Tracy Glantz | The State | TNS | Getty Images
Spartanburg Day’s Zion Williamson (12) makes a dunk while playing Keenan during the Chick-fil-A Classic at Richland Northeast High School on December 22, 2016.
“That was a key learning from OMGPOP,” Dan Porter told me when we spoke. “Draw Something was a hit. But it took 4 years to develop that hit. We spent lots of time studying user groups and feedback on what people emotionally responded to. We’ve done that again for Overtime.”
How do they get the clips for Overtime? They have a network of “spotters” across the country. When they see something interesting, it’s sent in.
So far, it’s working. Even though the company is only 15 months old, it has 1 billion shares of its videos.
It’s a really smart approach. When the world goes bananas for sports rights, find some other sandbox to play in and make it unique to you. With high school basketball, you get all the excitement of sports – from the same peer group as the Gen Z one you’re appealing to – without any of the steep prices.
I asked the two about what other areas they’d like Overtime to move into next, now that they’ve built up a loyal following. High school football would seem like a natural extension. They said that they’d already started to create some longer form Overtime content, including giving some high schoolers GoPro cameras to take around and document their lives.
I asked if it was a modern day “Basketball Diaries.” “Sort of,” said Dan. “But not many millennials are asking us to make 90 minute documentaries that they can watch on their phones.” Today’s “longform” is a lot shorter than it used to be.
The other big adjacency that Overtime is growing into is sewing up the Gen Z generation for sports and growing with them as they age. All the data on linear sports shows that the average TV viewer gets older and older. The recent ratings for both the Olympics and the Super Bowl showed the biggest declines among the youngest viewers.
Overtime is going directly after these types of sports viewers. Find them, nurture them, grow with them. You can do all kinds of programming later if you find these viewers now, build a brand with them that means something, and get them in the habit of returning to your brand.
[Disclosure: Affiliates controlled by Eric Jackson hold long positions in Zynga and Disney]
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