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9
ScoreMobile review
knowyourmobile.com
Simon Bisson
We review ScoreMobile, a sports information and statistics app for the dedicated fan
Published on Mar 9, 2010
It’s not easy to forget that the BlackBerry is Canadian – after all, many of the applications in App World come from Canadian developers.
One of the more interesting is the free ScoreMobile, from the Canadian TV sports channel.
You’ll probably only want to download this app if you’re a fan of American sports.
You won’t find the Premier League here and the only truly international sports covered are the PGA gold tour and Formula 1 (you’ll have to wait until 2012 for the next batch of Olympic coverage!).
However, if you’re into ice hockey, American football, baseball, or basketball, then this is the application for you, as you’ll get results from the NHL, the NFL, from MLB, and the NBA.
Expat-Canadians will be pleased to see CFL results, while fans of the US College Basketball tournaments will get the March Madness results delivered straight to their phone.
The application is simple enough to use. Pick the league you want to follow (you can customise ScoreMobile to just display the sports you enjoy).
You’ll then be shown the last few days’ results, as well as upcoming fixtures. For each game you’ll get the score in each quarter or half – and if you understand the annotations for the sport in question, you’ll get full scoring statistics for e2ach player.
There are also game summaries, so you can quickly see just what happened during a game.
You’ll also get details of the current league standings of each team, which can be broken down by conference and by division.
One useful feature of ScoreMobile is the various statistical views.
If you’re taking part in a fantasy league, then you’re going to want to know the scoring percentages of each player in your team – though you’ll have to manually transfer them to your spreadsheets.
One useful feature is ScoreMobile’s integration with the core BlackBerry applications, so you can add a fixture directly into your calendar.
That means you’re able to schedule your time in front of the TV for the next Grand Prix, and make sure that everyone knows you’re going to be busy then…
This is an application for the dedicated sports fan, and it knows just what its audience wants.
In delivering it, ScoreMobile takes advantage of the BlackBerry’s unique features, and gives you a clean and clear view of the information you want in a timely manner.
24
Kobe lets humor flow with Cabbie
By Arash Markazi
ESPNLosAngeles.com
http://sports.espn.go.com/los-angeles/nba/columns/story?id=4943698
Getty Images Cabral ‘Cabbie’ Richards has been granted unprecedented access to Kobe Bryant.
Every great athlete in sports history it seems has had a reporter sidekick. Muhammad Ali had Howard Cossell, Michael Jordan had Ahmad Rashad and Kobe Bryant has Cabbie.
If you haven’t heard of Cabbie, that’s OK. He’s not on U.S. television. He’s a cable television personality in Canada who has somehow driven around L.A. with Bryant in a limo, flown with him to practice on his personal helicopter and changed the way an entire country views one of the most enigmatic personalities in sports.
Cabbie, whose real name is Cabral Richards, first met Bryant in December 2005 when the Lakers were in Toronto to play the Raptors. "I was doing a piece on bandwagon fans so I went up to him with a pad of paper and asked how he felt about bandwagon fans and asked him to draw a bandwagon for me," Cabbie said. "He said, ‘I can’t draw, I suck.’ At the end of the interview I said ‘I’m going to be in L.A. in a couple months would you mind if I stayed at the guest house in Casa de Bryant’ and he said OK."
The simple request ended up being the springboard to a four-year running joke where Cabbie asks Bryant when he’ll be able to sleep over at his house. It also has given Canadian viewers a window into a humorous side of Bryant many American fans haven’t seen. When Cabbie, after a Lakers-Raptors game, asked Bryant for his address, Kobe said, "Sure, it’s 8 Out of your mind Avenue." When he saw him a couple of months later and asked for his phone number, Bryant said, "Sure, it’s 1-800 Never ever ever call me ever."
"I ended up seeing him four times in the span of three months so he knew what I was about and became familiar with my shtick," Cabbie said. "I just continued with the whole staying at his house bit and started giving him gifts. Once I gave him pajamas, another time I brought him CDs. I think Kobe trusts me now where he can lower his guard and just have fun."
