Every day, sports fans congregate at their nearest big-league stadium to bask in each other’s cheers, body paint, and beer, relishing their shared enthusiasm for the teams they love. But then the game ends. Everyone is forced to head back to their normal lives to trudge through their day jobs once more, at least til the next home game comes round. Social media can offer them some comfort, giving them a chance to take the community home with them. Unfortunately, many professional sports teams are still failing to tap into this effectively.
FanChatter, a Y Combinator funded company that’s launching today, is a startup that’s looking to help fix this problem. The company is focused on helping major sports teams increase engagement both during and after games using user-submitted content, Twitter, and other social services. And while the company is still quite new, it’s already got some major customers, including the Minnesota Twins, the Minnesota Timberwolves, and the University of Oaklahoma.
One of the site’s core features is its photo gallery. During games, fans are encouraged to Email photos taken from their cell phones to a designated Email address, for the chance to have their photos appear on the stadium’s Jumbotron. Teams receive the photos in real-time and build photo galleries from them, which they can then use in place of the candid video shots we’ve all seen so many times between innings or during a time-out. Obviously teams aren’t able to display every photo submitted, but FanChatter also takes these photos and builds a shared photo album — one for each game — which can then be accessed by fans from the team’s home page. You can see what these albums look like by checking out the Twins’ page here. Fans will also soon be able to share their videos taken at the game, though these likely won’t be appearing on the Jumbotron as they take too long to filter through.
Another of the company’s features is the ChatterBox, a widget that can display a stream of tweets relevant to a particular hashtag or topic (the Timberwolves have one that shows tweets with the tag #twolves). Fans can use this to communicate during the game, and to follow the latest news from home. The widget is similar to one that’s offered by Tinker, which launched earlier this year.
FanChatter licenses its technology with fees set on a case-by-case basis, and has plans to extend its technology beyond sports to include other major events, like concerts. It also has plans to roll out iPhone applications, which would give fans a better way to interact with each other while they’re still at the game.
A Twitter aggregator! Awesome.
Another waste of a company. No tech. No hope.
I don’t get it. How is this news? People can talk sports with their phones at http://mobile.f2bbs.com
Dude, its all about the pedigree.
You take one feature of a company that offers many, and define that company as such. This is the problem with some TC readers, you read one line and make snap judgments.
If you have ever went to a professional sports game, or have a favorite team, I think you would have a better understanding of what this company does.
No. Took a deep look. What is the future of this company? To give fans at the game a chance to share pics and tweets? Small peanuts.
- Broadcast and radio are bigger.
- Broadcasters will make their own apps and HAVE already.
Companies have already tried this. Heard of JACKED? Got the crap sued out of them by the NFL.
haha, yeah best of luck to them
tuff space
Wow another twitter company to add to the 1000’s!
I’m not going to lie, the picture idea is pretty cool.
Why does TC cover any kind of crap that comes from YC?
agreed, and they never cover existing promising startups…obviously it’sthe “connections” factor which run this world…
now now, that’s probably not it…
Have to agree with Brian S. — enough already, TC — are you really YC’s bitches?
So? That’s how the game is played.
don’t say that, the business world needs to be equitable for everyone, always.
this is actually pretty cool. you can get on the jumbotron! hehe the Red Sox should implement this.
Great concept! — Twackle.com is another sports-meet-social-media service, and has been bringing Twitter to the ball game (and golf course, and car track, and hockey arena, etc.) for awhile now. It’s great to see professional sports organizations embrace these services and give their official endorsement.
Sounds like an awesome idea… this can be very engaging. to hell with the bashers…
Rock on Luke. Nice work.
i thought “who the hell is going to use this???”
then i saw the twins pages. about 400 pics uploaded for every game. that’s pretty good! event-driven social media is a good idea.
i think this is going to be a winner take all niche. whoever strikes the deals with MLB, NBA, NFL and NCAA wins.
