Speed v Quality: Why Sport Content’s Publishing Race Won’t (always) Be Won by the Fastest

With AI threatening to flood feeds with instant content, teams need to compete in real-time without sacrificing what makes their content worth following. David Granger, director at Arc & Foundry spoke to Will Gilgrass from Format who explains how teams can stay fast, relevant, and maintain editorial quality.

There was a time (OK, it was 2009) when global websites took around an hour to publish. If, say, a grand prix in Suzuka (and it was Suzuka) started at 2pm JST, and finished one hour, 28 minutes and 20.443 seconds later, it would take almost as long as the race itself to write the race report, clear the global cache (remember that?) and publish through the company’s single content management system. That was the single CMS which acted for all Red Bull entities. It was soul-destroying. And I meant I missed the (majority of) the celebrations marking Sebastian Vettel’s victory while other, less technically challenged, entities and teams had written, published and were already in the karaoke car. Because in publishing, as in F1, timing and speed are everything.

It’s true for every sporting event. Once the result is decided, there’s then the race to post the results. Digital – but more often social – teams scramble to be first with the right graphic, image and content to capture the outcome.

If you’re three hours late posting the Women’s World Cup final score, well… you might as well not bother. The conversation has moved on. Timing is the only thing that separates the relevant from being consigned to the dustbin of search history.

But. How do you maintain quality when speed is paramount? How do grassroots clubs compete with elite organisations when they lack the required designers/budgets/tools? 

And, as we enter the era of AI-generated content flooding feeds with even more content, how do we ensure sport’s digital presence doesn’t just become white noise?

Will Gilgrass, managing director of Format {LINK: https://format.social/}, spent years in sports content and noticed a pattern. “The real bottleneck wasn’t creativity,” he said. “It was production. It was Photoshop skills, Premiere skills, managing brand consistency. Depending on who was on shift, quality and quantity could vary wildly.”

What he recognised was something fundamental about sports content: the gap between what teams want to publish and what they can actually produce in the moment. During live events, that gap widens. Content needs to go out in the moment while fans are still in the stadium.

The Women’s Rugby World Cup provided a perfect example. The Good, the Scaz & the Rugby, a podcast covering women’s rugby published a ‘Canada beat New Zealand’ graphic before the Canadian team themselves posted (possibly because the social team were still with the players celebrating on the pitch). That graphic went viral as the official team account engaged with it. A (relatively) small operation beat a national sporting organisation on speed and still maintained quality.

Where it gets interesting is the broader, or rather the deeper sports ecosystem. Top level organisations have resources. But what about the League Two football club? The second division karting driver? The amateur rugby side?

These organisations care about how they present themselves online. Their fans are just as passionate, their success (and failures) just as meaningful. But they’re often one volunteer with Canva and good intentions, trying to make their club look professional while holding down a day job.

Gilgrass has seen this through Format’s user base. “Grassroots clubs and brands with limited human resources and tight budgets are using it too. Once a designer creates a base template, anyone can produce professional-level posts that make them look credible and engaging. It’s been a massive leveller.”

This matters because fandom isn’t hierarchical. A supporter doesn’t love their non-league team less than someone loves Manchester United, arguably they love them more. They deserve content that reflects that passion.

But, if AI can generate graphics, write captions, and produce video edits at scale, what happens to sports content?

The pessimistic view is that we’re about to be buried under an avalanche of content landfill. Gilgrass describes it as content that “looks fine but feels dead behind the eyes.” The optimistic view is we’re heading for a reset. Audiences will crave authenticity and craft precisely because so much content will be generic.

Sports storytelling has always been built on context and jeopardy. As Gilgrass said: “If aliens landed and watched a Hackney Marshes match and Spurs v Arsenal, the football would look the same. What makes one compelling is the context: what’s at stake, who’s playing, what’s happened before.”

AI can describe what happened but not why it matters. It can’t understand the decades-old rivalry that makes this particular goal meaningful. It cannot capture the emotion of a team that’s fought through relegation battles, ownership crises, and financial ruin to finally win something that matters.

That context and that jeopardy is what makes sport important.

The sports content industry has operated under a “more, more, more” mentality for years. Constantly posting, feeding the algorithm to stay top of mind. But attention spans aren’t actually shorter. People just have more choice and won’t settle for mediocrity.

Look at Mark Goldbridge. Look at Tifo Football. Look at any creator who’s built genuine followings. They succeed not through volume but through understanding what their audience wants: insight with personality, authenticity and craft.

Behind-the-scenes documentaries were novel once. Now every club has one. Every athlete has a YouTube series. The format isn’t special anymore, it’s more the storytelling within it is what matters.

This is where technology should serve creativity, not replace it. Tools that eliminate production bottlenecks free teams to tell stories that resonate, rather than just filling feeds.

We’re entering an era where the battle for attention intensifies as audiences find teams, creators and communities. They’ll reward quality with their attention, but scroll past everything else.

For sport, at every level, this means the content produced needs to engage. Not just on-brand or on-time, but genuinely interesting. Fast production enables that. Quality storytelling sustains it.

The three-hour-late World Cup graphic doesn’t fail because it’s poorly designed. It fails because it’s irrelevant. The grassroots club with professional-looking matchday graphics doesn’t succeed just because they look good, they succeed because looking good allows them to be taken seriously, to reach new fans and grow.

Sport will always provide real drama. The challenge for those telling its stories is to match that drama with content that’s fast while being relevant, memorable and authentic.

The race to publish is about being present when the moment demands it, with quality that respects both the sport and the audience watching it. It would also allow the lowly Red Bull Racing website manager (that was indeed my job title at the time) the chance to celebrate the podium, as well as post about it.