Bryant lowered his guard with Cabbie so much he gave him and his camera crew the first — and still only — ride on the helicopter he rides to practices and games to avoid traffic. Cabbie flew with Bryant the day the Lakers played the Miami Heat and Bryant hit the buzzer-beater over Dwyane Wade to win the game.
"When we were in the helicopter all strapped in and going up, the moment hit me, ‘I can’t believe I’m in a helicopter with Kobe Bryant,’ " Cabbie said. "This doesn’t make any sense. I’m just some kid from Toronto. I’m just some idiot from Canada and I’m in a helicopter with Kobe Bryant."
The trip took about 20 minutes and was filmed for Cabbie’s popular segment on The Score, "Cabbie on the Street." During the trip, Bryant said the helicopter cost him about as much as his Ferrari California ($250,000) and saves him over an hour of travel time a day so he can spend more time with his kids. He said he drives from his home in Newport Beach to John Wayne Airport in Santa Ana where a helicopter takes him to LAX for practices or to a helipad on top of an office building in Downtown L.A. for games. In either case, a driver is waiting for him to take him to the practice facility or Staples Center.
"I don’t know how I get the access I get. It probably helps that I’m Canadian," Cabbie said. "I’m not in his face all the time. I don’t know how you Americans view us Canadians. We’re kind of strange and I certainly don’t represent most Canadians because I’m extremely strange."
Arash Markazi is a reporter and columnist for ESPNLosAngeles.com.
9
Apps mania mimics the dot-com boom
Executives, entrepreneurs and consumers know they are going to be big, and there is consensus that we've only scratched the surface
Friday afternoon: An old colleague of mine drops by to talk about an opportunity.
He’s EVP of a smartphone app development company in Toronto. Its play is developing apps for retailers and entertainers that will enhance the customer experience and drive customer loyalty.
I spent the morning with an entrepreneur trying to capitalize on smartphone apps. He also has a novel idea. He’s trying to connect the dots between branded promotions, customer loyalty and this quickly emerging technology.
Earlier in the week, I reported back to a client in the mobile industry on, among other things, the current state of smartphone apps, and how it could capitalize on opportunities in the space. The week before it was a university, thinking about new ways to communicate with younger stakeholders.
It feels like the beginning of dot-com all over again. Executives, entrepreneurs and consumers know apps are going to be big. There is a consensus among those I talk to that we’ve only scratched the surface of the potential. Gartner, according to an article recently published on CNET, projects apps will be a $6-billion industry in 2010.
But there is enough uncertainty to give some folks pause while others plow ahead.
The Score was an early entrant into the apps space. While some larger players in sports media held back, the mid-sized firm took the plunge with ScoreMobile iPhone Edition in October, 2007, long before the iPhone launched in Canada. The app lets users receive stats, live blogs, sports headlines and real-time updates on their favourite teams and leagues throughout the day. Not only did the company ride the learning curve fast, it also gained a first-mover advantage, quickly becoming one of the top downloaded apps for both BlackBerry and iPhone – and it turned that advantage into new customers, revenue and increases in year-over-year profit.
As the owner/operator of private business, with lots of fires to fight, should apps be on your radar? Maybe. Exploring opportunities in apps doesn’t rate higher than addressing cash flow problems or continuing to sharpen your value proposition. On the other hand, entrepreneurs were likely asking themselves the same thing about “websites” in the late ’90’s – simply dismissing the notion is probably foolhardy.
If you are not already familiar with apps, here is a short précis: An app is a program downloaded to a smartphone or other mobile device, meant to serve a specific purpose. Webopedia defines apps in terms of enhanced connections to the Internet. That’s true, as many apps do a better job of providing users with a rich, interactive web experience for a particular company, brand or entity. I also think consumers see apps as games, utilities (turning the phone into a flashlight) and better access to information (such as sports scores and weather).
