For the next five years, hundreds of terabytes of cloud space managed by Boston tech startup Wasabi Technologies will host files that soccer fans would die to get their hands on: exclusive data and video footage belonging to Liverpool FC, one of England’s top-tier Premier League clubs.
It’s the result of a deal announced last month that makes Liverpool FC a customer of Wasabi Technologies, and gives the startup the title of “official cloud storage partner” of the club.
Michael Welts, chief marketing officer of Wasabi, told the Boston Business Journal that the Liverpool FC deal represents a “historic moment” in Wasabi’s strategy to continue to build a global brand. The deal itself is “in the millions,” he added.
“Not only (will) Liverpool store their store data on us, but if you watch a game, you’ll see ‘Wasabi’ around the stadium … when the players are playing,” he said. “You have a lot of different countries watching that team.”
Wasabi is the sixth startup over four decades founded by former Carbonite Inc. CEO David Friend. Since coming out of stealth in 2017, it has gained thousands of customers by offering a pay-as-you-go pricing model at $5.99 per terabyte per month, with no additional charges for data egress or API requests. Now with 185 employees, and backed by Fidelity Management & Research Company, Friend told the Business Journal in a previous interview that he hopes the company will go public by 2023.
It was the relationship that Wasabi has with Fenway Sports Group LLC — the owner of the Boston Red Sox and Liverpool FC — that put things in motion, he said.
“It’s kind of funny, because us North Americans are not known for our soccer expertise,” Welts said. “But when you take the top 10 franchises in all of sports in North America — meaning people like the Lakers, the Yankees, the Cowboys — across those franchises, those collectively don’t add up to the following that Liverpool Football Club has, which is just astonishing.”
Besides its large social media audience, Liverpool FC is known for its rivalry with Manchester United and a streak of recent successes, including winning the UEFA Champions League in 2019 and the Premier League championship in 2020.
Wasabi doesn’t have access to the contents that the club is storing in its cloud. Initially, Liverpool FC will use hundreds of terabytes of Wasabi’s storage, which translates to more than 10 years worth of high-definition videos (a single terabyte can store about 500 hours of HD video). The average Major League Baseball franchise stores about 250 terabytes with Wasabi right now, according to Welts.
Liverpool FC will use Wasabi’s cloud space for what Welts described as “use cases,” including storing game footage and stadium surveillance footage.
Wasabi plans to work with Liverpool FC not only to store its data, but also on how to leverage that data for new revenue opportunities. Game footage, in particular, can be turned into real-time information for data analytics on players, but also into a streaming service, Welts said.
“If you were a Liverpool football fan, over time here, you’ll be able to say, ‘I want to follow this player’ or ‘I want to see that game.’ And I can go back in history, or I can go in real-time and watch it. And that’s kind of a game changer. Think of it as the Netflix model for sports entertainment,” he said.
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