Hello World!
I was born a San Francisco Giants fan. I grew up going to games with my family and friends and was even lucky enough to be a summer bat boy for the team when I was in little league. In 2012, I moved to New York for work. I watched the Giants win the World Series that year alone, in my small apartment. For me, sports has always been about the communal experience. The best (and sometimes worst!) moments in a game are amplified by the people you’re with. Watching by myself, without friends, without family and without a community sucked a lot of the joy out of the experience.
In many ways, Playback was born out of the frustrations of that experience, and many similar ones over the years. If you’re reading this, chances are you’ve either heard about us or maybe even joined a Playback room already. Hopefully you’re here because you’re like me: a sports fan hungry for a more interactive and fun way to watch games.
Ten years on and it still feels like the options for sports fans are far too limited. Meanwhile, consumption of gaming content has exploded thanks to platforms like Twitch and Discord. The lesson from both platforms is that younger audiences have a strong preference to consume content socially and with creators who they trust to add to the experience. We know sports fans have the same preferences based on offline behavior — why can’t sports fans, creators and communities watch together online, as well?
That’s the problem we’re solving at Playback. Our goal at Playback is pretty simple: we are building a better way to watch live sports by integrating communities and creators directly into the watch experience. So what does that mean exactly? To use a real life analogy, what if instead of switching channels to watch different games, you could switch between different sports bars? Click a button and it’s you and 200 Liverpool fans singing and dancing while watching a match. Click again and your favorite Golden State Warriors podcaster is on stage adding their commentary to a game. Press a different button and you’re listening to a DFS expert talk through line ups before NFL RedZone kicks off. That’s how we imagine Playback operating — thousands of different online sports bars, each with their own community, features and creators. Enough sports bars so that every fan can find their own favorite spot, with their favorite creator, community and experience.
Since opening the beta, we’ve had over 20,000 fans watch a game on Playback. Our average user watches for over 65 minutes per session and joins close to 3 watch parties per week. And, best of all, nearly 70% of our users are socially active during games — sending messages, sharing links/emojis and talking to the creators on stage. It’s clear that sports fans from all over the world are hungry for a more personalized and social watch experience.
We still feel like we’re just scratching the surface of this opportunity. The experience of watching sports can be so much richer and more engaging. Over the next few weeks and months, we’ll be opening the platform to more creators and communities as well as releasing a host of new features (if you want a few sneak peeks, join our Discord!). We’ll also be using this blog to talk more about our platform, including our plans to work within the existing sports ecosystem, introducing our incredible team members, and sharing a bit about what makes our tech special. Subscribe and stay tuned!
RJ Halperin
CEO and Co-Founder