Apps are either paid for by consumers, or are free and have advertising embedded.
Special to the Globe and Mail
Mark Healy (P.Eng, MBA) is a partner at Torque Customer Strategy, a boutique consultancy focused on go-to-market strategy. He is a regular speaker and media contributor on topics ranging from marketing to managing professional service firms, and he has completed more than 100 engagements in this space over the past five years. Mr. Healy is known as much for his aggressive sense of personal style as he is for intense and engaging conversations. He lives with his wife Charlotte and their bulldog McDuff in Toronto.
8
High-tech kept the Super Bowl on track
By Doug Gross, CNN
(CNN) — As the players, coaches and halftime performers — not to mention the Lombardi Trophy — made their way to Miami’s Sun Life Stadium for the Super Bowl on Sunday, Jerry Hunter and company were keeping a close eye on them.
The Super Bowl contracted with Hunter’s US Fleet Tracking to use its real-time GPS tracking system, which uses satellite technology that can "ping" a vehicle’s location every few seconds.
The Web-based mapping system was just one of the high-tech gadgets used Sunday to make sure the party for 74,000 people ran smoothly.
"You think you and your wife have a struggle throwing a dinner party with 30 guests — making sure everything is where it’s supposed to be at the right time?" he said. "Imagine the Super Bowl."
Sunday’s Super Bowl in Miami, Florida, unfolded against a backdrop of new high-tech stadium features, smartphone applications and video technology.
CBS Sports, which broadcast the game, is boasting about what it called a host of technological advances this year.
The network used six high-speed, high-definition cameras — they call the technology SuperVision — with the ability to shoot 300-400 frames per second. (A normal camera shoots about 60).
In a news release, the company said the technology was designed to show questionable calls like fumbles and receptions from multiple angles.
The cameras were calibrated to measure first downs, be able to overlay virtual extensions of the goal posts to help see whether kicks were good, and launch an integrated animation package that CBS incorporated with its existing graphics.
The technology was used Sunday night to give viewers lots of looks at an attempted two-point conversion by the New Orleans Saints.
The play was originally ruled no-good by officials on the field. Shots of the play, however, appeared to show the Saints receiver had crossed the goal line and the officials eventually agreed, overturning the call.
AT&T, the exclusive network for Apple’s iPhone, beefed up its capacity to handle the phone calls, text messages and photographs that poured out of the stadium during the game — a 31-17 win by the Saints.
The company added three mobile cell towers and a new distributed antenna inside the stadium.
The company, which has at times been criticized for getting overwhelmed when iPhone users gather en masse, similarly bolstered its network for last week’s Pro Bowl game.
"These are two of the biggest games of the year, and fans attending them want to be able to share the experience, as it’s happening, with those back home, whether its through a voice call, text message, e-mail or picture and video messaging," said Rich Guidotti, AT&T Mobility’s south Florida vice president, in a news release last week.
"Our network team has been working for months to deliver the best possible wireless experience for the games and their related activities."
Sprint, which said in a release that it spent more than $2 million on Super Bowl preparations, and other carriers also added towers to prepare for the information overflow.
Smartphone users also were granted a spate of new apps to help follow the tilt between the New Orleans Saints and Indianapolis Colts.
Blackberry users loaded up ScoreMobile, an app from Score Media Ventures that provided everything from previews and betting odds before the game to real-time box scores and blog posts during it.
High-tech security scanners were used to scan both people and packages entering the stadium and law enforcement had bomb-removal robots at the ready (although federal authorities have said there were no specific, credible threats against the game).
This year was the fourth Super Bowl for Hunter’s Oklahoma City, Oklahoma-based company.
The system uses a hardwired device about the size of a bar of soap that is installed either somewhere under a vehicle’s dashboard or on the driver’s person.
Not only does the device provide tracking, but it can be used remotely to lock or unlock doors, honk the horn, open the trunk or enable and disable the starter.
