AFL Deploys Dalet Flex

Dalet has announced that the Australian Football League (AFL) is using Dalet Flex to manage the cloud-based digitisation and workflow modernisation project of its video archives.

The subscription-based implementation of Dalet’s cloud-native media logistics, which was done in collaboration with partner Telstra Broadcast Services, enables AFL to tackle a large-scale technical uplift of its rich game content stored on 22,000 physical tapes and reimagine the way they share and resell the high-value game content.

"As custodians of the history of the game, it’s really important that we provide a simple way for future generations to access and experience the game’s rich history," commented Spencer Wilson, Operations and Broadcast Manager for the AFL. "Dalet Flex provides a single source of truth for this mammoth archive. You can use Dalet Flex to search the archives, pull content and package it for monetization for any type of sales channel. The core design of the system tracks not only media assets but manages commercial agreements, compliance requirements and transactions tied to those assets. This allows us to set up an on-demand service that radically changes how we can share with our broadcast customers and fans."

As the governing body of the professional Australian rules football, AFL is the guardian of the league's video archives, preserving historical game content for its club members since the very first game captured on film in 1909. Concerned with degradation and loss of valuable assets and the growing storage requirements for each of the 400 plus games shot in progressive formats, the organization sought to digitally preserve its entire archive. The AFL used Telstra Purple to configure the Amazon Web Services data servers and data centers that stored the digitised game content and Dalet Flex to facilitate key media logistics functions including archival searches, retrievals, and packaging of content for on-demand and multi-platform distribution. The new on-demand media request workflow enables AFL to significantly expand the use of historical game content and deepen fan engagement from discovery of favorite club heroes of the past to the history of the game.

The AFL archive project comes on the heels of several high profile sports transformations including Lega Serie A, the National Rugby League of Australia, Arsenal Football Club, and the Ligue de Football Professionnel, all of which implemented Dalet solutions to drive new video strategies to expand their multigenerational fan engagement across digital channels.

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