I do a weekly video podcast about sports marketing, and my company also services 40+ sports teams…
I think this is a good idea, but the technology is so simple, that team could build very similar functionality using free or open source projects. Interactive jumbotron things at sporting events are very popular and very sponsorable, I just don’t see why anyone would pay an outside company much for an ongoing solution like this, probably not start up worthy.
Jonathan,
I saw your comment yesterday among all the others (none of them planted, btw) and I’d like to respond.
FanChatter’s technology is more complicated than you think and it needs to be in order to support the sponsorship revenue we’re generating for the teams. I’d be happy to appear on your show to explain further, especially since both of our companies are from Minnesota.
Jonathan -
Well thought out. You must look at the business component of the technology, and as yourself “would somebody pay me for this?”
Great idea, but the barrier to entry is not high enough!
What a load of carbage is somebody in techcrunch taking a backhander from YC to publish all their crap ?
University of “Oaklahoma”?
Thank you! Just because you don’t know where it is on a map, doesn’t mean you should misspell it.
Oakland-homeya
Somebody’s spent too much time in Silicon Valley.
i think this is going to be a winner take all niche
Really nice post.!
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Arrington, I know you like Paul Graham, but please. Get a room.
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Bringing social media into a gameday experience is a great idea, and its a space that doesn’t have a definite winner yet.
I could see this expanding to include integration with the timestamps and the game’s box scores. Went to a game with a bench-clearing brawl? Simply click to that inning and see what everyone thought in that moment in time (as well as some cool pictures/videos).
As to the haters: startups aren’t always about groundbreaking technology. They can also be about crafting a social solution with existing technology to a solid niche. FanChatter is worthwhile and will definitely catch on; just look at the quotes from the existing teams using it.
Nice work.
http://www.rmutp.ac.th
Oklahoma is the proper way to spell it
O-K-L-A-H-O-M-A, Oklahoma…OK.
I’m a Sooner born.
And a Sooner bred,
And when I die
I’ll be Sooner dead!
does any YC startup gets automatically covered by TC? then what the point of all these “PR education” if some start-ups does not need it at all? how many YC start-ups were NOT covered here? not many, if any at all.
is there a secret to getting covered ?,
You always seem to cover anything and everything that comes from the YC garage, some are good ideas and others not worth coverage.
Indeed.
as a sports fan – this looks like the real deal.
I love sports and looks like this thing will help me connect with my favorite teams.
I actually think this is a pretty good idea. Getting your picture on the jumbotron minutes after it’s taken fits exactly in with the filler they put up there between plays, and this could actually be engaging. It’s an incredibly low tech, easily duplicated service, but if they are the first mover, and become the place that pro sports deals sign with, this can work.
These comments mostly seem planted
Amazing! Sponsors are going to love this program, since they can link to their target audiences with a new ease and completeness. Bravo!
Sounds like a fun idea
this is a pretty good idea.
This is pretty interesting. I hope they succeed in getting more big name teams to join their program.
As someone who’s actually used FanChatter at Twins games, I have to say it’s great. The fancam might be fun, but it can be hard to find interesting shots. Sometimes folks aren’t paying attention or you can inadvertently stumble on an awkward shot.
With FanChatter, fans get to compose their own shots, and they have a place on the web to send friends and family the photos they took.
My only complaint is that I wish they showed the photo slideshows more often. Right now the Twins only show it once a game and its easy to miss if you’re not paying attention. But, I’m pretty sure that has more to do with how the Twins are using it than FanChatter itself.
Why wouldn’t teams build their own solution? The same reason any company chooses to buy instead of build. Web-development isn’t exactly a core competency of professional sports teams. There’s a reason most of them have websites that are really just sub-sites of their league’s site.
Could the leagues develop their own solution? Sure. But even at that level, there’s no guarantee that the cost in both time and money to develop and maintain such a solution would be cheaper than using something like FanChatter that just works.