Alexander Walkenhorst ("Spontent"): "Table tennis is really conveyed"

Spontent, the media partner of the German Table Tennis League, has further expanded its program portfolio for the second half of the season.  In an interview, Managing Director Alexander Walkenhorst takes stock of the findings from the first half of the cooperation with the TTBL and the clubs. In addition, the 34-year-old talks about the latest additions to the "Spontent" content on the Twitch livestreaming platform and the prospects beyond the current season.

Alexander Walkenhorst, the second half of the TTBL season has already begun. I'm sure you and your staff have already initiated an analysis of the first half of the season. Have you already been able to gain any insights from the evaluation?

Shortly after the start of the season, the TTBL reported a fourfold or almost fivefold increase in streaming users compared to the previous season. The trend has definitely continued.

Have you been able to condense further experiences?

After all, we're still just getting to know the table tennis community. We have only partially worked out a pattern of which game or which constellation attracts a lot of attention. It doesn't matter whether we're talking about the live stream or the secondary use with highlights on YouTube. In contrast to our experience in volleyball, for example, the popularity can very often not be logically deduced at all. But that's not a problem, because apparently every team, every constellation and every match-up in the TTBL is of interest to the core target group, which is completely different in other leagues. You can also tell from the odds when the eighth in the table plays the ninth in the table.

Does your team go further into these phenomena?

Yes, of course. We archive the individual data from each stream. Our assumption that individual players could make the difference has not been confirmed. In any case, we're taking a very close look at it, because we want to derive from it, not least for our client DYN, when table tennis content and games are consumed most and by whom. These are very important aspects for the area of medialization. A workshop will also be held in February to evaluate all the data so far.

How satisfied is "Spontent" with the first half of the year?

After all, the first serve was about getting to know the league and stabilizing the production level. What we're very happy with is our commentator duo Richard Scharmann and Dennis Heinemann, who as hosts represent a good combination of expertise for the nerd and freak audience and links to the audience as a whole. The coverage stands and falls with such faces as hosts. We have achieved a significant increase in the comparison of images, and that was our most important goal for the first half of the year. We are getting feedback from various places and above all from various sources that the production quality has improved many times over. This is especially important in table tennis, because such a fast sport lives on good and sharp images or even good slow motion. We have already reached a level, also with volunteers in the halls, where you can watch table tennis well and the sport of table tennis is really transported.

How do you go about it?

Ultimately, of course, it's the technology we work with. With each camera, we push 60 frames per second onto the end devices, which of course makes a difference in a sport that is so rich in footage. But of course, and I think this has become clear by now, we also have a different idea of editing and image management, and we were able to incorporate these ideas of image production well. But there are much more important changes.

What do you mean by that?

In the TTBL, there had never really been any editorial work around moving images and the live experience before this season. We recently started to open up the time slot of the hour before a match. At the moment, comparatively few people are watching such additional formats - the online start of a program 60 minutes before the game with two experts who get them in the mood for the game, in which a lot of editorial work is involved - because everyone is still used to seeing something only at the start of the game. But we already know from other sports that it takes time to change such habits, and we only started doing that a few weeks ago.

Another new addition in mid-January was the streamed league magazine "2nd Phase," which is intended to be another component of the new media strategy with more personalized content. You've already touched on the viewing habits of table tennis fans - how will these formats ultimately reach the target group?

There is this target group that is digitally interested. With the premiere of "2nd Phase" in the interview with Timo Boll, we managed right away to create situations with a world-class player that are special - for that, you have to create attention by sharing this content and also create a regularity, then people also tune in. Whether Tuesday is the right time to broadcast, or whether people have to get used to Tuesday first, will emerge, we know from experience in other sports.

Do you have any other innovations planned for the second half of the season?

We went on the air for the first time with a "double header" on the penultimate Sunday of January. We want to establish this on Sundays with the 1 p.m. and 4:30 p.m. games as cornerstones. This gives us a good nine hours of broadcasting time - starting with the preliminary coverage as early as 12:00 noon - bracketed by two to three games and filled editorially with outlook, results, opinions and interviews. In volleyball, this is our most successful format because people tune in to watch the two games at a time and want to. On a Tuesday, coupled with a general overview, this will hopefully lead to people being interested in additional information and stories on the one hand, and on the other hand, the TTBL will be able to offer fresh content five days in a row.

Should the overall package described also be on offer in the coming season, when DYN continues to operate as an independent streaming provider in cooperation with you?

We want to try out the current scope, follow it through in the second half of the season, and definitely learn lessons from it. Our workshop in February will also serve this purpose. When DYN starts broadcasting, it will be a matter of presenting the TTBL in the overall context of handball, basketball and volleyball. Then the TTBL and we will also have to enter into an exchange about possible broadcast formats and schedules, because DYN has an interest in being a home for all sports fans, and the program schedule should already be coordinated with that. For the new season, however, we plan to maintain or even expand our editorial standards.