Need to Keep Up with Major Moments in Sports but You’re Too Busy? Meet Buzzer.
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Executive Brief: Buzzer is a short-form live sports viewing startup company. The app partners with live sports broadcasters to offer its users the option to be alerted when an exciting finish is happening in real-time. From there, users can open the mobile app and watch the end of the game using their existing subscription with the league’s streaming platform or by making a micropayment. In 2021, the company was backed by some of the most significant sports and entertainment investors, and it’s only in its early release phase. To learn more about this new app and its potential value to the industry and inducing Gen Z attention, read below. Enjoy!
Meet Buzzer
We are all busy in our day-to-day lives with many things constantly vying for our attention. Often, sports will get the short end of the stick during leisure time if there’s a good tv show on, a good movie you want to watch, a great book, or maybe just spending time with family and friends (crazy concept, right?). In doing so, we often miss great finishes in sporting events or historical moments.
Wouldn’t it be great if someone or something could notify us when exciting sports moments are about to happen in real-time so that we can tune in to catch the final few minutes?
Well, meet the New York-based startup Buzzer.
Founded in 2020 by the former director of live content for Twitter, Bo Han, Buzzer is a short-form sports video startup that focuses on direct-to-consumer services through its mobile app. The app’s purpose is to alert fans to key passages of action in games. It enables them to access the live stream through existing subscriptions (e.g., NBA League Pass) or one-time micropayments ($0.99) through the mobile app in unison with its broadcast partners. The platform is designed to offer a seamless live sports viewing experience by aggregating rights and content to provide users with updates on matches and games they might want to watch with customized notifications.
While working for Twitter, Han oversaw many of Twitter’s partnerships with sports leagues. In doing so, he saw the opportunity to build a business off exciting but ephemeral moments in sports before they became free highlights online via social media. Soon after, Buzzer was born. The company’s mission, according to Han, is to provide all sports fans, from the casual observer to the avid season ticket holder, unmatched access to personalized live sports action anytime, anywhere.
The app is currently in its “early access” release phase, where selected users can download the app on iOS or Google Play store. However, it expects to release to the public soon. The app is only available in U.S. markets to start but is expected to expand internationally soon.
Buzzer’s Potential
Buzzer itself is exceptionally well-positioned to supply an innovative way for fans to engage with the teams and athletes they love. The company built a product that creates complementary value for the sports broadcast industry by establishing a third category of sports viewing rights, live short-form content on mobile devices. The interesting thing about Buzzer is that it “lives” in between long-form sports viewing on TV (e.g., ESPN) or streaming and short-form after-the-fact live clips on social and digital platforms (e.g., House of Highlights). Buzzer allows users to catch the last crucial minutes of games live, thus creating awareness of the live games. The platform also enhances the value of existing media rights holders and provides them with an additional revenue stream.
Where this app’s value lies, in my opinion, is its potential to be the new live broadcast option for Gen Z sports fans. Live viewership across all sports has been down since 2020, but Gen Z has been slowly weaning out of watching live sports for quite some time now. Sporting events are just too long for their attention spans, generally. Almost all the major sports leagues in North America have made engaging Gen Z fans a priority for the game’s growth.
This is where Buzzer can help. The app acts as a discovery and curation tool that allows fans, mainly Gen Z users, to curate their sports viewing into micro-viewing. Buzzer’s approach is simple. You download their app, set your preferences of teams or athletes you want to receive alerts for, and when something noteworthy is happening for either of those, you get an alert to your phone. Then, you can open the live snippet directly from your mobile phone to watch the finish. According to Buzzer, watching these final minutes would cost you a micro subscription of $0.99 each time you click “accept” unless you already had a subscription to the broadcast partner’s streaming platform.
Buzzer needs to induce buy-in from broadcast partners who are willing to forego views of their traditional broadcast models to accomplish its business model. So far, the young company has been successful in establishing buy-in. Buzzer has agreed to partnerships with the NHL, NBA, WNBA, and the PGA Tour.
For the PGA Tour, Buzzer will offer short-form look-ins from featured groups and prime holes during over 30 tournaments shown on PGA Tour Live, the U.S. circuit’s dedicated streaming service. The feature will include the option to watch the season-ending FedExCup Playoffs.
For the NHL, the company will provide a similar service for every game left this season and for each round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs (*local market blackouts will apply). The NBA and WNBA will also offer similar options to their fans via NBA League Pass and WNBA League Pass subscriptions. The WNBA became the first women’s league to partner with Buzzer, while WNBA star Sabrina Ionescu became an investor in the company.
Buzzer is less than two years old, and it’s already partnered with the above leagues. That said, this is just the beginning of its content roadmap. As it continues to grow, it will continue to partner with industry players from networks, regional sports networks, over-the-top media services, streaming services, and any other financially viable partner. I would also expect Buzzer to expand internationally, likely to Canada first and then across the globe. In my opinion, if it can secure the Gen Z buy-in, this form of service could be the future of live sports viewership. Or it could at least hold a significant stake in the ecosystem.
Financial Backing
Soon after being founded in 2020, Buzzer raised $4 million in seed funding. The 2020 raise was led by Sapphire Sport, Lerer Hippeau, among other investors, including Richard Parsons, the former chairman and chief executive of Time Warner, and Grace Kim, head of design and research at Twitter.
Buzzer was listed among Sports Pro Media’s 20 sports ideas to invest in now in 2021. In June 2021, Buzzer raised $20 million in Series A funding. The raise was led by existing investor Sapphire Sport and new investor Canaan Partners, including individual sports, business, and entertainment investors, LaMelo Ball, Devin Booker, J. Cole, Wayne Gretzky, Michael Jordan, DeAndre Hopkins, Sabrina Ionescu, Michael Jordan, Patrick Mahomes, Auston Matthews, Connor McDavid, Naomi Osaka, Christian McCaffrey, Renee Montgomery, and Bobby Wagner, among other funds and investors.
For a complete list of investors, check out this article.
Ending Thoughts
If Buzzer is the app that induces Gen Z buy-in to watch live sports, it could be an extremely valuable company. While true, I believe Buzzer will be an asset to any sports fan, whether you are a die-hard or a casual fan. Everyone likes to be alerted when an excellent finish is about to happen; that’s the most exciting part of sports.
As it grows its content Rolodex and partnerships, it will likely expand internationally and increase its reach and influence. The company has already secured partnerships with some of the major leagues in North America. Its new round of funding included a lot of major sports and entertainment investors who would now all like to see the app succeed. In my opinion, the intersection of these factors could be enough to send Buzzer forward to success. However, it is still a young company, and time will tell.
Thank you for reading. Have a great day, and we’ll talk on Friday.
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Every addition helps!
Kendal
Question of the Day
Would you download and use Buzzer? Why or why not?
Feel free to comment below or reply to this email. I’m going to post some of the answers in my following newsletter.
Games of the Week
NBA
Wednesday, November 24th: Brooklyn Nets @ Boston Celtics at 7:30 ET pm on ESPN and YES.
NHL
Tuesday, November 23rd: Philadelphia Flyers @ Tampa Bay Lightning at 7:00 pm ET on Sportsnet, TVAS, BSSUN, NBCSP