Artificial intelligence-powered tech company Veritone Inc. in Costa Mesa has good news for local sports fans still eager for more home-viewing after the wins for the Dodgers and Lakers.
The company (Nasdaq: VERI) has launched a 2020 professional basketball draft site, DraftClips.com, a no-cost, ad-free service featuring video clips and images of prospects before the NBA’s draft on Wednesday, Nov. 18. The latest offering comes after clips of NFL draft prospects were introduced in April. The company is already thinking of women’s college basketball, too.
“We thought this was a great way to expose a lot of exclusive, behind-the-scenes, never-before-seen content from some of our licensing partners,” said Greg Loose, the company’s head of media and entertainment, in introducing the basketball draft clips.
Veritone, which announced last week that third-quarter revenue rose to $15.7 million, said the collegiate basketball site features over 2,600 video clips and images, including hundreds of hours of rare footage of top draft prospects, from partners and customers including the NCAA, Big Ten and PAC-12.
“We’re helping them present their content to documentarians and film producers,” according to Loose.
Built on Veritone Digital Media Hub and powered by Veritone aiWARE, the DraftClips.com portal provides fans with access to collegiate and international basketball clips and images. It also features unique highlights and profile summaries of elite players projected to be selected in this year’s professional basketball draft.
“We really looked at this as something that we could do as part of marketing efforts for some of our key licensing partners, as well as bring something to the fans,” Loose told the Business Journal on Oct. 29. “We’re finding more and more creative ways to help with exposing content.”
March Madness
With the NCAA’s March Madness basketball tournament canceled this year due to COVID-19, sports fans across the country missed out on a lot of key moments from their favorite college basketball players taking the court.Â
“After the success of our professional football DraftClips.com in early April, we’re eager to provide sports fans with free direct access to rich college basketball content leading up to this year’s professional basketball draft,” said Ryan Steelberg, president of Veritone.
So what’s next?
“We know there’s a lot of interest and great content around women’s college basketball. Maybe a little hockey and baseball, but I think primarily basketball and football. If we want to extend to women’s basketball, I think that would be a good extension,” Loose said. “It’s something that we’ll continue to take pulse from our content partners and what they’re looking for.”
Veritone is still confirming plans for next year. While nothing is confirmed at this point, Veritone will firm up DraftClips.com plans closer to both drafts next year.
CBS Agreement
The company said late last month that CBS News had renewed its longstanding content licensing agreement. Veritone said that under the new arrangement it will “increase the amount of CBS News footage available for creators to license and leverage, while also applying its proprietary AI technology to advance and accelerate the content search and discovery process.”
Veritone is headquartered in Costa Mesa, and has offices in Denver, London, New York and San Diego.
