Fox Sports has rebranded StraightCast Media, the mobile video platform it acquired this past summer, as Fox Sports PROcast, and is now leveraging the technology for basketball, soccer and mixed martial arts after first using it in football.
Fox Sports PROcast is used to capture behind-the-scenes video and other exclusive content designed to show pro athletes in a more natural element, such as in their homes and on team planes. The videos have been used across Fox’s media assets, including pregame TV shows, online and through the network’s mobile outlets, and Fox Sports recently signed advertising deals with Travelers Insurance and Reebok for PROcast content.
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Fox Sports PROcast went inside the Portland Timbers’ victory parade with Nat Borchers.
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A recent video showing the Carolina Panthers celebrating on the team plane after their 11th victory without a loss this season became the first Fox Sports PROcast video to generate 1 million views.
The rise of Fox Sports PROcast follows growth this year for other player-centric digital media outlets such as The Players’ Tribune and Uninterrupted, the venture involving LeBron James’ LRMR and Time Warner. But unlike those efforts, which have been positioned as singular destinations even amid Uninterrupted’s collaboration with Bleacher Report, Fox PROcast has been fully integrated into network operations.
“This has been a real partnership,” said Jeb Terry, a former NFL lineman who co-founded StraightCast Media in 2010 and has since joined Fox Sports as vice president of program development. “We’re not after the gotcha moment, but the players. But we are able to tell the entire story, not just what somebody sees in a press conference, and there has been a real appetite for this kind of content.”
Recent extensions for Fox Sports PROcast media into other sports include content with MMA fighter Jeremy Stephens before this past weekend’s UFC 194 event in Las Vegas.
