Tag: Sports

Snapchat To Debut New Content From Sophia Vergara And MLB

Posted on by Lab Team

Read original story on: Variety & WSJ Blog

“Modern Family” star Sophia Vergara is coming to Snapchat with her own reality series Vergaraland. Co-produced by Fusion and Latin World Entertainment, the six-episode series promises a humorous look at the actress’ career from the perspective of her son.

Snapchat has also reportedly worked out a deal with Major League Baseball Advanced Media to introduce a weekly series of baseball-related video content. We first heard back in March that Snapchat is looking to broadcast live sport events, and this seems like a solid first step in that direction.

Ever since the beginning of this year, we have been witnessing Snapchat’s relentless push into original content to build out its media platform outside messaging. So it seems only natural that Snapchat is now getting Hollywood celebrities and sport leagues on board to boost awareness of its original content.

Led by Snapchat and Facebook Messenger, the messaging apps are racing to become full-fledged media channels. Although it seems still a bit early in the game to declare a winner, Snapchat is most definitely in the running with its vast popularity among Millennials and Gen Z, which means that brands trying to reach those young audiences need to take notice.

 

 

The Future Of TV, According To Netflix CEO Reed Hastings

Posted on by Lab Team

Read original story on: Quartz

Reed Hastings, co-founder and CEO of Netflix, delivered a rousing speech at the 2015 Re:publica Media Convention in Berlin last week, boldly predicting that “Internet TV will replace linear TV in the next 20 years”. Below are some of the highlights from his speech, which you can watch in its entirety here.

Original Content As The Main Draw
As Netflix aims to launch in every country by the end of the 2016, the OTT service will amplify its current strategy of producing a diverse variety of original content, especially the ones with cross-culture appeal such as Marco Polo and Daredevil, in order to conquer the global markets.

Open To Experimenting With New Formats
Hastings also mentioned Netflix’s willingness to experiment with new video formats, including unconventional episode lengths, second-screen interactivity, and even integrating virtual reality, so as to differentiate itself from the conventional content providers.

Future TV Sets To Look Like Giant iPads
Fully invested in the potential of streaming-based TV, Hastings envisioned standard TV sets in the near future to be glass-panelled displays wirelessly connected to the Internet, just “like a large iPad,” with an array of apps.

Sports Will Be Watched By The League In 4K HD
While he acknowledged that sports would not be on Netflix’s radar for the foreseeable future, Hastings boldly predicted that future sports programs will be streamed with a league-based subscription model, instead of the network-based model that currently dominates the industry. He also believes that the recent rise of 4K ultra-high definition video will help push more sports programming to the OTT TV.

The NFL Draft Was Periscoped

Posted on by Lab Team

Read original story on: Digiday

The tight race for live-streaming dominance continues between Meerkat and Twitter’s Periscope, as brands and publishers alike look for a new engagement tool to connect with the increasingly fragmented mobile audience.

For the NFL Draft on Thursday, sports publisher Scout used Periscope to create 15 niche topic-focused broadcasts that covered the draft from varying perspectives. One stream focused on how the draft would affect fantasy sports rankings, for instance, while other channels focused entirely on moves at specific schools.

But don’t expect sports leagues to start live streaming content just yet—the new over-the-top live streaming model undermines the lucrative deals they have with sports broadcasters.

Why Snapchat Is Looking To Broadcast Live Sports

Posted on by Lab Team

Read original story on: Digiday

As part of its continuing effort to diversify content and evolve into a media platform, Snapchat is now working to get live sports in its “Our Story” feature, starting with the NCAA Final Four, by making media-rights deals with sports leagues and broadcast networks. The popular messaging app is also reportedly raising money from Chinese ecommerce giant Alibaba at a $15 billion valuation, up from its $10 billion valuation last year.

Brands Chip In On The Most-Tweeted Sports Game

Posted on by Lab Team

The dramatic Brazil vs Germany semi-final match yesterday scored a massive 35.6 million tweets, making it the most-tweeted sports game ever. Of course, no self-respecting brand would miss out on such a grand global spectacle. Whether an official sponsor for the tournament or not, various brand, including Visa, Audi, and Red Bull, piled on by making real-time marketing jokes on the losing Brazilian team. As we reported, Twitter recently rolled out special onboarding features to attract the World Cup audience. Coupled with brands’ timely efforts, twitter is subtly redefining the way modern sport events are discussed, capitalized and marketed.

Brands Who Release Super Bowl Ads Early Win Big

Posted on by Lab Team

The Super Bowl is still fresh in the minds of advertisers as they slowly determine the returns on their advertising dollars.  The reach of an ad doesn’t stop at the end of the game, though, and online views have become increasingly important to the overall success of a campaign.  Analytics firm Visible Measures looked at online “True Reach” statistics for every Super Bowl campaign since 2010 and found that advertisers who released their ads online before the game saw far greater reach than those who didn’t. Budweiser’s “Puppy Love” commercial from this year’s bowl had already received 26.7 million views before the game, and its final reach is expected to be much higher.

Facebook Partners With SportsStream

Posted on by Lab Team

Facebook partnered with SportsStream to make sense of its real-time data, both for sports networks and advertisers. SportStream will offer broadcasters and sports teams an interface to search through Facebook’s Keyword Insights, which will allow access to metadata on teams, players, leagues, games, and more to see who’s saying what about live games. It’s an important move for Facebook, which knows that it has a mountain of data about live events – particularly sports events – but is still unsure about how to get that data to the people who are looking to make the most of it. This should allow teams to get a better understanding of how many people they’re reaching, and where, and in addition it will allow advertisers to get all the more targeted on Facebook. This could be a particularly potent partnership for all parties involved. 

Russia Announces Mobile Photography Ban For 2014 Winter Olympics

Posted on by Lab Team

The Sochi Winter Olympics, coming this January, are reportedly coming with a ban on any mobile photography by journalists.  In fact, the ban extends to all non-professional equipment, ruling out the possibility for reporting via Instagram, Vine, Whatsapp, Frontback, and any other media-creating platform presently shaking up what it means to broadcast information and media online.  This attempt at placing tight controls on the flow of news out of Russia during the games is not new – London tried to ban social media during its turn hosting the Olympics in 2012 – but the question remains, how effective can it be? Will journalists and news outlets be willing to risk their credentials to reach consumers faster, more effectively, and more intimately than ever before during one of the world’s testing grounds for media coverage?

Apple’s iBeacon Could Turn MLB Stadiums Into Interactive Experiences

Posted on by Lab Team

The New York Mets have entered a trial utilizing Apple’s iBeacon indoor mapping feature to customize the At The Ballpark app for everybody that walks into the stadium. They are looking to customize the app based on where you are within the stadium, turning the ballpark into an interactive playground of sorts. The idea is to create a series of “micro-locations” within the stadium to trigger different experiences for the fans as they work their way through to their seats, or to get beverages and food between innings. Because iBeacon is customizable, each stadium would feature different experiences, intertwined with different brands. It’s a truly powerful technology that is just being put to the test; this feature could truly enhance venues of all stripes for consumers who aren’t intense fans or just want to experience the venue itself. 

The End Of 3D? ESPN Drops 3D Channel

Posted on by Lab Team

ESPN has decided to drop its dedicated 3D channel which launched in 2010, based on high costs, low consumer demand and lack of adoption from cable companies. Sports programming was the catalyst for HD adoption so the flagship sports channel’s decision to no longer support 3D may mark the end of the medium. Likely to supersede HD will be 4K (4x resolution of HD) which had a huge presence at this year’s CES.