The operator can do those actions from a smartphone even when in another state, he said.
"You can bring up the vehicle on an iPhone and start it from anywhere in the world or pop the trunk for the guy who wants to borrow your golf clubs from across town," said Hunter, formerly a tech guru at companies including EA Sports and Wal-Mart.
While the devices, which cost about $400 each, work for organizing and security at events like the Super Bowl and Olympics, which US Fleet Tracking also will be working, they’re most commonly used for things like ambulance dispatching and delivery companies needing to keep an eye on their workers.
Hunter said one client found an employee using a company vehicle to back down a boat ramp at 2 p.m. on a Friday. Another discovered workers running their own private moving service with company trucks, he said.
A city roads department found the crew in charge of patching potholes was instead going out into the woods and playing poker most days, he said.
The devices used at the Super Bowl are able to update once every three seconds, he said.
"This is not a historical playback," he said. "This is exactly where these vehicles are at this instant."
In other personal technology news, social networking was expected to play a role in the Super Bowl, even for people who don’t actually care about the game.
According to survey results by business research site Knowteria, 41 percent of Super Bowl viewers will re-watch this year’s commercials online and 48 percent said they’re likely to discuss the ads on a social networking site.
29
ScoreMobile makes 680 News headlines
15
Webcast has hoops fans Jonesing for more
Chris Zelkovich
About four years ago, a couple of Toronto basketball junkies sat down in front of a camera, hooked it up to a computer and started talking about their favourite sport.
It was a lot like those old Andy Hardy movies, the ones in which Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland would find some old props in a barn and somehow put together a musical with Hollywood production values. It was all pure movie hokum and couldn’t have happened in a million years.
Or so we thought.
The Andy Hardys of today are making that real.
The basketball guys have made it thanks to the wonders of an Internet world that can make everyone a star.
On Friday, thebasketballjones.net will mark its 500th show. It averages more than 200,000 hits a month – an amazing total considering that it basically consists of nothing more than two fans offering their opinions while sitting in a condo for 20 minutes every day.
There are some witty photo montages to open the show, but basically it’s just two guys talking hoops.
"We fill a need," said Tas Melas, who appears daily on camera with J.E. Skeets. Helping produce the show, shot early in the morning so everybody can get to their day jobs, are Jason Doyle and Matt Osten.
"There isn’t really a daily show that gets produced in the morning that talks about what’s going on in the league," Melas adds. "You can get your highlights, but you can’t get this."
But filling a need isn’t the only reason for their success. The fact that the show deals with the NBA has a lot to do with it.
NBA fans appear to be the most web-savvy and web-addicted in the world of sports.
The NBA is basically the king of Internet sports. It’s the No. 1 sports league on Twitter with more than 1.75 million followers. That doesn’t count the 2.5 million who follow NBA star Shaquille O’Neal’s musings, by the way.
It’s also outdraws all other sports leagues on Facebook and YouTube and is easily the most popular blog on thestar.com.
“NBA fans seem to embrace new technology more than other fans," said NBA.com spokesman John Acunto.
A lot of this is because basketball fans tend to be a lot younger than most, which means they’re more comfortable watching things on the Internet or their cellphones than they are sitting in front of a TV.
While the Toronto-based hoops site isn’t producing much revenue, those days may not be far off. The guys have a deal to air more off-the-wall stuff on The Score, which believes that bigger things for these guys and others are just around the virtual corner.
"This is the future of sports on TV," said Score chairman John Levy. "More people are connecting to us through our mobile, web and satellite radio than are watching us on television."
For example, The Score’s mobile application for the BlackBerry just passed its millionth download – and it launched a mere seven months ago.
Levy is a big believer in the power of non-traditional media, including features like the hoops webcast.
The Score just announced its most successful quarter in its history, producing $11.4 million in revenue, and the new media played a big role in that.
“Two-and-a-half years ago there was nothing there," Levy said. “Now it’s millions and millions of dollars. Within a few years it will be a major contributor to the financial success of our company."
