Fox Sports Australia Teams With Burst to Bring Passion of Mobile Fan Video

Burst, the mobile video technology platform that enables broadcasters, media companies, rights holders and brands to leverage the power of user-generated content (UGC), announced that Fox Sports Australia is using the Burst platform to acquire, curate and deliver fan-created content for the network’s studio shows and live broadcasts of sporting events.

Through its partnership with Burst,Fox Sports will now be able to build stronger fan engagement and a better viewer experience in live sports broadcasting. Burst allowsFox Sports – and other broadcasters – to easily integrate UGC into their existing production workflows with minimal disruption. This capability gives Fox Sports the power to be first in the Australian sports market with engaging fan-produced content that can be quickly turned around during live broadcasts.

In pre-game and in-game promotions, Fox Sports will reach out to fans with incentive messaging that encourages fans to record unique, authentic video content from their mobile phones. That content is then easily uploaded via the Burst platform and injected into the broadcast feed or displayed in the venue.  Uploads are simple and accomplished without fans needing to download an app to participate. As a result, fans can now play a personal role in the broadcast, studio show or in-venue production.

In the U.S., live sporting events are the one area that appears to be unaffected by the rise of streaming video on demand, according to the Nielsen “Year in Sports Media 2015” report. In fact, 95% of total sports program viewing happened live in Q4 2015, the report says. In a TV environment in which consumers have literally thousands of viewing options on multiple screens, Burst and its customers understand the opportunity live TV offers in building strong audience engagement through UGC.

Burst’s platform allows customers to build a rich inventory of new video that can be deployed and monetized immediately. Burst has offered a solution to the problem of content rights ownership for broadcasters by creating a process by which the fan assigns a right to the broadcaster to use his or her video as part of its terms of service.  Because all owned content stays on the broadcaster’s Web and mobile properties, Burst helps broadcasters, rights holders and brands minimize viewer and revenue loss due to “leakage” to social media networks.

“The passion that user generated mobile video brings to a live TV broadcast production is unprecedented,” said Bryant McBride, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Burst, Inc. “Burst helps customers convey this passion in an authentic and energizing way and gives broadcasters, rights holders and venues an innovative method to create a new category of compelling content – real time fan video.”