With the launch of the World Cup last week delivering ratings highs, social is also setting records. To make the most of the opportunity, FIFA partner Univision partnered with SnappyTV to deliver instant highlights of every matchup live on Twitter. Saturday saw Univision ranking as the top network across all English and Spanish language broadcast networks in terms of Twitter activity, with the World Cup match between England and Italy ranking as the top program across all English and Spanish language broadcast networks that day in terms of Twitter activity.

Cynopsis Sports spoke with David Yun, head of product at SnappyTV about the company and how it has leveraged sports to become a social staple.

Yun on the company: SnappyTV has been around for about four years now, the whole premise of the company was centered around this idea that social media was becoming more mainstream. There was a huge conversation happening around sports, TV content and news that were happening in all of these social networks. The thing that was missing from the equation was the actual video itself. You’d log into Facebook or Twitter and someone would post ‘Did you see that moment? It was hilarious or what a great goal!’ Then you’d have to go on a wild goose chase to actually try to see the goal. So we wanted to marry live-streaming content with the actual social conversation. What we did was build out a platform that allows our customers to create real-time highlights and push that out to social media. That’s where we made a name for ourselves.

On sports: We started in sports because they have such a passionate fanbase and people can talk constantly about sports on social as well as because it has that live component and has a sense of urgency. Sports really helped us grow and make a name for ourselves. We now have a large numbers of customers who now use us just to edit videos in general, for example NASCAR, who uses us our platform to cut out highlights from their race days. They push that video not only to social but also to their Sprint Cup app and their websites.

On partners: We’ve worked with the NBA, which is taking their best moments from their games, clipping out highlights and posting them to Facebook under #NBArapidreplay. We also work the NHL, with the NFL for their Twitter Amplify campaign. From a rights holder perspective, we pretty much work with all of the major media companies here in the states, CBS Sports, NBC Sports, and FOX Sports. We also have some pretty good penetration internationally as well.

On results: There are a couple of different benefits that they are really getting out of our platform. The first is really about speed and the ability to create video content quickly. What we’ve learned from our research is that if you can get your clip out within the first ten minutes of it happening live, there is this viral coefficient that we’ve figured out where you are going to get 10X more views on that, versus if you pushed it out an hour later. The fact that we have the technology to do that and marry it with where your audience is has allowed us to create this perfect storm of great content and audience that drives virality. The other piece of this is around user productivity. For example, we’ve worked with Turner Sports with March Madness. Because our platform is cloud-based and easy to use, what they’ve done is outsource the editing of the clip to a set of students from Ball State University who cut clips for them and then those clips surface on their apps and on social. Pac-12 is another example of that.

On the World Cup: With Univision, we are helping to power them for their Twitter Amplify campaign. They’ve been feeding out highlights from all of the World Cup games and sponsored by Verizon. We are the platform that’s allowing them to get these clips out into social and marrying with the ad creative and deliver all of that together with Twitter.

Around the dial, Univision Deportes’ presentation of the Brazil game topped those numbers on Thursday delivered most-viewed opening day performance in Univision Deportes history with an average of 5.1 million Total Viewers and 2.7 million Adults 18-49. The trend continued for the company during the weekend, with the most recent Nielsen numbers showing that Saturday saw the most-watched group play in Univision Deportes World Cup history, pacing ahead of its 2010 World Cup numbers by 25% among Total Viewers and 11% among Adults 18-49 through 8 matches.

The Los Angeles Kings victory in Game 5 to clinch the Stanley Cup averaged 6 million viewers for NBC, making it the most-watched Game 5 in six years, and driving the network to win the night in primetime, according to Nielsen’s fast national data. The contest averaged a 3.7 HH rating and 6.0 million viewers, making it the most-watched Stanley Cup Final Game 5 since the triple-overtime fifth game of the 2008 Stanley Cup Final between Pittsburgh and Detroit (6.2 million, NBC). Viewership climbed 7% over Game 5 on NBC last year. LA delivered a 12.4 rating and ranked as the market’s second-best rating ever on NBC or NBCSN.

