Social-TV Integration & LIVE

While I’m proud of a large number of different executions from my time at FOX Sports, there were two specific areas where our digital team was exceptional (and it’s not just me saying that — we were recognized in these areas): Social-TV Integration and live content.

For the past few years, the integration of social media content into TV programming to better engage audiences with shows and fellow viewers has been one of the hottest trends. Our interest in bringing social content to television (and in-venue for events like the Super Bowl) is reflective of our belief that we can engage with our fans at a deeper level by allowing them to help shape what we produce. An example where we have fans essentially craft an entire segment on-air: ahead of each sports season, we take to social media to poll our fans on who they believe should win awards such as MVP, Coach of the Year, etc. When the polls close, we announce the fan-voted winners simultaneously both on social media and on television, and have our FOX Sports talent discuss the selections. It’s a great synergy to see our A-list TV talent interact directly with our audience with social media as the conduit.

Another innovative example of Social TV lived within our #FOXFieldPass package for college football. Each week of the CFB season, we brought incredible sideline access to fans through unique partnerships with schools. Students were paid and given real on-the-field experience capturing content for use on official FOX Sports digital and social platforms. That captured content was sent back to my team of professional producers in Los Angeles, who added graphics and turned dozens of individual clips into a cohesive narrative around some of the sport’s biggest matchups. The very best clips were even integrated into TV broadcasts in near real-time on FOX, FS1, and FS2.

To complement some of our true tentpole events, we created exclusive, live second-screen digital experiences for our fans utilizing TV talent. For the 2020 college football title game, we had our top college football analysts (Reggie Bush, Joel Klatt, Mike Pereira, with an appearance from Urban Meyer) host an interactive party with fans, featuring lots of Q&A, on-field demonstrations, prop bets, story time, and more.

  Example 2019 live Watch-With parties we did:

When we added PBC boxing to our FOX Sports rights portfolio in Fall 2018, we had a new challenge on our hands – sell Pay-Per-View experiences. While we were already well-versed in creating world-class broadcasts and promoting them in advance, getting viewers to buy our experiences, and at a high cost per event, was a new hurdle. We tapped into our wide network of social handles (numerous sports verticals, PBC fighters, FOX Sports talent, etc.) to distribute unique hype content in the weeks leading up to the event. On the day of the event, we gave fans unprecedented live digital access to the fighters behind the scenes at AT&T Stadium. Of our nearly 400k PPV ($99 each) buys for our first event, nearly one-third came from social referral.

In 2019, we expanded on our live digital boxing package and followed PBC World Champion Manny Pacquiao non-stop for nearly five hours ahead of his title fight against Keith Thurman. Fans got a complete, never-before-seen look inside the pre-fight preparations and rituals (this stream alone led to over 10,000 PPV buys) of one of the most popular and respected athletes on the planet. This all-access stream was viewed by over 10 million people across all platforms: