Grabyo is hugely excited to announce our first partnership for OTT services with FOX Sports in the US.

For the 2018 US Open Golf Championship, FOX Sports teamed up with Grabyo and live graphics platform Singular.Live to deliver an entire web-based production and digital viewing experience for golf fans watching through the FOX Sports Go and the FOX Sports App.

Controlled via a web-browser, the FOX Sports digital team made use of both products to deliver Featured Tees, a live broadcast to FOX Sports GO and the FOX Sports App from five holes across the course. The broadcast featured live graphics and scores from the Championship and incorporated live data and stats. The combined platform automates the on-screen graphics and is delivered by Grabyo Producer, to viewers on the FOX Sports OTT platform.

With an increased need to offer audiences more flexibility and choice for live sports, FOX Sports’ digital team use its OTT platform to extend the broadcast experience to fans across digital and mobile devices – providing choice and viewing options not available on linear TV. Viewers on FOX Sports GO and the FOX Sports App had complete control over which hole and players they can viewed throughout the Championships, held at Shinnecock Hills Golf Club.

Using Grabyo, FOX Sports created a digital broadcast that was independent of the linear TV stream, significantly reducing the reliance on traditional broadcast infrastructure. The demand for more content and enhanced experiences for fans is driving the growth in cloud-based production, giving the FOX Sports digital team more flexibility to produce content for it’s OTT products.

We are delighted to be collaborating with both Grabyo and Singular.Live to deliver ‘Featured Tees.’ Providing our viewers with a flexible way to view the Championships online is something that is very important to FOX Sports. Using Grabyo and Singular.Live to simplify our production and distribution enables us to create a true, digital-first experience for fans across all screens.” Clark Pierce, SVP, TV Everywhere at FOX Sports.

FOX Sports also made use of Grabyo’s live clipping product, Grabyo Studio, to bring audiences key moments, highlights, storylines and reaction across multiple platforms throughout the Championships. With mobile video consumption continuing to rise, engaging fans on social and digital platforms in real-time is vital to meet the needs of modern golf fans.

Singular.Live, a browser-based live graphics authoring platform, was one of the first third party applications integrated with Grabyo Producer – developed with an open architecture to support services built outside of Grabyo.

Singular.Live, working with Grabyo design partner Reality Check Systems, has developed a bespoke control application for the US Open, making it easy for the FOX Sports digital teams to incorporate live, data-driven graphics on the broadcast. The custom graphics are designed to be viewed on mobile – following the trend of maximising viewing space on smaller screens, allowing for playlisting, player graphics, headshots and sponsor idents.

By creating a separate viewing experience for fans online FOX Sports was able to activate both new and existing golf fans by providing fans with the flexibility to choose when, how and where they watch the 2018 US Open Championship.

The future of TV is the internet and cloud production is here…and offers incredible opportunities for new types of production for OTT, social video and digital video. We are excited about what’s coming next, please get in touch at hello@grabyo.com if you want to find out more.

You can download the Grabyo white paper on cloud production here.