Game Four of the NBA Finals handed ESPN with a 10.6 overnight rating on ABC, according to Nielsen. On the local front, San Antonio delivered a 47.4 rating, up from a 43.7 for Game Four last year. Rounding out the top five, were Miami (28.8); Austin (18.8); Memphis (17.5); West Palm Beach (15.8). Digitally, the NBA generated nearly 400,000 unique visitors (398,000), up 52% from Game Four last year. Through four games, the 2014 NBA Finals is averaging 14,931,000 viewers per game, up over last year’s Finals between the same teams, according to Nielsen. The series is averaging a 9.1 U.S. household rating, also up versus last year’s Finals through four games.

Meanwhile, after 33 years, ESPN officially signed off on its US Open coverage, as the tournament heads to FOX Sports in 2015. “ESPN began broadcasting the U.S. Open back in 1982, first with ABC and then of course starting in ‘95 with NBC,” said host Chris Berman. “Some of us have covered this event since 1986. Now here we are in 2014, 33 years after it all began, and the proverbial final putt is about to drop. Our live coverage is about to end. And speaking for the hundreds of ladies and gentlemen through the years who worked so hard for three decades, I’ll admit that we’re sad. We’re sad because we love the event and we’re sad because we love bringing it to you. But above all, we are very proud.”

SNY’s special limited commercial broadcast of the Mets/Brewers broadcast out delivered the channel’s season to date averages for Mets baseball in households by 32%, with demos also rising: A25-54 (+19%), A18-49 (+14%), M25-54 (+19%) and M18-49 (+7%).

The USOC announced that four cities remain in the running for a potential US bid to host the 2024 Summer Games, with Boston, LA, San Francisco and Washington the finalists, while San Diego and Dallas are now out of the picture. The International Olympic Committee will be accepting bids for the Games in 2015 and the decision is expected to be made in 2017.

Liberty Global and Discovery Communications are negotiating with Formula One’s backers to fill a $1 billion gap in valuation of the organization, according to Reuters, as the company’s look to nab a 49% stake in the business.

Ford Motor Co. extended its sponsorship with Homestead-Miami Speedway through 2019. The deal includes an option to extend the sponsorship through 2024. Ford has been the official entitlement sponsor of Homestead-Miami Speedway since 2002.

In other NASCAR news, Farmers Insurance will continue to sponsor Kasey Kahne and his Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet for another three years. The brand will be featured as primary sponsor in 12 Cup races annually, including the season-opening Daytona 500 and spans the 2015, 2016 and 2017 seasons.

Speaking of ESPN, the company reports that the ESPNFC site is averaging 3.6 million uniques a day for the World Cup, as well as 3.2 million video starts per day. Those numbers are up 18% and 767% over the first three days of the tournament in 2010.

The ACC Digital Network released the first of six videos the platform produced when Hall of Famers Mike Krzyzewski, Roy Williams and Jim Boeheim welcomed Rick Pitino to the league. The series, The Hall of Famers, offers a glimpse into the history the coaches share. The network will also feature its new brand logo, set to be launched everywhere on July 1, and their new brand marks.

Answer to Our Last Sports Trivia Question: Who is the Oakland Athletics’ all-time HR leader? Answer: Mark McGwire. Kudos: Michael Ritz-BucStar Consulting/NY; Katie Cifarelli-ESPN/NY; Gordon Beck-Beck Communications/Northeast Harbor; Synda Kollman-Charter Marketing Group/Boca Raton; Jim Dittemore-I Will Race You/KC; Matt Sautter-OpenTV/Golden; Miriam  Aardahl-OMD/LA; Greg Dudsic/Venice; Judie Henninger-Valentine Productions Inc./Santa Monica; Doug Kelly-S.F. Bowl Game Association/South San Francisco.

Roberta Caploe: Editorial Director @robertacaploe
Diane K Schwartz: Senior Vice President, Media Communications Group

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