The Associated Press has partnered with crowd-sourcing app Scorestream to report high school sports scores on its media wire.
The news wire of record in the U.S. made a splash last year after announcing a collaboration with Automated Insights, which the AP uses to generate short computer-written recaps of minor league baseball games. That deal was struck to broaden the AP’s coverage of teams that otherwise would go unreported on and did not replace any current journalist.
This new effort with Scoresteam follows in the same spirit of expanding coverage of events that have reader interest via increased use of technology. The initial plan is to include Scorestream reporting for high school football in 42 states and boys and girls high school basketball in 33 states this winter. Though the AP has published the scores of these contests previously, the use of Scorestream will hasten their ability to report outcomes on the wire. (Both the AP and Scorestream will confirm all information before publication.)
“AP embraces innovation in all aspects of our journalism and our business,” Jim Kennedy, the AP’s senior vice president for strategy and enterprise development, said in a release. “We think ScoreStream’s crowdsourced solution for high-school sports scores is unmatched and we can break new ground together for the benefit of AP’s member news organizations and customers across the U.S.”
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Scorestream relies on users to post scores, photos and videos of local sports, providing a real-time platform of information on events that might not be staffed by a reporter. For high school games last fall, the start-up, which has generated nearly $6 million in funding in its five years, partnered with Snapchat on geofilters and landed a major advertiser in Gatorade, which has been a longtime sponsor of high school athletics.
“Working with the AP is true validation of what we are trying to accomplish with our platform,” Derrick Oien, CEO of ScoreStream, said. “We are thrilled to be collaborating with such a well-respected news organization to share high school sports scores across the nation.”