The Situation

As boxing legend Manny Pacquiao prepared for his final professional fight after an illustrious career, he partnered with Global Sports Streaming (GSS) to bring his dedicated fans a front-row look at his training camp regimen and pre-fight activities through a series of livestreams to Pacquiao’s YouTube Channel.

The Solution

GSS selected LiveU’s new Solo ‘plug and play’ live streaming bonding solution to connect automatically to YouTube Live. Team Pacquiao used its social media network to drive the fighter’s more than 12 million fans to his YouTube Channel.

Results

Pacquiao wanted to maintain and grow his fan base for his final fight and future endeavors, which include a political career. Live streaming Manny’s workouts was the best way to connect with his fans and grow his channel quickly, while bringing added attention to the fight in a unique way.
“People want instant access to exciting content about high-profile athletes, celebrities and events they are passionate about; live streaming provides that,” said GSS Producer/Director and Founder Armando Bareno II. “With Solo, we were able to deliver that content with greater quality than viewers expected to see online. Live streaming is a powerful tool that we were excited to take advantage of.”

GSS initially planned to do two live streams a week during training camp and one a day during fight week. Because of the popularity of the streams, GSS increased the number of streams to during fight week – 11 in total. The two hour streams per event included Manny’s morning and evening workouts (morning runs in Griffith Park in Los Angeles and UNLV’s track in Las Vegas, in camp workouts at the Wild Card Boxing Club, afternoon events at the MGM Grand & Grand Garden Arena, and Fight Week boxing workouts at the Top Rank Gym), plus his afternoon activities events and his weigh in.

“We were restricted from using Solo during the actual fight, but interestingly, the fight promoter read over our proposal about live streaming locker room coverage and now will be doing it moving forward for their events,” noted Bareno.

So what’s next for GSS and the LiveU Solo?

“We are set to work with Terence Crawford for his upcoming Pay-Per-View fight in July. We’ll be following and live streaming his journey from training in Omaha and Colorado Springs to Vegas for his fight. We’re excited to be working with Terence because he really seems to understand the value of live streaming and wants to use the latest tools to create his online persona,” said Bareno. 
“LiveU has always created quality products and Solo is no exception. I am a big fan of Solo,” added Bareno.

GSS is also working with a recording artist to live stream their upcoming concerts and events. “The long-term goal is to take Solo on the road with a band from start to finish on a nationwide tour.”