New Technology Gives Live Sports The Social Experience They Deserve – Forbes

Imagine: You are sitting at a basketball game, see an awesome play or a quick, confusing turnaround or scuffle, what do you do?

You look up at the monitor to watch the replay and try to make sense of what just happened or when it’s sheer greatness you just witnessed, you momentarily re-live the play in all its glory. You stand up, cheer and high-five the strangers around you — and in the 21st century, you try to share that experience on social media.

But then, you hit a problem: you can’t just grab the play you want to share from the ether. So what do you do? You start searching for it online like a needle in a haystack. Or you do what I did when I wanted to share a brilliant score at the Dallas Stars hockey game I recently attended (thank you Lucky Lou!), and all I got was a shot of fans cheering “score!” It really didn’t do that magic play justice. At. All. The shot was truly amazing and I wanted that play, on video, right then. I wanted to share it with the hundreds of thousands of fans watching on TV (and with my friends missing the game completely).

Well, today, Fantag, a new platform that gives fans the best moments straight to their phones in a shareable format announces the day has arrived. All the plays, on instant replay in the palm of your hand. Finally!

After over a decade of working at the intersection of sports, live events and technology, I can tell you, this day has been a very long time coming. After my early days working with cutting-edge live sports distribution from in-car cameras and live telemetry data with IndyCar Race Control to Wimbledon’s first 30 court simulviewing experience, it’s a bit crazy that the promise of capturing the live experience still hasn’t realized its full social potential, not even close.

In 2016, when I worked with AEG Digital on Super Bowl’s Bud Light Hotel 3 Day Concert Series, we were live streaming and distributing real-time content every three seconds across RollingStone.com and E! Entertainment. This was a very cool experience; however, it was expensive to pull off and it required multiple live social media managers who were in control — not the fan.

This is where Fantag has nailed the use case. Fantag puts the fan in control, with a technology platform that syncs with the network of professional cameras (and fan content) and distributes it directly into mobile apps in the hands of the fan. This is huge for sports.

So, why did it take so long?