Sports is an important vertical for Tagboard, a social search and display platform company, but at only 10 to 15 percent of its revenue, it doesn’t pay the bills like other areas do.
Even so, according to Chief Executive Officer, Josh Decker, sports has helped spark dozens of conversations as executives from other industries witness social content on arena jumbotrons across the world, with its latest partnerships sure to generate some more interest.
The Seattle, Wash.-based company has partnered with Snapchat and a number of professional and college teams, both domestically and internationally, to publish team content and account information in-stadium. To the company’s knowledge, it is the first organization to assist in publishing Snapchat content or account information on an arena screen.
Tagboard clients have included the Baltimore Ravens, Seattle Mariners, Minnesota Vikings, Auburn and UCLA football and even Samurai Japan, Japan’s national baseball team, among others.
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“It’s a very large stage with a really great team,” said Decker of the partnership with Samurai Japan. “It’s a huge honor and privilege for us to be working with them directly.”
Added Ben Schwerin, Director of Partnerships, Snap, Inc. in a statement: “Sports teams and athletes around the globe have used Snapchat to brings fans closer than ever before, whether it’s training for a big game, celebrating a win, or just having fun with their teammates. We’re so excited to have one of the world’s best baseball teams, Samurai Japan, on board.”
So far, Tagboard and teams are not displaying any public Snapchat content fans share to Live Stories or post on their own account yet.
Instead, they’re sharing teams’ accounts in order to drive engagement and upticks in followers.
While Decker declined to give specific metrics, he did say that teams have seen a noteworthy increase in engagement after posting Snapchat content in their stadiums, “so much so that it’s pretty astounding to say the least.”
“For every team that we launch, another 10 are interested,” added Decker. “It’s exciting for us to be on the forefront of this market. … We were the first company to come out with the multi-network social display, and now there’s dozen of companies offering something similar.”