When specialty channels first appeared on the scene, broadcasting was replaced with narrow-casting. Now that appears to be replaced by something else. How about micro-casting?
15
Score Media’s new platforms part of offensive strategy toward growth goals
By Sunny Freeman, The Canadian Press
TORONTO – Over a million sports junkies who have downloaded Score Media Inc.’s (TSX:SCR) smartphone applications are key players in the company’s aggressive multi-platform growth strategy, CEO John Levy said Thursday.
The Toronto-based sports media company just reported its most profitable quarter ever, earning $1.1 million as revenue grew nearly 10 per cent, Levy said in an interview after the company’s annual general meeting Thursday.
"As the economy starts to snap back, because we were able to hang in there with very positive results last year, we’re moving forward very aggressively," Levy said.
"Relative to some of the other media companies who struggled through a very difficult economic time … we had a situation where, basically, we showed increased revenues in 2009."
Revenue totalled $11.4 million for the quarter ended Nov. 30, up from $10.5 million a year ago, when profit totalled $248,000.
Over fiscal 2009, revenues rose by $2.5 million to $38.9 million, thanks to increases in TV sales as well as web and mobile revenues. However, Score Media reported a net loss of $1.5 million for the year, due in part to investments in high-definition programming.
While Score’s media rivals played defence against declining advertising sales during the economic downturn, Levy said his company concentrated on new media platforms that "redirect advertisers into looking for new ways to connect with audiences."
ScoreMobile for BlackBerry has been downloaded on about 1.8 million BlackBerrys since its launch seven months ago and is the most downloaded sports application on the smartphone.
"The broadcasting industry has got to adapt to the new way people are going to consume sports, and news, and information, and entertainment. Anything that was is about to change and is changing," Levy said.
He added that the potential for growth is "exponentially greater" in its new media platforms than in traditional content delivery.
"As new (technologies) open up, I think advertisers are going to be very receptive to joining back into the fray."
The company expects a 40 to 50 per cent year-over-year growth in revenues from its new media platforms, such as its smartphone applications that lets users check real-time scores, as well as standings and TV clips.
He added that adapting content and advertising strategies to new platforms is so integral to 21st century media operations that it will determine whether an outlet exists in the next five years.
Levy also attributed the company’s stability during the recession to a "core passion" in sports enthusiasts, who are empowered by new technologies. He added that mobile and social media will become a bigger part of their lives in the coming years.
"You don’t have to take stuff from people who think they know about sports – you are sports," he said. "So this whole new way of doing things is allowing more people to communicate with each other and allowing them to get more and more excited."
"The trick for us is to be that cool sports information brand that people come to to interconnect with other people…and that will be our success."
Jeff McDowell, a senior vice-president at Research In Motion, said mobile downloads will be the way of the future for sports fans.
"With mobile not only do you have a direct relationship with the people who consume your content, but you have a direct relationship with them always, because they always carry their phone with them."
Score Media’s main business is The Score Television Network, but it also operates satellite radio network Hardcore Sports Radio and interactive assets including TheScore.com and Score Mobile.
Shares in the company were up five cents or 10 per cent at 55 cents in early afternoon trading Thursday on the Toronto Stock Exchange Thursday.
15
Mobile app scoring big for Score
'Future direction'
Matt Hartley, Financial Post
TORONTO — There are hundreds of thousands of sports enthusiasts in the United States who likely have never watched Score Media Inc.’s television network, but who are already big fans of The Score.
For many U.S. sports fans, The Score has become their primary source for scores and news about their favourite teams, thanks to the company’s ScoreMobile smartphone applications for BlackBerrys and iPhones.
Since it was launched a little more than seven months ago, ScoreMobile has become the most downloaded sports application in BlackBerry’s App World marketplace, totalling more than 1.25 million downloads and more than 45 million page views per month.
