Sports Technology & Communications News from Around the World

In a world becoming more and more consumed by social media, SportStream has made a brilliant move in welcoming new partnerships with NCAA athletic programs and Sportsbase, the company that powers social hubs and game day experience for fans, teams, and media companies in preparation for the soon-approaching fall football season.

This newly developed platform of partners will supply tools to create, manage, and moderate streams of media content as well as providing access to design to help fans visualize the game from the stands, their television, or even social media. SportsBase partners include college teams from University of Florida, University of Michigan, University of Louisville, University of South Florida, University of Georgia, Stanford University, Baylor University, Northwestern University, University of Oregon, and several more.

With five of these teams in the top 10 ranking for college football, Bob Morgan, CEO and co-founder of SportStream, is happy to have the odds in his favor. He says that the company’s goal is to integrate traditional feature with ever-increasing amounts of social media coverage generated constantly.

The latest features included in this integration are:

• Social Pulse (News - Alert): provides users with links to social media moments at specific points in the game
• Real Time Media Display: users can view a stream of photos from social media sites such as Facebook (News - Alert) and Instagram
• Game Leaders: users can view comparison of game leaders from defense and offense on each team
• Context Awareness: users can automatically change from informative view with news to a game time view when the action begins

Some schools involved in this new partnership will benefit from the integration of social media. Heath Nielson, associate athletic director at Baylor University, hopes that this will increase connection with the active student fan base and promote involvement in game-day experience.

Other schools, such as University of Oregon, already have such a strong fan base on social media, as noted by Craig Pintens, senior associate athletic director of marketing and public relations at University of Oregon. He hopes that the new exposure that comes from this partnership will highlight the best of the fan content and display it in a new and interesting way to maintain student and fan support.