The Players’ Tribune has announced its acquisition of sports technology platform Unscriptd. No cash was exchanged in the deal, but The Players’ Tribune will acquire Unscriptd’s app with plans to launch a new mobile app called Players’ POST.
Unscriptd was founded by a group of former Nike executives in 2013 as a storytelling platform for athletes across Europe, Asia, and Australia. Unscriptd’s mobile app helped athletes create, edit, and publish short-form videos directly to social media. More than 2,500 athletes have used the platform, and they will all now join The Players’ Tribune network, growing TPT’s community to more than 5,000 athletes around the world.
“The mission of The Players’ Tribune has always been to give athletes the platforms and the tools they need to create truly personal and engaging content,” said Jeff Levick, CEO at TPT, in a news release. “By combining Unscriptd’s technology and international reach with our growing athlete network and unparalleled storytelling capabilities, we will help connect the global athlete community to each other—and to fans.”
The Players’ POST app will exclusively serve the athletes who work with Derek Jeter’s media company. The platform will increase TPT’s video production to allow athletes to manage content creation and distribution. A launch date for the Players’ POST mobile app has yet to be announced.
“We created Unscriptd with the idea of building a technology platform that creates a more robust and meaningful way for athletes to engage with their fans,” said Brent Scrimshaw, Co-Founder and CEO of Unscriptd, in the press release. “Unscriptd was purpose-built to enable athletes to be better publishers through a suite of proprietary technology, content, distribution and data services, and this acquisition by The Players’ Tribune will fast-track the acceleration of our shared vision”.
SportTechie Takeaway
In 2018, The Players’ Tribune website saw a 133 percent year-over-year increase in video views according to Forbes. That video success surely fueled TPT to purchase Unscriptd’s mobile video platform. The acquisition will make TPT more appealing to fans globally, since most of the athletes being integrated from Unscriptd compete in sports with international appeal, such as soccer, Australian rules football, Formula 1, surfing, tennis, cricket, track and field, and rugby. Although The Players’ Tribune has doubled its revenue year-over-year, the company has yet to turn a profit according to Forbes.