Premier League/UEFA Broadcaster BT Sport AI ‘Script The Season’ Builds Buzz Before Kick-Off

A week ahead of the start of the new 2019/20 Premier League season, official broadcaster BT Sport began to build buzz with an AI prediction initiative called ‘Script Of The Season’.

Ahead of kick-off, the media/telco began to boost excitement ahead of the Premier League, Champions League and Europa League, the BT Sport marketing team set data partners at Google, Opta and Squawka a tough task: predict how the broadcaster’s big three football competitions will play out from kick-off to May 2020.

According to the brand, the campaign blended ‘big data, cutting-edge machine learning artificial intelligence with statistical analysis to produce ‘The Script’: an action and outcome account of the upcoming 2019/20 season predicting club finishing positions, top goal scorers and assists.

The objective was to drive excitement and anticipation amongst fans, to further connect the broadcaster to the properties and to generate debate and content to form a comprehensive pre-season marketing campaign.

While it was promoted through high profile football influencers and BT Sport presenters – including a Gary Lineker video (https://sport.bt.com/video/the-script-gary-lineker-introduces-the-script-of-the-201920-season-91364380519985)

The biggest brains in data have attempted to script the entire 19/20 season. Difficult to predict football though isn’t it… #Unscripted @btsportfootball
Take a look https://t.co/TUcAGZ0UGb pic.twitter.com/J03CYQrzZ1

— Gary Lineker (@GaryLineker) July 30, 2019

and further social amplification from the likes of Rio Ferdinand, Jake Humphries and new-joiner Robin Van Persie through their own personal platforms.

Script of the season?!? Released in August? Do me a favour…pic.twitter.com/SHc0pZ6aSX

— Jake Humphrey (@mrjakehumphrey) July 29, 2019

Data scripting the 2019/20 season…? Before a ball’s been kicked? Read it. Madness!!! P.s #MUFC finishing 6th again, where’s your team finishing?https://t.co/MbVNWAjLrZ @btsportfootball #Unscripted pic.twitter.com/VEWNBVlRnh

— Rio Ferdinand (@rioferdy5) July 30, 2019

You can't script the unscriptable @btsportfootball #unscriptedpic.twitter.com/l126vmKm6n

— Robbie Savage (@RobbieSavage8) July 30, 2019

The 61-page script was made freely available to fans online at https://sport.bt.com/football/the-script-01364186340165

and 100,000 shortened versions of ‘The Script’ were distributed through a partnership with The Metro at train stations across the UK.

Then BT Sport began a two-way conversation with fans asking them to say whether they agreed with the broadcaster’s footballing prophecy.

The campaign will evolve as the season starts through outdoor, print and online activity which will seek to ‘bring to life the jeopardy and excitement of the unscripted nature of football’.

The campaign was created by Wunderman Thompson, with media planning and buying handled by Essence and PR run by Pitch Marketing Group.

“You couldn’t write this!’ is a quote which we heard over and over last season. And so we’ve challenged the biggest minds in sports data, analytics and machine learning to try and do just that,” explained BT brand communications director David Stratton.

“The script of the season is a fascinating read, but not everyone will be happy. This campaign asks the question, does the digital crystal ball have all the answers we usually wait months for? Maybe, or you could watch it all unfold on BT Sport.”

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Links:

BT Sport Script Of The Season

https://sport.bt.com/football/the-script-01364186340165

BT Sport

http://sport.bt.com/

https://www.instagram.com/btsport/

https://twitter.com/btsportfootball

https://www.youtube.com/user/BTSportOfficia

https://www.facebook.com/btsport

Wunderman Thompson

https://www.wundermanthompson.com/

Pitch Marketing Group

https://www.pitch.co.uk/