Hey Sports Tech fans,
First things first, sportstech.live is back! It was a side project I did during the first lockdown to plug the gaps left by no live sport!
In essence, it’s a sports tech content hub. As you may have noticed I trawl the web looking for the best sources of information and news for this community on a weekly basis.
Early on I automated the process for myself to spare me hours of work going through every site and hashtag going, so I thought why not make that available to everyone.
It’s still very much a work in progress but thanks to a kind sponsor, server issues, and more importantly server bills, won’t be a problem for 2021!
I still need to get the hang of AWS auto scaling as the site grows in terms of traffic and the sheer volume of news stories covered.
Let me know your thoughts and feedback on the site by replying to this email, I would greatly appreciate it.
The site updates multiple times every day so be sure to check in throughout your working day and evening.
With that out of the way, the main story I wanted to talk about was the NFL broadcast on Nickelodeon last weekend.
I covered the story when it was first announced and saw it as an obvious play to attract a younger audience which the NFL and many other sports desperately need given the rise of eSports and other media.
The broadcast was a massive success, which you can read about below.
The broadcast came complete with slime on the scoring of a touchdown, Spongebob SquarePants field goals and a variety of filters which you would normally see on Snapchat.
I only saw a brief video clip that was shown on the Sky Sports broadcast here in the US but it looked seriously entertaining and on the money for its target audience.
It might wear a bit thin to NFL hardcore fans but in terms of creating a fun and engaging visual, they hit it out of the park.
There will be more broadcasts coming as it beat all expectations. Will the novelty wear off or will we see a simulcast of other sports in the future? I certainly think so.
For me, another really interesting aspect of it was the sheer fact that there was a simulcast in the first place, especially at the Play Off stage of the NFL.
We have become accustomed to one broadcaster in a territory having the rights to a game but I have long been of the belief that a better model to follow moving forward is for non-exclusive deals so we see competition in what broadcasters are bringing to the table in terms of innovations and angles to the broadcasting of live sports.
Check out the visuals below of what it looked like.
Have a great sporting weekend,
Will
