Imagine being able to personally capture a highlight of your best friend scoring the winning touchdown at this Friday night’s football game. As sports fans, we often get the opportunity to witness historic wins, amazing catches and gutsy play calls, but have no way of sharing it to the greater sports community. A new sports media platform called “Overtime,” gives fans the outlet to create their own unique highlights and share their favorite game stories and photos to the world.
Technical developers from OMGPOP, the same team who created the popular mobile App, Draw Something, were the brains behind this new sport media phenomenon. The iOS compatible App launched today with the sole focus of creating a platform designed to enhance how millennials desire to view their sports content – short, conversational, comical and to the point. The App includes a special video highlight feature with a slow motion attribute, allowing anyone the capability to create their own unique 10-second sports highlight reels.
“We are in short form, a mobile and video dominated world,” said Dan Porter, former CEO of OMGPOP and current Head of Digital at William Morris Endeavor (WME). “There are so many micro moments in every sport, such as a singe play, a coaching decision, a reaction shot from a player, a trade debate. We want a fan-powered platform to obsessively discuss them all. And we wanted to build and provide the absolute best mobile product – video, GIFS and ranking – to support this.”
As Porter mentioned, Overtime has access to thousands of sport related GIFS. It also offers passionate sports fans an outlet to voice their opinions and debate over countless topics, such as, which team has the best logo or who do you think should have been named MVP of the NBA Finals? Most importantly, Overtime is the first App to showcase and engage sports fans as a community. By using simple hashtags like #NFL, #Dunks, or #Debate, users are able to follow or start a simple feed structured around any team, athlete or content area.
“We hope this platform will engage the sports fan – from debating over a play from last night’s NFL game, to highlights in high school, to coverage of sports that usually don’t get coverage,” said Porter. “If there are enough passionate fans to create a feed of left handed dunks by 7-footers, then the platform allows them to create that feed.”
Although the App uses hashtags to formulate its user driven content, Overtime is unlike any other social platform currently in the market. Zack Weiner, Editor-in-Chief and Head of Business Development for Overtime, explained that their new platform is specifically designed to create conversation and is not reliant upon a formal following system.
“Twitter and Instagram are not really optimized for sport. To see content on those sites, you have to follow the people who post it,” said Weiner, a recent graduate from the University of Pennsylvania. “Our model is all based off of feeds, so that if you are interested in the Philadelphia Eagles for example, you will automatically get a great feed of content and highlights. You don’t have to follow all their beat reporters. All you have to do is favorite that Eagles feed and it will show you all the best highlights, stories and photos other users are sharing. We have a proprietary algorithm in place to make sure that users are viewing content they really want to see.”
Users can customize their Overtime experience by favoriting the feeds and posts they like the best. The posts with the most likes are featured in the Top 100 posts of the day. There is no follower “news feed” or “timeline,” but users are able to tag their friends in posts to enhance conversation.
“Unlike all other social platforms, it is not necessary to have friends on the platform in order to have a great experience because everything is organized by the hashtag feeds,” said Weiner. “We think that Overtime is going to be a great place for fans to share and discuss the latest news, plays and personal highlights. Consider it a virtual sports bar.”
Weiner discussed how in the sports spectrum it is extremely difficult for media outlets to cover every single game. Overtime utilizes the power of people and the technology we already have at our fingertips to be able to personally highlight every game we attend. Whether you are a parent watching your daughter’s high school field hockey game, a teammate sitting on the sidelines cheering during a swim meet, or a dedicated fan that won front row seats for a Los Angeles Lakers game, everyone now has the power to create and share their own sports content.
“With Overtime, kids are able to see and post highlights from their high school football games, on the same platform where people may be talking about Lebron James or Kobe Bryant,” said Weiner.
This past summer, over 500 college students began sharing content to test the App in its beta form. Today, Overtime is available as a free download on the Apple App Store for all to access here.
Its slogan is, “Overtime – The Game Never Ends.” In sports, the legacy of an athlete or a particular play can be talked about for years. Overtime enables everyone the capability to capture a play and highlight it the way they want to. This outlet, specifically designed for millennials, provides its users with a 24/7 platform to share and talk about sports content. Why wait to see game highlights at halftime or after a game is over? With Overtime, everyone can be their own sports analyst.