K-League opens media production centre

The K-League, Korea’s professional football league, has opened a media facility that will be the central hub for the production of its live matches and other content.

The league has invested KRW1bn (€739m/$838,000) in the ‘media centre’, which is located in Magok District, in Gangseo-gu, Seoul.

The centre will relay live broadcasts of matches produced by broadcasters or other production companies, to domestic and international broadcasters and digital platforms.

The centre will also give the league capabilities including an artificial intelligence-powered video editing system, the ability to create uniform screen graphics for league match coverage, the ability to provide subtitles and commentary in Korean and English, and a digital archive of K-League content. Archive material was previously stored on video tape.

The AI video editing system will be used to quickly create content for social media, and other channels.

The league studied similar facilities built by the German Bundesliga, in Cologne, and the Japanese J.League, before building its own.

Work on the facility began in July last year, and it was unveiled to the media last week.

The Sports Chosun website reported that Cho Yeon-sang, secretary general of the K-League, said: “The media centre that we created is very similar to the Bundesliga in Germany. Through the establishment of this media centre, we can expect the internationalisation of K-league broadcasting and various uses of game videos.”