As well, ScoreMobile for iPhone is one of the most popular sports applications in Apple Inc.’s App Store both in Canada and the United States.
In fact, despite its Canadian roots, more than 60% of ScoreMobile users now come from the United States.
For John Levy, Score Media’s chairman and chief executive, mobile isn’t merely a way of promoting the company’s Canadian sports network, but rather is a first step toward becoming a player on the international stage.
"It really is the future direction of our company," Mr. Levy said in an interview. "This is not just a sidebar for a TV network. The fact that we are being able to show this sort of success is really the direction of where we’re headed."
Score Media reported yesterday its highest quarterly earnings to date, with revenue jumping 8% to $11.4-million for the three months ended Nov. 30 from $10.5-million in the same quarter the year before. Profit for Score Media rose to $1.1-million in the quarter from $200,000 in year-earlier period.
Score Media’s mobile operations are an extension of the company’s strategy to use digital media to expand the sports-viewing experience.
The plan that also includes the company’s website, its expanding blog federation and its social media presence on sites such as Twitter and Facebook.
As the online advertising industry develops and North Americans upgrade from cellphones to multifunction smart phones capable of supporting apps like ScoreMobile – which is free and supported by advertising – Score Media expects its mobile operations to play an increasingly larger role in the company’s bottom line.
The apps are currently monetized through both direct ad sales as well as through partnerships with ad networks, such as Quattro, JumpTap and Google Inc.’s AdSense Mobile.
Two years ago, long before the iPhone arrived in Canada and before Apple’s App Store ignited public interest in mobile applications, Score Media hired its own director of mobile, Dale Fallon.
"At that time there were almost no iPhones in Canada, so, out of necessity, we were targeting sports fans not just in Canada, but particularly in the U.S., who were interested in similar sports to what we follow in Canada," Mr. Fallon said.
"We knew the iPhone was going to come to Canada, but it actually took longer than we expected. So for months we were growing this business in the U.S."
Mr. Fallon said that in order for ScoreMobile to evolve into a bona fide revenue generator for the company, they need the scale the U.S. market offers to grow their potential user base as a means of attracting advertisers.
Financial Post
15
Smart-phone application scores big
Toronto cable sports company Score Media bet early on mobile and now it's a hit in Europe and the U.S.
By GRANT ROBERTSON
Toronto cable sports company Score Media bet early on mobile and now it’s a hit in Europe and the U.S.
John Levy can’t read many of his e-mails these days.
That’s because an increasing number of messages flooding in to the chief executive officer of Score Media Inc. are arriving in other languages, from places such as Italy, Spain and Portugal.
Across Europe, the tiny Canadian company’s smart-phone application, Score Mobile, has become an unexpected hit on BlackBerrys and iPhones.
"We’re having to interpret e-mails in Italian, in Spanish, from literally all over," said Mr. Levy, whose company owns cable sports channel The Score.
"People are saying to us ‘Where are my Portuguese soccer league scores? Where is this? Where is that?’ "
It’s a nice problem for the Toronto-based company to be facing. Score was among the first Canadian media companies to move aggressively into the mobile space several years ago and, after battling lean times in the early days of the business, Score Mobile has now become entrenched.
At the company’s annual meeting in Toronto yesterday, Mr. Levy and an executive with Research In Motion Ltd. announced that Score Mobile is now the most popular free sports app on the BlackBerry. Less than a year into retooling the app, it has been downloaded more than two million times between the iPhone and the BlackBerry.
While The Score cable channel is only seen in Canada, the mobile app has proven borderless. About 70 per cent of the downloads of Score Mobile on BlackBerry come from the United States, in addition to the unexpected uptake in Europe, Mr. Levy said.
"Nobody knew who the hell we were in the States; there is no Score in the States," he said in an interview after the meeting.
The trend – the downloads have been growing by roughly 5 per cent a week – is translating into dollars. About 10 per cent of the company’s $24-million advertising revenue now comes from the small-screen ads sold on the mobile platform. Two years ago, the number would have been minuscule.
