporting
- Product team uses granular business insights to refine services and build new features to enhance the fan experience
365Scores grows its user base with Looker insights
When the COVID-19 lockdowns began in 2020, sports stadiums around the world fell silent. As live matches were stopped in every major league, and in every major sport, sports fans anxiously searched for a replacement. And they discovered the Belarusian Premier League. Far-flung networks bought the TV rights, and for those few strange weeks, the eyes of football fans across the world were fixed on players they'd never heard of. They had found an outlet for their passion. A distraction from the pandemic.
"Sports bring people together," says Idan Lutsky, Product Marketing and Brand Manager, 365Scores. "No matter what you do for a living, or who you voted for, when fans are rooting for the same team, there are no dividers. Sports are an escape from reality. A way for people to clear their heads."
Sports media platform, 365Scores, builds on the unifying power of sports by providing fans with all the sports scores, stats, news, and data they need to enhance their sporting experience. Available in 40 different languages and covering 12 different sports, with big and small leagues from all over the world, users are able to personalize their preferences to build a tailor-made experience unique to them.
The two-screen experience
With 80% of sports fans saying they use a second screen while watching live sports to search for scores, player stats, and more, 365 Scores wants to be the one-stop shop for fans to find the latest sports updates. The app is even used by supporters watching live games in stadiums. Where once they may have listened to a radio to get the latest scores for other matches, now they can simply take a look at 365Scores.
"In today's world, streaming broadcasts are just not enough," explains Raviv Barzilai, Head of Data, 365Scores. "People want to have this complete experience. They want to become experts. And I think we provide that with a layer of really rich quality content that reaches them in real time."
365Scores is continually adding new features to enhance the fan experience. During the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, for example, users could compete in a league against their friends and other fans from around the world, as they tried to predict the results of matches and goalscorers.
"It was another example of how we use the app to build a community for sports fans," says Barzilai. "Even people who are not interested in sports on a daily basis joined the game, and people really connected."
The slow flow of data through the BI bottleneck
For a platform that prides itself on the quality of its real-time data, it is important to have business intelligence (BI) and data tools to match. However, as a rapidly growing business, 365Scores was looking to improve its existing BI solution, which lacked self-service capabilities. This meant that whenever any department wanted access to insights to make strategic decisions, they needed to ask the BI team to help them. This created a bottleneck at the BI department, slowing business decisions down and overloading the data team with work.
What's more, with no semantic modeling layer, data tables varied according to who had written them, meaning the company in some cases lacked a single source of truth. The resulting discrepancies in data made it harder for the BI team to gain accurate insights, around user targeting for example. Moreover, as the volume of data handled by the business grew, latency resulted in data extractions having to be fetched intermittently, instead of being served in real time, further slowing strategic decision making. The data team experimented with various solutions, without success.
"In some cases, our visualization tools did not complement each other, they were just adding to the confusion," explains Barzilai. "We wanted to find a tool to add to our data solution, with all the additional capabilities that we lacked at that point."
"In some cases, our visualization tools did not complement each other, they were just adding to the confusion. We wanted to find a single tool to add to our data solution, with all the additional capabilities that we lacked at that point."
—Raviv Barzilai, Head of Data, 365ScoresCommitting to a productive partnership
365Scores explained its challenges to Google Cloud, which recommended trying Looker, and collaborated with the team on an initial test. It then put 365Scores in touch with Google Cloud partner Commit, which agreed that Looker could be the solution to 365Scores' issues.
"You can see results and gain insights very quickly with Looker," says Lior Bialik, CIO and Cloud Division Lead, Commit. "Anyone can explore the data super easily, and trust the data, because Looker's innovative semantic model is a single source of truth for all to access. Which means that a company can move in a data-driven direction fast, because they don't need technical skills. They have the power of Looker to do the work for them."
At the time, 365Scores was having difficulty getting timely insights to its growth team, so they could make strategic decisions around acquiring users. Commit got to work on a proof of concept that would solve this problem.
"It took some time and effort," Bialik describes. "But there was great synergy between my team and 365Scores, which meant we understood each other. And we understood the business requirement, which gave us the power to do a successful job."
The right insights at the right time
Looker has provided 365Scores with a single source of truth, and its self-service capabilities have given the growth team the ability to access the insights they need to grow the user base. When it comes to fast-moving campaigns, it's important that the team can make timely decisions. With Looker's real-time insights, the growth team is now able to respond to events as they unfold. Automated alerts highlight unexpected campaign activity, such as a change in price, enabling the team to make important decisions quickly, such as when to start or end a campaign, or which media sources or events to concentrate budgets on for maximum returns.
"With Looker, teams can build their own dashboards and reports, and make decisions themselves based on that data," Barzilai explains. "They're less dependent on the data team, giving us a lot more time to do more analytical projects, which lead to more insights. So it's optimizing the way that we work."
"With Looker, teams can build their own dashboards and reports, and make decisions themselves based on that data. They're less dependent on the data team, giving us a lot more time to do more analytical projects, which lead to more insights. So it's optimizing the way that we work."
—Raviv Barzilai, Head of Data, 365ScoresBringing fans together through sport
Following the success of the proof of concept, other departments at 365Scores are starting to use Looker to make their own strategic decisions. The product team plans to make use of Looker's dashboards and reporting to understand precisely what users want, and create new features and services to further improve the fan experience.
One feature that's being developed for the app is a chat function, which will be divided into channels based on the teams that a user supports. Whenever a game is in progress, fans will be able to come together and chat while they support their team, creating a more social experience on the platform.
For Barzilai, it's yet another example of how 365Scores is using the power of sports to bring people together. "With Looker, we're creating a better product, and becoming more well known around the world as a sports platform," says Barzilai. "Our goal is to keep optimizing, keep analyzing, and keep adjusting our strategies, to bring a better experience for our users and continue building a great platform for sports fans worldwide."
"With Looker, we're creating a better product, and becoming more well known around the world as a sports platform. Our goal is to keep optimizing, keep analyzing, and keep adjusting our strategies, to bring a better platform to our users and continue building a global community of sports fans."
—Raviv Barzilai, Head of Data, 365ScoresTell us your challenge. We're here to help.
Contact us
About 365Scores
365Scores' cross-media platform has been serving 40 million sports fans around the world since 2012, and offers its loyal users fast, accurate live scores updates online, 24/7.
About Commit
Commit is a global tech services company that has led more than 1,200 projects for 1,000 organizations, manufacturers, startups and government institutions in Israel and abroad.