Spark invests in Overtime
Last fall, Dan Porter and I met up for coffee near the Manhattan Bridge, just a few blocks away from his office. I was anxious to hear how things were going at his company, Overtime. I always love catching up Dan (we worked together at OMGPOP several years ago).
We were interrupted a few times as various tourists asked me to take their photograph (Dan had fun taking snaps of me during all of this).
After catching up on our respective kids+family life, Dan told me what was going on with the business. I knew there was something special happening as my 12 year old son James was showing me their cool sports videos on YouTube and Snapchat. James was also following their Fortnite team. He even had Overtime sticker on his laptop.
Founded by Dan and Zack Weiner in Brooklyn, Overtime is a sports network that began with a focus on emerging high school sports stars and rapidly expanded to 25 original shows, all built for Generation Z. Dan was telling me about their recent initiatives and some of their crazy stats (eg. in two years they grew from 1million video views to more than 550million monthly views)
They have quietly built a very important community that is super passionate about the brand. You can see kids’ “shoutouts to Overtime” all over Twitter.
A month or so later, we made Dan and Zack an offer to invest in their company. Which brings us to today: my partners and I are thrilled to announce our investment in their business. It feels really good to get the band back together.
There are so many exciting things happening at Overtime right now. A new round of capital. So many new creative shows in the works, including a new show in sneaker culture and an expansion into fashion and merchandise. They are expanding in Brooklyn, opening a LA content production office and plans to go global. The team has this wonderful, diverse combination of creative talent and technologists. Dan shared his thoughts in a post todayabout the new round and where they are headed.
The sports media industry is going through massive changes. The next generation wants something made by them and for them. That is the opportunity and why we made this investment.