RIM and Score Media are now experimenting with different types of ads that will serve up messages based on the user’s location. So a BlackBerry carrier in Vancouver would be shown a different ad than a person in Toronto, similar to how Internet ads are targeted based on city.
"We’re doing some things on the BlackBerry platform that are interesting, where you’re going to know where people are," said Jeff McDowell, senior vice-president of business marketing and alliances for RIM.
"The advertising market is still in flux. I think the whole industry in mobile is actually undermonetized … and that’s just because how young it is."
RIM wants to offer ads that let the user immediately insert the contact information for a company into their cellphone address book. Mr. McDowell believes advertisers will pay a premium for such features.
For Mr. Levy, the growth of Score Mobile means he is now being taken more seriously by sports leagues wanting to offer mobile content. A few years ago, organizations like the National Hockey League weren’t interested in discussing content deals, but the number of downloads Score Mobile now gets has drawn new interest.
"We’re starting to get calls from leagues who wouldn’t talk to us about digital exposure, and now they’re calling us saying what’s this app you’ve got and how come so many people are looking at you?" Mr. Levy said. "They’re saying maybe there’s a way that you can buy some content from us on a digital basis."
Getting the rights to content is still a challenge. Score Media’s deal with the National Basketball Association allows the company to use game highlights on mobile phones, but other leagues still require deals, Mr. Levy said.
SCORE MEDIA (SCR-T)
Close: 55¢, up 5¢
12
Exclusive: The Score CEO John Levy Talks the Future of Sports Media
If you live outside Canada, you may be more familiar with ESPN than The Score. However, new media is changing the landscape and The Score has been unleashing their content globally. For example, The Score proudly offers the most downloaded sports app for the iPhone. This is just one way ESPN’s near monopoly may start to take some serious heat.
I caught up with The Score CEO John Levy to hear how his family pioneered cable in Canada, his plans to roll out The Score into the global marketplace, and how technology is changing the media landscape …
Damien Hoffman: John, how did you enter the sports content business?
John Levy: Once we were over over a million homes in Canada with our cable distribution, we had to get a license. In Canada, our equivalent of the FCC is called the Canadian Radio Television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC). Media is a lot more regulated here than what is or was in the States. Not only did you need money and a good idea, but you needed a license from the federal government to be able to broadcast. And the definition of broadcasting was if you had any video involved in the service.
We didn’t have any video, but thought it would be great to add video highlights to our data. I knew it would work in Canada even though TSN was the major Canadian sports network that was doing hockey. We went to the CRTC and said we want to do sports news and information with video highlights — no games. They granted us a license in 1996 and we were in business.
With our license in hand, we became a real cable service — a specialty service — and got in over six million homes. We’re closing in on seven million homes now and the service has continued to grow since then.
Damien: Can you share the highlights of your growth with The Score?
John: At that point, people were coming to our service for a quick update. They got all the information and then went to get the live programming. In fact, we actually told our users where the other games were being held. It was totally unorthodox. There was a point in time when TSN and another sports service were going to merge. So, we went back to the government and said, “You don’t want there to be only one sports service in the country. Why don’t you let us do a limited amount of live event programming and games?” They believed in what we were doing and gave us the extension to do live games.
Then we were really trying to act like the big boys. We went and signed a contract with Major League Baseball and had to make that work on a ten cents subscriber fee — not a $1.20 or a $1.50 like the other guys were getting. We didn’t need too long to figure out that at ten million dollars a year for the rights fee, we weren’t going to be able to support the business with even increased advertising.
Although MLB did work wonders for bringing new eyes to the network, legitimizing us, and giving us the ability to sell at a different level with our advertisers and sponsors, truthfully it almost killed us. So, we negotiated our way out of that after about three years. From that point forward we have only secured live event programming or games that are profitable for us.
Damien: Sports media is a competitive business. How has The Score differentiated itself from TSN, ESPN, etc.?
