Blending together the elements of Campus Insiders, 120 Sports and The American Sports Network into a singular platform, Stadium is opening its doors this week in time for football season, with elements launching today on its 24/7 digital linear feed. In addition to a lineup of over 25 college football games from Conference USA, Patriot League and the Southern Conference, coverage of the sport will include highlights, classic games, original programming and daily live studio programming. Other programming will include men’s and women’s basketball, lacrosse, and volleyball events along with series on deck such as the Rally and an upcoming daily NFL program.
Launched under the premise of offering fans a 24/7 linear feed distributed across both digital and broadcast platforms, Stadium is owned by a collection of organizations that include the likes of Silver Chalice, Sinclair Broadcast Group, MLBAM, the NHL, the PGA TOUR, and Time, Inc. Cynopsis asked Jason Coyle, CEO of Stadium, about the launch.
Coyle on three sports brands launching Stadium: Last year, it became clear that we had an exciting opportunity in the marketplace to introduce a fully-programmed, 24×7 linear sports network. Of course, in order to build a suitably compelling and competitive product, the network would need to draw upon a scaled and diversified content portfolio. In evaluating 120 Sports and Campus Insiders (and later ASN) it became clear that the networks were ideal complements, together offering all of the necessary ingredients to create a first-class linear product.
On assets: Both Campus Insiders and ASN offered strong and deep live event portfolios and deep relationships with college conferences, coaches, and players, while 120 Sports produced multiple hours of daily live studio content and maintained a strong set of rights and relationships across the professional leagues. Each of the networks also contributed a portfolio of classic games and original programming. In addition, each entity brought unique distribution relationships and platforms to the table. Both 120 Sports and Campus Insiders were well positioned across the digital landscape, while ASN contributed unique access to broadcast spectrum and an opportunity to reach a national television audience.
On programming: Stadium’s linear channel will feature several hundred live events in addition to our college football lineup, including men’s basketball, baseball, soccer, lacrosse, and women’s volleyball. The Stadium platform as a whole (including live events on demand) will feature in excess of 3,000 events across these sports and more. Stadium’s daily studio coverage includes news, analysis, and opinion across the day’s most important storylines and is constructed around its flagship Rally franchise airing live at 6, 11, and 1a ET each night.
Stadium’s studio programming covers national storylines across all major sports and is built upon a commitment to on-the-ground reporting and localized expertise enabled by a network of on-camera contributors from 100+ markets across the country. This differentiated, localized expertise will be featured on our two, daily 30-minute blocks of programming, Campus Insiders and Inside the League, covering college football and NFL, respectively.
On opportunities for sponsors: Stadium is committed to helping sponsors reach new audiences in better ways. Our editorial teams work closely with our sponsors to understand the brand, its core values, and core messages, then works to integrate those messages into Stadium content in a significant but organic manner, often in real-time due to the fluid nature of our in-studio programming. Because Stadium offers both linear and on demand content offerings across nationally distributed, television and digital platforms, we can offer sponsors the opportunity to activate branded solutions in a turnkey fashion across thousands of live events, hours of daily live studio content, and back up the investment with a guaranteed media delivery. We have been thrilled with the enthusiasm that we’re finding in the marketplace for Stadium’s unique offering. Stadium also recently partnered with sports media valuation company, GumGum Sports that will provide sponsors a transparent view of how valuable the exposure was as well as bring advanced understanding of the consumer. The tool is designed to provide the valuation insight across all distributed platforms.
