From scouting applications to the "fool machine" of video editing in the sports world, WSC Sports's road has gone wider.
On February 15, WSC Sports raised $100 million in Series D funding, led by ION Crossover Partners, with funds planned for platform upgrades and staffing expansion.
After the announcement of the financing, Daniel Shichman, CEO and co-founder of WSC Sports, revealed to Israeli business media Outlet Calcalist that the company currently has "tens of millions of dollars in revenue per year." Although Hickman did not release an updated valuation, Calcalist believes that WSC Sports' valuation has not yet exceeded $1 billion.
Since its inception in 2011, WSC Sports has received four rounds of funding totalling $136 million. In addition, WSC Sports has 23 investors and has a deep sports dna, including Cleveland Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert, HBSE Ventures, which owns the Philadelphia 76ers and New Jersey Devils, WISE Ventures, which owns the Minnesota Vikings, and Elysian Park Ventures, the investment arm of the Los Angeles Dodgers.
The founding team of WSC Sports.
In 2011, Hickman co-founded WSC Sports with three college classmates. Prior to that, they spent 6 years as an engineer in the Israeli Ministry of Defense. WSCSports was founded to help coaches and scouts discover potential players, and WSC is the abbreviation of the "World Scouting Center". After the product was launched, the Israeli national basketball team and the Israeli basketball giants Maccabi Tel Aviv have cooperated with WSC Sports.
Later, WSC Sports hoped to transform into a content consumer product for fans, but it was constrained by not having enough sports event rights in its hands, and it was difficult for the company to establish cooperation with professional leagues and media platforms at the beginning stage, and it was once in trouble. But they still insisted on developing media products, and eventually they paid off.
In 2013, WSC Sports began engaging with the NBA. To validate WSC Sports' technical capabilities, the NBA had them process video of the development league's games for an entire year, and the results surprised them.
"When we saw that WSC Sports was able to automatically generate a collection kit for each player's game, it was an eye-opener because the development league simply couldn't have invested that much manpower to accomplish this task." Bob Carney, vice president of the NBA's new media division, told SportTechie.
WSC Sports successfully won the partnership with the NBA and has been serving the league since 2014. In the 2016-17 season, WSC Sports produced more than 300,000 videos for the NBA's entire platform, earning the NBA's Facebook page more than 7 billion views.
WSC Sports has many nobles to help in the process of transformation and upgrading and market expansion. David Stern, the former president of the NBA, and John Kosner, the former executive vice president of ESPN's digital media division, have both served as advisors to WSC Sports, and have also been blessed by many sports boss investors. "They have benefited us a lot, and with the help of this group of excellent consultants and investors, the company's development has always been on the right track." Hickman said in an interview with Forbes.
WSC Sports has more than 200 customers worldwide.
After ten years of polishing, WSC Sports has gradually grown. In 2021, WSC Sports has more than 200 customers around the world, including the NBA, FIBA, NHL, Bundesliga, MLS, PGA Tour, Turner Sports, ESPN, B/R, etc., covering 20 sports, with the latest additions being skiing and horse racing.
In terms of content, in 2021, WSC Sports produced more than 3.4 million videos. In addition, they released a new product, WSC Stories, that allows rights holders to communicate directly with fans. The platform has created more than 6,000 pieces of video content, nearly 100 million views, and an average click-through rate of more than 11%.
WSC Sports' rapid growth stems from its technological prowess. Their main products are AVGen, the video auto-editor, and ClipPro, a cloud-based editing tool. And these tools are cloud-based, allowing partners to remotely use WSC Sports' editing tools and databases.
Shaka Arnon, WSC Sports' U.S. regional director, once used the collaboration with MLS as an example to introduce the video generation process to SportsPro: "We analyze the video, audio and data streams, locate each shot, save, etc., and then finish the editing. We will also give the raw data of each highlight to form a huge database to facilitate the search and positioning of subsequent related fragments. If a user wants to find a video of a specific player, they can see it by clicking Search. ”
In 2017, MLS began working with WSC Sports. Chris Schlosser, senior vice president of MLS' digital division, said in an interview with Hashtag Sports: "WSC Sports' system can search, edit, and output videos, and our journalists can be transformed into video editors. It's incredible, and our entire content team will be able to edit the video based on the content of the article later. ”
With WSC Sports' tools, even journalists who don't know how to edit video can quickly get a video clip that matches the content of the article, which is of great help in improving content productivity and content richness. What's more, with WSC Sports, some highly international professional leagues, can produce specific highlight videos for players from different countries and then place them in their home markets.
In an interview with SportTechie, Arnaun gave an example. On Nov. 1, 2015, Stephen Curry scored a 53-pointer against the New Orleans Pelicans, while Rudy Gobert had posted seven blocks against the Philadelphia 76ers the night before. Both of these highlights were placed on the French market, with Curry's highlights viewed 1.5 million times and Gobert's 3 million views.
Therefore, professional sports leagues such as the NBA, which have many international players, can use the influence and attention of local players to promote events, and even attract brands to sponsor. And with the help of WSC Sports, such a promotion program does not require too many human resources.
For comprehensive sports content platforms such as ESPN and B/R, they also have great demand for player highlight video generation and accurate content output for different national markets. Therefore, WSC Sports' target customer base is actually very large, from leagues and teams to broadcasters and content platforms.
The rise of WSC Sports actually confirms the transformation of content consumption. In Alnon's view, the production of content has shifted from media to individuals, and the distribution of content has shifted from linear to on-demand, which also means that users can decide when, in, in, and on the device of content consumption.
With the emergence of different social media platforms, the upgrading of smartphone performance and the decline of traffic tariffs, content consumption has gradually shifted from text, pictures and other forms to video forms. In this day and age, everyone can be a producer and publisher of content, rather than relying on television, radio, newspapers and other channels to get the news to the public as before.
This shift will continue to affect all parties doing content consumer goods. "Sports rights holders are interacting with fans in whole new ways, creating new revenue streams. With the rapid change of user content consumption habits, short video content has become a key component of user acquisition, retention and monetization. Hickman said in an interview with Israeli media outlet Globes.
In the process of this transformation, WSC Sports seized its own opportunity and successfully broke through.