John: It’s younger than other sports networks by about five to seven years. We have made a huge push into the new platforms such as our mobile application, our web application, and our satellite radio services. We treat the TV side of our business as just a platform. It’s nothing more, it’s nothing less. Although it’s still eighty percent of revenues, the other platforms are growing very quickly at much higher margins. The new platforms are also allowing us to expand into the US and other areas where we’re not bound by legal restrictions. We are very excited!
Damien: It’s exciting to watch entire industries transform as technology starts delivering on the bigger promises that were a bit early in 1999-2000. From your 10,000 ft. view, how is technology changing the media business?
John: The broadcast industry is totally turning upside down. There’s a complete reverse-thinking in terms of how the networks are going to survive. We might own the technology in the physical sense, but the net and mobile devices have completely empowered people who are participating in the networks.
It’s not about watching TV anymore. That was gone long ago. The advertisers knew that was gone long ago, but nobody was questioning whether any of it was working. How long has it been since you guys watched a commercial? When we started our service, we were the first ones to keep the sports ticker on during ads because we didn’t want people to go away. Selling 78% of the screen to advertisers was a hard sell initially, but we said, “Do you want 78% of something or 0% of nothing?”
Your new daughter will absolutely not watch TV the way you did. She will be online. She’ll be on mobile devices. The TV won’t be a TV — it will just be another platform. She’ll be doing three things all at the same time, and unless you create content and connect with that audience in a way that is entirely different than what traditional TV entertainment has led us to believe, you’re going to get dusted. That’s exactly why major networks are falling apart. Even cable channels aren’t immune to that phenomenon. If viewers want to watch something, they want it anytime they want, anywhere they want.
Damien: Since advertisers support the content business, and advertisers must reach their audience to produce a return on investment, it follows that content providers will either adapt to consumer desires or watch their ad insertion orders disappear.
John: Exactly. P&G — one of the biggest advertisers in the world — recognized the change. They’ve known for a while that they’ve got to reach out to companies that are creative — companies trying to figure out ways to connect with the audience in such a way that they’re going to engage with the advertiser’s products.
We are pushing all three platforms: TV, net, and mobile. I think that’s the wave of the future. The thirty second ad will not die because for as much You Tivo and fast forward, there are still millions of people who don’t.
In reality, the advertisers are getting sloshed at the margins and they know they must figure out another way to connect. That’s where networks like ours and others are working diligently to rethink how to listen and engage our audience.
Damien: You guys have had the number one app on iPhone and now Blackberry. How important is mobile, and where does it fit into your strategy?
John: As quickly as the web has developed, mobile is growing twice as fast. So, you can’t sit on just a web platform.
We launched Score Mobile about three years ago — pre iPhone. Even before iPhone was for sale in Canada, we had our guys develop the application for their store store. That was a huge success for us. Then, we did the same thing with Blackberry when it launched the app store several months ago. Right now we’re the number one sports app on Blackberry anywhere in the world.
I don’t have a TV network in the States we can use as a marketing tool to push people to our mobile device. It’s strictly being gauged on the merits of the property itself. Within a couple years from now, our wish is that people will recognize Score as a sports media content company that has an authentic international and universal brand representing sports. We are building an open environment — a very comfortable place to interact and communicate about sports.
Oh, by the way, we also have this little TV network in Canada that’s already started. But that’s sort of secondary. We’re pushing into big markets. That means big numbers if we can do something well and tap into something that’s universal.
The key for us is to take off the blinders, be very attentive, understand that we don’t own the brand but the community owns the brand, and just try to be as authentic as we can. We need to be real — don’t bullshit anybody. If we can can do those things and tap into the passion people have for sports, we have an incredible opportunity.
Sports are all over the world. People are playing cricket in India, hockey in Toronto, and baseball in Brooklyn. It’s all the same thing. Somewhere along the road companies have lost that truth by taking this all too serious. People in suits cannot tell you what’s important or what’s not.
