One million.
It’s a number that grabbed the attention of Sportsnet New York (SNY) President Steve Raab earlier this year. The regional sports network experimented with Overtime, a cross-platform technology startup built around high school and youth content, for the SNY Invitational. Overtime produced content for the annual two-day New York high school basketball tournament in January, nearly eclipsing the seven-figure mark.
“I really had nothing in mind from a numbers standpoint,” Raab told SportTechie. “If you would have asked if I had a six figures expectation, I probably would have told you ‘no.’
“We were blown away that it generated nearly a million video views.”
The SNY Invitational had a dedicated channel embedded within the Overtime app, which received investment from ex-NBA Commissioner David Stern in February and could serve as a replacement for the former six-second sharing platform Vine.
According to Raab, that initiative led to additional conversations with Overtime, its Chief Executive Officer Dan Porter and senior leadership about how to further integrate linear television with digital and users’ ability to record, edit and share short-form video content via the app.
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During the summer months, SNY and Overtime will now be capturing high school basketball content in the tri-state area around leagues like Dyckman, LES Express and Hoops in the Sun, among others. As part of the relationship, co-branded clips will run on SNY and SNY.tv in addition to a weekly linear segment on SNY utilizing Overtime content. Additionally, SNY will again have a stand-alone channel within the app, whose videos receive over 10 million views a month.
“Sometimes there’s a rawness to someone holding up their phone and catching a highlight clip. … You think of what you see from buzzer-beaters online and people jumping up and down. There’s a real immediacy to where you’re connected, almost like you’re there, and it’s a not highly professional produced video,” Porter told SportTechie. “You’re trying to capture content in authentic way.
“We’re serving the market but also expanding it as well.”
The former head of digital at William Morris Endeavor, Porter said at the core of the partnership — which is a revenue-share based on advertising — is bringing sports fans and consumers closer to the basketball experience. SNY’s Raab said that despite the relationship with the digital sports startup, the RSN still thinks being in linear television is “a great business” but acknowledged consumption habits, especially those of millennials, are changing.
“Whether it’s streaming on an authenticated basis, whether it’s social media or partnering with a company like Overtime, our job is to make great content available to our fans wherever they are and however they’re wanting to consume it. We’re not unique that way. Any good media company is approaching it that way,” Raab said.
Because of the fragmented New York high school basketball market, as he described, it’s been challenging to cover the broadening landscape in an efficient manner but also comprehensively as well. Through the partnership, both Raab and Porter shared similar comments about being able to cast a wider content net, and then continuing to learn how that video content resonates with consumers.
“Maybe here’s an opportunity where technology and expertise, some of which we have and some of which we don’t have, we’re able to accomplish something that maybe neither of us could accomplish by ourselves,” said Raab, adding that he’s “optimistic” about the relationship potentially running into the new academic year as well.
When asked about formalizing different partnerships like this in the future — where linear meets digital — Porter said he could “definitely” see it happening. Ultimately, according to the veteran digital executive, “it comes back to reaching people where they are.”
“You have your habits, the four apps you have on your home screen, your two websites you go to, the one or two things you watch on a regular basis. For the most part, content is trying to find its way to get in front of you based on your behavior,” he added.