As a potential merger between IMG and Learfield is being reviewed, ScoreStream could be the answer for smaller schools looking for a way to not get left out of the new media game.
The power a combined IMG/Learfield company would wield over the industry of major college athletics would be significant, if the proposed merger between the two companies passes governmental review. Smaller schools may find it difficult to meet the criteria for being a client of the new joint company, and the cost of producing robust media that college athletics thrives on may be burdensome.
Crowdsourcing is similarly powerful, and that’s one of the components that ScoreStream uses in a way that might provide a solution to those smaller schools.
ScoreStream is a desktop and mobile application that allows fans to share live scores, photos and videos of the sports that they care about. Because fans of smaller college athletics programs are just as passionate as fans of larger programs but face the challenges of their athletic departments lacking the resources of bigger programs that might be required to regularly pump out new content, the technology could help those fans account for that shortfall.
The momentum that ScoreStream is building toward becoming a major player on the sports media landscape is undeniable. On top of its wide use for club, prep and high school sports, the company received funding from Intel Capital in November to extend its capabilities. Those potential new capabilities are what should draw the interest of officials at NCAA DII, DIII and NAIA schools.
“When we started this company, our initial thought was it was an opportunity that was a media opportunity,” said Derrick Oien, CEO of ScoreStream. “If you think about it, a lot of people doing sports technology, it’s stats, it’s streaming capabilities, it’s recruiting and things like that. That area is fairly well covered. The one area that had not been addressed properly is from a media perspective. I grew up in an area where athletes like Ronnie Lott went to high school. When you would wake up in the morning, you would read like the newspaper for six pages of prep reports. That newspaper is all but defunct now, as are most papers throughout the country. Our belief is that there is a large population of sports teams that we would describe as uncovered or under-covered. We thought that crowdsourcing would be an interesting way to cover those sports and get that content back out to fans either directly through an application or via media.”
Smaller colleges taking advantage of ScoreStream’s platform could begin in much the same way that millions of people are already using it to provide coverage of their local high school sports, as Oien explains.
“What we did early on was partner with a number of media companies,” Oien commented. “Today we have partnerships with every broadcast TV group, iHeart, Cumulus, the Associated Press, a lot of the newspaper groups. The interesting problem we saw is that if you think about football in the fall, each week we have 16 pro games, 100 D1 college games and 7,000 high school games. We set out to cover those 7,000. Right now we have about 6,300 a week between scores, photos, video and chat. We proved that it works. It took us a while to do that, we have developed some really interesting technology. We have really good traction. Now that we have got to this place where we have really good coverage for high school, we have people who are scoring junior high school football, middle school football, we’ve got JUCO in a number of states and we absolutely think that there is a great opportunity to help fans cover their NAIA, DII and DIII teams.”
From there, schools could push out not only game coverage but in-house video productions as well, similar to the kind that Verizon is going to be producing in conjunction with the NFL as part of its new expanded streaming partnership. New content would mean new opportunities for sponsorships, which could help the schools collect revenue.
“We certainly do think that there is a media opportunity around audiences following these teams in-games, but so far for us it’s early, and I would say that direct school activity tends to be through some very direct channels that they work with,” Oien stated. “Schools will use our promotion graphics to put in their sponsors. Our media partners, some of them will have scoreboards which are sponsored, and they will have a lot of media on that page appropriate for the sponsor, but the content on that page might be scores from us, along with photos and videos captured using our technology.”
The platform could also be used to assist with schools’ recruitment of athletes, and in turn, enhancing the prospective athletes’ chances of being recruited.
“We historically did not do much with respect to athletes,” Oien added. “We started out saying if we can get you all the scores around the game that you are at on a Friday night, that’s a great accomplishment and will really help fans with their communities. What’s happened is we have started to do more graphics packages, we have a feature like plays of the week, we have this ability to highlight players and call out their names. When you start to call out players and plays, it makes sense for us to do athlete profiles and that’s something that we are developing.”
The clear advantage that ScoreStream has capitalized on as it has grown is the high level of personalization. Smaller schools that may get left out as the power players in college athletics continue to consolidate and separate might find that crowdsourcing is the key to staying relevant in their communities.
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“That’s really what we endeavor to do is create that personalized experience that pulls all those things together,” Oien elaborated. “Really if you think about it, there is nowhere else on the planet where you can get your club, high school, lower division college and pro scores in one place. The data we collect shows what consumers like and that is very interesting, we use that to drive that personalization, ultimately we believe that kind of experience is going to be demanded by media and we are seeing that in terms of the kind of media being consumed today, whether it’s on social channels or Instagram or whatever, that is what the young, Gen-Z, millennial audience wants, personalized experiences, things that they want and none of the stuff they don’t want.”