Football Nation's Mario Sanchez was an early adopter of the new product.
Football Nation's Mario Sanchez was an early adopter of the new product.
Fan.Live and the Creator Sports Network debuted immersive 3D experiences of NFL games using live tracking data, driving nearly two million views through Sunday night’s Week1 action.
The new product uses official NFL data licensed through Genius Sports, is re-imagined using visualization technology from Fan.Live and is produced on channels managed through the CSN. Roughly 50 creators used the feature, pushing content to social media platforms YouTube, Twitch, TikTok and Kick.
The creators don’t have the broadcast rights to share live game video, but the rich tracking data enables virtualized action in which no point of view or camera angle is impossible to render. There’s even a “Play the Play” option in which creators and users can use a video game interface to attempt the same on-field action as the pros and then receive a grade for how they fared.
Fan.Live is the rebranded name of what used to be ARound, an augmented reality technology owned by Stagwell that focused mostly on the in-stadium experience. By broadening its scope to home viewing, FanLive dramatically increased its total addressable market.
“We know that data and delivery are really going to be the key differentiators, not just in sports, but in all of technology,” said Josh Beatty, the founder and CEO of Fan.Live, noting that the goal was to take “real-time sports data and try to use that to create new rights-adjacent opportunities within sports that we think allow fans to continue to try to become participants.”
Following this early season proof of concept, Fan.Live and CSN are engaging brands for sponsorable opportunities. As ARound, the firm worked with franchises in four different sports leagues: the NFL’s Rams, the NBA’s Cavaliers, MLB’s Twins and Royals and MLS’ Minnesota United FC.
Creators have control over the full production.
Creators have control over the full production.
CSN founder and chief product officer Barrick Prince held previous role across the media spectrum at Twitch, Fox and WME in the media space. His startup seeks to modernize distribution and reach a younger audience through more than 2,000 content creators rather than the old-school infrastructure of TV stations.
“Essentially the business that we’re building is really analogous to the businesses that executives at ABC, NBC and CBS believe they were building in 1955, which was a network of affiliate stations, except for the difference is, in 1955, your first call was to a real estate agent because you needed to buy some land,” Prince said. “While at Twitch, as we were pioneering some live creator distribution, I started thinking, well, if Fox puts NFL on 220 stations and adds them all up to get you a national number, what would happen if you put it on 220 creators’ channels?”